ARIZONA BIOGRAPHIES
Early Pioneers
and Settlers
Pauline Weaver
He discovered the placers
along the Gila, and also the placers at Weaver Diggings near Antelope
Crock in the southern part of Yavapai County, a full account of which
is given in one of the succeeding chapters of this volume.
Weaver located a ranch in
Yavapai County, where he lived for many years, and died at Camp Verde
in the late 60's and is buried in the Government burial ground.
Charles
O. Brown
Charles O. Brown, who has
been mentioned in these pages already, was born in New York, and when
but a young man came west. He is said to have been a member of the
Glanton band which was engaged in gathering scalps of the Indians in
Chihuahua, for which they received $150 each. Reference to this band
has been previously made. Brown had gone to California when Glanton and
his associates were murdered by the Indians at Yuma. It is not certain
when he returned to Arizona, probably about the year 1858. He was a
saloon man and a gambler, a dead shot, and it is said that he had
several notches on his gun. He was in Tucson at the time of the
Confederate in-vasion, and remained there after the Confeder-ates left.
When the California Column arrived he was, as before stated, given a
monopoly for the selling of liquor and gambling in Tucson by Colonel
West. From there Brown went to the Mesilla Vallev, where he married a
Mexican woman of good family, and settled permanently in Tucson about
the year 1864 or 1865. He was very prosperous in his saloon business,
his saloon becoming the popular resort of all classes when the
prospectors, miners and adventurers began to flow into the southern
part of Arizona. He brought into the Territory the first
sewing-machine, which was a great curiosity to the Mexican inhabitants
of Arizona and Sonora. Many came from as far as Magdalena in Sonora to
see a machine which sewed rapidly by the application of a little
foot-power. Upon the birth of his first son, he sent to St. Louis and
brought in a baby cariage, an unheard of thing at that time in Arizona.
In 18G7 or 68 he built Congress Hall in Tucson, in which the first
legis-lature held at Tucson was convened. The saloon had floors of
wood, the lumber for which was hauled from Santa Fe, and cost $500 a
thousand. The locks on the doors cost $12 each, and all other material
in like proportion. For a long time it stood as the best building in
Southern Arizona. When the "writer came to Arizona in July, 1879, one
of the first acquaintances he made was Charles 0. Brown, who gave him
the follow-ing piece of poetry which he had written a few years before,
embodying his idea of what Ari-zona was, and how it came to be made:
"THE HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
How it was made, And who
made it.
The Devil was given
permission one day, To select him a land for his own special sway; So
he hunted around for a month or more And fussed and fumed and terribly
swore, But at last was delighted a country to view Where the prickly
pear and the mesquite grew. With a survey brief, without further excuse
He took his stand on the banks of the Santa Cruz.
He saw there were some
improvements to make, For he felt his own reputation at stake; An idea
struck him and he swore by his horns To make a complete vegetation of
thorns; He studded the land with the prickly pear And scattered the
cactus everywhere, The Spanish dngger, sharp pointed and tall And
last—the choya—the worst of all.
He imported the Apaches
direct from hell, And the ranks of his sweet-scented train to swell, A
legion of skunks, whose loud, loud smell Perfumed the country he loved
so well. And then for his life, he could not see why The river should
carry more water supply, And he swore if he gave it another drop You
might take his head and horns for a mop. He filled the river with sand
till it was almost dry, And poisoned the land with alkali, And promised
himself on its slimy brink The control of all who from it should drink.
He saw there was one more improvement to make, He imported the
scorpion, tarantula and rattlesnake, That all who might come to this
country to dwell, Would be sure to think it was almost hell. He fixed
the heat at one hundred and seven And banished forever the
moisture from heaven, But remembered as he heard his furnace roar, That
the heat might reach five hundred or more, And after he fixed things so
thorny and well, He said, 'I'll be d-d if this don't beat hell'; Then
he flopped his wings and away he flew And vanished from earth in a
blaze of blue. And now, no doubt, in some corner of hell He gloats over
the work he has done so well, And vows that Arizona cannot be beat, For
scorpions, tarantulas, snakes and heat. For with his own realm it
compares so well He feels assured it surpasses hell."
In his gambling hall and
liquor saloon, Brown had a mint, but it went almost as fast as made. He
was very generous to his friends, and he managed in this way to
squander a fortune. He was, also, always staking men for prospecting,
which seldom proves a lucrative venture. He died a few years ago,
leaving no property what-ever.
L. J. F.
Jaeger
The following
biographical sketch of L. J. F. Jaeger, was furnished me by his son,
now living at Tucson:
"My father, L. J. F.
Jaeger, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He worked as a
me-chanic in the Baldwin shops, Philadelphia. Later was appointed
mechanic in the arsenal at Washington, D. C. In the latter part of
1848, he took the first sailing vessel out of Philadelphia bound for
San Francisco, the 'Mason.' On reaching San Francisco he worked for a
while as a carpenter. At that time the Bay extended to Montgomery
Street. He was then employed as engineer on the boats running between
San Francisco and Oakland at $25.00 per day. Giving up this position,
he joined a party formed to go down to the Colorado River. They had
heard of a big influx of people coming into California from New Mexico
and Mexico. The party landed at a point about 9 miles below the present
site of Yuma, at what was known as Fort Yuma. They had to saw their own
boards out of cottonwood trees to make flat boats to ferry the traffic
over the river. This was the beginning of the ferry they established.
Later on my father bought out the other parties and operated the ferry
on his own account. The company built a stockade at the ferry to
pro-tect themselves from the Yuma Indians. • *•*•*«* "In 1851 he
returned to Yuma with the troops under General Heintzelman and General
Thomas. He established the second ferry just about seven or eight miles
from the present Fort Yuma school, which was then the Fort Yuma
Military Reservation. They fought with the Indians about a year, and at
the end of that time peace was made with the Indians. The treaty was
made at the Jaeger house. The Yuma Indians have never broken the peace
treaty. During the years 1851-54 Fort Yuma was established and the
building completed. My father was at this time carrying passengers
across the river, also large droves of cattle and sheep being driven
into California by the Luna and Baca families from New Mexico. On the
discovery of the Vulture Mine at Wickenburg, my father hauled out the
first train load of ore from the mine, which was shipped to San
Fran-cisco. He had contracts with the Government for hauling supplies
to all the forts up to 1863. He was one of the stockholders in the
first canal in the Salt River valley. He also established the town of
Sonoita, just across the line in Sonora, and from there he drew a great
deal of his supplies furnished to the Government. In 1861-62, there
were tremendous floods on the Colorado River, which washed out part of
Jaegerville, the first ferry crossing. Arizona City, now Yuma, was then
established. In 1863 the first large store in Arizona was established
at Arizona City by a man named Hinton, who brought in a mechanic from
San Diego to put a tin roof on his building. The name of the me-chanic
was Julian. This was probably the first tin roof placed on a building
in this territory.
"My father ran the ferry
up to 1877 when the Southern Pacific was extended through to Yuma,
selling out to that railroad."
(The part left out in the
above designated by asterisks, is a description of Mr. Jaeger's trip to
San Diego, on the return part of which he was severely wounded by the
Indians. This is given in full in an earlier chapter of this work in
that portion devoted to the Yuma ferries.)
Mr. Jaeger died in
Washington, D. C, June 30, 1892, where he had gone to press his Indian
and other claims against the Government.
Charles D. Poston
Charles D. Poston, whose
name is thoroughly identified with the early history of Arizona, and to
whom we have had occasion to refer to here-tofore, and will, in future
volumes record his further activities, was bora in Hardin county,
Kentucky, April 20th, 1825. He was left motherless when twelve years of
age, and soon thereafter was placed in the County Clerk's office, where
he served an apprenticeship of seven years. He was in the office of the
Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Nashville, for the next three years,
where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. Upon the
annexation of California, and the discovery of gold in that State, he
decided to seek a home in that favored land, and upon his arrival in
San Francisco was employed in the customhouse. After the Gidsden
purchase, he came with an exploring party to Arizona. After examining
the Territory, he was favorably impressed with its richness in gold and
silver. He returned to California, and from thence journeyed to New
York, Kentucky and Washington, where he spent a year in inter-esting
capital in the new Territory. In 1856, having accomplished the task he
had assigned himself, Mr. Poston returned to Ari-zona, provided with
funds for prospecting and opening mines, which were furnished by a New
York company. Afterwards he was transferred to the New York
office when the civil war broke out, for, as we have seen, all work
upon these mines was then abandoned. Upon the organization
of the Territory in 1863, he was appointed by President Lincoln,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs. This office he held for
about one year, when he was elected first Delegate to Congress from the
Territory of Arizona. At the conclusion of his term, he
made a tour of Europe, and visited the Paris Exposition of 1867.
Returning to Washington, he engaged in the practice of law
there. When the news of the Burlingame Chinese Embassy came
over the water, it aroused an ambition to see the historic places of
Asia, and in companv with J. Ross Browne, an old friend and the then
minister to China, he crossed the ocean, bearing with him a commission
from Mr. Seward to visit Asia in the interests of immigration and
irrigation, and was also the hearer of dispatches from the Chinese
Embassy to the Emperor of China.
Before the inauguration
of President Hayes, Mr. Poston was appointed by President Grant,
register of the United States Land Office of Ari-zona, and he also
served as consular agent at Nogales, Mexico, and Military agent at El
Paso, Texas. The five years subsequent were spent in Washington, where
he promoted the interests of Government irrigation, a measure which has
since been so perfected that it is making homes for many thousands of
our citizens upon the arid lands. For some time prior to his demise, he
lived in Phoenix, where he died on June 24th, 1902.
Herman
Ehrenberg
Herman Ehrenberg, for
whom the town of Ehrenberg on the Colorado River is named, was a German
by birth. At an early age, he left his native country, and, landing in
New York, worked his way down to New Orleans, where he had located when
the Texas War of Independence broke out. He enlisted in the New Orleans
Grays, and was present at the battle of Goliad and Fanning's defeat,
being one of the few who survived the barbarous massacre of prisoners
who surrendered at that time to the Mexican authorities. He returned to
Germany at the close of the Texas War, and wrote an account of that
interesting period, giving full information of the new country, which
induced a large number of Germans to settle in Texas. He returned to
the United States in 1840, and joined a party at St. Louis, which
crossed the continent to Oregon. From thence he went to the Sandwich
Islands, and, after wrandering in Polynesia for a few years, returned
to California in time to join Colonel Fremont in his efforts to free
California from the Mexican rule.
When the Gadsden Purchase
was perfected, his restless ambitions were directed to Arizona, with
the history of which Territory he was closely identified to the time of
his death. When the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company was organized
in 1856, with Major, (afterwards Major-General), Heintzelman as
President, Ehrenberg was appointed topographical and mining engineer,
and surveyor, for that company. For a number of years he was actively
engaged in the operation of the Cerro Colorado and other mines near the
Sonora line, the reports upon which first gave him a reputation as a
mining engineer in San Francisco and New York. Ehreuberg's map of the
Gadsden Purchase, although the first, was accredited as being one of
the best at that time of the Territory of Arizona. In 1862-63, Mr.
Ehrenberg was attracted by the rush of miners to the Colorado River,
and was one of the earliest settlers at La Paz, where he made his
residence at the time of his death. In connection with B. Phillips, he
took an active part in developing the Picacho mine near La Paz. He was
interested with Messrs. Gray, Cunningham and others in the Harcuvar
Copper Mines, afterwards known as the Yuma Copper Company, on the
direct road from La Paz to AVeaver, to which road the miners gave his
name in 1864, in view of his being the first to call attention to its
great advantages.
Mr. Ehrenberg visited
Prescott in May or June, 1864, when the town was being laid out. During
the year 1866 he spent considerable time there examining the mines in
that vicinity. He wrote several excellent descriptions of Northern
Arizona for the Alta California, of which paper he had long been a
favored correspondent.
A man of acknowledged
integrity, he was both scientific and practical; a careful and
accomplished student of geology, mineralogy and metallurgy, he was an
authority on all matters relating to mining. His reports were never
overdrawn, and invited most critical investigation. To have him speak
well of a mine was to establish its reputation at once. As a writer he
was clear and precise, and his contributions to the various mining
journals would make a valuable volume. He was a fearless and
enthusiastic pioneer. He loved the frontier and was never so happy as
when roaming around the hills of Arizona, eagerly examining their rich
metallic formation. Tie was unobtrusive as a citizen, but was
progressive. He was repeatedly offered offices, but the only one of
which there is a record of his having accepted was, when in connection
with Thomas E. Dunn, in 1864-66, he was Indian agent for the Mohaves on
the Colorado River Reservation. All other political offices he
re-fused, although in all that tended to the welfare of society, he had
the liveliest concern.
His death was mourned,
not only through the Territory of Arizona, but by the mining men of San
Francisco and New York, and in the scientific circles of Europe. He was
shot at Dos Palmas, California, on the road from San Bernardino to La
Paz, in October, 1866, by parties unknown, but supposed to have been
Indians.
