We got to Trinidad late at night, the first town after crossing the plains, and located just at the base on the north side of the Raton Range near the Purgatory river. This was a mining town of some importance in those days, and had the usual quota of dance halls, gambling dens and other equipment of a typical mining town.
We got to Dick Wooton's early the following morning and had a good breakfast. His place was located near the top of Raton Pass and consisted at that time of a rambling lot of log buildings; one for a house proper, which was clean, comfortable, and attractive inside, and the others for stables, blacksmith and wagon shops, and in fact anything and everything where repairs to transportation could be made. Dick himself was an attractive personality, was large, quite above the average in size, with a cheery open face giving little evidence of the frontier man, and yet he was almost as noted as Kit Carson with whom he was associated as pioneer and scout. Both were noted men on the frontier. Wooton, however, took a more practical view of life than Carson and conceived the idea of building a wagon road over the Raton Pass. This road was completed and I think had been for some time before I crossed the pass. If I remember correctly we crossed a little stream coming down from near the top of the range thirteen times before we came to the top of the pass. Wooton had some kind of permit or authority from the government for building this road and was authorized to make it a toll road. He was reported to have made quite a fortune from the revenue derived from it.
A little place called Cimarron, (which in Spanish means mountain of sheep) or Maxwell's ranch was the next place of interest to me. This is some distance south of the Raton Range, maybe half way from Trinidad to Fort Union. It seemed that Maxwell married a high class Spanish woman whose family owned an immense estate in what was Mexico before it was ceded to the United States. In the division of the estate Maxwell's wife got a grant of many thousands of acres on the head waters of the Cimarron, a tributary of the Canadian, which I understand was very much reduced as a result of extended litigation with the government as to title. We traveled for miles on what was then called Maxwell's Ranch, where great herds of sheep, cattle and horses were to be seen, with an adobe house here and there, where herders lived. It was a great pleasure to stop even for one meal at such a place as Maxwell's. The house was commodious and handsomely furnished and everything was prosperous and home-like. Some years later I had the pleasure of acquaintance of a daughter of Mr. Maxwell's who married a lieutenant in the army and we were serving at the same post.