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Posted By: Jean Brand
Date Posted: Jul 12, 2009
Description: Columbus Lewellen brother eldest of John Riely Lewellen
Date Taken: before 1943
Place Taken: Carlsbad, Eddy County, New Mexico
Owner: Jean Brand
Margery Ray Morgan - Aug 3, 2009
COULD YOU TELL ME ALL HE IS KIN TO
LIKE PARENTS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Jean Brand - Aug 6, 2009
Interesting story, checked it out:
He is the son of Anderson S Cashup Lewellen Sally McDonald siblings: James, Mary A, John Rilley, Allen, Campbell, Sherman and Effie
From Kelly Lewellen
Page 5
1938 Progress Edition The Daily Current Carlsbad, New Mexico
STRANGE QUIRKS OF FATE SAVE LIFE OF COLUMBUS LEWELLEN, EARLY SETTLER
Bad Shell and Fact That He Picked Up Wrong Gun Saved Rancher From Killers.
Columbus Lewellen had no premonition of danger as he swung down a Texas canyon trail late one February evening in 1894, humming a carefree cowboy tune to the rolling rhythm of his blooded horse's easy lope.
Lewellen had every reason to be happy. Times were good, pasture was abundant. His herd had prospered and he was on the way to being one of the West's cattle barons. He thought of his family back at the ranch house. They would be spared the hardships he had experienced as a lad in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky, he told himself.
The sun was hanging low in the west as he turned down the trail leading to his partner's home. He had been sent word that the water supply had dried in a pasture where he kept a herd of fine horses. He would have to hurry to change them to another pasture and get home before night, so he spurred his horse.
Long shadows were creeping across the valley, golden shades of light slanting upward through the boughs of the sleepy cottonwoods. Silhouetted against the plummeting red dics of the sun was form of his partner's wife. She appeared 15 feet tall, "that's funny," thought Lewellen. She's a mile away yet I can see her plain as day and she looks like a giant.
Mirages were not unusual in western Texas, but they were not seen at sunset. The picture was rather ghostly, and it made Lewellen feel uneasy. Mechanically, he caught up his rifle from the saddle holster.
His horse snorted, directing his attention to the trail in front of him. There stood the menacing form of his partner, his long booted legs planted on either side of the trail, the nuzzle of a six gun leveled at Lewellen's heart.
"Stop where you are, Lewellen," barked the partner. "I might as well tell you now, that story of the water drying up was a gag. I just wanted to get you here to kill you. We've been stealing your stock for months and you were too stupid to know it. Now I am going to kill you and take the rest of them." He patted the barrel of his revolver and grinned. "You ready to die, Lewellen?"
Further down the valley, a shot split the still air of the evening. A rifle ball whined close to Lewellen's horse, ripped through the leaves behind him. The frightened animal reared high into the air throwing Lewellen sideways, but his gun was leveled on the figure in the trail and when it spoke, the partner slumped to the ground, his dead fingers pressed hard on a trigger that had clicked on a worthless shell.
"My God, don't kill me," wailed a frantic voice as a man jumped from behind a bush and kneeled at the feet of Lewellen's horse begging for his life.
He was safe, for Lewellen had sent his last bullet through the heart of the partner who had tried to kill him for what cattle he had not already stolen and marketed.
Two happy coincidences had saved Lewellen's life. One of the cattle thief friends of his partner had filed the trigger on his rifle so it would not stay cocked. His adversaries thought, with a jimmied rifle, Lewellen did not have a chance to shoot.
His partner's wife had told the thieves that they had better not attack Lewellen, if they valued their lives, for he was a dead shot. "If you miss, you're dead," she told them, "for Lewellen doesn't miss".
So when the cattle thief saw what happened in the first attempt on Lewellen's life, he went insane with fear. He did not know Lewellen's empty rifle just then was a harmless as a pop gun.
That was Lewellen's first and last gunfight, but it cost him his last cent. A gang of nine cattle thieved had driven more than $100,000.00 worth of his cattle off to market. With the aid of the faithless partner, whom Lewellen had staked, and who owed him $3,000.00 the job had been easy. What he had left, he spent in proving to the court that he shot in self defense.
With his family and what he salvaged from the wreckage, he moved to Black River in 1894, just across from Blue Springs, where he established a cattle ranch, stocked with the remnants of several old herds.
Lewellen soon had a start again in the cattle business, but he never again regained the position he lost when his ungrateful partner joined with thieves to rob him of his herds he had spent many fruitful years in building up.
Today, at 81, he is still active as caretaker of the Carlsbad Library and Museum. Mrs Lewellen and their youngest son, Lee, born in Carlsbad, are the only members of a large family who still live here. The had five children.
When he is caught up with his work at the library, Lewellen likes to tamp his well-seasoned pipe full of tobacco and dream of the romantic days of the Old West. Through the lazy curling spirals of pipe smoke , he looks with tired eyes back through half a century at the days when Billy the Kid, the James boys and many another daring gunmen spilled blood across the pages of frontier history.
If you can catch him in the right mood and isn't too busy, Lewellen will tell you many a hair-raising story of the days when men lived by the law of the six gun, and men survived because they were more rugged then the elements and quicker on the draw than other men.