Peter Kitchen
One of the earliest
pioneers of Arizona was Peter Kitchen, who came to the Territory in
1854. He was born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1822. Little is known of
his early life beyond the fact that he served in some capacity during
the Mexican War. He was a man, as I remember him, about five feet ten
inches in height, rather spare, always wearing a wide brimmed sombrero;
very quiet in his manner; low and soft spoken. There was nothing about
the man to indicate the daredevil of dime novels, which is associated
in the Eastern mind with the pioneers of the West. After coming to the
Territory, he lived at the Canoa for several years, and then moved to a
ranch near Nogales, called the Potrero, where he fanned a little, and
raised cattle and hogs. He fortified his residences, both at the Canoa
and the Potrero by building the adobe walls of the houses higher than
the roofs, and having loopholes to shoot through. On many occasions he
and his employees stood off Apache attacks. He lived in the heart of
the Apache country, and, although subjected to severe losses, he
refused to leave the country, hut defied the red devils to the end. The
following description of his ranch is taken from Bourkc's "On the
Border with Crook."
"Approaching Pete
Kitchen's Ranch, one finds himself in a fertile valley, with a small
hillock near one extremity. Upon the summit of this has been built the
house from which no effort of the Apaches has ever succeeded in driving
our friend. There is a sentinel posted on the roof, there is another
out in the 'cienega' with the stock, and the men ploughing in the
bottoms are obliged to carry rifles, cocked and loaded, swung to the
plough handle. Every man and boy is armed with one or two revolvers on
hip. There are revolvers and rifles and shot-guns along the walls, and
in every corner. Everything speaks of a land of warfare and bloodshed.
The title of 'Dark and Bloody Ground' never fairly belonged to
Kentucky. Kentucky was never anything but a Sunday-School convention in
comparison with Arizona, every mile of whose surface could tell its
tale of horror, were the stones and gravel, the sage-brush and mescal,
the mesquite and the yucca, only endowed with speech for one brief hour.
"Within the hospitable
walls of the Kitchen home the traveller was made to feel perfectly at
ease. If food were not already on the fire, some of the women set about
the preparation of the savory and spicy stews for which the Mexicans
are deservedly famous, and others kneaded the dough and patted into
shape the paper-like tortillas with which to eat the juicy frijoles or
dip up the tempting chili Colorado. There wTere women carding,
spinning, sewing—doing the thousand and one duties of domestic life on
a great ranch, which had its own blacksmith, saddler, and wagon-maker,
and all other officials needed to keep the machinery running smoothly.
"Between Pete Kitchen and the Apaches a ceaseless war was waged, with
the advantage not all on the side of Kitchen. His employees were killed
and wounded, his stock driven away, his pigs filled with arrows, making
the suffering quadrupeds look like perambulating
pin-cushions—everything that could be thought of to drive him away; but
there he stayed, unconquered and unconquerable."
The following clipping
from the Tucson Citizen of June 15, 1872, shows that under adverse
circumstances, Pete Kitchen wras prosperous:
"Personal: Our friend,
Peter Kitchen, was in town this week from the Potrero. He reports that
his crops are excellent. He has about twenty acres of potatoes planted,
and has made this year about 14,000 pounds of No. 1 bacon and hams,
which he has sold at an average of thirty-five cents per pound; also
5,000 pounds of lard, sold at the same price. Mr. Kitchen's ranch is
located near the Sonora line and at one of the most exposed points for
Apache depredations in Arizona. The Apaches have endeavored to take his
place many times—one partner, and all his neighbors, have been
murdered, and last summer his boy was killed within gunshot of his
door. Instead of being frightened or discouraged by those bold and
numerous attacks, he seems only the more determined to stand his ground
and take his chances. The Indians have learned to their sorrow that in
him they have no insignificant foe. He never travels the same route
twice in succession, and he always sleeps with one eye open; therefore,
ambushes and surprises do not win on him worth a cent. He has been on
the picket line now for fourteen years, and has buried nearly all his
old acquaintances and should his luck continue, he may truly be called
the first and last of Arizona's pioneers." Peter Kitchen died a natural
death on August 5th, 1895, in Tucson, and was buried in that city.
Hiram S.
Stevens
Hiram S. Stevens, was
born in Western Vermont on March 20th, 1832, and came to Arizona in
1855. When a youth of 19 he enlisted as a United States soldier and
came to New Mexico in Company "I," First United States Dragoons. On
being discharged from the service in 1855, he came to Arizona where he
resided continuously up to the time of his death. At first he was a
sporting man, then afterwards a trader and speculator, and in 1874, he
was counted one of the richest men in the Territory. At this time he
was elected Delegate to Congress. The story told of how his election
was accomplished, is illustrative of the wild and woolly way of doing
things at that time. The gambling fraternity was a very numerous and
influential citizenship of Arizona. R. C. McCormick had served several
terms in Congress, and in seeking a re-election, wras supported by the
administration, both territorial and national, which was a force hard
to overcome. Stevens was equal to the occasion. He took twenty-five
thousand dollars for his campaign fund and sent his agent to all the
prominent gamblers in the Territory, saying to them: "Det one thousand;
bet two thousand; three thousand, according to the influence of the man
and his following, on Stevens being elected, and if you win, return to
me the amount which you have wagered, keeping your winning." In this
way he enlisted the active support of the sporting fraternity of
Arizona, with the result that he was elected by a handsome
majority. He served two terms as Delegate to Congress; several
terms in the Territorial Legis-lature, and two terms as Treasurer of
Pima County, where he died on March 24th, 1893.
James
Pennington
James Pennington,
familiarly known as "Old Pennington" was also one of the pioneers of
Arizona. The Pennington family consisted of James Pennington, his wife
and five children, three daughters and two sons. They moved from
Tennessee into Texas, and from thence pushed westward through New
Mexico into Arizona and settled upon the Sonoita near Fort Buchanan in
the year 1857 or 1S58. During the time of the abandonment of the
country by the Americans "he occupied," says Ross Browne, "a small
cabin three miles above the Calabasas, surrounded by roving bands of
hostile Indians. He stubbornly refused to leave the country; said he
had as much right to it as the infernal Indians, and would live there
in spite of all the devils out of the lower regions. His cattle were
stolen, his corrals burned down, his fields devastated; yet he stood it
out to the last. At times when hard pressed for food, he would go out
iu the hills for deer, which he packed in on his back at the risk of
his life." Frequently, in his absence, his daughters stood guard with
guns in their hands, to keep off the Indians who besieged the premises.
About this time. Miss Luccra S. Pennington, was married to a Mr. Paige,
and was living with her husband in a canyon where she was captured by a
roving baud of Indians, together with a little girl about ten years of
age. said to be a Mexican, and who it is said, afterwards became the
wife of the late Charles A. Shibell of Tucson, ilrs Paige,
not being able to keep up with the Indians on their trip over the
moun-tains, one of them ran a lance through her and threw her over a
bluff upon a pile of rocks, and supposed he had killed her, as was his
intention, but after several days and nights of suffering, she
succeeded in getting to where she was recognized, cared for and saved.
Her first husband was afterwards killed by Indians. She lived for
several years in the vicinity of Camp Crittenden, which was established
later near Fort Buchanan, and her father teamed and ranched some on the
Sonoita. In 18G9, Old James Pennington and his son, Green, were
ambushed and killed by the Apaches, and both were buried at Crittenden.
Another son named James was killed later by the Apaches. The remainder
of the Pennington family moved to Tucson in 1870, and, it is said,
returned to Texas, all except Airs. Paige, who met William F. Scott, at
Tucson, and married him. She raised a family of two daughters and one
son and died in Tucson March 31,1913, and was there buried.
"Old Man" Pennington, the
head of the family was described as a man of excellent sense, but
rather eccentric; large and tall, with a fine face and athletic frame,
he presented a good specimen of the American frontiersman. One of the
principal streets in Tucson is named for him. This is about all that is
known of the Pennington family.
W. H.
Kirkland
W. H. Kirkland, who
raised the first American flag in 1856 in the town of Tucson, was born
in Petersburg, Virginia, July 12th, 1832, and emigrated to Arizona
shortly after the Gadsden Purchase, eight or nine years before the
organization of the Territory. He and his wife were the first white
couple married in Arizona, being married in Tucson May 26th, 1S60. In
1863 and 1864, he spent a good deal of time around Walnut Grove mining
and ranching, about which time he purchased the ranch located by
Pauline Weaver, and there engaged in stockraising. Later he settled in
the Salt River Valley, where Mrs. Wayne Hitter, his daughter, was born
in Phoenix on August 15th, 1871. She was born in the second house which
was built in the city of Phoenix. Kirkland died in Winkleman, Arizona,
January 19th, 1911, at the age of 78 years, and was survived by a wife
and seven children.
Estevan
Ochoa
Estevan Ochoa was a New
Mexican by birth. In his early youth he went to Kansas City, where he
obtained employment and acquired a fair knowledge of the English
language. He started in business on his own account at Mesilla, New
Mexico. He made a success of the enterprise, and thereafter started a
number of branch stores in both New Mexico and Arizona. The firm of
Tully & Ochoa, of which he was a member, was one of the largest
mercantile establishments in Tucson. In Bourke's "On the Border with
Crook" is an account of his visit to Tucson, in which he has this to
say of Estevan Ochoa:
"This rather undersized
gentleman coming down the street is a man with a history—perhaps it
might be perfectly correct to say with two or three histories. He is
Don Estevan Ochoa, one of the most enterprising merchants, as he is
admitted to be one of the coolest and bravest men, in all the
Southwestern country. He has a handsome face, a keen black eye, a
quick, business-like air, with very polished and courteous manners.
"During the war, the
Southern leaders thought they would establish a chain of posts across
the continent from Texas to California, and one of their first
movements was to send a brigade of Texans to occupy Tucson.
The commanding general—Turner by name—sent for Don Estevan and told him
that he had been in-formed that he was an outspoken sympathizer with
the cause of the Union, but he hoped that Ochoa would see that the
Union was a thing of the past, and reconcile himself to the new state
of affairs, and take the oath of the Confederacy, and thus relieve the
new Commander from the disagreeable responsibility of confiscating his
property and setting him adrift outside of his lines.
"Don Estevan never
hesitated a moment. He wras not that kind of a man. His reply was
perfectly courteous, as I am told, all the talk on the part of the
Confederate officer had been. Ochoa owed all he had in the world to the
Government of the United States, and it would be impossible for him to
take an oath of fidelity to any hostile power or party. When would
General Turner wish him to leave?
"He was allowed to select
one of his many horses, and to take a pair of saddle bags filled with
such clothing and food as he could get together on short notice, and
then, with a rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition, was led outside the
lines and started for the Rio Grande. How he ever made his way across
those two hundred and fifty miles of desert and mountains which
intervened between the town of Tucson and the Union outposts nearer to
the Rio Grande, I do not know—nobody knows. The country was infested
with Apaches, and no one of those upon whom he turned his back expected
to hear of his getting through alive. But he did succeed, and here he
is, a proof of devotion to the cause of the nation for which it would
be hard to find a parallel. When the Union troops reoccupied Tucson,
Don Estevan resumed business and was soon wealthy again, in spite of
the tribute levied by the raiding Apaches, who once ran off every head
of draught oxen the firm of Tully, Ochoa and De Long possessed, and
never stopped until they crossed the Rio Salado, or Salt River, where
they killed and 'jerked' the meat on the slope of that high mesa which
to this day bears the name of 'Jerked Beef Butte.' "
As a member of this firm
of Tully & Ochoa, he operated a stage line from Tucson and Yuma to
Santa Fe, New Mexico, executed Government contracts, and for about
twenty years was the most extensive freighter in Arizona and New
Mexico. Most of this merchandise he handled for himself, and it was
hauled from Kansas City on his own freighting outfits, which at the
height of his prosperity, represented an investment of one hundred
thousand dollars. He was obliged to maintain relay stations along his
long route, and his fine svstem won the admiration of everyone. He was
liberal and openhanded, spending his means freely, in which respect he
was a typical frontiersman. When the railroad reached Tucson, it was to
him a personal loss. His extensive investments in wagons, mules and
oxen for freighting purposes, were unmarketable, and involved a loss of
over a hundred thousand dollars, besides a great loss in merchandise
which had cost him a large amount to import. For many years the city of
Tucson was his head-quarters; Ochoa street therein being named in his
honor. The first public school erected in Tucson stood on
ground which he donated to the city. He was mayor of Tucson for one
term, and he represented the district in one session of the Arizona
Legislature. His career came to a close on October 27th, 1888, when he
died at his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
He was a typical
frontiersman, bold, aggressive and resourceful, laughing danger to
scorn, rarely daunted by any obstacle, and, in brief, possessing just
those qualities which are essential in the founding of a new State.
Force of character was his undoubtedly, yet, withal, his was a kindly
and sympathetic heart, and many a time has he shared his scanty meal on
the desert or in the mountains with some poor traveller or Indian.
