5 minute read
New Mexico’s Old Times & Old Timers
NEW MEXICO’S OLD TIMES & OLD TIMERS
by Don Bullis, New Mexico Author DonBullis.biz
Abe Gerden Graham, AKA John “Shotgun” Collins
Little Known New Mexico Lawman/Outlaw
John Collins was born as Abraham “Abe” Gerden Graham in 1851 in Horry County, South Carolina. By 1859 he, along with his family, had moved west to Limestone County, Texas, south of Dallas. History holds that Abe, even at that early age, sometimes went by the name of John Collins.
Famed Texas killer John Westley Hardin (1853-1895) claimed that Graham, aka Collins, married his cousin, Tabitha Cox. Graham’s criminal career also began in Texas and he spent time in jail with Hardin and other well-known owl-hoots John Ringo (1850-1882) and Mannen Clements (18451887), and others. He was alternately an outlaw and a lawman throughout his life and was associated with such notables as Wyatt Earp (1848-1929), William H. Bonney “Billy the Kid” (1859-1881), Pat Garett (18501908) and “Old” John Selman (1839-1896).
Collins seemed to be on the outskirts of many notable events, but was never a major player.
He also alternated his name back and
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Graham/Collins migrated to what was then western Socorro County, New Mexico—it became part of Catron County in 1921—toward the middle of the 1870s; to the Elk Mountains; specifically, according to historian Bob Julyan, a point between Eagle Mountain and O Bar O Mountain, near the Continental Divide. It came to be called Collins Park. He apparently had a family by then, but he did not spend all of his time there.
On December 27, 1875, he undertook to kill one James Smith in Silver City. Grant County Historian Bob Alexander wrote: “Collins shot Smith in the head. The wicked powder-burning gunshot was not fatal…. Thankfully, Smith wasn’t sent home on a shutter. Later, Sheriff [Harvey] Whitehill [1837-1906] arrested Collins and … locked him up. Next morning, ...Collins was fined $60 for carrying and mishandling a deadly weapon and sent on his way.” No one seems to know what caused the affray or what became of Smith.
While historians have not done much looking into the eclectic life of Abe Graham, AKA John Collins, he was apparently fairly well known in his own lifetime, and his name appears as a participant in several significant events including the Lincoln County [New Mexico] War (1878) and the Dodge City [Kansas] Peace Commission (1883). Some have claimed that he rode with Billy the Kid, but then just about anyone who happened to be in southern New Mexico in the years between 1878 and 1881 is said to have rode with the Kid at one time or another. It is noteworthy, though,
that a man named John Collins rode with the John Selman (1839-1896) gang of rustlers which cut a wide swath of mayhem and rape in Lincoln County in the fall of 1878.
There was also a tale about Collins helping to dig Billy’s grave at Fort Sumner in July 1881, but Paco Anaya in his book, I Buried Billy, makes no mention of him even being present that night. Historian Fred Nolan, who wrote widely on the Lincoln County war, however, clearly stated that Collins was present at Fort Sumner on the night Billy was killed.
While one source avers that Collins died in a gunfight in El Paso, Texas, another takes grave exception to that version of his death: “Despite what some sources will tell you, Abraham Gerden “Shotgun Collins” Graham, died of a Cerebral Hemorrhage [sic] at the age of 73 [in 1922]. No gunfight involved.” He was buried in the Concordia Cemetery, in El Paso, not far from the graves of Hardin and Selman.
According to Julyan, descendants of the Graham family continue to reside in the area around Collins Park. ▫
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