This is a long chapter, so we will divide it up over two installments. The focus is the booklet written by Rita Hill called Then And Now Here And Around Shakespeare, in which Rita gives information on some of the old buildings at Shakespeare . This installment will discuss those buildings which Rita refers to as the old mail station, the general merchandise building, and the Roxy Jay saloon.
Then And Now Here And Around Shakespeare was published in 1963; it was published with the cooperation of the Lordsburg, Hidalgo County Chamber of Commerce.1 By this time, those errors of history made by Emma Muir and their subsequent embellishments were becoming so inextricably intertwined, and had been repeated so often, that they were now being regarded as fact – the accepted and unquestioned true history of Shakespeare. In this booklet, Rita Hill expands further on the history of the site during its days as “Mexican Spring”. She describes how Cook’s Wagon Train came to the site in 1846 to replenish their water supply and to rest and water their animals, and how, shortly thereafter, “wooden barrels were brought from Mesilla and sunk in the sand below the spring so that quantities of water could be dipped in buckets.”2
There are many books and articles on Cook’s expedition, made during the Mexican-American War (1846 -1848), and on the Mormon Battalion which was part of it. Several chronicle the first-hand experiences of those who took part in the expedition. That written by Sergeant Daniel Tyler of the Mormon Battalion, published in 1881, contains a highly detailed account of the route followed.3
Although Cook’s expedition traversed southwestern New Mexico, the route they followed led them well to the east of “Mexican Spring”, passing to the east of what today is called Pyramid Peak.4 It is well documented that later emigrants heading to California and the gold fields generally followed Cook’s route up until about 1856.
Mrs. Hill introduces many new details in Then And Now. For example, she now claims that Mexican Spring had been settled by permanent residents “from the time regular mail service started through this part of the country, about 1856″.5 In fact, the first mail service to operate over what was then the brand new southern route did not commence until July of 1857, when James E. Birch was contracted to initiate a service between San Antonio, Texas and San Diego, California; the service commonly referred to as the San–San Line or the Jackass Mail.
John Evensen’s arrival is now dated to 1865, and the wounded Charlie Williams now not only rides into Shakespeare as per Emma Muir’s account, but it is now claimed that he was shot by Indians and that he was hospitalized at and cared for in the saloon attached to the “Grant house”, the residents of the town feeling guilty because they had forced Charlie to leave town after he had killed someone.6 As we have already discovered, Charlie was in truth cared for at Silver City – and he was most definitely not shot by Indians! It was none other than O. W. Williams himself who served as confessor to the perpetrator of this particular act – one James G. Crittenden, erstwhile Sheriff of Grant County.7
In Then And Now Here And Around Shakespeare, Rita Hill goes into quite some detail about several of the buildings at Shakespeare, offering up histories of the buildings, as well as accounts of the various people and events associated with the buildings. It therefore seems that this would be an appropriate point to take a closer look at those same buildings. In a later installment we will talk about some of the people and events.
Shakespeare as it stands today. Authors’ own photograph, 12/02/2007
The Old Mail Station
Rita Hill identifies this as the small building at the northernmost end of “Avon Avenue”, on the east side. In all honesty there is very little that can be said about this building. Rita writes that, as far as she was aware, it was at one time “the only building in Shakespeare”, and that she was of the opinion that it had been “a mail station and a small store where travelers could buy a few supplies.” She also states that during the Civil War it was used as a store room for supplies freighted in from Socorro.8 In Marjorie White’s article Rita Hill estimates that the structure was erected no later than 1857. On the Shakespeare Ghost Town web-site it is claimed that it was erected “about 1856”, and served as a “relay station” on the “Army mail line” between Fort Thorn, which was situated just north of present day Hatch, Doña Ana County, New Mexico, and Fort Buchanan, which lay a few miles south of Sonoita, today in Santa Cruz County, Arizona.9
There was no dedicated “Army mail line” between Forts Thorn and Buchanan. Mails and dispatches between the two were carried as a matter of course by well-armed detachments of troops assigned to the task. In this instance, in the normal course of events, those detachments would have used what was part of an already established and well-defined route in that part of New Mexico Territory; part of what would soon become the route used by Butterfield. The isolated forts of the west began to make use of the Post-Office Department’s overland mail service almost as soon as it first started under James E. Birch, Butterfield’s predecessor. They would continue to do so until service over the southern overland route was suspended at the beginning of the Civil War.
The “old mail station” at Shakespeare lies roughly 2 ½ miles to the south of that route and there can be no practical reason as to why the Army would establish a “relay station” at such an isolated spot, in the heart of Apache territory, away from the recognized direct route; neither is there any documentary evidence for the existence of such a building.
