In our quest of identifying photos in the family album, we were able to
identify "Doctor" William Wallace. He was a very colorful character in
New Mexico History. William Wallace is not a relative but it was easy
to include a bit of his history.
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| Dr. William Wallace courtesy of San Juan Historical Society |
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| Doctor William Wallace aka Navajo Bill |
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| The Morning Democrat (Davenport, Iowa) 10 June 1894 |
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| The Morning Democrat (Davenport, Iowa) 10 June 1894 |
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| The Santa Fe Daily, 20 August 1895 |
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| Chippewa Herald Telegram, 24 April 1895 |
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| The Times, 13 January 1895 |
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| The Times, 13 January 1895 |
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| The Times, 13 January 1895 |
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| The Times, 13 January 1895 |
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| . The St Louis Post Dispatch, 25 December 1898 |
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| The St Louis Post Dispatch, 25 December 1898 |
As I researched I ran
into many stories about "Navajo Bill." It appears the name was a popular
character to base Wild West stories upon. There was another gentleman
in New Mexico who went by this nickname He lived well into his 90's and
his last name was Gordon. "Navajo Bill" Gordon and "Navajo Bill"
Wallace's stories do not jive and I don't believe they were the same
person.
You are correct in your conclusion: they are not the same man. The genealogy of William Nelson Wallace takes us back to Lafayette, Indiana. After he served a short time at the end of the Civil War he married and moved to Portland, OR, where he had his own druggist business. He moved to Durango, CO after 1883. His brother, physician James P. Wallace, in Animas City, suggested he move south to mitigate his tuberculosis. He lived in Durango for a time, working for two different drugstores as clerk. There he had a small store filled with Navajo artifacts and goods, blankets, weapons, skulls, and more. Later he worked for Richard "Dick" T. Simpson, trader, at the Gallegos Trading Post south of Bloomfield for a number of years after he recovered from tuberculosis. He was a pharmacist, not a physician. My great-grandfather, Frank Gonner, took several photographs of him in 1895.
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