"Men were honest in the very early days," said Lewellen. "There was a time when a traveler could stop at a ranch house or a cowboy camp on the way home from market, throw his money belt on the ground as he slept, knowing it was safe there as if the money were in the bank. Men didn't steal in those days. It was man against the wilderness and men trusted each other."
"But when this cattle stealing started, the west got bloody. There was peace on the ranges until many men came west to seek their fortunes - when boom towns mushroomed up and adventures started blazing and chapters of lawlessness were written into the history of the west."
Lewellen knew Billy the Kid, but only as a chance acquaintance. He saw him several times but never knew him well enough to be friend or enemy to the famous outlaw. The Lincoln county war was over, and wild prairie grass nodding over the unmarked grave of Billy the Kid when Lewellen moved to New Mexico. He was an adventurous young cowboy ridding the ranges of western Texas when he knew the Kid.
"I don't know so much first hand about the wild days of New Mexico," he said. "My Stomping grounds were back over the river, I stayed at home after I moved to New Mexico and I didn't even know much about Seven Rivers. I didn't know old John Chisum very well.
I do know, though that everyone in my country knew Billy the Kid, and they all liked him. He had a very pleasing personality, and all of my friends who knew the Kid well were quite fond of him. They say he killed a lot of men, but no one seemed to blame him for it. Everyone seem to think he was a hero.
I knew the James boys well - Frank and Jesse. I liked both of them. And I can tell you one thing. They didn't kill Jesse James when they thought they did. He's dead now, but he lived long after they thought he was dead.."
Lewellen also belongs to the school of old times who insist that Billy the Kid was not killed by Pat Garrett - that he still is alive.
"There are men alive today who could tell a lot that has never been written about the Kid," he said, "but they won't talk. They were his friends, and they have kept the secret sealed. They may talk if they are alive after the Kid is dead, but I don't believe you could get them to talk now."
"One of the Kid's closest friends told me not long before he died that he could show me Bill the Kid - and that we would not have to ride very far to see him. There have been many guesses as to what might have happened to the Kid after he escaped jail at Lincoln, at most all of them are wrong. One thing is certain, Billy was too smart to go back to Fort Sumner and get caught the way the story books say he did. Besides, the Kid and Pat Garrett were bosom. Someone was killed in Pete Maxwell's house, alright - but it was not Billy."
CARLSBAD PIONEER TAKEN BY DEATH
Funeral services were being arranged today for Columbus Lewellen, 85 who died Saturday at the St. Francis Hospital after a long illness.
Lewellen was well known in Carlsbad, having been a resident for more then 43 years. For many years he was caretaker of the municipal library. He lived at 312 North Guadalupe street.
He is survived by one son, Lee, and two daughters, Mrs. D. E. Moore of Pecos, Texas and Mrs. D. H. Daniels of Grand Junction, Colorado.
Services will be conducted from the West Chapel, Wednesday at 3 p.m. with Rev. A. L. Goodwin Baptist minister officiating. Burial will be in the Carlsbad Cemetery.
Probate Eddy Co., NM
Lewellen, Clarene 062256 1956 0002220 01 Probate
Lewellen, Columbus 011243 1943 0001074 01 Probate
1900 United States Federal Census
Name: Columbus Lewellen
Home in 1900: Precinct 2, Eddy, New Mexico
Age: 42
Estimated birth year: 1858
Birthplace: Tennessee (note where born)
Race: White
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Occupation: View Image
Image source: Year: 1900; Census Place: Precinct 2, Eddy, New Mexico; Roll: T623 1000; Page: 26B; Enumeration District: 49.
1910 United States Federal Census > New Mexico > Eddy > Carlsbad > District 73
Name: Columbus Lewellen
Age in 1910: 52
Estimated birth year: 1857
Birthplace: Kentucky (note where born)
Home in 1910: CARLSBAD, EDDY, New Mexico May 7, 1910
Race: White
Gender: Male
Series: T624
Roll: 914
Part: 2
Page: 37A
Year: 1910
Claud and wife Ruby were living with Columbus Lewellen family in this census
Jo Lemmons - Jan 17, 2010
Thank you for sharing all of this and for the sharing of the photo. It made it much easier for me to update my ancestry tree. I was very confussed on who he was and where he fit in the family line, now I have him added in.
Please could you tell me what book you found this in and the author, publication date ect. I would truly love to find this book!!!!!!!
Mary Harris Johnson - Jan 21, 2010
Columbus is from the first family of Anderson "Cash-Up" Lewellen and Sarah McDonald. The first family consisted of Columbus, James B., Nancy Almire, and John Riley. My Grandmother Balzada Lewellen Anderson is from the second family of Anderson "Cash-Up" Lewellen and Nancy McDonald. Their children Sarah Balzora, Ebenezer, Balzada, and Grant.
Sarah and Nancy McDonald were sisters.
Billie Harris - Jan 21, 2010
For the record, there was another Columbus. He was born 1862 (the one above born ca 1857) and the son of Andrew and Elizabeth Lewallen of Scott County, TN.