"While he was held in some awe and thorough respect, his innate
goodness of heart was well known far and wide, and, indeed, few
pioneers of this great southwest were more widely known from Kansas
City to the boundaries of Old Mexico.
John Stone
The Tucson Post prints
the following concerning John F. Stone:
"Stone Avenue was named
for John F. Stone. Just how or why he came to the country no one now
living seems to know. He was a man of considerable means and of
magnificent physique. Of powerful build and wearing a heavy black beard
he stood distinguished among his fellow men. A rich gold vein had been
discovered in Apache Pass, and upon this he built a small reduction
mill. While en route to Tucson with the proceeds of the first month's
run, he was killed by Indians in Dragoon Pass, about 1500 yards east of
the old stage station. The driver of the stage, two soldiers and two
other civilians were killed at the same time. Sometime in the early
sixties, he built the first house on Stone Avenue. It was situated on
the southwest corner of Stone avenue and McCormick street, and is still
standing/*
Mr. A. F. Banta, in the
Apache County "Observer" gives the following account:
"General Stone, as he was
known in New Mexico, was Adjutant-General of New Mexico under Governor
Henry Connelly, appointed Governor in 1SG1. After the battle of Apache
Canyon, the defeat of the Texans under Sibley, and their expulsion from
the territory, via Fort Bliss, Stone resigned the Adjutant-Generalship,
and came down to Albuquerque, where, in partnership with a man named
Ewing (not sure if his name was Tom or not, he was a large man but not
so tall as Stone), and opened the Union Hotel, situated facing the east
wall of the old Catholic Church and on the east side of the church
plaza, in old Albuquerque. When the writer left Albuquerque in 1863 for
Arizona, Stone and Ewing were still running the Union Hotel. As to this
last statement, we are not absolutely certain, they may have closed out
before we left and started for Arizona, via Las Cruces."
Sylvester Mowry entered
West Point Acad-emy in 1818, graduating high up in his class in 1852.
Among his classmates were General Crook, General Kautz, Colonel Mendel,
Jerome Bonaparte, Jr., Major-General Evans, Captain Mullin of San
Francisco. Lieutenant Ives, and other well-known annv officers. In the
summer of 1853, he was engaged with George B. McClelIan on the
Columbia, surveying for a railroad route; in 1855 he was with Colonel
Steptoe at Salt Lake City, and in the spring of that year conducted
some recruits and animals through to California. At this time he was a
lieutenant, and, late in the season, was sent to Fort Yuma, from which
place he made an expedition into the wilds of Arizona, which inspired
him with a high opinion of the territory's great mineral resources. He
resigned his commission in the army, in 1857, or about that time, and
became the owner of what was known as the Patagonia Mine, which name he
changed to his own, and, thereafter, the mine was known as the Mowry
Mine. An account of this purchase has been heretofore recorded in these
pages. He worked this mine until 1862, when it was confiscated by
General Carleton, and Mowry was imprisoned at Fort Yuma on account of
his alleged southern sympathies. Mowry always contended that it was the
result of an old feud between him and Carleton when they were both in
the service. At any rate, after Mowry had been held a prisoner for six
months, he was liberated, and sometime afterwards his property was
restored to him, but in such condition that it was practically
worthless. Mowry said it was paying well at the time he was arrested,
but that at the time of its restoration, all the machinery and much of
the works were destroyed, or in such condition that it required large
capital to place the mine on a productive basis, which he failed
thereafter to do. From the close of the war up to the time of his
death, he wrote many articles dealing with Arizona, and its political
history, which were published in the San Francisco papers. He printed
two books, the best known of which is his "Arizona and Sonora" which
is, to-day, used to some extent by mining men. Mowry advocated the
extermination of the Indians, saying that was the only way in which a
permanent peace could be established in Arizona. In one place he says:
"There is only one way to wage war against the Apaches. A steady,
persistent campaign must be made, following them to their
haunts—hunting them to the fastnesses of the mountains. They must be
surrounded, starved into coming in, surprised or inveigled—by white
flags, or any other method, human or divine— and then put to death. If
these ideas shock auy weak-minded individual who thinks himself a
philanthropist, I can only say that I pity with-out respecting his
mistaken sympathy. A man might as well have sympathy for a rattlesnake
or a tiger."
Sylvester Mowry
"Honorable Sylvester
Mowry died in London, England, on Tuesday. This is sad news for
Arizona. In the death of Mr. Mowry this Territory has lost as faithful
a friend as it ever had in the person of one man. At the present, when
all the departments of the Government seem combined in one great effort
against us, we can ill afford to lose the advocacy of a man so
influential and so earnest in our behalf."
Samuel
Hughes
Samuel Hughes, probably
the oldest pioneer Arizonan now living, was bora in Wales, British
Isles, August 28th, 1829. In 1837 his father settled in Pennsylvania,
where Mr. Hughes lived up to 184*8, when he became a cabin boy on the
Mississippi River, which vocation he followed until 1850, at which time
he came to California overland from St. Louis. His first mining was
done in Hangtown, California. In 1851 he went to Yreka, California. In
1852 he crossed the mountains to Rogue River Valley in Oregon, where he
was one of the first to discover Rich Gulch at Jacksonville. In 1853 he
kept Cole station at the foot of the Siskiyou Mountains, and remained
there until 1856, when he returned to the Shasta Valley, and soon
afterwards became interested in the stock business. In 1857 he was
compelled to leave California for the milder climate of Arizona, being,
at that time, in the last stages of tuberculosis. He started with a
party from Yreka in that year. At Yuma it seemed that his lease of life
had apparently expired, with no hope of renewal, but after a few days*
rest, the sick man determined to make one more effort to reach his
destination, and started again with the party. At Maricopa Wells, about
four miles east of the present station at Maricopa, he was seized with
a hemorrhage and so greatly weakened, that he was left behind with a
few men of the party to care for him, but really to bury him. By force
of will power he rallied again and by slow stages was enabled to reach
Tucson March 12th, 1858. At that time Tucson was not a very inviting
place for invalids. It was a collection of monotonous adobe houses,
without wood floors or glass windows, enclosed by high adobe walls with
lookout parapets on the corners for protection against the Indians. Mr.
Hughes had another hemorrhage which so weakened him that for many
months he was in danger of death, after which came the final rally, and
he began to recover rapidly. As soon as his strength permitted, he
opened a butcher shop, and thereafter engaged in the mercantile
business and became an extensive contractor with the Government. He
organized the first bank in the city of Tucson, and is now known as one
of its wealthiest citizens. He was married in Tucson to Atanacia Santa
Cruz. The fruits of this union are ten children, all of whom are
married and well settled in life. Mr. Hughes is a thirty-second degree
Mason, and connected with other benevolent and fraternal associations.
He was one of the organizers of the Arizona Pioneers' Society, and has
always been listed as one of the most enterprising and industrious
citizens of the Old Pueblo.
Henry Wickenburg
Henry Wickenburg was a
native of Austria, born in that empire in 1820. In 1847 he came to New
York. He went to San Francisco in 1853, and came to Arizona in 1862. He
remained at Fort Yuma for a time, then went up the river to La Paz. At
La Paz, he learned that a party of explorers had left there a few days
before to go through the country to Tucson. Henry took their trail and
overtook them at what is now known as Peeples' Valley, having travelled
nearly two hundred miles alone through the Apache country. After
leaving Peeples' Valley, the party travelled east to what is now Walnut
Grove, then on to Turkey Creek and Black Canyon. Near Turkey Creek one
of the party found some white quartz which had coarse gold in it. His
name was Goss. He said nothing of his find to the balance of the party,
but the next year he came back, and in company with Timothy Lambertson,
worked some on the mine and packed the ore to Walnut Grove and
arrastred it. From Black Canyon the exploring company made their way to
Tucson. There Henry went to work driving a team for the United States
Government. We next find him on a piece of land in Peeples' Valley in
1863, where he learned through King S. Woolsey of the finding of rich
ore in the Harquahala Mountains. Henry got Van Bib-ber, a man named
Green, and some others, and started for the place Woolsey had described
to him. They went down to the Hassayampa River and there made a start
for the long stretch across the desert for the place indicated by
Woolsey. They were not sure of any water after leaving the river until
they reached the pass in the Harquahala where the gold was said to be,
which meant a trip of fifty miles and back with what water they could
carry with them. Following the low foothills, the party came in sight
of the great white croppings of the Vulture Mine. Wickenburg wished to
stop and examine it, but the other members of the party refused. After
the party returned from their hunt in the Harquahala Mountains,
Wickenberg went back to the big white croppings and discovered the
famous Vulture Mine. When Van Bibber learned of
the great strike made by Wickenburg, he at once claimed an interest,
which, of course, Henry refused. Then commenced a long struggle in the
courts, Coles Bashford handling the Wickenburg side of the case, which
was finally settled in Tucson. Wickenburg remained at the mine, where
he lived until the spring or summer of 1864, when he managed to get a
ton of Vulture ore packed to a camp he had established at the present
town of Wickenburg, a very poor excuse for an arrastra being built
there by July 4 of that year. At that time C. B. Genung came to
Wickenburg's camp with another man, having been driven in from a
prospecting trip by Apaches. Genung having had experience in working
ore by the arrastra process, undertook to show Wickenburg what he could
about the method, and did remodel the arrastra and assist to grind the
ton of ore that was on the ground. From this ore they took seventeen
and a half ounces of gold. In less than twelve months there-after there
were forty arrastras running on Vulture ore, some with burros, some
with horses or mules, and others with oxen, Wickenburg furnishing the
ore for most of them, for which he charged fifteen dollars a ton, the
buyer mining and sorting the ore himself. During the years 1865 and
1866, there were four mills built within one mile of the present town
of Wickenburg— one five stamp mill by Charley Tyson, another of equal
size by Jack Swilling, and two others, one a ten stamp mill, and the
other a twenty stamp mill. This last mill was run two years, when
twenty more stamps were added to it, after which it was run until 1871,
or about four years.
J. W.
Swilling
J. W. Swilling, known as
"Jack Swilling," was born in the state of Georgia in 1831. He emigrated
to Missouri in early life, and there settled down. After having resided
in that state some four years, his wife died, leaving one child, a
girl, who afterwards married and lived in Missouri.
About the year 1857,
Swilling emigrated to Texas where he remained for two years, when he
came to Arizona, and was in the employ of the Overland Mail Company for
quite a length of time.
During the Rebellion,
Swilling was a lieutenant in Captain Hunter's company of volunteers in
Baylor's regiment, and occupied himself with thirty of his men, in
protecting settlers and others from the Indians aloug the Rio Grande in
Southern New Mexico, and along the road to Tucson, Arizona. When the
Confederates were driven out of New Mexico, Mr. Swilling remained in
Arizona, and a few months afterwards, was carrying the express for the
soldiers and acting as guide for them through the country. The
following winter, he joined the Walker Party.
He was one of the party
that accompanied Colonel Jack Sniveley, a veteran of the Texas War of
Independence, and General Houston's private secretary, in a prospecting
trip when the mines of Pinos Altos were discovered, and Swilling, it is
said, was at the head of the party that discovered Rich Hill, near
Weaver Creek, in the lower part of Yavapai County, in the year 1863. Be
this as it may, Jack Swilling accumulated quite a fortune, either from
these placers or others.
In 1867, Swilling
organized a company and built the first canal from the Salt River, now
known as the "Town Ditch" which was intended to reclaim four thousand
acres of land. This canal was completed in 1868, all the lands under it
were located by settlers during the following two years, and quite a
settlement was made in what is now the citv of Phoenix. This name was
given to the new settlement by Swilling, at the suggestion of Darreil
Duppa, who explained to him that the name "Phoenix" was given in old
mythology to a bird which rose from its ashes more beautiful and
stronger than ever, and that here were the remains of an extinct
civilization, long past, upon whose ashes would rise a modern
civilization, stronger and more beautiful than that which preceded it.
In 1871, Swilling
organized a company which built the Tempe Canal. Shortly after this, he
moved to the Black Canyon and located a farm, and improved it. In the
meantime, he had married a second time, and moved his family to his new
home. During his residence at this place, the Tip-Top, the Swilling and
other mines were discovered and the town of Gillett started up three
miles from Swilling's residence, when he again moved, this time to
Gillett, having located valuable property there.
Swilling was known as a
kind hearted, generous man, public spirited, and always ready to assist
any needy man, or any public enterprise. He went on periodical sprees,
however, in which he drank heavily and also used drugs. The year
preceding his death, he was drinking heavily, and, while on one of
these jamborees, in April, 1878, his wife formed a plan to get him out
of town and sober him up. She secured the services of
George Munroe and Andrew Kirby to join Swilling and go into the White
Picacho Mountains, and exhume the bones of his old friend, Colonel
Sniveley from the place of their burial seven years previously,
Sniveley having been murdered there by the Apaches while on a
prospecting trip, and to bring the remains to Gillett for burial. The
party went out, accomplished the object for which they went, and,
during this time, the stage was held up near Wickenburg, and plundered.
