What the Brits are Doing for the West
Experts on Billy the Kid, Wild Bill and others are on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
By: Frederick Nolan 01/01/2007
Back in those faraway times before the dawning of the Internet, problems were in profusion. Like never being less than 5,000 miles away from the scenes and sources, the libraries and museums and repositories; like having to wait … and wait … for replies to hopeful airmail letters to distant—and often fledgling—historical societies. The answer to any question—even if answered immediately, and even if the answer was merely ‘no’—could take between 14 and 40 days to come back. There were no interlibrary loans and, even if you had the money, buying American books was a longwinded business involving bank drafts and government permission to send money out of the country. If you wanted newspapers, army records, microfilms, maps or photographs, there was only one way to get them: track down the appropriate folks, ask nicely and smile when they sent you the bill.
Most of all what it took to research the American West from Britain was an unusual amount of persistence and determination—which sometimes resulted, as Joe Rosa recalls, in not inconsiderable personal sacrifice. “In hindsight, I could say that my selfish pursuit of Hickok and other Western characters and events was ill-judged, for it served to severely restrict my social life (including romances!), but I am also aware that unless one is single-minded when pursuing an ambition, it rarely leads to success. What made it all worthwhile was the opportunity to meet and become accepted by the Hickok family, and to share material never seen outside family circles.”
Bob Wybrow also confesses his research over a 40-year period militated against “interest in other things and people.” “I daren’t think about how much time and money I have put into the three Rs of research, reflection and revision,” says Jeff Burton, adding “but in the end, such considerations are of small account.” I agree. There is no reward quite like the feeling you get when—sometimes after only weeks, but more often years—you find the fact, the authenticated photograph, the irreversible, undeniable truth that changes, or finally defines, history.
With a Little Help from Our Friends
Despite the many differences in the subjects we have all chosen to study and the way we present our work, one thing we all emphasize is the help, advice and encouragement we have received over the years from American friends and mentors. Oh, sure, there’ll always be the genealogist who promises to check censuses for you as soon as she receives your $100 deposit, or a relative who will happily tell you all the family stuff you want to know—the moment she gets your check—but then there are those wonderful people you encounter, the ones who love the history just as much as you do and can’t wait to share what they know with you.
The wonderful people who came into Allan Radbourne’s life were the late Dan L. Thrapp, Constance Wynn Atshuler and former Arizona Historical Society research librarian Lori Davisson, a lady to whom many of us remain indebted to this day.
Roy O’Dell names Philip J. Rasch, Richard Patterson and William B. Secrest, Sr.; I have a quartet of New Mexican historians to thank: Maurice Garland Fulton, Robert N. Mullin, William A. Keleher and, inevitably perhaps, Phil Rasch. Bob Wybrow credits Carl Breihan as an early influence and later William Settle, Marley Brant and Ted Yeatman, adding that there is “nobody who can compare with John Koblas for the sheer amount he has produced on the [Northfield] raid.”
Echoing Jeff Burton, who also calls him “the writer whose work influenced and stimulated my early aspirations more than any other,” Joe Rosa names Leland “Doc” Sonnichsen as a major influence. “He encouraged me to look at both sides of an argument and not to tell the reader what to think.... And when one actually put pen to paper, to use words that did not need a dictionary to follow.”
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