Rita Hill’s comments on the age of the structure, together with those made on the site’s use during the Civil War, will be addressed in the section on the Stratford Hotel which is to follow.
The General Merchandise Building
Also referred to as the Old Mercantile or the General Mercantile Store of Smythe, Long & Price, this was one of the oldest buildings at Shakespeare. It was the building which the Hill family, and later Janaloo and Manny Hough, occupied as their home. Very regrettably this building was lost to a fire in April of 1997; it was one of the few buildings at the town whose provenance can be traced and verified to any extent by the piecing together of various entries in Grant County Deed Books. The building was one of those few remaining structures at Shakespeare whose location could be identified by the numbers allocated to the block and lot on which it was erected.
Known today for having been the store of Smythe, Long & Price, its history goes back further; Smythe, Long & Price did not acquire the building until the end of 1879.
The building was erected between April of 1870, when the town was established as Ralston City, and August of that year. There are several references in newspapers which allude to this building. For example, the Tucson Weekly Arizonan of May 5, 1870, described buildings then being erected at Ralston City, “some of timber and some of adobe.” The Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican of June 28, 1870, describing the facilities at Ralston City and the buildings there, referred to “sundry ones of lumber, several of those completed.” More definitive was a letter from Abraham Lyon, Esq. which appeared in the August 27th edition of that same newspaper. In this letter he writes of “a large and beautiful frame building” at the town.
How we know for certain that the General Merchandise Building was indeed one of these wooden structures becomes clear when we examine entries in the County Deed Books:
On August 20, 1870, William H. Eckles sold to his brother Samuel a one-half interest in Lot No. 1 on Block 28 in the town of Ralston. The lot measured 25 feet wide by 127 ½ feet deep. The western side of the lot (25 feet) fronted onto Main Street, and the southern boundary of it (127 ½ feet) ran along the northern side of Pearl Street. The eastern boundary of the lot (rear) was “an alley.” Included in the sale was a one-half interest in “all the building improvements, rights and appurtenances thereto belonging.”10
On August 14, 1870, William Eckles was listed on the Federal Census as a Post Trader at Fort Bayard (10 miles east of Silver City) and his brother Samuel as a “Clerk in Store” at the same place.
In November of 1870, Martin Bremen sold to James P. Wood his one-half interest in the “house erected by Eckles and Bremen” on Lot No. 1, Block 28 in Ralston City. 11 The building and the lot upon which it stood were now owned by Samuel Eckles and James P. Wood. This entry tells us that the building had originally been built by, or for, William Eckles and Martin Bremen. Bremen owned a saw-mill located near Fort Bayard.
The next entry found concerning this building is dated July 6, 1874, and records the sale by Samuel Eckles of his one-half interest in the property to Robert B. Willison. Again, the description of the property is exact, referring to it as Lot No.1, Block 28 and giving its dimensions in relation to Main and Pearl Streets and the alley at its rear, but this time referring specifically to not only the lot and block, but also to the “frame building situate thereon.” 12
Willison maintained his part ownership of the property until August 27, 1879, when he sold it to O. R. Smythe, J. E. Long and J. E. Price. The Deed of Conveyance once more gives the lot and block numbers and describes the building as a frame building.13 At this point Smythe, Long & Price held a one-half interest in the property, and would continue to do so until December of 1879, when they purchased the remaining one-half interest from William Rynerson and his wife Luciana.14
This suggests that at one time the building had been owned by Robert B. Willison and William Rynerson. There are no entries in the County Deed Books relating to this property between the dates of July 6, 1874, and August 27, 1879; this leaves us unable to determine how Rynerson came into possession of his one-half interest.
For exactly how long the building was truly the store of Smythe, Long & Price is unclear. We do know that in July of 1881, O. R. Smythe entered into a brief partnership with James Carroll, their business being located in a brand new building at Shakespeare.15
Throughout all of these transactions the property is consistently described as being a frame building fronting onto Main Street, and lying at the intersection of that street with Pearl Street. Modern day photographs of the building taken prior to the fire of 1997 show it to have had adobe walls. When, how or why the adobe walls were constructed is unknown.
The Roxy Jay Saloon
Despite the provenances assigned by the Hills to the structures and foundations which remain at Shakespeare today, very little can actually be verified in County records, which are simply too incomplete to draw up a full history of any of the structures. Some of them retained their familiar names – usually the names of those who had first owned them – long after they had been sold and re-sold several times. Such is the case with the Roxy Jay Saloon. Although still referred to by this name today, the Saloon, which no longer exists, would be owned by Oscar F. “Roxy” Jay for less than two years.