When the news reached Gillett that three men had stopped the mail
coach, and that one large man and one small man had done the job,
Swilling, in a jocular way, remarked to George Monroe: "George, that
fits us, one big man and one little man," whereupon he and Munroe were
arrested and taken to Prescott. Rush & Wells, were their attorneys.
They had an examination before Judge Carter, and their discharge was
ordered, but before they were released, the marshal found that the
robbery was committed in Maricopa County, and took them from the
Prescott jail to Yuma for safekeeping, and to await thejr examination.
Evidence was secured for the prosecution of a kind intended to convict
regardless of justice. The examination was somewhat of a persecution;
the depositions for the defense, taken by stipulation with the United
States Attorney, were ruled out, and the prisoners were held in $3,000
bail, which was about to be furnished, when the sad news reached his
family and friends, of Swilling's death, although innocent, within the
walls of Yuma Prison. He left a wife and five children, besides
numerous friends to mourn his death. He died on the 12th day of August,
1878, at the age of 47 years. Munroe was discharged, no indictment ever
having been found against him.
The Prescott Miner, under
date of September 13th, 1878, contains the following: "Jack Swilling's
Statement.
"Mr. Swilling, who died
at Yuma, August 12th, 1878, it seems had a presentiment that his days
on earth were done, and were to end within the walls of Yuma Prison and
was, therefore, incited to write the following statement for
publication, which we give verbatim et literatim: "Yuma Prison, 1878.
"To the public: Jack
Smiling, whose doors have always been open to the poor alike with those
of the rich and plenty, looks forth from the prison cell to the blue
heavens where reigns the Supreme Being who will judge of my innocence
of the crime which has been brought against me by adventurers and
unprincipled reward hunters. I have no remorse of conscience for
anything I have ever done while in my sane mind. In 1854, I was struck
on the head with a heavy revolver and my skull broken, and was also
shot in the left side, and to the present time carry the bullet in my
body. No one knows what I have suffered from these wounds. At times
they render me almost crazy. Doctors prescribed, years ago, morphine,
which seemed to give relief, but the use of which together with strong
drink, has at times—as I have been informed by my noble wife and good
friends, made me mad, and during these spells I have been cruel to her,
at all other times I have been a kind husband. During these
periods of debauch, caused by the mixture of morphine and liquor, I
have insulted my best friends, but never when I was Jack Swilling, free
from these poisonous influences. I have tried hard to cure
myself of the growing appetite for morphine, but the craving of it was
stronger than my will could resist. I have gone to the
rescue of my fellow men when they were surrounded by Indians—I have
given to those who needed—1 have furnished shelter to the sick.
From the Governor down to the lowest Mexican in the land have I
extended my hospitality, and oh, my God, how am I paid for it all.
Thrown into prison, accused of a crime that I would rather suffer
crucifixion than commit. Taken from mjr wife and little children who
are left out in this cold world all alone. Is this my
re-ward for the kindness I have done to my fellow men and the pay 1
must receive for having done a Christian act, with Munroe and Kirby,
that of going after the bones of my poor old friend Sniveley, and
taking them to Gillett and burying them by the side of my dear child?
George Munroe, Andy Kirbv and mvself are as innocent of the charge
brought against us of robbing the stage as an infant babe.
We went out to do a Christian act—Oh, God, is it possible, that poor
Jack Swilling should be accused of such a crime ? But the trouble has
been brought on by crazy, drunken talk. I am willing to
give up my life to save Munroe and Kirby, as God knows they are
innocent. Oh, think of my poor babies and you would know
that I would not leave them for millions of money. I am persecuted and
prosecuted until I can bear it no longer. Look at me and look at them.
This cruel charge has brought me for the first time in my life under a
jailor's key. Poor L. G. Taylor, whom I liked and tried to help, has
been one of those who have wrought my ruin, and for what I cannot
conceive, unless it was for the reward money or to rob my family out of
the old ranch. The reason I write this is because I may be found dead
any morning in my cell. I may drop off the same as poor Tom McWilliams
did at Fort Goodwin. My persecutors will remember me. And may God help
my poor family through this cold world, is my prayer. John W. Swilling."
This statement is most
pathetic and appeals to the sympathies of everyone. Had Swilling lived
in our day, there is no doubt but that an operation would have restored
him to normal health. That he was a good man and useful citizen who was
hounded to death in a frontier community of self-seeking, unscrupulous
and avaricious enemies, goes without saying. Samuel C. Miller as we
have heretofore seen, was one of the Walker Party, the first to
discover gold in northern Arizona. He was the youngest member of this
exploring band, and was, in many respects, a very remarkable man. He
was born in Peoria, Illinois, November 4th, 1840. At the age of
fifteen, he crossed the plains to the Pacific coast with his father and
mother, making the entire journey on foot. He was naturally a
frontiersman, which may account for the fact of his joining the Walker
party at the age of twenty-one years to explore the wilderness of
Arizona. During the days of Indian dominancy, he had many thrilling
experiences with the savage tribes, the most notable of which was the
killing of Wauba Yuba, at which time he was one of the largest
freighters in the Territory, owning a large number of mule teams, and
engaged in hauling from the Colorado River to the different army posts,
mostly under Government contracts. During this time, he had many
adventures with the Indians, the principal one, as has been noted,
being the killing of Wauba Yuba, the Hualapai chief, the following
account of which is taken from the Journal-Miner of October 13th, 1909,
and may be considered the personal statement of Mr. Miller himself:
"In the early days, Mr.
Miller took passengers along with merchandise, Pullman accommodations
barred. He left Hardyville on the Colorado River on one trip loaded to
the brim on the main deck and in the 'trail' wagon there were three
families, and that means several women and more children. George
Banghart was among the passengers, and with his wife, and four young
ladies, the preciousness of the occasion will be appreciated, as these
ladies were gifted with more than ordinary beauty and personal
accomplishments. Mr. Miller, on the other hand, says he was 'skeered'
up somewhat as the route of his journey lay through the Wallapai
country. The trip was uneventful until Beale Springs was reached and
the many wagons were parked for the night. As the sun was setting, the
horizon seemed to be alive with the red devils, and it seemed to Mr.
Miller that the entire tribe was in action. Suddenly, the head man of
the tribe, Wauba Yuba, rode up and demanded a 'treaty,' saying that the
horses and mules and the flour was all that was needed. The argument
was brief. Mr. Miller reached for his Hawkins' rifle and sent a bullet
crashing through the lungs of the Indian, tearing a hole in his body as
big as his hand. Immediately, there were preparations made to resist an
attack. This was unnecessary. Being trained to know the characteristics
of the Indians, Mr. Miller knew that when once a chief falls, the ' jig
is up.* He allayed all fears and felt 'very comfortable' The entire
band disappeared, and from that time there was no sign of Indians on
the road to Prescott. Had the demand of Wauba been complied with, there
is no question in Mr. Miller's mind that a massacre would have followed
pell mell, and the women would have been taken into captivity. The
rifle that did the 'business' is still in possession of Mr. Miller and
may be seen at his home in Prescott. There is one woman residing in
Prescott to-day who was present on that critical evening; she is Mrs.
E. W. Wells, a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Banghart. She is the
wife of Judge E. W. Wells, and in the 60's, shortly after the memorable
event at Beale Springs, she was married. She still talks of the narrow
escape that signalized her coming to Prescott."
Another account of this
same incident is con-tained in the Miner of April 25th, 1866, which is
as follows:
"On the night of the 30th
of March, a cabin at the Willows on the Mohave road, in which Edward
Clower, formerly of Prescott, was sleeping, was totally destroyed by
fire, and Clower lost his life, his body being burnt to a crisp.
The story goes that Clower had lost his horses and been engaged for a
day or two in hunting for them, assisted by a Hualapai
Indian. On the night in question, the night of the eclipse
of the moon, when Clower returned to sleep in the cabin, the Indian was
permitted to sleep there also, and it is suspected that he first
murdered Clower and then started the fire. This suspicion is
strengthened by the evidence that all the arms and provisions had been
removed from the cabin and no traces of the Indian being
found. Two men encamped near the cabin thinking Indians had
gathered in numbers, were afraid to venture there until daylight, and
they started next day, for Hardyville. After a day or two, they
met with Mr. Milton Hadley of Prescott, whom they met at the
Cottonwoods, and who had been living with Mr. Clower and was returning
from a hunting excursion, and met the trains of Messrs. Miller and
Bowers, and returned with them. Hualapais hovered around their camp at
night, but none came near until Tuesday following the fire, when Wauba
Yuba, the chief of the Hualapais, presented himself, bearing a paper
certifying to the treaty sometime since made with him by Mr.
Hardy. After consultation, it being the judgment of the
party that the Hualapais meant to make war, and that the killing of
Clower and the burning of his cabin was the commencement of the
hostilities, they determined to kill Wauba Yuba, and he was at once
shot.
"While it is doubtless a
fact that the actions of the Hualapais, or some of them, have of late
been strange, and the fate of Clower is greatly to be deplored and must
be revenged, we think the conclusion that the tribe wished to wage war
with the whites is premature, and that the killing of Wauba Yuba will
prove an unprofitable step. If, after an appeal to him for the delivery
of the supposed murderer and incendiary he had not been given up, it
might have been well to make an example and to have taken Wauba Yuba as
a hostage, and perhaps to have executed him, but to kill him in cold
blood before he had time to make an explanation or to prove his
innocence and readiness to aid in bringing the culprit to justice, was
a harsh and, we fear, a most unfortunate measure. It will exasperate
the Hualapais and probably lead to an interruption to travel upon our
only practicable road (in the absence of water on the La Paz road) to
the Colorado."
"Whether the killing of
the Indian chief was justified or not, the result was very disastrous
as far as the Americans were concerned, for the Hualapais and all of
the tribes of the Colorado River immediately went upon the warpath and
that portion of Arizona was the scene of much bloodshed for many years
thereafter, until these tribes were finally subdued by General Crook.
Just before the advent of the railroads into the territory, Mr. Miller
disposed of his freighting interests and engaged in mining and
ranching. He located a ranch in the early days about a mile and a half
from Prescott, in what is now known as Miller Valley, where he lived
for many years, and until his death on October 12th, 1909. He was
survived by four sons and a daughter. Miller was a man of great
firmness and force of character. He was honorable in all his dealings
and universally respected; a valuable citizen in any community. lie
refused political preferment, preferring always a quiet home life.
Edward C. Peck
Edward C. Peck was born
in Canada in 1834. When a young man he came to the United States and in
1858, he joined a party of emigrants en route to California. He came
over the old Santa Fe trail as far as Albuquerque, New Mexico, at which
point they decided to strike westward along the Whipple trail and
emigrant route between Albuquerque and Los Angeles. Without any serious
mishaps, the party reached the villages of the friendly Zunis. Although
warned against the Navajos and Apaches, the party contiued their
journey to the west. They reached the little Colorado and crossed to
the west side at Sunset, near the present town of Winslow. They then
travelled down the west bank of the little Colorado to the mouth of the
Canyon Diablo, from which point on they were continually harassed night
and day by Apaches. By the time the party reached Antelope Springs,
near the present city of Flagstaff, the Indians had become too numerous
to proceed further. The emigrants decided to retreat at once. They
travelled all night in comparative safety, which was a disappointment
to the Indians, who ex-pected to murder the party at their leisure. The
party travelled altogether at night until they reached the Zunis, where
they stopped for sometime to recuperate their wornout animals and
themselves, following hunting and trapping until the fall of 1863, when
Peck returned to Arizona in company with two others, Collier and
Farrington. Peck secured the first hay contract at Fort Whipple, which
was then located in Chino Valley. It was for three hundred tons of hay
at thirty dollars a ton, to be cut with hoes. After completing his hay
contract, in the forepart of 1864, he and his partners moved to Granite
Creek to a point just above the Point of Rocks, two or three miles from
where Prescott now stands. Here they built a cabin and cared for loose
stock at three dollars a head. King Woolsey, a member of Governor
Goodwin's staff, was selected to lead an expedition of a hundred men
against the Apaches. Their rendezvous was at Woolsey's ranch on the
Agua Fria, now known as the Bowers Ranch. The command was divided into
squads of ten men to each squad, with a captain over it Peck commanded
one of these squads. Afterwards, when General Frank Wheaton commanded
the Northern District, with his headquarters at Fort Whipple, Peck was
his general guide and scout at that fort. He knew the country well and
was invaluable as a guide, being cool, cautious and brave. After
retiring from the army, he was shown in Prescott some rich silver ore.
After examining it carefully, he said: "I know a place where you can
get tons of ore as good as that is." The result was that he and two or
three others went out and Peck showed them what afterwards became the
Peck mine, where there were tons and tons of ore that would go from one
thousand to two thousand dollars a ton. For a time Lis mine
paid largely, but it became in-volved in litigation, and Peck retired
from it a poor man. He died in Nogales, December 13th, 1910. at the age
of 77 years. Could the history of his life in Arizona be written in
detail, it would be as romantic and interesting as that of Daniel
Boone, Davy Crockett and other early pioneers in our country.
