Thomas Catron

The Devil’s Advocate

Thomas Benton Catron was one of the most formidable, controversial, and enduringly influential figures in the history of the American Southwest. A Confederate veteran turned Republican political boss, masterful attorney, and central pillar of the notorious Santa Fe Ring, Catron personified the raw, often ruthless ambition that shaped New Mexico during its territorial era.

Born in Lexington, Missouri, to John and Mary Catron, Thomas was the third of six children. After completing local schooling, he enrolled at the Masonic College in Lexington. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, the twenty year old Catron promptly enlisted in the democrat’s Confederate Army, aligning with pro Southern Democrats. He saw intense combat in Missouri and Arkansas, fighting at Carthage, Wilson’s Creek, the Second Battle of Lexington, and Pea Ridge. Commissioned first lieutenant of the Third Missouri Battery, he later campaigned across Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, ultimately surrendering with his unit at war’s end.

Returning to civilian life, Catron pursued legal studies at the University of Missouri, earning a Master of Arts degree before completing his law training. In 1866-67 he migrated to the newly organized Territory of New Mexico, first settling briefly in Las Cruces, then moving south to Mesilla. To sustain himself while establishing a practice, he transported two wagonloads of flour for sale, an early demonstration of pragmatic resourcefulness.

In Mesilla, Catron co-founded what remains New Mexico’s oldest continuously operating law firm, originally Catron, Catron & Giddings (later Catron, Catron & Glasman, P.A.). Recognizing that Spanish fluency was indispensable in a territory where Hispanic residents dominated the courts and land title system, he immersed himself in grammar texts until he spoke the language fluently.

A former Confederate had slim prospects in Democratic dominated Southern politics, so Catron astutely switched allegiance to the Republican Party, making him, in modern parlance, one of America’s earliest “RINOs (Republicans In Name Only).” Admitted to the territorial bar in 1867, he was immediately elected to the territorial legislature from Doña Ana County. His seating was initially contested, but through a shrewd alliance with Captain Saturnino Baca of Fort Stanton, Catron secured unanimous admission in exchange for sponsoring legislation that created Lincoln County, an early masterstroke of legislative deal making.

In 1869 Governor William Pile appointed him Attorney General of New Mexico Territory, prompting a move to the capital, Santa Fe. Three years later President Grant named him United States Attorney for the territory.

It was in Santa Fe that Catron became the undisputed legal and financial linchpin of the Santa Fe Ring; an extraordinarily powerful syndicate of attorneys, judges, land speculators, politicians, and federal officials whose influence reached the highest levels in Washington. Bound together by mutual interest and outright corruption, the Ring systematically manipulated land grants, courts, taxes, and elections to amass staggering wealth and near total control over New Mexico.

The Ring’s most audacious coup involved the Maxwell Land Grant. Originally confirmed at approximately 96,000 acres, the grant; after creative re-surveying orchestrated by Ring surveyors, ballooning it to nearly two million acres. Delegate Stephen B. Elkins (Catron’s law partner) shepherded congressional confirmation of the enlarged boundaries. Dissenting attorneys were disbarred, courts were packed with Ring loyalists, and opposition newspapers were silenced through libel prosecutions and outright intimidation.

When settlers on the expanded grant protested impending taxation and eviction, Ring controlled legislatures imposed new property taxes. Colfax County courts were summarily closed by Ring leader Supreme Court Justice Joseph G. Palen, forcing defendants to travel to distant Taos. Petitions to Governor Samuel Axtell (himself a Ring member) were met not with relief but with federal troops dispatched to enforce mass evictions. Roughly one thousand families were displaced; those allowed to remain faced ruinous taxes, most of which flowed directly into Ring coffers.

Critics met grim fates. Newspaperman Simeon Newman, after publishing exposés in his Las Vegas Weekly Mail, was indicted for criminal libel by Catron personally, imprisoned for 64 days until bankrupt, and forced to sell his paper. Methodist minister Rev. Thomas J. Tolby of Cimarron began denouncing Ring corruption from the pulpit and threatened to take his evidence to Eastern newspapers. On September 2nd 1875 Reverend Tolby, was found dead on the road. He had been shot through the heart. The murder was blamed on two New Mexicans, known as Vega and Cardenas. The two became frightened and claimed they were hired by Ring Rats; Griego, Donahoe, Longwill, and Mills to kill Priest Tolby.
A well organized mob formed and settled for the satisfaction of hand delivered karma by stringing the murderers up. Vega was then taken and hanged by a mob. The other man, Griego, was also killed but at the hands of Clay Allison, who later became an avenger and enemy of The Ring….. Longwill and Mills were arrested by a mob. Mills was discharged with no evidence, Longwill and Cardenas were held in jail. Cardenas was visited in jail by Ring operatives and changed his testimony, and “forgot” everything of the killing after his partner Longwill was shot and killed while going back into the jail from the privy.

When Newman’s detailed letter detailing Ring crimes appeared in the New York Sun in August 1875, the Ring promptly banned its distribution inside New Mexico. The territorial legislature later passed the draconian “Omnibus Law,” effectively criminalizing criticism of Ring members and granting authorities sweeping censorship powers.

Catron’s personal ruthlessness surfaced in attempted bribes. In one documented incident he offered legislator August Kirchner $250 per vote to sustain a gubernatorial veto protecting Justice Palen. When Kirchner refused, he received a summons from Stephen Elkins that he wisely ignored, later testifying against the Ring, only to be vilified in the Ring controlled press as a liar.

The Ring’s reach extended deep into Lincoln County through the “Murphy/Dolan faction,” a mercantile and political machine tied to Fort Stanton contracts. After Lawrence G. Murphy’s death, James Dolan and John Riley inherited the operation, which became embroiled in the bloody Lincoln County War. Heavily indebted to Catron, Dolan mortgaged everything; store, stock, even inkwells to his Santa Fe creditor. Catron, in turn, used his influence with Governor Axtell and territorial officials to tilt law enforcement decisively against John Chisum, John Tunstall the Regulators, and their attorney Alexander McSween. The war culminated in the burning of the McSween house in Lincoln in July 1878, with federal troops standing by while McSween and others were killed.

Despite the national scandal the Lincoln County War generated, Catron’s power remained largely intact. He continued to dominate Republican politics, serving multiple terms in the territorial council (1884, 1888, 1894-97, 1899, 1905), as president of the New Mexico Bar Association (1895–96), and as mayor of Santa Fe (1906–08).

On April 28, 1877, Catron married Julia Anna Walz of Minnesota. The couple had five sons: John Walton, Charles Christopher, Thomas Benton Jr., Fletcher Arthur, and James Walz. At the wedding, Julia’s brother, Edgar Walz made an impression on Catron and was offered a job with The Ring. He accepted and would soon move to New Mexico and start his career and family.

Julia Walz-Catron died in 1909, and in 1920, for some dumb reason, the University of Missouri honored her widowed husband, Catron, with an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree.

Thomas Benton Catron died in Santa Fe on May 15, 1921, at age eighty one. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery beneath a modest stone that belies the sweeping, often dark legacy he left across the landscape and law of New Mexico, a legacy of brilliant legal intellect wedded to unyielding ambition, and of a territorial era when vast fortunes and absolute power were forged in the crucible of the Santa Fe Ring.