Whatever Happened to Kit Joy?
Posted by Mal in Uncategorized on December 22, 2009
On November 24, 1883, four cowboys, later identified as Kit Joy, Mitch Lee, Frank Taggart, and George Washington Cleveland
Kit Joy
Although the Twenty-sixth Legislative Assembly had adopted a measure that authorized the building of the New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary on March 14, 1884, the Territory still lacked a prison when it took custody of Joy on January 7, 1885.5 Officials had broken ground on the ten-acre prison site the previous July, and the first prisoners sentenced to the penitentiary had arrived on November 2, fully seven months before its completion.6 Joy joined the others in a temporary facility on the prison grounds.
The Record Book of Convicts listed Joy’s age as twenty-three. In fact, he was twenty-four.7 The convicted murderer stood 5 feet 10 1/2 inches in height and weighed 140 pounds with blue eyes, brown hair, and a light complexion. He indicated that Burnet County, Texas, was his place of birth, although the 1860 U.S. Census for Texas enumerated his family in Brown County.8 Single and a ranchman by occupation, he named his mother as his nearest relative.9 Self-supporting since the age of fifteen, Joy was temperate, used tobacco, and could read and write.
In prison, Kit learned the tailor’s trade and held the “boss tailor” position by 1888.10 The next year, on April 6, Governor Ross commuted Joy’s sentence from life to twenty years.11 Less than two weeks later, L. Bradford Prince replaced Ross. 3. On September 8, Joy wrote the new governor in quest of a pardon. Prince took no action.12 In late 1891, supporters instigated another effort to secure a pardon for Joy. E. C. Wade, who had prosecuted Joy, quashed the effort when, in a letter to Prince, he insisted that this was not a case for executive clemency. Joy “…belongs to the “Dime Novel’ order of young desperadoes…wanting in all moral sense, and would,” the prosecutor continued, “be, but for the loss of his leg, a most dangerous man.”13
Four more years passed before Colonel E. H. Bergman, the prison superintendent, certified on March 11, 1896, that Joy had completed his sentence with good time. That same day, Acting Governor Lorian Miller
14 pardoned Joy and restored his citizenship.
Joy’s release did not go unnoticed. Donald Kedzie, the sardonic editor of Lordsburg’s Western Liberal wrote:
“It is reported that [Joy] is dying of consumption. It is just as well to let a cold-blooded murderer like Joy die in a penitentiary as outside, and it is a better plan to have the sheriff strangle them before they are sent to the penitentiary than to run the risk of their contracting an incurable disease while confined in that territorial institution.”15
News accounts that Kit Joy was dying from tuberculosis proved unfounded. He rejoined his mother, who remained at Kingston, but finding work was difficult for a man lacking a leg.16 At the onset of the new century, Kit and Mary headed for Arizona.17 They settled within the confines of Fort Huachuca, in Cochise County, where, in an apparent effort to shun at least some notoriety, Kit abandoned his nickname in favor of his given name of Christopher (“Chris”) and opened a tailor shop.18
Mary Ann Epley Joy died at Fort Huachuca on April 9, 1911, and was buried in the fort’s cemetery.19 Chris Joy continued to operate his shop and witnessed the February 16, 1913, arrival of the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad’s branch line off the Benson-Douglas route that ran west from
Bundles of Joy
Christopher Carson “Kit” Joy was not the only bearer of that festive surname to go bad. He had a first cousin who could throw a wide loop. The son of Kit’s uncle and aunt, James Alexander and Elizabeth Hart Joy, John C. Joy was born in Collin County, Texas, about 1854.28 Surviving records are unclear as to exactly when he reached New Mexico, but indicate that it was before mid-April 1881.29During the October 1883 term of the Lincoln County District Court, a grand jury indicted Joy, along with Thomas J. Bell and William Parker. The indictment charged that on December 10, 1882, the trio had rustled 170 steers (of an aggregate value of $3,400) from Lincoln County rancher James Scott. Deputy Charles Bull finally arrested Joy at Hillsboro (Sierra County) on November 23, 1884. The next day, Joy and T. M. Boyd posted his $1500 bail, and the court released Joy to await the May 1885 term.30
A Lincoln County jury convicted Joy on May 21, 1885; the court sentenced him to five years imprisonment and $45.58 costs.31 The next day Joy filed a motion for new trial and appealed to New Mexico Supreme Court, arguing that the verdict was contrary to the law and the evidence and citing various judicial errors. His appeal had no merit. On July 5, 1885, he joined his cousin Kit on the site of the New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary, then nearing completion.