Jackson
McCracken
Jackson McCracken, a
member of the Walker Party, served in the First Legislative Assembly of
Arizona Territory in 186-1, as a member of the lower house from Yavapai
County. He was born in South Carolina in 1828. After his arrival in the
territory with the Walker Party, he spent his time in mining and
prospecting. Evidently, he was not very fastidious as to dress or
personal appearance, for the following story is told of hiin: After his
election, some of his constituents went to him and told him that he was
now a member of the First Legislature of the great Territory of
Arizona, and he should be dressed and equipped in keeping with the
dignity of the office. He replied: "I am in the hands of my
constituents." For answer they said: "All right Jack, we'll attend to
you." So they formed a committee, took Jack down to Granite Creek,
where they had a tub made from the end of a whiskey barrel, filled with
water and soap. They gave him a good wash, scrubbed him down with a
horse brush, wiped him off well, dressed him up with clean
underclothing and a hand-me-down suit; took him to a barber and had his
whiskers and hair trimmed properly, and turned him over to the
Legislature, a man of the people, a thoroughly clean and Progessive
Democrat.
McCracken was an
indefatigable prospector. With few advantages in early life he became a
wanderer in the west, prospecting through Colorado and New Mexico until
finally he reached Arizona. He discovered the Del Pasco mine, and also
the McCracken mine, both of which are well known in Northern Arizona.
He blazed the trail for others to follow and was among the first to set
foot upon the soil where Prescott now stands. He went to San Francisco
late in the seventies, and, on the 28th of December, 1882, was married
to Mrs. Josephine Clifford, whose former husband had been an army
officer stationed in Arizona, where she had a sad and varied
experience. Immediately after their marriage McCracken and his wife
located the Monte Paraiso ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains in
California, and invested their money in clearing the land, setting out
vineyards and orchards, building roads, etc. The ranch was located
about three miles above the station at Wrights in a redwood forest. It
was, indeed, a paradise; a home surrounded with orchards and vineyards,
gardens and groves, and an abundance of water, fountains and
reservoirs. The house was the finest in the mountains, and Mrs.
McCracken, being of literary taste, at one time associated with the old
Pioneer Monthly Magazine as one of its editors, their home became a
place of resort for men like Ambrose Bierce, Bret Harte and others, who
always found there a hearty welcome.
In 1899 a forest fire
swept over that portion of the Santa Cruz Mountains, destroying their
home and ranch and the forest. McCracken came near losing his life
because he had ventured into the forty acre timber tract trying to save
the forest by back-firing. His hair and long beard were singed and the
boots on his feet were burned before he got out. "This forest fire,"
says his wife, "was remarkable as wine had been used to extinguish the
flames when they reached the Meyer winery building."
They created an
indebtedness in rebuilding their home, which filled McCracken with
worry and anxiety, under the strain of which his health failed and his
life came to a close on December 14th, 1904, at the age of 80 years. He
was buried on the ranch in a spot he had selected for himself long
before. The accompanying picture shows him and his favorite dog on the
Picture Rock. To the right, as you look at the picture, a little
forward, is his grave. This rock was his favorite resting place, and he
wanted to be buried at the foot of it. Standing by the grave a group of
young firs rises behind you, and you look through an avenue of olives
out on the Bay of Monterey.
His wife, now over
seventy years of age, is engaged as a reporter for a daily newspaper in
Santa Cruz, California.
John T. Alsap
John T. Alsap came to
Arizona a few months before the organization of the Territory, and
settled in what is now the city of Prescott. He was born in Frankfort,
Kentucky, in 1832. He was graduated in 1854 from the New York College
of Medicine as a bachelor of law and physician, in which year he
crossed the plains, and for some years thereafter practiced medicine to
some extent in California in conjunction with mining and
prospecting. Upon his arrival in Arizona he took up mining
and prospecting in the vicinity of Prescott. The Apache Indians
being troublesome the following winter, he accompanied King Woolsey on
an expedition against the tribe as surgeon of the command. He was
appointed the first Territorial Treasurer of Arizona, and served during
the administration of Governor McCormick. In 1868 he was
elected to the Legislature as the representative from Yavapai
County. In 1869 in company with his wife's brother, W. L.
Osborn, he settled in the Salt River Valley, about a mile northeast
from Phoenix, and thereafter was intimately connected with the
development of this section. He was elected to the legislature in 1870,
and aided in the organization of Maricopa County. The same year he was
Probate Judge of the new county. His term in the Assembly
expired in 1872. He was admitted to the practice of the law in Arizona
in 1871, and afterwards served as District Attorney of Maricopa County,
after which he served again in the Legislature. In 1886 he was
nominated for County Treasurer of Maricopa County, but died in
September of that year prior to the election. In the
intervals of his public duties, he was actively engaged in the practice
of law, and won an enviable reputation as a member of the
bar. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, the Knights of
Pythias, and was prominent in Masonic circles, being a past officer in
the commandery and its representative in the Grand Lodge of the
Territory. He was a strict Methodist in religion and in politics a
Democrat. He was twice married, his first wife being Louisa A. Osborn,
a daughter of John Preston Osborn, one of the pioneers of Prescott, and
his second wife being Anna D. Murray. Some of his descendants are yet
living in the Salt River Valley.
Pioneers
James Cusenberry built
the twenty stamp mill, (or superintended the building of it) and also
added the twenty new stamps; then turned the management over to a man
named Sexton, who stole everything that he could during the four years
that he kept it running, and was over $100,000 in debt in Arizona when
he had to close down. It is hard to tell how much the Vulture Company
owed in California at that time, and it is doubtful if any of the debts
were ever paid.
The ten stamp mill owned
by William Smith, Fritz Brill, and others, was moved from Wickenburg
to a point about thirteen miles lower down the Hassayampa in order to
get wood, as the wood had all been consumed near the town. The mill was
run until 1878 or 1879, when Smith and Company sold out the claims they
held on the Vulture Ledge to James Seymour of New York, who had bought
out the old Wickenburg interests. Seymour employed James Cusen-berry to
superintend the working of the prop-erties, and he moved twenty stamps
of the old mill down to a point on the river about eleven miles below
and the twenty stamps were run at the place called Seymour for nearly a
year, when a man named Shipman was put in charge.
Instead of moving the
other twenty stamps to Seymour, he advised building a larger mill at
the mine, and pumping the water from the river to it. The result was an
eighty stamp mill, and a seventeen mile pump line to it.
The amount taken from the
Vulture Mine is variously estimated at from seven to ten millions of
dollars. The ore was hauled to Wickenburg, a distance of sixteen miles
from the mine, at a cost of seventeen dollars a ton. Vulture gold
passed current throughout the territory at that time having a value of
about fifteen dollars an ounce. Henry Wickenburg, after parting with
all his interest in the mine, settled at the town which bore his name,
having a ranch there up to the time of his death in May, 1905. He was a
fine character, honest, straight-forward and industrious, a typical
Westerner, quiet, unobtrusive, bold and fearless, and generous to a
fault. He was not possessed of much property at the time of his death.
He was a member of the Seventh Legislature of the Territory.
Among the most notable of
the early pioneers of Arizona, was King S. Woolsey. He was a native of
Alabama, but was raised to manhood in Louisiana, from which state he
emigrated to California when only eighteen years of age. He came into
this territory in 18G0 in company with Mr, Benedict of Tucson, and
Colonel Jackson, who settled in Yavapai County. When they landed in
Yuma, all the money in the party was five dollars, which King Woolsey
had. In addition he had a horse, rifle and pistol, and the others were
similarly mounted and armed. They had ridden all the way from below San
Francisco into the territory. Woolsey's first occupation in Arizona was
that of a mule driver; he then became the owner of a mule team and made
contracts for the delivery of hay, etc., to the Government. Later he
engaged in partnership with George Martin, who afterwards lived at
Yuma, and they purchased the Agua Caliente Ranch.
When Albert Sidney
Johnson's party came across the territory on their way to join the
Confederates, Woolsey joined them, but when they reached Maricopa
station, he was taken down with smallpox, and was left behind. He was
watched as a Secessionist for some time there-after, but never took any
part in the civil strife. The Texan invasion found him actively engaged
in private business.
He had many fights with
the Indians, and one of his first is described by J. Ross Browne in his
book: "The Apache Country," where, in describing his trip through
Arizona in 1863, Mr. Browne tells the story. In travelling between
Grinnell's and Oatman Flat, near the old mail station called Burk's,
Mr.
Allen, Mr. Browne's companion, called his attention to an open space
fringed with brushwood and mesquite, where a sharp fight had taken
place about two years before between a party consisting of three
Americans, one of whom was King Woolsey, and about fifteen or twenty
Apaches. Mr. Browne says:
"Mr. Woolsey, who has
since become quite famous in Arizona as an Indian fighter, had
contracted to supply the Government with hay, and was returning from
the grass range with his loaded wagon and two hired hands, entirely
unsuspicious of danger. They had one gun with thorn, which by good luck
rather than precaution was charged with buckshot. In emerging from the
bushes where the road approaches the point of the sand hill, a terrific
yell burst upon them, and in a moment, the Apaches sprang up from their
ambush and charged upon them like so many devils incarnate.
Woolsey said: 'Hold the mules boys, and give me the gun!' which they
did with great coolness. The Indians wheeled about and dodged, but kept
shooting their arrows with such fearful dexterity that Woolsey thought
it advisable to give them a load of buckshot. The distance was too
great, and no damage was done. At this the savages renewed their
diabolical yells; closer and closer they crowded, the brave little band
of whites standing coolly by the wagon and mules, ready to sell their
lives as dearly as possible. The leader of the Apaches, a warrior of
gigantic stature and hideous features rushed forward brandishing his
war club, calling upon his men to follow. Woolsey waited until the
chief had approached within twenty paces, when he discharged the other
barrel of his gun. Down tumbled the yelling savage, with a hole through
his head.
"Woolsey and his party
determined to make a conspicuous mark of the dead chief, from which
marauding Indians might take warning. They dragged the body to the
nearest mesquite tree and hung it up by the neck, leaving the feet to
dangle about a yard from the ground." The Indians fled upon the death
of the chief, and being superstitious, never approached the place as
long as the body was dangling from the tree.
About this time the
California Column, commanded by General Carleton, arrived in the
Territory, and Woolsey made considerable money furnishing them with
supplies. In 1863 he joined the Walker part}' and with them set out to
prospect Northern Arizona, and was one of the discoverers of Lynx
Creek; he then assodated himself with John Dixon, and took up the Agua
Fria ranch east of Prescott, after which he returned to his home at the
Agua Caliente. A short time after this he opened the first road into
the Northern part of Arizona. While constructing this road in the
vicinity of Antelope Mountain, considerable stock was stolen from the
people of Wickenburg. The Tonto Apaches had been raiding the ranches in
Peeples' Valley and along the Verde, and Walnut Grove and other
localities south of Prescott. A large band of them drove off all the
stock in Peeples' Valley. While en route to Prescott from Agua
Caliente, with his wagon train loaded with flour, which he had ground
out in a small mill at Agua Caliente, upon arriv-ing at Peeples'
Valley, the settlers insisted that he should send his teams on to
Prescott and take command of a volunteer company in a raid against the
Apaches. There were about sixty white men. Woolsey dispatched couriers
to the chiefs of the Maricopas and I'inias, and each of them joined him
at the mouth of the Verde, with thirty warriors from each tribe. They
took the trail of the Apaches and followed it into Tonto Basin, where
the chief of the Pimas, fearing an ambush, decided to go no further,
and withdrew his followers, but the chief of the Maricopas, Juan
Chiavria, who was a great friend of Woolsey's, stayed with the whites,
with his warriors. They followed this canyon for about three miles when
they found themselves surrounded by about four hundred of the Apaches.
