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Charles
Kennedy (18??-1870) - A mountain man who lived near
Eagle Nest,
New Mexico, Kennedy robbed and killed a number of passing travelers as they
made their way to Taos.
Charles Kennedy, a big, husky
full-bearded man, owned a traveler's rest on the road between
Elizabethtown
and Taos. After travelers would register at the rest stop, some would
disappear never to be heard from again. These traveling strangers were
rarely missed in the highly transient settlement. Evidently, when
travelers stopped for a bed and a meal, Charles killed them, stole their
valuables and either burned or buried their bodies. These events might
never have been known, except for his wife's confession, when she fled
from him in terror in the fall of 1870.
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Elizabethtown,
New Mexico
Street Scene during its heydays.
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The bleeding Ute Indian woman burst into John Pearson's saloon, where
Clay Allison,
Davy Crockett
(a nephew of the American frontiersman) and others were whiling away
the hours. After she had been helped to a chair, she told the story of how her
husband had killed a traveler and their young son. Hysterical,
she continued the shocking story telling of how her husband had been
luring travelers, perhaps as many as 14, into their cabin and then
murdering them. On the day that she fled, she had witnessed
another traveler who her husband had enticed inside by offering
supper. During the meal, the passerby asked his hosts if there
were many Indians around. Her unfortunate son made the fatal
mistake of responding, "Can't you smell the one Papa put under the
floor?" At this, Kennedy went into a fury, shot his guest
and bashed his son's head against the fireplace. He then
threw both bodies into the cellar, locked his wife in the house and
drank himself into a stupor. Terrified, the woman waited until her
husband passed out, then climbed up through the chimney and escaped to
tell her story.
 Clay
Allison, a local rancher, who was known for his gunfighting
skills, and almost always around when anything violent happened, led a
group in search of Kennedy, while others were sent to search the house
for evidence to support the woman's story. The search provided a
number of partially charred human bones still burning in the fire, and
two skeletons beneath the house. Later, another skull was found
nearby and a witness to one of the murders came forth. Kennedy,
still drunk, was quickly found and taken into custody. He was given a
pre-trial on October 3, 1870, where the witness appeared, testifying
that he had seen Kennedy shoot one of the travelers.
The
court ordered that Kennedy be held for action by the grand jury, but
rumors began circulating that Kennedy's lawyer was going to buy his
freedom. Three days later,
Allison
and his companions snatched Kennedy from the jail, threw a rope around his
neck and dragged him by a horse up and down Main Street until long after
he was dead. His body was not allowed by the townspeople to be
buried in the Catholic cemetery and was interred outside the cemetery
boundaries.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, August, 2011.
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