Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell (September 14, 1818 – July 25, 1875) was a

mountain man A mountain man is an Geographical exploration, explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting, fishing and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s ...

, rancher,

scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement ** Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom ** Scouts BSA, sect ...

, and farmer who at one point owned more than . Along with Thomas Catron and

Ted Turner Robert Edward Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and Philanthropy, philanthropist. He founded the CNN, Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour United States cable news, ...

, Maxwell was one of the largest private

landowners In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individuals ...

in United States history. In 1959, he was inducted into the

Hall of Great Westerners The Hall of Great Westerners was established by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 1958. Located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., the Hall was created to celebrate the contributions of more than 200 men and women of the American W ...

of the

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and Native American art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of Amer ...

Background

Maxwell was born in

Kaskaskia The Kaskaskia were a historical Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in ...

Illinois Territory The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois. Its ...

, about three months before Illinois became a state. He was the son of Hugh Maxwell, an Irish immigrant, and Odile Menard, daughter of Pierre Menard, a French-Canadian fur trader who was serving on the Illinois Territorial Council and who became the first Lieutenant Governor of the State of

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

shortly after Maxwell's birth. Lucien Maxwell learned something of the fur trading business from his maternal grandfather during his early teens, and his grandfather was Maxwell's role model. Like his famous grandfather, Maxwell left home at the age of fifteen. Maxwell's cousin Michel Branamour Menard established a trading post that ultimately grew into

Galveston, Texas Galveston ( ) is a Gulf Coast of the United States, coastal resort town, resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island (Texas), Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a pop ...

, and early neighbor Stephen Austin was the namesake of the capital of Texas. At age 17, after two years at the Vincentian college in Missouri, Lucien struck out on his own, heading west. He met and became fast friends with

Kit Carson Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and United States Army, U.S. Army officer. He became an American frontier legend in his own lifetime ...

, who was almost nine years older. Both eventually signed up with

John C. Frémont Major general (United States), Major-General John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was a United States Army officer, explorer, and politician. He was a United States senator from California and was the first History of the Repub ...

in 1841 for western expeditions, with Carson serving as guide and Maxwell as chief hunter.

Beaubien and Miranda

In 1844, Lucien Maxwell travelled to

Taos, New Mexico Taos () is a town in Taos County, New Mexico, Taos County, in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Santa Fe ...

(then part of Mexico) where he married Carlos Beaubien's daughter, Maria de la Luz Beaubien. It was a dual wedding as Kit Carson was also married. In 1843 Beaubien and his partner, Guadalupe Miranda, had received a land grant of a million acres (4,000 km²) in northeast present-day

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Beaubien's wedding gift to Maxwell was . During the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

, in 1847, Maxwell was at Fort Bent in Colorado. He was there when the newly installed New Mexico Territorial Governor Charles Bent was killed in the

Taos Revolt The Taos Revolt was a popular insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States' occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. Provisional governor Charles Bent and severa ...

. Maxwell's wife survived but her brother (Beaubien's son) Narciso Beaubien was killed. Maxwell's mother-in-law, Miranda, was wounded and fled to

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. After that, Maxwell became more active in the management of the Beaubien land grant. In 1848, Maxwell survived an ambush while delivering supplies to a cabin on Ponil Creek. In 1849, at the conclusion of the

, Maxwell and Carson proposed building a fort on the Rayado River at Rayado in the new

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of '' Nuevo México'' becomi ...

, on the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...

. Maxwell built a large house and Carson had a smaller

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

house. In 1850 the Army moved its fort further south to Fort Union on the Mora River. Maxwell sold his Rayado property and moved to Cimarron, New Mexico Territory, which was on the Cimarron River. Here he built a large adobe mansion where scores of people would often be luxuriously entertained and fed by many servants.

Maxwell Land Grant

In 1858, Miranda, who was still in Mexico, sold his share of the of land to Maxwell for $2,745. After Beaubien died in 1864, Maxwell acquired much of the original estate that he had not inherited; his landholdings then peaked at . The entire area is referred to as the

Maxwell Land Grant The Maxwell Land Grant, also known as the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant, was a Land grants in New Mexico and Colorado, Mexican land grant in Colfax County, New Mexico, and part of adjoining Las Animas County, Colorado. This 1841 land grant wa ...

Discovery of gold

At the conclusion of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, gold was discovered on his property at present-day Baldy Mountain (Colfax County, New Mexico). Maxwell leased land to the miners and sold them supplies. In 1870, he sold most of the land for $1,350,000 to a British company, which incorporated it under the name of the Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company. A portion of the land was purchased by Matthew Lynch who became the father of placer mining in the region. Lucien Maxwell grave IMG 0534

Maxwell then moved to

Fort Sumner Fort Sumner was a Fortification, military fort in New Mexico Territory charged with the internment of Navajo and Mescalero, Mescalero Apache populations from 1863 to 1868 at nearby Bosque Redondo. History On October 31, 1862, Congress of the ...

, which he purchased from the US government in 1869 when Fort Sumner was abandoned. Maxwell and his family renovated the former officers' quarters into a beautiful Spanish Colonial house surrounding a large inner courtyard. Maxwell died at

in 1875.

Colfax County War

Pat Garrett Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (June 5, 1850February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender and U.S. Customs, customs agent known for killing Billy the Kid. He was the Sheriffs in the United States, sheriff of Lincoln County, New Me ...

killed the outlaw

Billy the Kid Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders: four for which he was solely res ...

at Maxwell's Fort Sumner home in 1881, which was then owned by Pete Maxwell, son of Lucien Maxwell. Legend has it that Billy had a love affair with Pete's sister, Paulita Maxwell (later Jaramillo). Billy was buried a few feet from Lucien Maxwell in Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. After Maxwell sold the grant, the armed struggle between the new owners and squatters came to be known as the

Colfax County War The Colfax County War was a range war that occurred from 1873 to 1888 between settlers and the new owners of the Maxwell Land Grant in Colfax County, in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The war started when the new landowners tried to remove the l ...

. Litigation over whether his land claims were legitimate would continue until 1887 when the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

''Maxwell Land-Grant Case'', 121 U.S. 325, ''rehearing denied'', 122 U.S. 365 (1887). approved a clear title.

Philmont Scout Ranch

Today, the land grant is broken into many private and public landholdings. These large private landholdings include the

Philmont Scout Ranch Philmont Scout Ranch is a ranch located in Colfax County, New Mexico, United States, near the village of Cimarron. Donated by oil baron Waite Phillips, the ranch is owned by Scouting America. It is a high adventure base where crews of Scouts ...

's Vermejo Park Ranch, Chase Ranch, CS Ranch, Express UU Bar Ranch, and the NRA Whittington Center range complex.

References

External links

Clanmaxwellusa.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell, Lucian American people of French-Canadian descent American people of Irish descent Ranchers from New Mexico 19th-century American landowners 19th-century American farmers 1818 births 1875 deaths People from New Mexico Territory Philmont Scout Ranch People from Kaskaskia, Illinois People from Colfax County, New Mexico People from De Baca County, New Mexico