The new inmate (no. 60) stood 5 feet 9 3/4 inches tall and weighed 160 pounds, listed his occupation as a butcher, and named his brother, Oliver (a resident of Lake Valley), as his nearest relative.32 One of his cohorts, Tom Bell, was later captured, convicted, and received a six months and one hundred dollar fine. Bell arrived at the New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary on June 3, 1886 (inmate no. 140) and was released on November 2.33 Authorities never captured the third indicted rustler, William Parker.
Governor Edmund Ross pardoned John C. Joy on November 16, 1888.34 His family subsequently lost track of him.35
Lewis Springs.20 On October 25, the government established a post office at Buena, a small settlement that had sprung up along the new spur. Chris Joy soon moved his shop from Fort Huachuca to Buena, where he remained for some time.21
The mobilization of U.S. forces following the March 9, 1916, raid by Pancho Villa’s men on Columbus, New Mexico, greatly increased the traffic along the Lewis Springs-Fort Huachuca spur. Likely, it also brought an increased demand for Joy’s tailoring services. Business would have declined after the end of World War I, and the Buena post office closed on October 31, 1919. Sometime after 1920, Joy moved to nearby Garden Canyon (later called Fry, and later still incorporated into Sierra Vista). Writing in 1928, Tucson author and policeman Lorenzo Dow Walters (Tombstone’s Yesterday) claimed that Joy continued to live in Cochise County and, handicapped by old age as well as the loss of his leg, had found it “…practically impossible to earn a comfortable living.” In desperation, the onetime train robber “…went into the liquor business over in the Huachuca Mountains and soon ran afoul of the federal officers who arrested him with the goods right on him.”22 Although Walters is rarely reliable, he got this one right. On May 10, 1926, Conn Elliot, a Federal prohibition agent, arrested Joy and his partner, Warren Mimms, in Garden Canyon. In his complaint, Elliot charged the two with multiple violations of the National Prohibition Enforcement Act:
On May 22, the two appeared in Tucson before U.S. District Court Judge William H. Sawtelle. Joy and Mimms pled guilty and returned on May 29 for sentencing.23 According to Walters, Joy asked the court for clemency. “Judge, God worked six days and rested on the seventh. I worked that still just six days,” he continued, “and was arrested on the seventh day and I guess that I am in now for a good long rest.”24
On the first count, Judge Sawtelle sentenced each to a one-dollar fine. On the second count, he again handed down a one-dollar fine. On the third count, that of manufacturing moonshine, he sentenced the two to six months imprisonment in the county jail.25
Perhaps Walters’s unusual level of accuracy in reporting Joy’s case was, at least in part, resultant from his own entanglements with federal revenue agents. Neither one-legged or desperate, on or about November 11, 1926, patrolman Walters attempted to import seventy-two quarts of wine and twenty-four quarts of tequila from Mexico. Having imported the illegal alcohol, he then sought to sell and/or transport same. Arrested at Nogales, he was taken to Tucson for trial on November 14. Three days later, Walters posted $250 bail. Indicted in Tucson on January 27, 1927, he was arraigned and pled guilty on March 7. The next day, he was sentenced to six months in the Pima County jail. The sentence was suspended and Walters was placed on one-year probation.26
Released from jail November 1926, Joy returned to Garden canyon. Ten years later, in the spring of 1936, he entered the Cochise County hospital at Douglas suffering from influenza and pneumonia. Christopher Carson “Kit” Joy died on April 14, less than two weeks after his seventy- sixth birthday.27 Hubbard Mortuary in Bisbee handled the remains. The next day, the old outlaw was laid to rest in Bisbee-Lowell Evergreen Cemetery almost forty years after his release from the New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary. The passing of Kit Joy went unheralded.
Count 1—they were in unlawful possession of four gallons of corn whiskey and ten gallons of wine.
