Voices
of the Past
The performances of Voices of the Past is held in the simulated
Cedarvale Cemetery. This is a live presentation that portrays prominent
citizens who lived in White Oaks and are buried in the nearby Cedarvale
Cemetery.
John
Burchem Slack - John was born in Kentucky. He had a shady
past before he appeared in White Oaks in 1880. He first
worked as a stage driver for the Ozanne Hotel, and then he used his
carpentry
skills to build coffins. This led to his final career as the town’s
undertaker. Slack was a member of
the Masonic Lodge and a bachelor. He lived quietly in White Oaks until
his
death on
July 26, 1896. Slack left an estate valued at $1,600. He left no clue
about his share of the
$600,000 from the great “Diamond Hoax”.
Jack Winters - Jack was one of
the first miners to file a claim on Baxter Mountain with his partners
John Baxter and John Wilson in 1879. They discovered the Homestake Gold
Mine, the one that “made” White Oaks. The gold mine made Winters a rich
man. The people of White Oaks loved him for his friendly ways and his
enthusiasm for the “Big Strike”. Jack died of pneumonia on January 21,
1887.
Robert Leslie - Robert and
family arrived in Lincoln County in 1883, homesteading in Texas Park.
He made a living for his wife and ten children by raising cattle, with
a little side business of making moonshine. Leslie built an adobe brick
home that is still in use today. It has four rooms downstairs and one
large room upstairs, and no hallways. It had an adobe chimney and three
big fireplaces. He passed away in February 1932.
William C. McDonald - William
was born in New York State in 1858. He taught school and studied law
before coming west in 1880. McDonald married Frances Tarbell and helped
her raise her children from a previous marriage. McDonald served 10
years as deputy US Mineral Surveyor for New Mexico, and then in 1890 he
became the manager for the Carrizo Cattle Ranch. He later took full
control of the El Capitan Live-stock Company, and thus managed two of
the largest holdings in New Mexico. Later, he bought both outfits and
turned the management over to his son-in-law, T.A. Spencer. On November
7, 1911, he was elected Governor of New Mexico, and thus became the
first Governor after statehood in 1912. After leaving office in January
1917, he served the US war effort in WWI by working as a “dollar a
year” man in the coal industry until he was suddenly taken ill and died
in April 1918.
Susan McSween Barber - With her
husband Alexander McSween, Susan moved from Kansas to Lincoln, NM in
1875. They arrived penniless, but were driven by “the fire of
ambition.” Alexander declared that he would “make his El Dorado” in
Lincoln and quickly allied himself with John Tunstall in commercial
ventures. McSween was killed on July 19, 1878 when his house in Lincoln
was besieged by a posse engaged by the Dolan-Murphy faction in the
Lincoln County War. The widowed Susan stayed for a short time in
Lincoln. She took what she could salvage from the McSween estate, and
together with a gift of cattle from John Chisum, began a ranching
venture of her own at Three Rivers. In 1884 she married attorney George
Barber but kept her ranching business separate from his assets. She
divorced Barber in 1891 and sold her Three Rivers Ranch in 1900. She
moved to White Oaks and remained there until her death in 1931.
David L. Jackson - Dave came to
White Oaks in 1897 and worked in the gold mines. He married his beloved
wife Mary, and they lived in White Oaks until their deaths. Mary lived
from 1869 - 1954, and Dave from 1870 - 1963. Jackson was
self-taught and took hours of correspondence courses. He was the
secretary/ treasurer of the Wildcat Leasing Company, helping to bring
electricity to Lincoln County. Dave took care of the sick and was the
caretaker of the Cedarvale Cemetery. He was loved and by all.
Jane Malcolm Gallacher - Jane
was born in Scotland in 1856. She came to the US in 1871, married
William Gallacher in Illinois in 1876, and moved to New Mexico in 1879.
In 1887 the family moved to White Oaks where William worked in the
mines and Jane ran the Ozanne Hotel. William was killed in a mining
accident in 1893, leaving Jane with three children and pregnant with a
fourth. Jane and her mother ran the Gallacher Boarding House in White
Oaks for 26 years. Her sons later homesteaded at Indian Tanks, and she
moved there after her mother died in 1913. She
died peacefully in 1949 at the age of 93.
Melvin G. Paden, MD - Dr. Paden
was born in Paden Valley, West Virginia and came to White Oaks in 1880,
at the beginning of the boom times. He married Belle Williams in 1886.
They had two sons, Morgan and Dr. Melvin Paden, Jr. Paden was one of
the town’s two doctors. He opened a drug store on White Oaks Avenue and
operated it until 1906. He then moved to Carrizozo and was a General
Practitioner and Chief of the railroad hospital. He was appointed
Division Surgeon of the El Paso and Southern
Railroad. He died at the age of 92, having outlived
his wife and two sons.
John Y. Hewitt and
lawyer.
In January 1884, Hewitt and his partners, H.B. Ferguson and William
Watson, located two claims that were known collectively as the Old Abe
Mine. - John was born
in Ohio in 1836. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War and
came to White Oaks in 1880. He was a newspaper editor He assumed
management of the mine and leadership of town affairs
in general, and he ushered in an era of general employment and
prosperity in White Oaks. Hewitt also served as an
officer of the White Oaks Bank, even after it moved to Carrizozo in
1907. The Old Abe shut down shortly after the turn of the century, but
Mr. Hewitt remained in White Oaks and died in 1930 at the age of 94.
Old Abe Mine Disaster - March
28, 1895 at 3 am, there was a fire in the Old Abe Mine. It happened
just two years after the South Homestake fire. Eleven men made it to
the surface, but eight men died from smoke and suffocation. Their
graves are marked with one headstone. No one knows for sure who is
buried in which grave. That Saturday was a terribly sad day for White
Oaks.
A Memorial to
John Davis
W.J. Williams
George Baxter
Jerry Conover
Frank Wilson
Frank White
Charles Sherrick
W.B. Mitchell
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Page created February 19, 2005
Last update February 19, 2005