Tag: Stephen W. Kearny

A Pretty Little House

A Pretty Little House

When Stephen W. Kearny’s Army of the West marched from Missouri to New Mexico in Summer 1846, they were trailed by a number of non-military wagons, most of them driven by merchants. One of these men was Samuel Magoffin, who brought along his wife of seven months, Susan Shelby Magoffin.

Once they reached Santa Fe, the Magoffins rented an adobe house that Susan called “quite a nice little place” with four rooms that included the kitchen, “our own chamber, [a] storage room, and the reception room,” or sala,  which Susan described as a combination parlor, dining room, and “room of all work.”

She also said the house entrance opened into a courtyard with portals all around, so apparently this was the typical four-sided square with doors opening into a plazuela. The portals around this space provided shaded workspaces as well as areas for resting and relaxing.

The Magoffins’ reception room was long and narrow, typical of a sala, and had a dirt floor, plank ceiling, and white-washed walls. The lower part of the walls was covered with calico cloth, which protected the occupants from getting whitewash on their clothes. The parlor end of the room contained cushioned benches and woven black-and-white“Mexican carpeting,” probably jerga. The “naked floor” at the end of the room held a dining table and chairs.

Susan described the bedroom as “a nice cool little room, with two windows, which we can darken, or make light at pleasure.” I take this to mean the windows had shutters which could be opened and shut from inside. She doesn’t say whether the windows had glass in them. Glazed windows were pretty rare in New Mexico at the time, though it seems likely that a Kentucky-bred young woman would have been startled by the lack of them and mentioned her surprise. The fact that the house ceilings were plank, not perpendicular or herring-bone pattern latillas, indicates the building may have been constructed with American sensibilities in mind. If that’s the case, there very well might have been glass in the window openings.

A latilla ceiling, still seen in New Mexico homes. Photo courtesy of OlquinsSawmill.com

The flat roof did leak at one point. On Tuesday, September 22, Kearney and a couple officers had come for a visit and were about to leave when a thunderstorm hit. Rather than brave the storm, the visitors remained in their seats and “we continued in pleasant and merry chat,” Susan reports, “when suddenly the rain came pating onto the General, from the ceiling … Soon we were leaking all around, the mud roof coming with the water.” The damage must have not been too terrible. Young Mrs. Magoffin was out and about with the General the next day, taking a tour of Fort Marcy.

The little house would be Susan’s home for another couple weeks, until the Magoffins headed south on October 7, leaving the “nice little place” behind. Susan would not live anywhere for long, until 1852, when she and Samuel settled in Kirkwood, Missouri, where she died after giving birth to her third child.  

            © Loretta Miles Tollefson, June 2025

Sources: Audra Bellmore, Old Santa Fe Today; Bainbridge Bunting, Early Architecture in New Mexico; Sheila Drumm, editor, Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico, Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847; John E. Sunder, ed., Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail; El Rancho de los Golondrinas Guidebook; Chimayo Museum, Chimayo, New Mexico.

Two Robidoux Brothers Become Mexican Citizens

On Friday, July 17, 1829, Antoine and Louis Robidoux of Missouri became naturalized citizens of Mexico, thus beginning a long and somewhat fruitful association.

Antoine and Louis were two of six brothers, all of them involved in one aspect or another of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. Becoming Mexican citizens made good business sense, because trapping licenses for non-citizens were at times non-existent.

Antoine, who was 35 years old in 1829, had been in New Mexico since 1822. He’d spent the previous two years trapping and trading with the Sioux and his application for citizenship may have been prompted by the fact that he’d married a New Mexican woman in 1828 and it was time to settle down. Or he may have wanted to get involved in local politics. Antoine’s citizenship made him eligible to be elected 1st alcalde and regidor (councilman) of Santa Fe in late 1830 and three years later to serve as 3rd alcalde of Santa Fe and a member of the Santa Fe Commission for forming election districts.

 

He was also busy making money. During the 1830s, Antoine purchased a mine in the Santa Fe area. He also built Fort Uinta (aka Fort Robidoux) and Fort Uncompahgre in what is now Colorado and used them as a base for trade with the Indians and the trappers in the area.

July 17 illustration.Antoine-Robidoux inscription

However, in 1844, both forts were attacked by Utes and a number of men were killed and women captured. These events seem to have curbed Antoine’s enthusiasm for the frontier life. He left for Missouri shortly thereafter.

But he came back. Eschewing his Mexican citizenship, Antoine served with Col. Stephen Watts Kearny as an interpreter during the 1846 U.S. advance on New Mexico and remained with him during the California campaign which followed. After the war, Antoine returned to Missouri, where he died in 1860.

Louis Robidoux, on the other hand, seems to have remained loyal to his Mexican citizenship. Much of his early career mirrored Antoine’s. He arrived in New Mexico about the same time (probably 1823), married a New Mexican woman (Guadalupe Garcia in 1834), and participated in Santa Fe politics, where he served as first alcalde in 1839. He also participated in various moneymaking schemes, including operating a grist mill and iron works in Santa Fe.

July 17 illustration.Louis Robidoux

And he also left New Mexico. But instead of heading back to Missouri, Louis went to California, a move reportedly bankrolled by a $30,000 win in a Santa Fe card game. He arrived in California with a group of Mexican traders in 1843 and remained there until his death in 1868.

He settled in what would become San Bernardino County, where he set up a large livestock operation and planted orchards, wine vineyards, and a grist mill. He was also involved in politics, becoming the first San Bernardino County Supervisor. The City of Rubidoux, the Louis Robidoux Library, various streets, and Mount Rubidoux are all named after him.

Leroy R. Hafen, Fur Traders and Trappers of the Far Southwest, Logan: Utah State University Press, 1997; David J. Weber, The Taos trappers, the fur trade in the far Southwest, 1540-1846, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971.

Two American Governors for New Mexico

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1846, just over a month after Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny seized New Mexico for the United States, he appointed Virginia-born Taos businessman Charles Bent as New Mexico’s first American civil governor. When Kearny and the majority of his 1700-man force headed on to California to participate in acquiring it as well, Colonel Sterling Price, as senior U.S. Army officer in New Mexico, became its military governor.

Sept 22 illustration.Bent

Bent had been in Nuevomexico since 1829, first as a fur trapper, then as a Santa Fe trail trader based in Taos. He occupied his post as Governor less than four months. In mid-January 1847, he died at the hands of a New Mexican mob protesting the American occupation.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, Colonel Price, supported heavily by American businessmen and trappers in New Mexico, crushed that rebellion and assured that New Mexico would remain part of the United States.

Sept 22 illustration.Price

Ironically, Price’s own career would include participation in an even larger rebellion against the nation he had helped to force on New Mexico. Following a term as Governor of Missouri, he joined the Confederate Army, rising to the level of General. He died on September 29, 1867, almost exactly 21 years after he took over as military governor of New Mexico.

Sources: Leroy R. Hafen, Ed., Fur Trappers and Traders of the Far Southwest,  Logan: Utah State UP, 1977; Marc Simmons, New Mexico, an interpretive history, Albuquerque, UNM Press, 1988