Sallie Chisum

Sallie Lucy Chisum Robert was born May 28, 1858 in Bolivar, Denton County, Texas to James Thomas “Jim” Chisum (1827 – 1908) and Ara Josephine Wright Chisum (1830 – 1875). Jim Chisum was the brother of John Simpson Chisum (1824 – 1884).

John was the oldest son of Claiborne and Elizabeth Chisum and Jim was the next oldest son. Both John and Jim had been born in Tennessee. Claiborne and Lucinda started their family in Tennessee and came to Texas around 1836. Soon afterward, Lucinda died and after a year or two, Claiborne married a widow, Cynthia Henderson Latimer with whom he had several more children.

Jim and Josephine Chisum first resided in North Texas. The couple had five children who lived to be adults: Mary Branch (1855), Sallie Lucy (1858), Walter Pitzer (1861) and William James (1864). Daughter Mary Branch died in 1873. She was married and living in North Texas at the time. According to genealogy records, her death appears to be related to the complications encountered during the birth of their first born son who also died. Jim’s wife Josephine died in 1875 while the family was still living on Buck Creek in Denton County.

Around 1877, Jim relocated to what was then Lincoln County in the New Mexico Territory along with a younger brother (probably a reference to Pitzer or Pitser Chisum) to assist their older brother, cattleman John S. Chisum, in running his ranch southeast of Roswell, New Mexico on the Pecos River. Sallie was still a teenager and was sad to leave her friends and other family when she, her father Jim and her two brothers loaded up the family possessions in three covered wagons and began to head west for the trip of about 500 miles to eastern New Mexico. The trip took nearly a month.

They settled on the Chisum ranch at a place called South Spring. A memoir says that Sallie attended school for two years at Anton Chico (about 150 miles north of Roswell) where she was taught by the daughter of the Presbyterian minister. She was most likely boarding there for about two years.

The Chisum ranch was said to extend for one hundred fifty miles at its peak, mostly along the Pecos River and the headquarters were believed to have been southeast of Roswell. As of 1878, Sallie had become at least acquainted with outlaw Billy the Kid (William Bonney) and some accounts try to link her romantically with him, since he was an employee of the ranch for a short time. There was possibly some early interest between the two, but most likely with the oversight of her family and Uncle John Chisum, nothing became of it. Perhaps due to the lack of having long term success with male relationships in her life, the old infatuation with the outlaw, such as it was, may have given her fond memories as she looked back on it later. For example, she told of Billy the Kid having once having given her two candy hearts.

Sallie was living in New Mexico by the time of the Lincoln County War. Most of the events usually associated with this conflict took place in 1878, but the aftermath continued for several more years. Billy the Kid was killed in April, 1881 by Pat Garrett. John Chisum is usually considered to be a benefactor of Tunstall-McSween side of the conflict, but not an active combatant. Neither Sallie’s father Jim Chisum nor any of that immediate family is believed to have ever been actively involved in the armed conflict.

In January of 1880, Sallie married William M. Robert, born in Germany in 1854 and the couple resided in at least for a while in Anton Chico. The couple was shown as being married in the 1880 census. Sallie was expecting their first child, Reinhardt William, who was born and died in late 1880. The couple had two more sons born in 1881 and 1884 who lived to be adults. Some accounts say that William Robert served as bookkeeper on the Chisum ranch. Other than that, little is known about him. The couple eventually divorced after ten years. William left the area for Kansas. He eventually returned to Germany where he later died.

Sallie was said to be quite comfortable living and working on the ranch. She acquired ranching skills and was able to work alongside the ranch hands. John Chisum was always the head decision maker for the operation, as long as he lived. Chisum was three years older than Jim and began to complain of a growth on his neck and jaw. It continued to get worse and despite an operation and some encouraging developments from time to time, he died of cancer in late 1884. He had no officially acknowledged descendants and is said to have left his ranch to Jim and another brother. However, the timing was unfortunate due to the economic conditions of the day. The once large and profitable ranch was sold off to other parties and the surviving brothers and ranch hands disbursed. Jim and Sallie moved south to the Artesia area and Pitzer returned to Lamar County, Texas.

Sallie’s father, Jim Chisum, died in 1908. By that time both Sallie and her father were living in Artesia. Sallie had married a second time around 1896. Her husband was another person born in Germany, Baldwin Gustav Stegman, and this relationship lasted about ten years. Stegman has been described as a land speculator in New Mexico. The couple had no children. This relationship also ended and Stegman moved to Texas where he remarried and had a family. Stegman died in 1917.

Sallie is not known to have married again and lived for many years in Artesia. She was well known and influential there, leading to her being referred to as the First Lady of Artesia. She is said to have drilled the first artesian water well in the area. During the time that she and Stegman were married, they operated Artesia’s first post office. She acquired a reputation for her civic involvement and her benevolence in providing homes for orphans. The city of Artesia later erected a bronze statue of her.

In her later years, she moved to Roswell, New Mexico. There she was well known and liked. She could speak authoritatively about the pioneer days of that area. In a speech several years before her death, she told of Roswell consisting of a few adobe homes and several more shacks when she first saw it in 1877. A newspaper article in the October 30, 1931 issue of the Roswell Daily Record chronicled one of her speeches. Of Sallie Chisum, they wrote “Years have been many since this little woman came to a new country, but her deeds of kindness and mercy, her sympathy and ministry will long live after the last pioneer has been called to the last roundup.” She died September 12, 1934 and is buried in Southpark Cemetery in Roswell.

© 2023, all rights reserved.