New Mexico exhibition to put Billy the Kid's letters on display

London, Aug 6 (ANI): Letters written by legendary sharpshooter Billy the Kid will be put on display for the first time in the Santa Fe library in New Mexico.

Billy the Kid was being held in the Santa Fe jail at the time he wrote the letter.

The letter, which was written to the state's governor Lew Wallace, is polite, articulate and to the point, and begins by saying: "Dear Sir. I wish you would come down to the jail and see me," reports the Telegraph.

Just four months later, Sheriff Pat Garrett gunned down the Kid.

A thug to some, a folk hero to others, Billy the Kid has been permanently embedded in America's pop culture through a seemingly endless stream of books, articles and films.

And now, that March 1881 letter and an earlier letter to the governor from New Mexico's most famous outlaw are on show for the Kid buffs.

Bob McCubbin, president of the Wild West History Association, said the letters, which have been out of the public eye for some time, are an absolute treasure.

The letters belonged to the Wallace family for a number of years before being passed on to various historical organisations.

And it was just recently decided that the most appropriate venue for them was the Fray Angelico Chavez History Library in Santa Fe.

The letters, in black ink, are signed with the name of William H. Bonney, one of the aliases used by the Kid, who was born Henry McCarty.

The notes were written in the aftermath of the so-called Lincoln County war- a bloody, five-month feud in 1878 between mercantile interests in the southern New Mexico village of Lincoln.

And the Kid, a ranch hand, was aligned with one of the factions.

In the first letter, undated but believed to have been written in March 1879, the Kid has told Wallace that he was a witness to a murder the previous month that had shattered the peace in the county.

He said in the letter that he would testify in court if he gets protection from his enemies and indictments against him stemming from the Lincoln County War are annulled. (ANI)