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Brushy Bill aka Billy the Kid LbNA #23761

Owner:Boots Tex
Plant date:Jul 14, 2006
Location:
City:Hamilton
County:Hamilton
State:Texas
Boxes:1
Found by: BinoBoxer
Last found:Mar 7, 2021
Status:FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:Aug 19, 2020
Update 8-18-2020 The box was reported to be damaged so I made a new box with a new logbook and replaced the old one. The logbook was missing, so I included a new one. I had carved a new stamp, not knowing the condition of the old one. The old one was still in good condition, so I left it along with the new one, which I think is much better. You can use either one or both!

Billy the Kid was killed in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, but died in Hico, Texas, according to local legend. Judge Bob Hefner, justice of the peace in Hico, says he has proof the Billy the Kid died in 1950 of a heart attack, four days shy of his 91st birthday. Of course, the judge also runs the Billy the Kid museum in Hico and has written 3 books on the subject. The legend says that Billy the Kid’s real name was William Henry Roberts, and he was born in New York City. His father left the family to join the Civil War, and his mother died soon after. Young Billy drifted west. When Pat Garrett fired his six-shooter at Fort Sumner that July night in 1881, the legend maintains, he killed Billy Barlow, a friend of the Kid, but claimed it to be Billy in order to collect the $500 reward. By most accounts, Billy was tired of the violence and, at the urging of friends, high-tailed it out of town. Billy showed up in Comanche in the 1940’s, then Hamilton, and finally spent his last few years in Hico. He called himself Ollie Roberts (who knows why?), and was nicknamed Brushy Bill. It was not until 1948 that his past caught up with him. An old timer in New Mexico who had taken part in the Lincoln County War told an investigator that Billy the Kid was alive and living in Hico, Texas. When confronted, Brushy Bill at first denied, then admitted to being the famous outlaw. He agreed to tell his story if the investigator would help him get a pardon from the governor of New Mexico and there be no publicity. Politics being what they are, the governor made a circus out of the event, Billy died without a pardon and was buried in Hamilton. Was he really Billy the Kid? You be the judge, or visit the judge’s museum in Hico.

Directions:
Go north to Hamilton from Gatesville on SH 36. Turn right at the red light by the courthouse. This is Rice street or FM 281. Go 0.9 miles to a cemetery on your right. You will pass a cemetery in town, but go to the next one.

To the Letterbox:
Billy the Kid’s grave is very close to Highway 281 and faces it. You can’t miss it. Pull in to one of the cemetery roads and go back to the grave. Facing the marker with your back to the road, look to the right for a large oak tree shading another grave site. The box is behind that tree under several white rocks.