Samuel Bowman Watrous, born in Vermont three years before the War of 1812, traveled to the Mexican Province of Nuevo México in 1835 by wagon train along the Santa Fe Trail and ran a store for miners during a period of gold fever south of Santa Fe. He and his family homesteaded on the eastern plains in 1849, and saw the opening of New Mexico to the rest of the United States as the railroad replaced the wagon train as a means of transport. His was truly the life of a transitional frontiersman of the American West.
"John Taylor has added a significant piece of New Mexico's puzzle with a thorough biography of Samuel Watrous, who was a significant historical figure in his own right, but his significance is multiplied by all the other pieces of our puzzle he touched in his life. The list of pieces surrounding Watrous's puzzle piece is truly impressive. They include the Santa Fe Trail, Mexican land grants, the Revolt of 1847, Fort Union, pueblo and nomadic Indian tribes, the Civil War, the coming of the Santa Fe Railway, New Thought spiritualism, and the development of mercantile capitalism in New Mexico. Individuals included Charles Bent, Kit Carson, Judge Kirby Benedict, Giovanni Maria "The Hermit" Augustini, and every leading politico of his day." -- Richard Melzer, past President, Historical Society of New Mexico
"John Taylor has out done himself with this biography of Samuel Bowman "Sam" Watrous of New Mexico (1809-1886). Not only does he paint a clear and vivid picture of Sam Watrous, he puts him and his family into the context of the times: the upheaval of the Mexican era with the Revolt of 1836, the change in governments that came with the arrival of the Americans in 1846, the Civil War and the Texas invasion of 1862, and the arrival of the railroad in 1879. Taylor takes us on a trip across this country and down the Santa Fe Trail in the 1830s. By the middle of that decade, his New Mexico adventure began in Taos where he acquired an interest in the mercantile trade. Next, he established himself in a mining village in the Ortiz Mountains, southeast of Santa Fe, during the rough and tumble days of an early gold strike. He succeeded in business there and then moved on to the plains of northeastern New Mexico where the town he settled, La Junta, came to be named for him. Along with him on his travels at one time or another were three wives and at least one mistress (one of them a Pueblo Indian); relationships which produced a family of eleven children and several orphaned Indian children. For more than a half century, Sam dealt with virtually all the important men of his time, men of all New Mexico cultures and stations in life. Taylor takes us at last to Sam's demise, which came violently and left many questions unanswered. There is never a dull moment in this slim volume and anyone with even the remotest interest in New Mexico history should feel obliged to read Samuel Bowman Watrous: Transitional Frontiersman." -- Don Bullis, New Mexico Centennial Author
