Fort Sumner Lolita: The Censored Recollections of Dr. Henry Hoyt

Dr. Henry Hoyt is a well-known character among Billy the Kid enthusiasts, due to his experiences with the Kid around 1878 in the small Texas frontier town of Tascosa. His recollections of this time are found in his book, Frontier Doctor, published in 1929.

Dr. Hoyt tells his readers how he won a ladies’ watch in a game of poker, and made a present of it to Billy, who in turn rewarded Hoyt with a fine racing horse.

According to Hoyt, Billy was interested in the watch because he wanted to give it to his sweetheart back in New Mexico. Nowhere in his book does Hoyt disclose exactly who this sweetheart is. He gives her the name of “Lolita,” and only says she is a resident of Fort Sumner, about fifteen years of age.

Whether, by 1929, someone requested that Dr. Hoyt provide fuzzy details to readers about the identity of this New Mexican “Lolita,” or if he made the decision himself to be so ambiguous, his recollections were not as veiled seven years prior.

In the October 14th edition of the Saturday Evening Post, in 1922, Dr. Hoyt tells us the following:

“We arrived at Sumner, I think, in October, 1877…The fort was then owned and occupied by what was left of the famous Maxwell family…We rested up there for several days, and the entire family were exceptionally nice to us…I got well acquainted with the youngest daughter. I cannot remember her name, but she was about fifteen and a beauty, and was the magnet that was the final undoing of Billy the Kid. She would change her dress several times a day – she always wore silk – and with a chaperone parade up and down near our camp, usually pretending she did not see us.”

Comparing these two accounts, it is easy to identify Paulita Maxwell as the Kid’s love interest in Sumner. This is a relationship that is occasionally disputed by some, but examining Hoyt’s recollections may help cast more light on the reliability of this assumption.

Hoyt states in Frontier Doctor that the Kid “told me about his romance with a little New Mexican beauty, none other than Senorita Lolita whom I had met at Fort Sumner on the Pecos River.”

By 1929, Hoyt removed any connection of this “Lolita” to the Maxwell family. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to assume that this was done at the request of parties involved (Paulita herself, perhaps). However, it’s clear from the Post article that this “Lolita” was, in fact, Paulita Maxwell, and one more reason we can safely assume that much of the official narrative around the death of Billy the Kid was constructed protect this young girl’s reputation.