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Published: September 13th 2019
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Doc Scurlock
Right when you drive in to cemetery, just past the gate, there is a directory and a pathway leading to the gravesites of the notable folks who are buried there. Doc's grave is less than a hundred feet from where the pathway begins. Folks in Eastland prefer to call him Josiah, not Doc. DOC SCURLOCK Josiah Gordon Scurlock burst forth amongst us on January 11, 1850 down in Tallapoosa County, Alabama. He was the sixth of eleven children born to Priestly Norman Scurlock and Esther Ann Brown. His pals started in calling him Doc Scurlock when they heard that he had once briefly studied medicine in New Orleans. Probably he didn’t though. What seems more likely are the accounts from 1868 that mention Doc got into a heated argument with a brother-in-law over a calf in Tennessee and the brother-in-law was killed. Doc had to flee to South America because of it and he eventually made his way back through Mexico. Some accounts credit Doc with killing a card cheat in Mexico in 1870, but that has not been verified any more than medical school has been.
He came to roost in 1871 as a cowboy riding for John Chisum on the Pecos River in New Mexico. In 1873 Doc and a fellow named Jack Holt got themselves into a scrape with a surly band of Indians and Holt was killed. Doc finally managed to kill their leader and make his escape, but it was a close call. When they came back with shovels to bury Holt his remains had been mutilated and the right forearm could not be found. Coyotes made off with it maybe. In September of 1875 Doc’s pal, Newt Higgins, had also been killed by surly Indians and Doc decided to quit the cowboy trade. Chisum refused to pay him though, so Doc stole three of Chisum’s horses, two of Chisum’s saddles, and a rifle and made for Arizona. He was quickly chased down by former colleagues but when he explained to them that Chisum refused to pay the back wages due they let him go with the kindest of blessings.
In Arizona Doc met a fellow named Charlie Bowdre and they started up a cheese factory on the Gila River. When the cheese business failed in the spring of 1876 Doc and Charlie moved back to New Mexico and bought a small cattle ranch on credit from the L. G. Murphy Company in Lincoln County. Other small ranchers on the Rio Ruidoso were Frank and George Coe, Dick Brewer, Frank McNab, and Ab Saunders. All of those small ranchers came to have reason to dislike the Murphy Company monopoly.
A fellow named Juan Largo found himself in the custody of Lincoln County Sheriff Saturnino Baca on charges of cattle rustling. On July 18, 1876 Doc and Charlie, along with the Coe Brothers and Saunders, decided to break Largo out of jail and lynch him outside of town. Apparently Largo had been stealing their cattle.
On September 2, 1876 Doc was up at Blazer’s Mill inspecting a pistol in Riley’s Store and it accidently fired killing the store manager, Mike Harkins. Who would have thought that Harkins would keep a loaded gun on display?
On October 19, 1876 Doc and Maria Antonia Miguela Herrera were married in Lincoln. The happy couple would raise ten children together. Shortly thereafter Charlie Bowdre married Antonia’s sister, Manuela Herrera.
Throughout 1877 Doc and Charlie rode in pursuit of several stock thieves. Those they caught were generally lynched without arrest. As events transpired leading up to the Lincoln County War the small ranchers along the Rio Ruidoso had cause to resent both the Murphy/Dolan monopoly and the administration of justice by Sheriff Brady. In February of 1878 a sheriff’s posse murdered John Tunstall and warfare broke out in Lincoln County. The small ranchers joined a group of Regulators who were deputized by a justice of the peace and went in pursuit of members of the posse that killed Tunstall. They were bankrolled by Alex McSween, who was a business partner of John Tunstall and a political rival of the Murphy/Dolan faction. The Murphy/Dolan faction was backed by the corrupt Santa Fe Ring. On April 4 Doc was wounded in the leg in a fight with Buckshot Roberts at Blazer’s Mill. Buckshot was killed, but so were Dick Brewer and Frank McNab. Buckshot was thought to be member of the posse that killed Tunstall. The regulators ran down Deputies Morton and Baker, who were definitely members of the posse. They were taken into custody and then murdered before they could be lynched. Sheriff Brady was ambushed and killed by regulators outside of Tunstall’s Store in Lincoln. The war pretty much culminated when the Regulators were cornered in McSween’s house and put under siege by Sheriff George Peppin. The siege ended when the army took sides with the sheriff he set the house on fire and it burned to the ground. Many of the Regulators escaped into the night. Doc was an active participant among the Regulators until it became apparent to him that there was no future in it. He then gathered up his family and went to Texas where he became a highly respected member of the community. The 1880 census shows him as postmaster. Doc went up the flume in Eastland, Texas in 1929. At the time he was sprightly 80 year old serving on the county road department. Ironically the Santa Fe Ring foreclosed on indebtedness incurred by the Murphy/Dolan faction and when the dust settled the corrupt politicians owned all of the chips.
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