Count 2—they were in unlawful possession of a thirty-gallon still and two hundred gallons of corn mash.
Count 3—that on or about May 7, they engaged in the unlawful manufacture of intoxicating liquor.
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ENDNOTES:
1 Los Angeles Daily Times, November 25, 1883; Arizona Gazette (Phoenix), November 26, 1883; Chicago Tribune, November 26, 1883; San Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 1883; Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 27, 1883; Southwest Sentinel (Silver City, N. Mex.), November 28, 1883; Silver City Enterprise (N. Mex.), November 30. 1883.
2 Silver City Enterprise, March 14, and 21, 1884. 3 Ibid., March 28, 1884. 4 Southwest Sentinel (Silver City, N. Mex.), November 20, 1884. See also Silver City Enterprise (N. Mex.), November 28, 1884; Grant County District Court, Territory of New Mexico v. Kit Joy, case nos. 1530 (murder), 1531 (murder), 1534 (robbery), and 1535 (robbery), Grant County District Court Docket Book (July 1883-December 1884), pp. 224-27; Grant County District Court Journal (December 1883- August 1885), pp. 196-97, 206, 216, 281, and 283- 84.
5 Territory of New Mexico, Report of the Special Standing Committee of the Council on Penitentiary. February 23. 1887, p. 5, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe, cited hereafter as NMSRCA; New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary Record Book of Convicts, November 2, 1884–April 4, 1904, NMSRCA.
6 Robert J. Torrez, “Territorial New Mexico’s First New Public Building: The Old Penitentiary.” True West 45 (September 1998): 37. The prison board formally accepted the completed prison on August 17. The warden transferred all forty-six prisoners from their temporary quarters on August 20, and the next day Governor Edmund G. Ross proclaimed the penitentiary open (Santa Fe Daily New Mexican (N. Mex.), August 18, 1885; Governor Edmund G. Ross Journal, August 21, 1885, pp. 274-75, NMSRCA).
7 New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary Record Book of Convicts, November 2, 1884–April 4, 1904, NMSRCA. On June 18, 1885, he was enumerated in the territorial census (1885 New Mexico Territory Census, City of Santa Fe, enum. dist. 28, sheet no. 34 (Records of the Secretary of the Territory, TANM roll 42, NMSRCA):
Joy, Kit, age 24 [he had turned 25 two months previous], white, single, born Texas, father born Arkansas [actually Missouri], mother born Arkansas.
8 Mrs. Ann Bowman, “Modified Register for George W. Joy,” printout provided to the authors. 9 David L. Joy (born Missouri ca. 1838—died Arizona 1888) had married Mary Ann Epley (born Arkansas
WOLA Journal
1842—died Arizona 1911) at Burnet County, Texas, on October 30, 1859. The couple temporarily settled in Brown County where Christopher Carson “Kit” Joy, the first of their three children, was born on April 2, 1860 (Mrs. Ann Bowman, “Modified Register for George W. Joy”; C. C. Joy, Arizona Death Certificate, April 14, 1936, Cochise County, state file no. 31, registered no. 82).
10 Silver City Enterprise (N. Mex.), April 20, 1888. 11 Governor Edmund G. Ross, “Records of Convicts, Territory of New Mexico, p. 35, TANM roll 102, NMSRCA. 12 Governor L. Bradford Prince Penal Papers, TANM roll 123, NMSRCA. 13 Ibid. 14 Governor William T. Thornton Penal Papers, TANM roll 126, NMSRCA. 15 Western Liberal (Lordsburg, N. Mex.), April 3, 1896. 16 The 1900 U.S. census enumerated Mary Joy at Kingston Village, Sierra County, New Mexico, T-625, roll 1002, enum. dist. 131. p. 3:
Joy, Mary, head of household, born Mar 1845, age 55, widow, born Arkansas, father born North Carolina, mother born Virginia, mother of 3 children, 1 living.
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The whereabouts of Kit at the time of the enumeration remain undiscovered; the time sequence suggests that he was scouting for their new residence in Arizona Territory. In 1891, Kit’s brother Richard (born Texas in 1870) had been killed in a mine explosion at Kingston. The fate of his sister Alice (born Texas in 1873) is currently unknown.
