William George Boyle
We were unable to find any definitive description of the familial link between William G. and John Boyle; in his family genealogy John Boyle makes no mention of a William G. Boyle.²²
William George Boyle was born in Londonderry, Ireland, around 1828, and had arrived in California at the beginning of the gold rush in 1849, when he was about 21 years old.²³ We have already dismissed the tale that William played any part in the renaming of Ralston City’s Main Street as “Avon Avenue” (see Part I, Chapter 5 – “Old Timers”. Published July 12, 2003) , an event which in truth never occurred, and we now cast doubt on the claim that he was also involved in renaming the town. Entries in the Mining Location record books of the period suggest that he did not.
In these records, Boyle is the one person who is inconsistent in the use of the two names. On several occasions he persists in the use of “Ralston” when all other entries in the Mining Locations book are referring to ” Shakespeare”. Admittedly, these inconsistencies occur over a period of only a few days, but still, one has to ask why they are manifested by the very person who is said to be the originator of the new name for the settlement.²⁴ Surely he should be the one person who would remember and use the new name. The most we can say is that the name of the town-site was changed in April of 1879, but for what reason, or by whom, or indeed why that particular name was chosen remains unknown at present.
That William G. Boyle came to the Virginia Mining District by happenstance is another oft repeated fallacy. In March of 1879, the New York Engineering and Mining Journal carried a report on “W. G. Boyle, M. E. [Mining Engineer] of Arizona” who it was said had recently returned from Europe and was now enroute for Arizona via New Mexico with the purpose of “examining several of the rich mineral deposits that are known to exist in that region.”²⁵ On April 5th, Grant County’s The Herald reported that “Colonel Wm. G. Boyle, Mining Engineer, Fellow of the Chemical Society and Fellow of the Geological Society of London” had arrived in Silver City on Tuesday, April 1st, and describes him as being “well known throughout New Mexico and Arizona as an extensive operator in mines and lands.”
The previous day he had recorded his first location in the Virginia Mining District, the “Golden Gate”; 1,500 linear feet “about 6 ½ miles to the south of the Town of Ralston”, and about 75 yards north of Leitendorf’s Well.²⁶ Between that date and the 22nd of April, he made 17 locations and was witness to another three. After April 22nd, his name is absent from the records until August of 1879. Was he in fact, as the story goes, buying up “old claims”? The answer to this question is a most emphatic no! There were no “old claims” to buy. As stated above, almost all of the “old claims” (none of which are ever named) had lapsed; the claims had long since become eligible for re-location by anyone who wished to do so. Grant County records for the relevant period show no record of W. G. Boyle having purchased any extant claim from anyone.
In order to understand exactly what it was that William Boyle was doing in the Virginia Mining District we have to look at the Mining Location records in some detail; tedious perhaps, but nevertheless relevant and very informative.
The locations made by William Boyle can be divided into two broad groups – those which he sold and which ultimately ended up in the possession of The Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling Company (all of which were initially claimed in Boyle’s name alone) and those which he retained, and which had been claimed in conjunction with other parties.
All of those claims which would come to be owned by The Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling Company were situated no further than three miles from the town-site and must, therefore, have been on those ledges previously covered with the claims of those associated with the New Mexico Mining Company in 1870-1871, while many of those retained by Boyle were situated close to Leitendorf’s Well, an area of much higher-grade silver ore. Boyle’s most frequent co-locators on these claims were Thomas Dunn and John Fitzgerald, both of whom had been active in the Virginia Mining District since 1870.
On May 10, 1879, William Boyle legally appointed John Evensen with Power of Attorney to act on his behalf in the location, recording, and management of his mining interests, as did William J. Crosby and Frank H. Woodworth²⁷ (this fits in with Boyle’s name being absent from the records after April 22). The Power of Attorney papers were drawn up and executed by all three men at Santa Fe; all three were en-route for St. Louis, where on May 27th William George Boyle, Frank Herbert Woodworth, William Joseph Crosby, all of Shakespeare, James Barry Price of Jefferson, Missouri, and John Boyle of St. Louis incorporated the Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling Company. Reports that Hamilton C. McComas was almost certainly involved in the founding of this company are not borne out by the records.²⁸
Every one of those locations made by William G. Boyle between April 4 and April 22, 1879, would end up in the hands of either the Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling Company, or of James B. Price, leading to the conclusion that Mining Engineer Boyle had been commissioned to locate the Virginia Mining District properties, around which a company would be formed, and that he had been employed specifically for that purpose.
