Thomas Edward ("Black Jack") Ketchum (October 31, 1863-April 26,
1901) was executed for an attempt to hold up the C. & S. train
between Des Moines and Folsom in the northeaster corner of New
Mexico. His other daring deeds as a desperado were not considered
by the court. Ketchum was to be made an example in an effort to
prevent further robberies as well as to prove to the rest of the
nation that New Mexico knew how to deal with outlaws like Black
Jack. Actually the hanging proved nothing. Rustlers, robbers, and
outlaws continued on their merry way. Looking back over Ketchum's
misdeeds, which were many, his misplaced bravery outshone the more
widely known Billy the Kid who never came within range of Ketchum
for daring, nerve, and hard riding. Ketchum, whose career began as
an humble horse thief, wrote his own ticket with tragic results.
The truth about Ketchum reads like fiction and the author shows no
signs of embellishment in his account. F. Stanley (Father Stanley
Francis Louis Crocchiola) was a history buff whose curiosity and
inner fire drew him to the study of people and places and events
that had gone unnoticed until he saw them. It has been said that he
wandered across the American Southwest like a Johnny Appleseed of
history, planting seedlings in the form of booklets and leaving
their later nurturing to others. "An easterner by birth but a
southwesterner at heart, Father Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola
had as many vocations as names," says his biographer, Mary Jo
Walker. "As a young man, he entered the Catholic priesthood and for
nearly half a century served his church with great zeal in various
capacities, attempting to balance the callings of teacher, pastor,
historian and writer." With limited money or free time, he also
managed to write and publish one hundred and seventy-seven books
and booklets pertaining to his adopted region under his nom de
plume, F. Stanley, The initial in that name does not stand for
Father, as many have assumed, but for Francis, which Louis
Crocchiola took, with the name Stanley, at the time of his
ordination as Franciscan friar in 1938. All of F. Stanley's titles
have now reached the status of expensive collector's items. This
new edition in Sunstone's Southwest Heritage Series includes a new
foreword by Marc Simmons, an excerpt from F. Stanley's biography by
Mary Jo Walker, and a tribute to F. Stanley by Jack D. Rittenhouse
(also from the biography).
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