Today's Article - William H. Bonney

This article is for quizzes on Thursday June 25th, 2015...

William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr.; ca. 1859-1861 – July 14, 1881), better known as Billy the Kid, and also as William Antrim, was a 19th-century gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier outlaw in the American Old West. According to legend, he killed twenty-one men, but it is now generally believed that he killed eight. He killed his first man on August 17, 1877, at around 17 years old.

McCarty (or Bonney, the name that he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) tall with blue eyes, blonde or dirty blonde hair, and a smooth complexion. He was described as being friendly and personable at times, and as lithe as a cat. Contemporaries described him as a "neat" dresser who favored an "unadorned Mexican sombrero". These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image as both a notorious outlaw and a folk hero.

 He was relatively unknown during most of his lifetime but was catapulted into legend in 1881 when New Mexico's governor, Lew Wallace, placed a price on his head. In addition, the Las Vegas Gazette (Las Vegas, New Mexico) and the New York Sun carried stories about his exploits. Other newspapers followed suit. Several biographies written about the Kid after his death portrayed him in varying lights.