Memoirs / Henry Clark, [1938?].

1 v. (55 p.) ; 28 cm.

English

Purchased from Spencer Maxwell on the Frederick W. and Carrie S. Beinecke Fund for Western Americana, 2002.

Typescript, original and carbon, of an incomplete memoirs by Henry Clark. Clark describes his youth in southern Texas, travel with his parents on an immigrant wagon train to California, how he came to be with Yaqui Indians when they were removed from Guaymas, Mexico by Mexican soldiers, and his life as a child outlaw in Mexico. The memoir chronicles Clark's capture by the Apache chief, Victorio, and his initiation into the Apache tribe; various cattle drives and cattle thefts with Victorio's gang; Clark's later life as a railroad surveyor for rail lines in Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico; and occupational changes which included running a gambling saloon and racing mules. Clark tells of a surveying trip which took his crew through the Andes as they surveyed for a railroad between Valparaiso, Chile and Rosario, Argentina. He comments on the Incas, Irish railway workers, and the land. Clark also describes being shot in the face, drug use among cowboys, dressing as a woman to attend an ice cream social in Texas, and his eventual settlement in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

March 25, 2003

Henry Clark, Memoirs. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Henry Clark, Memoirs. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.