April 26
On this day in 1901, Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum, latter-day New Mexico train robber, was hanged for the wrong crime.
He even inherited another outlaw’s nickname. Born in Saba County, Texas, in 1863, he was at one time mistaken for another criminal out of Texas, “Black Jack” Christian, of the High Fives gang.
An unfortunate childhood, he was an orphan by age 10. His father died when he was just five and his mother five years later. His first brush with the law involved failing to appear as a witness in a court case and at age 16, he was arrested for chasing a dog down the aisle of a church with his gun drawn during a service.
He left Texas at 27 for New Mexico under suspicion of committing a more serious, but unspecified crime. His older brother, Sam, joined him in 1894 and the pair, along with other associates were soon wanted for holding up an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe train near Nutt.
Hightailing it out of the territory, the gang avoided capture, holing up at the Herb Bassett ranch in Colorado, the ranch owned by the father of girl bandits, Josie and Ann.
It appeared Ketchum had been falsely accused of killing Texas rancher John “Jap” Powers. Long after the murder, it was discovered that the victim’s wife and her lover had hired hit men to kill Powers. The gun men were rumored to be Tom’s older brother, Sam, and Hole-in-the-Wall gang member, Will Carver.
The next entry on the Ketchum rap sheet was the robbery and disappearance of father and son, Albert and Henry Fountain, of Las Cruces in February of 1896. The Ketchum brothers had been working on the still famous Bell Ranch in Tucumcari when, apparently on their way out of town, they robbed the Fountain’s general store and post office. The Fountains were never seen again.
In early June, the Ketchums stopped to buy supplies from Morris and Levi Herzstein northwest of Tucumcari. When a thunderstorm blew up, the good-hearted Herzsteins offered them shelter for the night. In the morning, however, Levi discovered his general store and post office had been robbed.
Gathering three others, Herzstein set out after the thieves and surprised the Ketchums at Plaza Largo. No match for the outlaws, Levi and another man lay dead in seconds. A third member of the posse escaped and the fourth, Placido Gurule, was injured but lived to tell about it, saying he saw Tom Ketchum kill his companions.
After the Herzstein murder, Ketchum rode with the infamous Wild Bunch. In September of 1897, the gang robbed a train at Twin Mountain, New Mexico. It must have gone so well that time, that in July of 1899, they hit the same train at Twin Mountain again. Tom, for some reason wasn’t there. Sam, however, was there and was fatally wounded when a posse tracked the gang to Turkey Creek Canyon.
A month later, Tom, unaware his brother was dead, tried to rob the same train in the same spot, single-handed. Conductor Frank Harrington, however, spotted Ketchum riding along the tracks and shot him off his horse. The next day a posse found Ketchum and took him to Trinidad, Colorado, where his right arm was amputated. After recovering, he was sent to Clayton, New Mexico, to stand trial.
At last, Tom Ketchum was charged with a crime everyone was sure he committed. He was sentenced to hang for “felonious assault upon a railway train,” the only person ever to be executed in New Mexico for that crime.
Not only the first man sentenced to hang for assaulting a train, he was the first and only man ever hung in Clayton. The novice neck tie party made the rope too long, decapitating Tom in the process. He was buried in the Clayton cemetery without fanfare. Following New Mexico statehood in 1912, the “felonious assault” statute was found to be unconstitutional. Just before his death, however, Tom confessed to being one of the gunmen who did in poor John Powers. So “Black Jack” Ketchum was guilty, say historians, he just was hanged for the wrong crime.
The Herzstein family, with a tragic and historic link to Black Jack Ketchum, is today an important part of present-day Clayton, N.M. The Herzstein Memorial Museum, 22 South 2nd St. ,was founded by the late Albert Herzstein, a successful Houston, Texas businessman and the son of Morris Herzstein. Considered one of the state’s most important museums, it is on the New Mexico list of Historic Places and is located in the 1919 .Methodist-Episcopal Church, which is on the state’s Registry of Cultural Property. Admission is free. Displays include Native American artifacts, a Santa Fe Trail exhibit, dinosaurs relics and antiques from the Herzstein’s 
family store in Nara Visa. Open May through August, 10 to 5 daily and September through April, 10 to 4. For more information go to herzsteinmuseum.com, e-mail uchs@plateautel.net or call (575) 374-2977.