Henry McCarty (November 23 or December 31, 1859 – July 14, 1881 or December 27, 1950) was better known as Billy the Kid, but also known by the aliases Henry Antrim and William Harrison Bonney. He was a 19th century American frontier outlaw and gunman who was a participant in the Lincoln County War. He was reputed to have killed 21 men, one for each year of his life.
McCarty was 5'8" with blue eyes, smooth cheeks, and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, but he could also be short-tempered and determined. This made him a very dangerous outlaw, when combined with his shooting skills and cunning. He was also famous for (apparently) always wearing a sugar-loaf Sombrero hat with a wide green decorative band. He was little known in his own lifetime but was catapulted into legend in the year after his death when his killer, Sheriff Patrick Garrett, published a wildly sensationalistic biography of the outlaw called The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. Beginning with Garrett's account, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West.
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External links[]
- Findagrave: Billy the Kid
- About Billy the Kid
- Billy the Kid: Outlaw Legend
- Billy the Kid and Posse?
- Billy's gravestone
- Court TV's Crime Library: Billy the Kid
- Billy the Kid fanlisting
- Wild West magazine, Billy the Kid: The Great Escape, Barbara Tucker Peterson and Louis Hart, August 1998
- Wild West magazine, The Hunting of Billy the Kid, Frederick Nolan, June 2003
- Wild West magazine, Billy the Kid and the U.S. Marshals Service, David S. Turk, February 2007 (issued December 2006)