17 At the time of his death in 1936, Joy had resided in Arizona for thirty-five years (C. C. Joy, Arizona Death Certificate, April 14, 1936). 18 The 1910 census enumerated Christopher Joy and his mother at Huachuca, Cochise County, Arizona, T- 624, roll 38, p. 15B. The enumeration reveals that they were living within the boundaries of the fort.
Joy, Christopher, head of household, male, white, 44 [actually 50], single, tailor, owns own shop, born Pennsylvania [actually Texas], father born Missouri, mother born Pennsylvania [actually Arkansas]
Joy, Mary, mother, female, white, 69, [actually 65] gave birth to 3 children, 1 living, born Pennsylvania [actually Arkansas, parents born
Pennsylvania [actually North Carolina and Virginia]
WOLA Journal
19 Tombstone, Fort Huachuca Cemetery: “Joy Mary (Mrs) April 9, 1911” 20 David F. Myrick, Railroads of Arizona, vol. 1, The Southern Roads (San Diego: Howell-North Books, 1975), p. 231. That same year the 10th Cavalry “Buffalo Soldiers” arrived at the fort. 21 On June 30, 1920, the 1920 U.S. census enumerated Chris Joy at Buena precinct, Cochise Co., T-625, roll 46, enum. dist. 14, p. 7A:
Joy, Chris, head, of household, tailor, male, white, 70 [actually 60] single, can read and write, born USA, parents born USA
22 Lorenzo D. Walters, Tombstone’s Yesterday: True Chronicles of Early Arizona, 1877-1887 (1928, Reprint, Glorieta, N. Mex.: Rio Grande Press, 1968), pp. 254-55.
23 U.S. v. C. C. Joy and Warren Mimms, criminal case no. 3121(manufacturing and distributing of alcohol); Arizona, District Court, Tucson Division; Record Group 21, NARA, Laguna Niguel, Calif.
24 Walters, Tombstone’s Yesterday, p. 255. 25 U.S. v. C. C. Joy and Warren Mimms, criminal case no. 3121. 26 U.S. v. L. D. Walters, criminal case no. 3291 (smuggling wine and tequila from Mexico in violation of the 1922 tariff act); Arizona, District Court, Tucson Division; Records of the District Courts of the United States; Record Group 21; National Archives and Records Center, Pacific Southwest Region, Laguna Niguel, California (cited hereafter as Record Group 21, NARA, Laguna Niguel, Calif. 27 A hospital nurse wrongly informed Hubbard Mortuary that Joy was a native of Pottsville, Pennsylvania (Arizona State Board of Health Death Certificate). Why he and his mother adopted Pennsylvania origins as early as 1910 has no explanation other than an effort to avoid notoriety. 28 James Alexander Joy was born about 1827 and died on August 1, 1870. Elizabeth Hart Joy was born in February 1831 and died March 13, 1913. They married on April 22, 1849. Both are buried in Joy Cemetery, Fairland, Burnet County, Texas. Their son John C. sometimes appears as George C. Joy (Mrs. Ann Bowman [San Antonio] “Modified Register for George W. Joy”; Collin County, Texas Marriage Records). 29 Bowman, “Modified Register for George W. Joy.” 30 Lincoln County, Third Judicial District, Territory of New Mexico v. John C. Joy, Thomas J. Bell, and William Parker (grand larceny of cattle), case file no. 538, NMSRCA. 31 Lincoln County, Third Judicial District, Civil and Criminal Journal D 1884-1888, pp. 173-74, NMSRCA.
32 New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary Record Book of Convicts, November 2, 1884–April 4, 1904, NMSRCA. 33 Ibid. The Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, native was married to Annie Bell of Fort Grant, Arizona. See also the Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, June 4, 1886.
34 Ann Bowman, San Antonio, Tex., letter to authors, September 17, 2004; Governor Edmund G. Ross, “Records of Convicts, Territory of New Mexico,” p. 56, TANM roll 102, NMSRCA; Silver City Enterprise, December 14, 1888.
35 Ann Bowman, San Antonio, Tex., letter to authors, September 17, 2004.
WOLA’s 2006 “Shootout” July 16-19 Sierra Vista, Arizona
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