The stone belongs to Reverend F. J. Tolby. It is in the Cemetery at Cimarron, New Mexico. His murder started the Colfax County War. He was a Methodist minister who spoke out against the foreign syndicate which bought out Lucien Maxwell, owner of the largest land grant in New Mexico history. The syndicate hired thugs to run communities of squatters off the land. These squatters had lived on the land for 30 years and considered it their own.
His original stone is at the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, where it was being used as a door stop. It was "re-discovered" by one of the local ladies who attended a syposium at the hotel and the local ladies guild raised funds to purchase a new marker for the grave. You can still see the original at the hotel, leaning against a wall by the back door. At least it is no longer doing duty as the ladies room door attendant.
7 comments:
That's facinating! And he was a mason to boot!
This is great, Rach. I love the history you included in the post explaining the tombstone. So interesting!
Not an advertisement - honest. Like your blog. I used to live down the road from Cimarron, NM and loved to visit there. There are all kinds of weird quircky (sp?)things there.
What in the world did you do to get blogger spammed? I somewhat concerned about the guy who says he's watching blogs while stumping for Cialis. Kinky little SOB!
Ohmy...cialis and a dead guy. How interesting!
I like this one Rach...and I loved hearing the story behind it.
Also, I have a new business....click here and I can get rid of all your wrinkles, gout and ants....
Ok, enough with the spam. I am turning on the word verification feature for comments. Sorry - I know its a pain.
See, I tried to comment earlier and never could get my comment to show...now I have forgotten what it was I wanted to say!
Anyway, I enjoyed this tombstone and the story behind it.
That darn spam stuff has been showing up all over the blogoshpere.
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