Chapter 15

GRANDFATHER WM. HENRY “BLACK BILL” ANDERSON

Black Bill Anderson (seated) and friend Sam Miller (about 1887)

 My grandfather, William Henry Anderson, was the son of Albert J. Anderson and grandson of Henry M. Anderson.  I am so thankful to have known my grandfather,  I I remember him as a quiet, kind and gentle man.  But, as his daughters described his early life, it appears that he inherited those same colorful and adventurous genes of Henry and Albert Anderson.

• He answered to several names…….Bill, Will, Black Bill and alias Bill Lee.
• By the age of 12 he was taught to break wild mustang in Colorado.
• Helped his father build the first school house in La Junta, Colorado.
• Grew up to be one of the best bronco riders – calf ropers.
• When 19 he was involved in a saloon shooting in La Junta, Colorado.
• Worked on the famous Slaughter Ranch in Arizona.
• Was put into a Mexican prison and later escaped.
• Played Faro card games with some famous cowboys and outlaws.
• Could speak three languages, Spanish, Cherokee and English.
• Homestead in Oklahoma Ter. after the Cheyenne-Arapaho Land Run.
• Deputy Sheriff of Roger Mills County, Ok. for 42 years.
• Won first place calf roper in the Cheyenne Rodeo, AGE 70.

 William Henry Anderson was born August 28, 1867 at Fort Davis, Shackelford, County, Texas to his parents Albert J. and Nancy A. Anderson.     At an early age William and his sisters Melinda and Martha Ellen, moved with their parents from Fort Davis, Texas to La Junta, Colorado.   Williams daughter, Noma Anderson said they went to Kansas to travel by train.  We can assume the journey would be very similar to one told in the book INTERWOVEN about a pioneer family from the Fort Davis area who made this trip to Colorado.  They described the trip as follows; “We left Weatherford (Texas) on the 23^rd of November 1872, and drove (by wagons) to Colbert’s Ferry on Red River, taking two or three days for the trip.  The last night out, we camped in the Indian Territory near where the railroad ended then.  We had crossed on the ferry-boat and two of us had left Texas soil for the first time in our lives.  The next morning a passenger train pulled in and came to a standstill right there in the tall timber.  There was not as much as a section houses there, not anything, just the rails.  There may have been a section house back a few miles, I do not remember, but that train looked most interesting.  We loaded on with our trunks and boxes, we were not taking any furniture only a few books and some china. This was my first sight of a train, and the Pullman car appeared very elegant and comfortable, heated by big coal-oil or kerosene stoves and in each end lighted by coal-oil lamps which were the first coal-oil lamps I had seen.  We went to Junction City Kansas on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas (Railroad) we had a tiresome wait of several hours in the station before being transferred to the Kansas Pacific which took us to Kit Carson, Colorado, some sixty miles from our destination.  A group of people from Texas, whom we had known in old Fort Davis, the Anderson family (Albert and Nancy) had located just across the river (LaJunta).  In those days people from the North and East were inclined to look upon Texas people as only a few generations above the ape. And would even express surprise that really nice people should have come from Texas”! 

  Noma wrote about her father Bill; “Dad almost grew up on a horse.  When he was no more than 12 years old, granddad Albert used to put him on wild horses to break them.  He grew up to be one of the best bronco riders-calf ropers and all around cowboys any where”.  Because of his coal black hair  he gained the nick name “Black Bill Anderson”.  However, he was  known as “Bill” by his family and friends.  While running from the law, he changed his name to Bill Lee.

In La Junta,  his parents, Albert and Nancy had five more children, Minnie, Albert Calvin, May and adopted Nancy Belle.  They wanted their eight children to have an education, but there were no schools in the area, so he put his son Bill to work helping him build a log cabin school house.  The census in 1880 showed Bill, age 12 was in school.  We do not know how much longer he stayed in school. We do know granddad spoke three languages, Spanish, Cherokee and English.

 Picture below; top row Walter Dun and Bill Woods, bottom row Ed Woods, McFrice and Bill Anderson.    

 At the age of 19, Bill’s life turned up-side-down.  He and a brother-in-law Ed Woods (picture above) were at the local saloon/theater in La Junta.  An argument and gun fight started and one man was killed.  Whether it was Bill or his brother-in-laws Ed’s gun that shot the fatal bullet, we do not know. Right after the fight they went back to Albert and Nancy’s home to tell them what had happened.  They knew the sheriff would be there soon.  They did not want the son-in-law to go to jail leaving his wife Lizzie and child,  “Bill was single”.   So they decided that Bill should go immediately, leaving the law to think  Bill, was the guilty one.  Many years later it was told me by a La Junta museum attendant, that he heard Bill left “on a mighty fine horse”. He left traveling south and west to Tombstone, Arizona.

Below is Bill Anderson’s sister Lizzie Anderson, wife of Ed Woods.