What ever happened to Willie Boy.....

If you pull all the narratives from the various family histories, this is a great story for future generations to study. No need to decide how accurate one story is over another since, as you say, memories fade and narratives change over time. The days of perfectly memorizing history are gone but we can still learn from the narratives.

saw the grave site yesterday. It is pretty cool but is has a chain link fence around the headstone plaque. I took a picture. My question is did he die there or is this a relocated grave? I did not see anyone patrolling the roads or chasing my quad

Hi I just ran across these comments on Willie Boy and I Just wanted to add information to these postings. first of all the information about Charlie Reche is correct who was part of the San Bernardino County Sheriff Posse and he was shot in the leg during the scuffle in Landers area. I recieved this information from a long time family friend and Charlie Reche's grandson Morgan Reche who used to be a resident of Yucca Valley and the Reche homestead @ Goat Mountain in Landers. Morgan now resides in Idaho where I also lived and worked with him before moving to Yucca Valley where my wife grew up 22yrs ago. Morgan was generally contacted anytime people were doing a story on Willie Boy and was in Landers at the dedication of the Willie Boy Monument.Morgan also has a oil painting of Charlie Reche hanging in his home which i always commented on how much Charlie resembled the late actor Jason Robards. hope this information helps

i live in banning and i was talking to our mailman and found out that his great grandfather was charles reche. (from the posse)

This has been an interesting series of comments and, while I find the differing versions interesting, it is truly a shame that there has not been more recognition of the tragedy caused by what seems to be a basic clash of cultures, which began with a parent's disapproval of his daughters suitor. Whether Willie Boy acted in self-defense, or killed the father out of spiteful willfulness, it remains clear that the prejudice and animosity directed toward the indian population was sufficient to create a lethal environment, which resulted in the tragic death of a young couple in love.... THAT is the context and reality that has been lost, but should remain the true focus of this unfortunate event in our recent history.

We were out visiting the grave site on 10/4/2009.
We had no trouble getting to the grave site. Get a topo map, the roads are clearly marked.
From Highway 247 in Landers, (There is a yellow sign on 247 for New dixie Mine Road) head west on New Dixie Mine Road about 6 miles to a road heading north
There is a metal post at the junction. Head north to the end of the road about 3 miles. The grave site is fenced off. A picnic table is nearby as well.
DO NOT drive past the wilderness boundary as others have. We saw a ranger on patrol. We walked in the last 2.5 miles. The day was cool but on hot days you better carry water. Not as level as others have noted. But an easy 90 minutes each way.

Only Mike Boniface was killed in the incident. It was the "yellow press" reporters who sensationalized Willie into being a drunken serial murder and into Carlota being shot in the breast by Willie Boy after a savage drunken rage rape and beating. The possie member was not killed, just wounded badly and survied much to everyone's suprise and relief. Carlota was shot from behind from a distance of approx 100 feet. She was wearing Willy Boy's jacket and it is generally concluded that she was mistakenly shot by John Hyde, who thought she was Willy Boy from that distance of viewing.

He killed 2 people, even indians understood that. None of them diserved that, even white people, understand that.So under either culture, he was, and is a killer so get over it. A killer is a killer...................

To those interested in Willie Boy - I would encourage my friends here to take a broader view of the acts of 25 september 1909. eThe whole Willie Boy incident is treated by white people as some sort of detective case instead of a culture clash. No one mentions the fact that Swift Fox or Willie Boy was an Indians. He danced the "Ghost Dance" dance with Wokova a Paiute. who had a vision of the meeting of the alive and dead Indians coming together. The return of the Buffalo. Swift Fox/ Willie Boy believed in the after life. Nothing is mention of the desperate plight of the Indians. The genocide of the Indians like "Wounded Knee". The total disregard of our native brothers but the US government.

The Indians Lost the War but in their losing they find Pride. The whites Won the War but in their winning they find Shame.

Geronimo was held as prisoner of War of 22 years at Fort Still Ok. Not one confederate was ever held as a prisoner of war. Why one law for the Indians another for the whites.

This will be further studied beginning at the HiDesert Playhouse on September 18 till October 3 in the Production of Swift Fox the Conflicting stories of Willie Boy. Please join us there will be a discussion every night after the performance.

yours sincerely,

Ron House

Of course, Willie Boy is not buried there, because he escaped and lived elsewhere for many years. But the site from the New Dixie Mine Road [have never found the "mine"] is through wilderness area and one has to pass a barrier to get there now. I am wondering about the road in the ravine below it, which heads off to the left, which is seemingly where the posse was - how do you get in to that road? I came in that way many years ago, but I can't recall how I got there.

I drove to Willie Boy's gravesite in January 2009 and didn't encounter any barriers on either route in or out. Info on my visit can be read here: http://ronslog.typepad.com/ronslog/2009/01/willie-boy.html.

