Pat Garrett was a noted peace officer

Pat F. Garrett, was in his day one of the most noted characters of the Southwest. His most famous exploit as a peace officer in the early days when conditions along the border were disturbed and many bad men were abroad, was the killing of Billy the Kid.

It was while Gen. Lew Wallace, author of “Ben-Hur” was governor of New Mexico, that Garrett, then a resident of western Texas, was commissioned to hunt down Billy the Kid, who was reported to have killed a score of men and who had twice escaped from custody in New Mexico by killing his guards. 

Garrett learned where a Mexican girl, the sweetheart of Billy the Kid, resided with her old father, and there lay in wait for the outlaw, who came to the hut about nightfall, unsuspicious of danger. In response to Garrett’s command to surrender, Billy the Kid reached for his gun but the next instant was shot dead in his tracks.

Following this exploit, which made him famous all along the southwestern border, Garrett was summoned to New Mexico by the governor and appointed sheriff of Dona Ana County to hunt down the slayers of Col. Albert J. Fountain and his 6-year-old son. Col. Fountain resided at Las Cruces, the county seat of Dona Ana, and was general attorney for the Cattle Raisers’ Association. He had been vigorous in the prosecution of cattle rustlers and was also active in politics. While crossing the plains from Lincoln, N M, to Las Cruces, Col. Fountain and his little son disappeared and have not been heard of to this day.

Evidences of a desperate gun fight near the roadside at a remote spot were discovered and the dismantled buckboard in which the man and the boy were riding, also the horses were afterward located. At that time Dona Ana County was in a state of political turmoil, and the efforts of the state officers in endeavoring to discover clues to the Fountain mystery or to make arrests in that connection were greatly hampered. The sheriff of the county, finding his efforts futile, finally agreed to resign, and Garrett was appointed to the position for the sole purpose of clearing up the Fountain affair. 

He worked diligently on the case for about five years, and bench warrants were finally issued by United States District Judge Parker of Las Cruces for Oliver M. Lee of Dog Canyon, NM, and two of his cowboys, charging them with the Fountain murder. Before the warrants could be served Lee and his cowboys disappeared.

Lee and his men finally rode into Las Cruces and surrendered to the District Judge, after which they asked for special guards from among their friends to protect them from supposed danger from unwarranted attack after laying down arms. The trial of Lee and Gilliland at Hillsboro, NM, resulted in their acquittal, there being no positive evidence that Col. Fountain or his son were dead, as their bodies had never been discovered, and the evidence against defendants being purely circumstantial.

About a year after this famous trial, in which he played a conspicuous part, exhibiting coolness in avoiding clashes and difficulties between the heavily armed factions when they met in the little mountain town twenty-five miles from a railway, where the trial was held. Garrett was appointed collector of customs at El Paso to succeed Moses Dillon. He held this office for one term of four years, but President Roosevelt declined to reappoint him because of an incident at San Antonio during the Rough Riders’ Reunion.

After retiring from office Garrett turned his attention to mining and ranching in New Mexico and Mexico and was a party to a number of large land deals which brought eastern capital into the country. Garrett was noted for his great nerve and coolness in the face of extreme danger, and it is said no man in the southwest could bring a six-shooter into action with greater celerity than he. 

He was several inches above 6 feet in height and was extremely slender of build. He was soft spoken in conversation and a man of few words and in his demeanor was at all times inoffensive and quiet. No one on first acquaintance would suspect that he was a man accustomed to deadly hand-to-hand affrays with frontier outlaws, but when it came to quelling desperate disturbances or arresting bad men he probably never had a superior as a peace officer.

Garrett was killed in 1908 by a young ranchman named Brazel, near Las Cruces, in a dispute over a ranch lease.

SOURCE Frontier Times December 1923