Joe Grant - Fort Sumner, NM - Homemade Tombstones on Waymarking.com

William Bonney, known as Billy the Kid, was a notorious outlaw and gunslinger who killed eight men before he himself was shot at the age of 21. One of those was Joe Grant. His hand-carved wooden grave marker reads

JOE
GRANT
SHOT
JAN 10
1880
BY WM
BONNEY
According to the Wikipedia article linked below, Grant came to Fort Sumner intending to kill Bonney. Bonney approached Grant and, admiring his gun, asked to see it. Noting that the gun contained only three cartridges, Bonney surreptitiously moved the cylinder so that an empty chamber would be under the hammer on the next shot. After retrieving his gun, Grant then aimed at Bonney's head and pulled the trigger - with no effect - and Bonney then drew and shot Grant in the head, killing him.

Grant is interred in a small cemetery in Fort Sumner Park. Billy the Kid was shot and killed in Fort Sumner the next year; his grave, encased in an iron cage, is nearby.

Shortly after Billy the Kid was buried, a rainstorm washed away most of the wooden grave markers. The permanent headstones seen here today for deaths prior to that time are, for the most part, replacements. This is one of the very few original wooden markers that remain in this cemetery.

Date of Birth: Unknown Date of Death: January 10, 1880 Material: Wood Web Site: [Web Link]

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