Newly completed in February of 1882, Oscar Jay’s billiard hall and saloon was described as being “as finely furnished and fitted as any in the Territory.”16 Prior to building and running his saloon and billiard hall, Jay had first run a grocery store at Leitendorf, and then later held a license to operate as a butcher at Shakespeare.17
In January of 1883, the Silver City Enterprise commented on the “elegant saloon and billiard hall of Roxie”,18 but in October of that year it would cease to be his property, as on the first day of that month Oscar F. Jay and his wife Cassie (Woods) sold the property to a Mr. John Hudson for $1,200.19 On October 5th the Enterprise reported that Colonel Richard Hudson had recently gone to Shakespeare “to take possession of the building occupied by ‘Roxey’, upon which he had some money loaned”, with the building being described as the best one in the town.
The exact connection between John and Richard Hudson could not be determined, however, we do know that it was John who held a license to sell liquor at Shakespeare from September 1, 1883, through May 31, 1884, by which time Oscar Jay was “running a hash foundry for the accommodation of hungry Shakespearians.”20
By 1887, Roxy Jay’s Saloon had changed hands on at least two more occasions. On August 1st of that year Vic Van Hal bought “the same piece of ground upon which [stood] the adobe house which was formerly owned by Oscar F. Jay and used by him as a saloon.”21 The vendor was none other than John Evensen, who sold the property for $100. It is reported that in 1893 the building was dismantled, with the salvageable materials being used in the construction of the first church in Lordsburg.22
©2007-2023 Jim & Erica Parson
REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT:
Note:
Documents located at the Grant County Clerk’s Office (1400 Hwy. 180 E. Silver City, NM 88061) are denoted by (GCCO).
Documents located at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives (1205 Camino Carlos Rey, Santa Fe, NM 87507) are denoted by (NMSRCA).
1Hill, Rita (1963) Then And Now Here And Around Shakespeare. Lordsburg, New Mexico: Action Printing. Hereafter referred to as Hill (1963).
2Hill (1963). Page 6. The village of Mesilla did not come into existence until 1850.
3 A Concise History Of The Mormon Battalion In The Mexican War 1846-1847 By Sergeant Daniel Tyler. (1881). Available on Google Books (http://.google.com). Chapters xvii and xix are of particular relevance.
4At just over 6,000 feet, Pyramid Peak is the highest mountain in the Pyramid Mountains which lie just south of Lordsburg
5Hill (1963). Page 6.
6Ibid. Pages 40-41.
7 Myres (1968). Pages 154-156. Crittenden told Williams that he had shot at Charlie Williams not intending to hit him, but rather to scare him off as Charlie had been trailing him to a mine that he owned near Pinos Altos.
8Hill (1963). Pages 47-48.
9Sonoita, Arizona is approximately 47 miles southeast of Tucson.
10Mining Locations, Notices And Deeds, 1. (1870). Pages 241-243. (NMSRCA)
11Mining Locations And Notices. (1870-1871). Page 322. (NMSRCA)
12Deed Book. No. 1. (September 1871-February 1876). Pages 558-559. (GCCO)
13Deeds. Book 3. (February 1876-May 1880). Pages 541-542. (GCCO)
14Ibid. Pages 679-680. The entry for this sale states that the building was the “same premises formerly owned by Martin W. Bremen and James P. Wood. The sequence of sales shows this to be an error, Wood had owned it in conjunction with Samuel Eckles.
15The New Southwest and Grant County Herald. July 9, 1881.
16The New Southwest and Grant County Herald. February 25, 1882.
17The Record of General Licenses Granted (1871-1910) records the issuing of a license to Jay for the period December 9, 1880-February 8, 1881, to run a grocery store at Leitendorf, with a butchers’ license being issued for the period September 26, 1881-December 26, 1881, allowing him to operate at Shakespeare. The earliest license records extant connecting Jay to the retail liquor trade were issued to run from May 1, 1882, to July 31, 1882, and simultaneously, from May 1, 1882, to October 31, 1882. (NMSRCA)
18Silver City Enterprise. January 18, 1883.
19Miscellaneous Record Of Deeds. No. 12. (March 1883-Febrauary 1884). Page 235. (GCCO)
20Silver City Enterprise. February 1, 1884.
21Misc. Book Of Deeds. Book 19. (March 1886-August 1887). Page 787. (GCCO)
22In The Shadow Of The Pyramids (1976). Page 26. In Then And Now Here And Around Shakespeare, Rita Hill says that this happened in 1896.
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