Henry Newton Brown

Henry Newton Brown (1857 – April 30, 1884) was an American Old West gunman who played the roles of both lawman and outlaw during his life.

Brown was raised in Cold Springs Township, in Phelps County, ten miles south of Rolla, Missouri. An orphan, he lived there with his uncle Jasper and aunt Aldamira Richardson until the age of seventeen, when he left home and headed west. He drifted through various cowboy jobs in Colorado and Texas, supposedly killing a man in a gunfight in the Texas Panhandle.

Lincoln County War

In 1877, Brown landed in the New Mexico Territory, and became embroiled in the Lincoln County War. Brown joined Billy the Kid and cowboys as the "Lincoln County Regulators", working John Tunstall's Rio Feliz Ranch.

On April 1, 1878, Brown, Billy the Kid, Jim French, Frank McNab, John Middleton and Fred Waite ambushed and murdered Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady, who was indirectly responsible for the death of Tunstall. Three days later, at the Gunfight at Blazer's Mill, Brown and the Regulators engaged in a gunfight with Buckshot Roberts, another man they believed involved in Tunstall's murder. Roberts received a serious gunshot wound from Charlie Bowdre which later proved to be fatal, but not before he managed to kill the Regulators' nominal leader, Richard M. Brewer. Retreating into proprietor Blazer's office, Roberts continued a prolonged firefight with Brown and the Regulators. He died the next day.