A rare eyewitness account of the Lincoln County War and nineteenth-century Zuni Pueblo, unavailable to most readers for more than a century.
Water in a Thirsty Land chronicles the remarkable experiences of Dr. Taylor Filmore Ealy, a medical missionary who served in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) and New Mexico Territory between 1874 and 1881. Compiled by his daughter, Ruth R. Ealy, from his contemporary diaries, letters, and recollections, the work was originally issued in a private edition of only 40 copies, making it one of the rarest firsthand narratives of the American Southwest.
Dr. Ealy's assignments took him from Fort Arbuckle on the Chickasaw Reservation to Lincoln, New Mexico, and finally to Zuni Pueblo. His observations provide an extraordinary window into frontier life during one of the most turbulent periods in Western history.
Ealy arrived in Lincoln on February 19, 1878 - just one day after the murder of John Henry Tunstall, the event that ignited the Lincoln County War. Over the following months, he witnessed many of the conflict's defining moments, including Tunstall's funeral, the killing of Sheriff William Brady, the five-day Battle of Lincoln, the burning of Alexander McSween's residence, and the aftermath of one of the most famous episodes in the history of the American West.
His diary preserves numerous details found nowhere else, including firsthand descriptions of Tunstall's home and store, the Lincoln jail, the destruction caused during the battle, and the intimidation faced by those who testified about the conflict. These eyewitness accounts offer historians an invaluable perspective on the events that shaped the legend of Billy the Kid.
After leaving Lincoln, Dr. Ealy served at Zuni Pueblo, where he documented a Native American community whose way of living was hundreds of years old. His journals provide one of the earliest and most detailed firsthand accounts of Zuni life before it was forever changed by Western contact. During this period, he became acquainted with pioneering ethnologists Frank Hamilton Cushing and Matilda Coxe Stevenson, witnessed the arrival of the first James Stevenson expedition, knew prominent Zuni leaders including Pedro Pino and We'wha, and was present when photographer John Karl Hillers created many of his iconic images of Zuni Pueblo.
This new edition enriches the original memoir with a substantial historical introduction, explanatory notes, footnotes, appendices, and an index, placing Dr. Ealy's observations in their proper historical context.
Illustrated with 45 photographs, many published here for the first time, Water in a Thirsty Land is an indispensable resource for readers interested in Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County War, frontier medicine, missionary history, Zuni Pueblo, Native American history, and the nineteenth-century American Southwest.
Author, historian, filmmaker, producer, actor, screenwriter and travel writer. Associate Producer of the 2019 documentary film "The Wonder of the Century," based on the author's book on Giovanni Maria de Agostini, an Eighteenth Century world traveler. Co-founder of the Pat Garrett Western Heritage Festival and the Friends of Pat Garrett.