Knowing that unless diplomacy was resorted to, they would all be
massacred, King Woolsey got his interpreter, a Yuma Indian who lived on
his ranch and had formerly been captured by the Apaches and had
acquired their language, to talk to the hostilcs. Jack was the orator
for the occasion. He talked long and loud, begging them to come down,
and assuring them that they would be kindly treated; that they were not
there for war, but to make peace. Jack told them that Juan Chiavria of
the Maricopas was present, and he, himself, was the chief of the Yumas,
and that the three white men were great American captains who came from
Washington to make a treaty with them. After many hours of persuasion,
the Apaches concluded that they would come down and have a talk. It was
arranged that each party should meet in council without aims; the chief
of the Maiicopas, Jack, King Woolsey, Joe Dye of Los Angeles, and young
Lennon, who was the recorder to write down the treaty. The rest of the
white men and the Maiicopas were left about sixty or seventy yards
away, armed with rifles and shotguns, with the understanding that when
the fight commenced, they were to take an active part; those armed with
shotguns to come to the relief of Woolsey, and the riflemen to fii"e
upon the Apaches on the hills. In this they were supported by the
Maricopas. The white men and the Maricopa chief in the council were
each armed with two six shooters under their coats. The Apaches, the
big chiefs and the little chiefs, numbering about thirty, were seated
in a half circle. One of the big chiefs said that he would not sit on
the bare ground, so King Woolsey sent off and got a fine scarlet
blanket, and seated him next to where he himself wras standing. The
Maricopas had brought a quantity of pinole and tobacco. The pinole was
placed on a blanket near by, and the Indians pretended to be smoking
the tobacco. After the Apaches were seated and the conference
commenced, an Apache Indian entered the council, dragging two lances at
his heels; another came with a handful of knives, which were
distributed among the hostile savages. Immediately afterward an Indian
boy rushed in almost out of breath and told the Apaches that the order
from the big chief was for them all to get out of the camp, and they
would kill the last one of the whites and the Maricopas. The signal
agreed upon by Woolsey and his men for the firing to commence, was for
him to put his hand upon his hat. Before the Apaches had time to do
anything, Woolsey gave his signal, and, at the same time, shot the
Apache chief who was seated upon his blanket. Joe Dye, Young Lennon,
the Maricopa chief and Jack did the same, and every bullet found its
mark. The shotgun men rushed in and killed every Apache who had come to
the council, while those having rifles were picking off the Apaches who
were on the hills. After the fight was over, they examined the hills,
which were covered with blood, but they foiuid no dead, as it was the
invariable custom of the Apaches to carry off their dead and wounded
whenever it was practicable for them to do so. Woolsey and his men
re-traced their steps through the canyon, and not an Indian was in
sight. In this fight Woolsey lost only one man. He had warned young
Lennon to look out for a lame Apache who had a lance, but in the
excitement young Lennon had forgotten his warning. The Indian ran him
through the body with his lance, and Lennon shot the Indian with his
revolver almost at the same time, both dying together. The Apaches
received such severe punishment that they were good for some time
thereafter.
The above account is
given me by Mrs. Baxter, the wife of Judge Baxter of Yuma, who was the
wife of King Woolsey, and may be considered the true story of what is
known as the "Pinole Treaty," or the massacre at Bloody Tanks.
King Woolsey was the hero
of many expeditions against the Apaches, particularly during the Civil
War when the United States troops were withdrawn from Arizona to New
Mexico, leaving the settlers in Arizona to take care of themselves. At
one time he was in command of one hundred and ten volunteers. In one of
his expeditions he followed up the Salt River to Tonto Basin, and from
there through the Sierra Anches, where they had a fight with the
Apaches, in which 120 of the Indians were killed. The Apaches were
taken by surprise and Woolsey did not lose a man. In the same
expedition they came in around where the town of Globe now is, and
discovered a wheat field which had been planted by the Indians. They
thrashed out all the wheat they wanted, parching it, and making it into
pinole. After doing this they turned their horses into the field and
destroyed the growing crop, while the squaws on the surrounding hills
were bewailing their loss. The place to this day is known as the "Wheat
Fields."
At one time King Woolsey,
William Fourr, now living at Dragoon Summit, and Salazar, acted as
guides for the Government. Salazar was the Government guide, but not
knowing the country, Woolsey and Fourr acted as guides for Colonel
McClave in expeditions against the Apaches, who had their rancherias in
the vicinity of the Harquahala Mountains. The three guides were in
advance of Colonel McClave's company, and when near the water, they
discovered three Indians. Each killed his Indian, which prevented any
knowledge of the expedition reaching the hostiles. That afternoon the
command nearecl the water and the Indians began shooting. The battle
raged all that afternoon and the next morning until about ten o'clock,
when the chief of the Indians was killed by either Fourr or Woolsey,
who had been shooting at him with their Sharp's rifles for at least a
half an hour. After the chief was killed, the Apaches dispersed and
allowed the troops to come to the water. These Indians had been
plundering the ranches along the Gila, and all the stations ten and
twelve miles apart. They drove off from Woolsey's ranch at one time,
stock valued at $10,000, stripping him of everything except eight
mules. They robbed Fourr in the same way. Juan Chiavria, Chief of the
Maricopas, sought out these Indians, who were just ordinary thieves,
but not murderers, and told them that if they attempted to interfere
with his friends, the whites, again, he would arm his men, follow into
their strongholds, and kill the last one of them, men, women and
children. The Indians were Apache-Mohaves, who had such a wholesome
fear of both the Maricopas and the Pimas, that thereafter they did not
interfere with the ranchmen on the Gila.
About the year 1866 or
1867, there was a lot of hard cases, bad men, who came into Northern
Arizona from Montana. Among the rest was Jeff Standifcr, who had the
reputation of being a cool, courageous, nervy killer; a dead shot with
any firearm. He was a gambler, and, hearing somewhat of King Woolsey
being a man of courage, he declared that he would kill him on sight.
Men of his character always seek out those who have the reputation of
being fighters to try their mettle. As far as my experience in the West
goes, this class of men, and I have seen many of them, are like
gamecocks on a farm; every one has its master, but in trying to
establish their superiority, when they come together it is a duel to
the death. Some of Woolsey's friends visited him at his Agua Fria
ranch, and told him of tho threats which Standifer had made, and
advised him not to come to Prescott for a few days. Woolsey said: "I'll
think about it." He said he didn't like the idea, however, of a man
telling him that he should not go to a place, or tell him that he
should not go or come as he pleased; that he was in the habit of doing
very much as he wanted to. A few nights afterwards, when everything was
in full swing, and this man was at his game, there entered the room
King Woolsey. Going up to the bar, he turned his face to the crowd. All
was still and quiet. A hush came over everyone and the
whisper passed around: "There's Woolsey!" Standifer heard it, and
started with his pistol in his hand towards Woolsey. Woolsey looked at
him until he was within about fifteen or twenty feet, when, quicker
than lightning, he pulled his six shooter, and had it cocked and
levelled at the man's head. Raising his left hand he said: "Halt!
another step and you're a dead man." Involuntarily Standifer stopped.
Woolsey looked him in the face for a moment, still holding his gun down
on him, and said: "There's the door, take it, if ever you cross my path
again, I'll kill you." The man went out of the door and never returned.
Woolsey continued to make
money; he got into mining, however, and lost about sixty thousand
dollars. At the time of his death, he was one of the largest landowners
in the Salt River Valley. In spite of all his activities, in hunting
Indians, running ranches and mines, he still had time to serve the
territory. He was a member of the Legislative Council the first,
second, seventh, eighth and ninth Legislatures, and was President of
the two last named Councils. He was a candidate for the position of
Delegate to Congress in 1878, but was not elected. He was commissioned
Lieutenant-Colonel of Volunteers, and was an aide upon both the staffs
of Governor Goodwin and Governor Safford. In the early part of 1878, in
company with John Y. T. Smith and C. W. Stearns, he erected the Phoenix
Flour Mills.
He died June 29th, 1879,
on his ranch adjoining the city of Phoenix at the age of forty-seven
years, and was survived by his widow, who is now the wife of Judge
Frank Baxter of Yuma. The following notice is taken from the Phoenix
Herald of July 2nd, 1879:
"King S. Woolsey Crosses
the Shining River. In the Midst of Life we are in Death.
Arizona's most prominent
citizen gone to his final resting place.
"King S. Woolsey died
last Sunday morning about three o'clock at his residence, the Lyle
ranch, southeast of Phoenix. The deceased was a large, hale, and hearty
man, and his death was very unexpected. He was in town up to a late
hour the previous evening, and then certainly gave no indication of the
nearness of death. Returning himself after all the farm hands had
retired, and not wishing to disturb them, he put up his buggy animals
unassisted, and then went to his room.
"The cook, who sleeps
outside, saw him enter the house and commence preparing for bed. The
cook states that he heard a slight groaning, but as deceased was
occasionally troubled with nightmare, he paid no attention to the
matter and went to sleep. He was awakened by a prolonged groan, and,
jumping up, he rushed to the room and discovered the deceased lying on
the floor, partially under the table.
"A messenger was
dispatched for help, who shortly returned with Dr. Conyers, but no aid
could be rendered—the groan which awakened the cook was, no doubt, the
last of King S. Woolsey on this earth. A dispatch was immediately sent
to his wife, who was living on the Agua Caliente ranch. She
reached here early Monday morning, and the remains were conveyed to
their last resting place at nine o'clock that morning. The funeral
service was conducted by the Masonic Order, (of which Woolsey was a
member), and was the first ever performed in this valley.
The funeral was largely attended."
Juan Chiavria, chief of
the Maricopas, wept like a child at the loss of his friend, and
accompanied by almost all the males of his tribe, attended his funeral.
Captain Thomas Jonathan
Jeffords was born in Chautauqua County, New York, in 1832. He laid out
the road from Leavenworth, Kansas, to Denver, in 1858. In the fall of
1859 he came to Taos, New Mexico, and wintered in Taos. The following
spring he went into the San Juan mountains to prospect and mine. In
1862 he carried dispatches from Fort Thorn to General Carleton at
Tucson. At that time, he was on the payroll of the United States
Government as a scout, and piloted the advance companies of the
California Column into New Mexico, to old Fort Thorn near the Rio
Grande near Las Cruces. He is said to have taken part in the battle of
Val Verde and the other engagements which resulted in the expulsion of
the Confederates from New Mexico.
In 1867 Captain Jeffords
made the personal acquaintance of Cochise, who had been very active
against all Americans and Mexicans. Of this meeting, Captain Jeffords
said; "He had killed twenty-one men to my knowledge, fourteen of whom
were in my employ. I made up my mind that I wanted to see him. I
located one of his Indians and a camp where he came personally. In the
meantime, I had acquired a smattering knowledge of the Indian language,
having been an Indian trader under a commission from Mr. Parker,
Secretary of the Interior. Having been advised that Cochise would be at
a certain place at a certain time. I went into his camp alone, fully
armed. After meeting him, I told him that I was there to talk
with him personally, and that I wished to leave my arms in his
possession or in the possession of one of his wives whom he had with
him, to be returned to me when I was ready to leave, which would
probably be a couple of days. Cochise seemed to be surprised, but
finally consented to my proposition, took possession of my arms and I
spent two or three days with him, discussing affairs, and sizing him
up. 1 found him to be a man of great natural ability, a splendid
specimen of physical manhood, standing about six feet two, with an eye
like an eagle. This was the commencement of my friendship with Cochise,
and although I was frequently compelled to guide troops against him and
his band, it never interfered with our friendship. lie respected me and
I respected him. He was a man who scorned a liar, was always truthful
in all things, his religion was truth and loyalty. My name with Cochise
was Chickasaw, or Brother, and among his tribe I was known as
Tyazalaton, which means'Sandy Whiskers.' The following will illustrate
a point in Cochise's character: He said to me once, 'Chickasaw, a man
should never lie!' I replied: 'No, he should not, but a great many do.'
He said: "That is true, but they need not do it; if a man asks you or I
a question we do not wish to answer, we could simply say: I don't want
to talk about that.'
"I learned from Cochise,
and I think his story bears me out, that up to about the year 1859 when
he was betrayed by Lieutenant Bascom, he had always been very friendly
to the whites, but since that time he had done them all the harm he
could."
In 1870 General Howard
was sent out by the Department in Washington as Indian Commissioner.
During that year he took several Indian Chiefs to Washington, and
returned in 1871. Cochise's band was still on the warpath, and all
white men gave him a wide berth, fearing to enter his camp. Howard was
anxious to interview him and see if some terms could not be made by
which he would be induced to go on the reservation and quit his
murdering and robbery of inoffensive citizens.
At that time Captain
Jeffords was acting as a scout for Captain Farnsworth in hunting down
these Indians, and was away from Tularosa, which was his headquarters,
on a scouting trip with Farnsworth. General Howard made the
acquaintance of a man by the name of Milligan, and told him what he
wanted. Milligan told him there was but one man who could conduct him
into Cochise's camp; that he was the only white man who had ever gone
into his camp and returned, and that man was Captain Jeffords. Upon
Jeffords' return from the scout, General Howard was at Tularosa, and
sent for him, telling him what he wanted to do. Jeffords told him that
he could take him to Cochise's camp in seven days but in order to do so
he, as general of the army, would have to be under the control and
direction of him, Jeffords; that he would guarantee his safe return,
but that he would have to go in alone with him, and do as he said.
Howard consented to the tonus, but some of his officers protested,
saying that he would never get out alive and insisted that he should go
with a strong military eecort. Jeffords said: "To me it is
immaterial whether you go or not, but if you are going out there with a
lot of soldiers, you will need more than 250. If you go with me alone I
can take you to his camp, and we can have this interview, and I think
you can make peace with him by giving him a reservation in his own
country." After considering the matter, How-ard told Jeffords in the
presence of his officers that he was going, and that Jeffords would he
in command of the expedition. Jeffords, telling the story, said: "I
always had a great respect for General Howard after that. Before this
time I was prejudiced against him on account of his well known
humanitarian ideas, and, to my mind, posing as a Christian soldier. I
saw then that he was not only a brave man, and fearless as far as his
person was concerned, but was really in earnest about trying to stop
the destructive war which Cochise was waging upon my countrymen."