This conclusion is supported by the fact that – on paper at least – William was extremely well compensated for his work by the other three company members who, on May 2, 1879, purchased from him nine of those April claims for the huge sum of $350,000.²⁹ On the same date, John Boyle, Price, and Woodworth also purchased another group of four mines, two of which had been among William’s April locations, for the sum of $150,000.³⁰ On paper William G. Boyle was now in possession of over $450,000, but there is doubt that any money actually changed hands. Being a well-known and highly respected mining engineer, Boyle’s name would have given a great deal of cachet to any mining venture, his name as incorporator and director of a mining company would have been a solid stamp of approval as to the validity and worth of that company. The fact that it was he himself who had located that company’s properties, and had been paid handsomely for doing so, would have provided final proof that those properties were indeed very valuable. Of course there remains the possibility that he did in fact receive the money but immediately disbursed it in some way.
Was Boyle truly paid such a huge sum of money? There is no hard evidence either way, but taking into consideration the above points, and coupling them with the fact that the following spring Peter B. Greaves would take out a Mechanic’s Lien against Boyle’s real estate properties in Shakespeare for the comparatively paltry sum of $870.41, it seems unlikely. (See Part I, Chapter 6 “The Grant House And The Stratford Hotel”. Published July 26, 2023, for a detailed account of this). As to where Boyle was after May 27, we do not know, but he was back in Shakespeare at the beginning of August as his name is listed among the rank and file at the first meeting of the Shakespeare Militia. His name also reappears in the Mining Location Records as from August 11, 1879; it is from this date forward that most of his non-company related claims were made.
As well as making numerous mining location claims William also made a claim for land close to Shakespeare. On April 24, 1879, he located 158.71 acres of land, “previously part of public domain” in Section 6 of Township 23 South, Range 18 West³¹ which he in turn sold to J. B. Price, John Boyle and Frank Woodworth on November 17th of the same year.³² The location of this land and its subsequent sale to Price, John Boyle and Woodworth, together with other very similar locations and sales, will prove central to the account of events at Shakespeare during this period.
On the same date that Boyle sold his land claim he also sold to Robert V. Newsham of Silver City “all of building lot number fourteen (14) in Block number one hundred and sixteen in the town of Shakespeare”³³. Situated on the southeast corner of Boyle and Evensen streets, this is the property from which Robert V. Newsham would operate a retail merchant and retail liquor business, something in which he was experienced having previously been engaged in both, first at Rio Mimbres and then at Lone Mountain and Silver City³⁴. November 17th was also the date on which William purchased from C. Ross Woods and his wife two mines together with the two adobe buildings in Shakespeare which, less than a week later, he would begin remodeling into the Stratford (Shakespeare) Hotel.
©2007-2024 Jim & Erica Parson
REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT
²²Boyle Genealogy. (1909) Compiled by John Boyle, of St. Louis. St. Louis, MO. Perrin & Smith Printing Company. Hereafter referred to as Boyle Genealogy (1909).
²³Daily Alta California, April 23, 1880.
²⁴In Then And Now Here And Around Shakespeare (1963), Rita Hill ascribes the renaming of the town to both John and William G. Boyle. The 1967 New Mexico Historical Review article, co-authored by both Rita and Janaloo Hill, identifies William G. Boyle alone as the originator of the new name.
²⁵E&MJ. Volume 27. January-June 1879. Page 181.
²⁶Mining Locations No 1. (1870-1880). Page 519. (GCCO)
²⁷Deeds. Book 3. (February 1876-May 1880). Pages 416-418. (GCCO)
²⁸Simmons, Marc. (1997) Massacre on the Lordsburg Road. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Hereafter referred to as Simmons (1997).
In this work, Marc Simmons poses questions about McComas’ exact association with the Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling Company, wondering whether McComas might have been a director of that Company, “or at the very least a stockholder”. He comes to the conclusion that “since the business records of the company are believed to be lost, the question cannot be answered. But the chances are good that he was involved in some capacity in the launching of the new enterprise.” [Page 45].
Although no business records for the Company could be located, this proved not to matter too much. The answer to the first part of Simmons’ question – was McComas a director of the Company? – was found in Grant County’s Deeds. Book 3, (February 1876 – May 1880). Pages 442 – 444 record the incorporation of the Company at St. Louis on May 27, 1879, naming William George Boyle, John Boyle, Frank Herbert Woodworth, William Joseph Crosby, and James Barry Price as incorporators and directors of the Company. No information could be found on whether or not McComas held stock in the Company at any time.
²⁹Deeds. Book 3. (February 1876 – May 1880). Pages 402-404. (GCCO)
³⁰Ibid. Pages 401-402.
³¹Ibid. Page 513.
³²Ibid. Pages 627-628.
³³Ibid. Pages 636-637.
³⁴Record Of General Licenses Granted, 1871-1910. (NMSRCA)
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