Reference the comment about Sheriff Wilson, it can be verified by going to www.riversidesheriff.org and clicking on the "History" section under Departmental Information. 

Sorry guys, the Sheriff at the time of this incident was Frank P. Wilson, Riverside County's fourth Sheriff, who served from 1907-1923.

Willie Boy returned just hours after Carlota had been shot and spotted the posse in the Pipes. Unaware that Carlota was dead, he tried to protect her by leading the posse away, north into Ruby Mountain.

There, he pinned them down in an ambush from a rock pile. Firing away, Willie Boy killed three horses and wounded another. Two bullets lodged in one deputy's hip and thigh.

In an exchange of shouting between gunfire, the lawmen accused Willie Boy of brutally murdering Carlota because she had slowed his flight.

Then there was nothing but silence.

When the moon rose, the five posse members hoisted the wounded deputy into the saddle of the surviving horse and started back to Banning for a doctor. But before they got very far, they heard one last shot in the night.

Distraught over Carlota's death and wanting to join her in the afterlife, Willie Boy had taken off his shoe, put the rifle barrel against his chest and squeezed the trigger with his toe. The weary lawmen, hearing the shot, suspected he had killed himself but didn't go back to find out.
The press refused to believe Willie Boy was dead or to let a good story die. Hoping to raise circulation with white fears of a reckless Indian still on the loose, reporters trumped up rumors of a presidential assassination plot.
The timing was perfect. President William Howard Taft was scheduled to arrive in San Bernardino and Riverside counties as part of a national trip to buoy his presidential image.

Taft's visit--along with the fact that his nickname was Billie Boy, an eerie echo of the young Indian's--spurred men to form a larger posse to find either Willie Boy or his body
On Oct. 15, eight days after Willie Boy's death and three days after Taft's train rolled out of Riverside without incident, the posse found Willie Boy's badly decomposed body at the ambush site on Ruby Mountain. They burned his body on the rocks where it lay.

It's easy 100 years later to judge the career building of others but let's face afew facts:
He did kill Mike
He did run off with Mike's daughter to escape justice.
He did shoot at a posse and kill their horses and one member of the posse.
He possibly killed the girl
If he did kill himself it adds to the saleability of his story.
So I doubt he was an innocent. He obviously did not care who he hurt as long as he took what he wanted.

If we can't tell the story of others without being judged then let's just stop teaching history because every teacher of history (including my son) makes a career that way.
as for injustices those so often in the telling or the eye of the beholder. Do the victims feel an injustice was done to the perpetrator or to their loved ones?

I heard Willie boy escaped the posse and actually died near Las Vegas in the 20's, I really hope that's the truth, as the injusticies done to him still continue to be done to others today to further careers on the bodies of innocents.

It sounds like the indians were smokin that pipe a bit too much!

Do you know the GPS coordinates for the plaque ??? Is it somewhere that one might be able to hike to ??

Thankx

Historik

A lot of the information i use for my stories is from my extremely large family and their recollections of events and other sources i locate....The story of WILLIE BOY or Billy boy comes from my talks with my dad and most recently my uncle Le Roy who says his dad was in the chase as an indain scout....Families memories fade with time, and my uncle is 82.

 I welcome your correction as it adds to the story....perhaps you have a different view altogether....i would enjoy reading it and comparing....thanks for your contibution to the IE.  theghostpainter

I don't understand your article.  You refer to the Sheriff as Cooper.  Are you talking about the movie?  There was no Cooper in the manhunt.  My grandfather was Ben de Crevecoeur.  I have never heard from anyone (including a relative of Willie Boy's) that Old Mike was beating Isoleta and that Willie (or rather Billie Boy, which was his real name) had stopped him.  As for the white man's law taking precedent, Old Mike's wife called Ben the next morning. Ben was Constable and a United States special officer at Banning. He was assisted by an old friend, Joe Toutain, Ben’s brother Waldemar and his half-brother John Jost when needed. Ben advised Sheriff Frank Wilson via telegram of the murder of Old Mike and the kidnapping of Isoleta. John ran the Blue Front Livery Stable so Ben arranged for a wagon. Ben, Waldemar, Joe Toutain and John Jost went to the Gilman Ranch. Jim and Martha Gilman gave the men coffee and told them that Willie Boy had taken a Winchester .30-30 rifle and 15-20 cartridges. Because nothing else was taken, it was assumed that Willie Boy and Isoleta were on foot and would probably head for one of the reservations. 

Ben did not shot Willie either.  Willie shot himself just as the ambushed posse left.  Charlie Reche, who had been wounded in the ambush believed that Willie had not intended to shoot him since he had been shooting as the horses and he also believed that Willie shot himself because he would not have faired well after shooting a white law man.  

Thank you.
Zoe de Crevecoeur-Erickson