Jeffords immediately set
himself to work to locate Cochise. He left Howard's camp that night,
and found one of the Indians twenty miles away by the name of Chee, and
brought him back to the post. This Chee was a son of Mangus Colorado
but had been brought up by Cochise. Jeffords then went in another
direction, and brought in another Indian, Ponce, a son-in-law of
Mangus. He arranged with these Indians to take him and General Howard
to Cochise's camp. To perfect all of these arrangements took several
days. Jeffords continues: "Finally we started for Cochise's camp from
Fort Bayard, New Mexico. General Howard had requested me to allow
him to take his aide-de-camp, Cap-tain Slayden, with him, which request
was granted. I took charge of the expedition, and landed General Howard
in Cochise's camp in seven days as had been agreed,"
Targash, which means
'Gamecock,' was the saib-chief. Five or six Indians and from fifteen to
sixteen squaws and children were in the camp. The General and the
Captain stayed overnight. The next morning the General said to Captain
Jeffords: "Hadn't we better be going?" Jeffords said: "Where?" The
General said: "Why, to hunt Cochise." Jeffords answered: "He will be
here in about fifteen or twenty minutes. He will come on horseback, and
will have behind him the ugliest Indian you ever saw, by the name of
Teesc, bearing a lance. Jeffords and his Indians had been signalling
all the way out, using smoke, the usual method of telegraphing among
Indians. Cochise made his appearance in about fifteen minutes, as
Jeffords had said. He looked around, and then embraced Jeffords
according to the Mexican and Indian custom. He was introduced to
General Howard and Captain Slayden. After a few minutes conversation,
Cochise asked Jeffords how long he had known these people. Jeffords
said about thirty days. "Will they do as they say they will?" Jeffords
replied: "Well, I don't know; I think they will, but I will see that
they do not promise too much." During the trip Jeffords had cautioned
Howard against making too great promises, because Indians were very
exact, and the slightest violation of any promise made would
queer them all the way through. Cochise
studied a while and said: "I am going to send him to Bowie and see how
much of a friend of the Indian he is." He said to Howard: "My people
are out making a living. If they come across any whites, they will kill
them, and it may be that some of my people will be killed. If my people
are killed, I will take care of them, and if iny people kill any whites
I don't want to be held accountable for it, for they are out making a
living. I want you to go to Bowie to-night." The General said to
Captain Jeffords: "1 am very tired and I don't know how to get there."
Jeffords replied: "The Indians will show you a new route, and you can
make a sulphur spring, about twelve miles from here tonight, sleep
there, and go to Bowie tomorrow, and return in about three days."
Howard did as requested and returned in three days.
In the meantime some of
Cochise's Indians came in and reported that they had killed five
whites. Cochise said: "I do not think the troops can follow the trail
of my Indians, but if they do, they will be in here to-night, and we
will have a fight." Jeffords explained to Slayden the condition of
affairs, and told him if the troops followed the trail and fought with
the Indians, they would be beaten. He told him that if he wanted to
leave, he had better go right away, and an Indian would conduct him to
General Howard. Slayden said: "What are you going to do?" Jeffords
answered: "I am going to stay here, but you are an officer of the army,
and it might complicate matters if the soldiers found you here."
Slayden studied for a while, and said: "If you are going to stay, I
will stay too."
Cochise moved his camp up
among the rocks, and the Indians made a nice bed for Slayden and
Jeffords. It was all planned by Cochise that if the soldiers came in
upon them, the women and children would be taken out of the camp beyond
possible danger. The braves, in the meantime, were placed in position
to resist any attack. When General Howard returned, he looked over
Cochise's defensive arrangement, and said that no general in the Army
of the United States could have made a better disposition of his men to
resist an attack from a superior force. Consultations then began in
reference to peace. The sub-chiefs came in from all over Cochise's
stamping grounds. After a few days, they had a general powwow. General
Howard wished to attend, but Captain Jeffords said: "No, we will stay
here. They will let us know whether they want to make peace or not." By
and by, through certain noises in their camp, Jeffords knew that it was
all right, and that the council had decided for peace, and so told the
General. Cochise then came up and informed the General that they were
ready to make terms of peace. The terms were that they should have a
reservation in the Sulphur Spring Valley within the boundaries of
Stein's Pass Mountains, Chiricahua Mountains, and the Dragoon
Mountains, and that Captain Jeffords should be the Indian Agent.
Jeffords said he did not wish the position; that the Government owed
him $3,000 which he would forfeit if he accepted the position of Indian
Agent, and, besides, he did not wish to be mixed up in it. If he
was agent he would be called upon for political assessments every time
a president was to be elected, or a delegate in his territory elected;
that he was an old time Democrat, and did not feel like assisting any
Republican in any position. Howard replied: "I will tell General Grant
about it and I think it would be better. In the meantime, Captain, I
cannot make peace unless you consent to act as Indian Agent" Jeffords
considered the matter, and being anxious to stop a war which was
killing off so many of his friends, finally consented, with the
understanding that he was to be absolute boss upon the reservation,
admitting no one on the reservation unless with his consent, and taking
absolute control and authority over the Indians. This authorit}' was
given him by the President. Thereafter no soldier or civilian, or
official of any kind came upon the reservation without Jefford's
consent, and for the four years that he was Indian Agent, there was
never any trouble with the Chiricahua Apaches. The White Mountain
Indians sent several delegations into the reservation to get assistance
from Cochise's Indians, but never received it. Further, all the horses
and other stock in the hands of Cochise at the time this treaty was
made, were restored to the owners. There was trouble with the White
Mountain Indians at times, but Cochise sat always at the right hand of
Jeffords, and enforced whatever order he made, with the result as above
stated. It was charged that these Chiricahua Indians went upon
different raids into Mexico, and that a part of the treaty made with
Howard was that they should have that privilege, all of which was
untrue.
During the time that
Jeffords was agent, Cochise died upon the reservation. It can be said
that every promise which he made to Howard was religiously kept as long
as he lived, and he advised his Indians never to go on the warpath
against the whites again.
In the last sickness of
Cochise, Jeffords was with him and gave him the best medical attention
to be had, but was called away from Cochise's wickiup to issue rations
to the Indians. Before leaving, however, Cochise told Jeffords that
when he died, he wanted him to take care of his particular tribe, which
numbered about three hundred and twenty, and keep a supervision over
them. Jeffords said: "I am only one, and they are over three hundred,
and they won't do what I ask them to do unless they want to." Cochise
said:11 We will fix that." He called in the head chiefs of his
particular division, and then and there selected his oldest son as his
successor, and they agreed with Cochise that they would do whatever
Jeffords wanted them to do. On the removal of the Chiricahua Indians to
the San Carlos Reservation, Jeffords took charge of this branch of the
tribe, and it was the only band that went voluntarily to the San
Carlos. Jeffords then left to issue rations to the rest of the Indians.
In saying good-bye, Cochise said: "Chickasaw, do you think you will
ever see me alive again?" Jeffords replied: "I do not know; I don't
think I will, for you have been failing very rapidly in the last three
days, and I think that by tomorrow night you will be dead." Cochise
said: " I think so too, about tomorrow morning, at ten o'clock, I will
pass out, but do you think we will ever meet again?" Jeffords replied:
"I don't know. What do you think about it?" "Well," said Cochise, "I
have been giving it a good deal of thought since I have been sick here,
and I think we will." "Where?" asked Jeffords. "I don't know, somewhere
up yonder," pointing to the skies. He died the next morning as he said
he would, from inflammation of the bowels. He never feared death, but
rather courted it.
While Slayden was in the
camp, Jeffords asked Cochise if they could not have some fresh meat.
"Well," Cochise said, "what I can give you is good enough for you and
1, but I don't know about the other fellow." "All right," said
Jeffords, "you have it cooked up, and I will vouch for him." So they
had meat boiled in large quantities set before them, and Slayden ate
like a pig. After the meal was over, Jeffords asked him how he liked
the meat. "I never tasted anything so good in my life. I ate three
portions of it, and would have called for more had I not been ashamed
to. What kind of meat was it, elk?" Jeffords said; "Well, yon saw them
kill that colt over there. That was horse meat." Slayden answered:
"Well, if I had known it, I suppose I wouldn't have touched it, but I
still say it was the best meat I ever tasted."
During Captain Jefford's
administration there was only one outbreak, if indeed it can be so
characterized. "Rogers and Spence were living by permission of the
Government and myself, as agent, at Sulphur Springs. They were
instructed by me not to keep any whiskey or liquors, and above all not
to let the Indians have any because if they did, in one of their
drunken sprees, they will murder you, and I will be obliged to order
you off the reservation, which I do not wish to do. This was understood
be-tween us. Two Indians, Pioncenay and Piarhel went down to their
camp, and Rogers and Spence sold them whiskey at $10.00 per bottle. The
Indians became drunk, and in a fit of intoxication, killed both white
men, when they would not sell them more liquor. I received the news at
ten o'clock at night, they having been killed that morning about an
hour after sunrise. I immediately went to Major McClelland, who was in
charge of the military forces, and informed him of this murder, and
told him that I wanted him to send an officer with me to Rogers and
Spence's camp the next morning. He sent Lieutenant Hendley with
twenty-eight soldiers. We went to the camp. I knocked open the head of
a keg of whiskey, and in the bottom found several plugs of tobacco cut
up, and a lot of chile, a decoction that would make any man crazy. The
next thing was to capture the Indians who committed the murder. I was
informed by my Indians where they wrere, but a brother of one of the
Indians had a few of his followers with him, and their efforts were to
get the murderers away into Sonora, which they succeeded in doing. The
two Indians returned to the reservation in about twenty days, from
Sonora, and I was informed of it. I called up Tarjay, the son of
Cochise, and the head chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, and told him
that I wanted those Indians. My object was to take them and send them
to Tucson for trial by the civil authorities. Nacheis, the j'oungest
son of Cochise, urged me to let him deal with Esquinay, the war chief
of the Chiricahuas, who was Nacheis' father-in-law, and who was
protecting these two Indians. After some debate, I consented, and when
resistance was made, Nacheis killed his father-in-law, and three or
four Indians, when I had told them that they were prisoners, and they
attempted to resist, the fight commencing, and Nacheis killing his
father-in-law, as above stated, and four others. Pioncenay was shot
through the lungs. This ended the trouble. Chun, who was my successor,
turned him over to Charlie Shibell, Sheriff of Pima County, and the
Indian escaped."
During all the time that
Jeffords was in con-trol of the Indians, he had their confidence and
could induce them to do almost anything that he desired. He saw that
they were protected at all times as far as possible in their rights,
and dealt with them humanely, justly and friendly, thus commanding
their respect and confidence. When his successor was appointed, his
accounts were audited in Washington, and his bondsmen were released
within three months, something unheard of in the history of the
administration of Indian affairs in Arizona. Most of the Indian agents
were under bond for $10,000. Jeffords was under bond for $50,000. He
made all his reports to the Interior Department direct, and had, as
before stated, the entire control of the reservation given to him by
President Grant.
Captain Jeffords was
superintendent of the mail from Mesilla to Tucson, in 1866-67, during
which time a number of his men were killed by Cochise's band, which led
Jeffords to hunt up Cochise in person, as stated above.
The later years of
Captain Jeffords' life were spent at Owl's Head, a mining camp in Pinal
County, about fifteen miles from Red Rock Station, on the Southern
Pacific, where he was interested in some mining property. He died on
February 19th, 1914, and was buried in Tucson.
Charles H. Meyer was a
German, and settled in Tucson in 1854. From 1875 he served several
times as City Recorder, His court was unique; every man, when first
brought before him for any misdemeanor, he would treat leniently,
sometimes giving him a lecture, but for the second offense, he usually
imposed a heavy fine, and in addition, would send the offender to the
chain gang. If the prisoner demurred to the sentence, the judge would
generally double the time on the chain gang, saying: "Veil, I gifs you
thirty days more on the chain gang for contempt of de court." By this
method he kept Tucson an orderly city dui'ing his terms in office. He
had the first drug store in Tucson, which he conducted for many years.
One of the principal streets of the city, Meyer Street, is named for
him. He died in Tucson September 7th, 1903, having been a resident of
that town for forty-seven years.
A. F. Banta was born in
Indiana in 1846, and came to the Territory in 1863. He was one of the
chief Government guides and scouts, with headquarters at Fort Whipple,
from 1865 to 1871. He was a member of the 10th Legislature, and
introduced and passed a bill organizing the county of Apache, of which
he became District
Attorney, holding the
office two terms, 1879-80 and 1889-90. He was Probate Judge of the same
county in 1881-82; a member of the Legislature in 1883-81; Justice of
the Peace at St. John in 1876; at Springerville in 1877-78, and County
Assessor in 1880. He was the chief guide of the Wheeler Exploration
Expedition, and also the 100th Meridian Expedition in 1873. He served
as United States Marshal and Deputy Sheriff in the 80's. He was the
first postmaster at Springerville during President Hayes'
administration. At various times he has been an editor. His last
adventure of this kind was editing the "Observer" at St. Johns, Apache
County. His personal adventures would fill a volume. In the enjoyment
of all his faculties, and in perfect health for one of his age, he is
still scouring the country and prospecting. The writer saw him a few
weeks ago when he was organizing an expedition to find what is known as
the "Lost Dutchman Mine."
Up to 1862, beyond the
explorations made by Lieutenant Bcale, Felix Aubrey, and others, along
the Beale road, nothing was known of Central Arizona, its mines, its
forests, and its agricultural possibilities. It was the home of the
Apache, the most treacherous and dangerous of all the Indian tribes.
The first expedition to explore this section of the countrj' was known
as the "Walker Party." Captain Joseph R. Walker, who commanded the
expedition, was an old hunter and trapper. In 1837, and 1838, in
company with Jack Ralston, who later died, he discovered in this part
of the country a metal which, years afterwards when visiting San
Francisco, he found to be gold. In 1861, Walker desiring to explore
this country for the yellow metal, organized in Kernvilie, Kern County,
California, a company for that purpose. The following are the names of
the members of that company; Captain Joseph R. Walker, Joseph R.
Walker, Jr., John Walker, John H. Dickson, George Lount, George Cutler,
___ Tarsith, ___Clothier, John I. Miller, J. L. Miller, Samuel C.
Miller, George Blasser, Col. Harding, Phelix Buxton, Albert Dunn,
Martin Lewis, Jacob Lynn and Luther Paine. Their objective point was
the country in and around Prescott and the Little Colorado. After
crossing the Colorado, they were continually harassed by Indians, which
prevented them from exploring the country to the south as they had
intended. The San Francisco Mountain was their landmark and passing
around its base, they followed up the Little Colorado, but failing to
find gold, they pursued their journey eastward, and reached New Mexico
that same year. Upon reaching New Mexico, the party maintained its
existence and enlisted under "Kit" Carson against the Indians. Captain
Walker retained his rank and the original number of fighting men under
him. In 1862, the party went to Colorado, and in the Fall of that year,
another expedition was set on foot with the Hassayampa as the objective
point. Thirty-four hardy and intrepid men signed the muster-roll, with
a full determination to blaze the trail for others to follow. The names
and nativity of the men composing this expedition are as follows:
Captain Joseph E. Walker,
Tennessee; Joseph R. Walker, Jr., Tennessee; Martin Lewis, Missouri;
Jacob Lynn, Missouri; Charles Noble, Missouri; Henry Miller, Missouri;
Thomas Johnson, Missouri; George Blasser, Pennsylvania; Alfred Shupp,
Pennsylvania; John J. Miller, North Carolina; Jacob Miller, Illinois;
Sam. C. Miller, Illinois; Solomon Shoup, Illinois ; Hiram Cummings, New
Hampshire; Hiram Mealman, New Hampshire; Wm. Wheelhouse, New York;
George Coulter, New York; John "Bull," England; George Lount, Canada;
Rhoderic McKinney, Canada; Bill Williams, Massachusetts; A. C.
Benedict, Connecticut; A. French, Vermont; Jacob Schneider, Germany;
John Dixon, Mississippi; Frank Finney, Louisiana ; John Young, Kansas;
Jackson McCracken, South Carolina; John W. Swilling, Georgia; ___
Chase, Ohio; Felix Buxton, France; Chas. Taylor, Sailor; F. G.
Gilliland, Kentucky; Daniel E. Conner, Kentucky.
In September, 1862, the
company left Pueblo, Colorado, and being regarded with some suspicion,
the authorities thinking they might be seeking to effect a junction
with the Confederates, General Carleton employed A. C. Benedict to
accompany the expedition for the purpose of watching its movements and
reporting the same. The party went south to what afterwards became
known as Fort West, and stopped a short time, at that place, during the
Winter of 1862-63, where Jack Swilling and Jackson McCracken joined
them. Jack Swilling, as we have seen, had served under Captain Hunter
when the Confederates captured Tucson, and commanded the little
detachment that killed Lieutenant Barrett of the Federal army, in the
engagement near the Picaeho. "While at Fort West, the party served the
Government under the command of Captain McCleve. Leaving this place,
they followed the old Butterfield trail for some distance but branched
off from it to explore the unknown wilderness in the north, from one
hundred and fifty miles to two hundred miles distant.
This was the first
invasion of Arizona by any organized body of white men, and was the
be-ginning of the end of Apache dominion in that section of the
Territory of Arizona. Crossing the great Gila Desert from Saeaton
Station, now known as Oatman Flat, on the River Gila below the Pima
Indian Villages, the Walker party reached the wooded territory in and
around Prescott, and there made a final stand for a new base of
operations. They felled the trees and built a corral in a hollow square
that the savages could not break through, in which their sixty head of
mules were kept during the night. For nearly a year previously, six men
were required to guard the stock constantly, day and night; it only
required one man to guard the corral. This change, inaugurated by
Captain Walker, was very satisfactory, but the party were here stored
away, or rather, secreted in a nook in the wilderness, unknown to any
of their race, and it became necessary to notify the outside world
where they were located, so it was decided to make a flying trip to the
Pima Villages on the River Gila. A hole was dug into which all their
supplies and equipage was cached, and the party went south with their
mules to get a full supply of pinole and other foodstuffs from the
friendly Pimas, with whom they left letters to go eastwardly and
westwardly by any stray party of soldiers that might pass through the
Villages dming the next six months. These letters described the
locality and situation in the previously unknown wood-land, in which
the party had decided to make their final stand. The return trip was
made without accident, the party arriving at their new home after an
absence of twenty days. Preparing to do business with the Apaches, they
strengthened their corral, and constructed a large log cabin, or fort,
beside it for protection against their Apache foes, and for shelter
from the storms, as the rainy season had begun in earnest. This corral
and log cabin were built on the Hassayampa about five miles from the
present location of the city of Prescott. Prom this point, parties went
out in all directions prospecting. Early in May, 1S63, Sam Miller and
four others went up Lynx Creek. Here while some of the party went
hunting, Miller went over to a bank nearby, and washed a pan of dirt,
from which he got $4.80. Word was sent to the main camp on the
Hassaympa of the rich find. The party broke camp and moved on to Lynx
Creek, where they worked successfully in placer mining and trapping.
A miner's meeting was
organized, and Thomas Johnson was selected for president, after Captain
Walker had declined, and William Wheel-house for recorder. This was the
first mining district ever organized in Central Arizona, and it was
located about five miles south of the present city of Prescott on the
north bank of the Ilassayampa, and these were the first white men to
locate in this part of the country, and with the abundance of gold they
washed out, and the number of Indians they killed, they experienced,
says Mr. Fish, what some termed "booming times." From this encampment,
the party explored the surrounding country as far east as the Agua
Fria, and north or northwesterly to the Chino Valley on the Verde
River, and Bill Williams' Fork, Bill Williams' Mountain, and other
localities. Only one trip was made to Bill Williams' Mountain, north of
the corral, as it was a stronghold of the Apaches, and the party
venturing into it had two of its members wounded. From the signal
smoke, and occasional contact with Indian pickets, the party was
convinced that the savages were increasing their number by orderly
concentration, and that at any time they were caught off guard, the
whole party would be massacred. About six months had elapsed when they
were surprised by the sudden appearance of a company of soldiers under
the command of Captain M. J. Pishon and accompanied by Surveyor-General
Clark of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The soldiers came over the old Beale
road, and passed through the pretty woodland to its south edge,
discovered the recently abandoned corral, passed out of the headwaters
of the Ilassayampa to Lynx Creek and found the party in temporary
encampment there. There they remained for about three days, and when
they started on their return, they abandoned five covered wagons in the
northern plain, which were subsequently utilized to transport
provisions from Los Angeles, California, to Prescott. General Clark
stated that he had been searching for this locality for three months
before finding the party. The route which he had travelled was
estimated by the military to have been about five hundred and
twenty-five miles from Santa Pe, New Mexico, to Prescott, Arizona.
The next party to enter
this new region came in response to the letters left with the Pimas,
and consisted of what was known as the "Peeples' Party" This party was
organized by A. H. Peeples in May, 1863, and entered Arizona from
California, by wTay of Yuma, where they met Pauline Weaver, who had
come by appointment, Peeples having written him from California. The
party, with Weaver as guide, followed up the Colorado River to La Paz,
where the Mexicans had been placer mining for some time. They went east
across the Plomosa Range and up the Cullen Valley. On nearing the
mountains, some antelope were discovered, and Peeples followed them and
succeeded in killing five. From this he named the stream Antelope
Creek, and the mountain which rose from its northern bank, Antelope
Peak. The party camped nearby, and before sundown had panned out some
gold, on what they named Weaver Creek, in honor of the guide. The next
day, four Mexicans, who had joined the party at Yuma, started off after
their horses which had strayed during the night. In the evening, they
came in with their stock, and, taking Peeples aside, exhibited a large
quantity of gold nuggets which they had picked up on top of the
mountain. They could have kept the secret to themselves,
but they gathered a large amount of gold and then rode safely into
Mexico. The next morning, the party went to the top of the hill where
innumerable chunks and nuggets of gold were found in a sort of sloping
basin. In about a month, all the surface gold was gathered and the
party scattered, some remaining to work the gravel bars of Weaver
Creek. It is estimated that during the first month a quarter of a
million dollars in gold was gathered. The mountain was named Rich Hill,
and has yielded many thousands of dollars since that time.
From this period,
newcomers came from all directions, settling down with the Walker
pioneers, in and around what afterwards became Prescott. The Walker
party was dissolved in 1864, and some of its members afterwards became
identified with the early history of the Territory of Arizona.
The history of this
expedition has been written by Daniel E. Conner, the last survivor of
the party, and I hope the State of Arizona will secure it, as it gives
a succinct and continuous narrative of the expedition of the Walker
party, which was the first to enter Central Arizona, the vanguard of
that army of pioneers which subsequently reclaimed this rich and
fertile country from savage dominion. The success of these pioneers is
largely to be attributed to Captain Walker; he understood the Indian
character well, and while his policy toward them was never brutal, but
humane, yet he was always ready to meet them in battle, when such a
policy was necessary and could not be avoided. Patient and prudent,
conservative, and cautious, enjoying the full confidence of his
followers, the campaign, in every way, was a successful one.
The reports spread by the
members of the command of Captain Pishon upon their return, of the rich
gold mines in the vicinity of the Hassayampa, and Lynx Creek, and
around the head-waters of the streams in that vicinity, did much to
attract attention to that region. Several parties were hurriedly
organized to prospect in the new El Dorado. Jim Shelby, of Santa Fe,
fitted out five teams loaded with provisions, groceries, etc., and left
Santa Fe for the gold fields in October, 1863. There were with him
Frank Shaffer, Louis St. James, Billy Foster, Frank Higgs, John
Justice, Tom Barnum and others. In a short time there was a second
parly on the way, which consisted of Rufus E. Farrington, W. C.
Collins, Lew Alters, Ed. Q. Peck, and Lon Thrift.
Among these early
pioneers may be mentioned T. Lambertson, who was one of the first
settlers in Walnut Grove; Gus Swain also an early settler at the same
place; Theo. Boggs, who staked out a home on Big Bug, in 1863; John
Townsend, who located a ranch on the Agua Fria in 1863. Townsend was a
half blood Cherokee, cunning and brave, and had an undying hatred of
the Indians and hunted them to the death. Several of his relatives had
been killed by the Comanches in Texas and it is said that in revenge he
had sent twenty-seven Indians to their happy hunting grounds, but, like
many others in Arizona, the Indians got him at last. While out hunting
in the year 1873, he came upon a small band of Indians at Dripping
Springs, and was shot by one of them. His bodv was found a few davs
later. He had exchanged a few shots with the Indians, and had received
his death wound unknown to them.
In January, 1863, the
military District of Western Arizona, which, up to that time, had
belonged to the Department of the Pacific, was attached to the
Department of New Mexico, and, by order of General Carleton, issued in
October, 1863, all of the Territory of Arizona, lying north of the Gila
River, and west of the Colorado, except that portion occupied by Fort
Mohave, was created into a Military District. General Carleton decided
to establish a post in the Chino Valley and two companies of troops
were ordered to accomplish this work. Captains Hargraves and Benson
were selected, and the expedition was put under the immediate command
of Major Willis of the First Regiment of Infantry, California
Volunteers. This expedition, with Captain Pishon as guide, left Fort
Wingate on November 7th, 1863, following the old Beale route to
Antelope Springs where they diverged. After leaving the Beale trail,
they found the road extremely rough and many of their wagons were
broken. The main portion of the command reached Chino Valley on
December 23rd, and here was located Fort Whipple, so named in honor of
Brigadier-General A. W. Whipple, who fell in the battle of
Chancellorsville, and who, as a lieutenant of the U. S. Topographical
Engineers, had, before the Civil War, explored New Mexico and Arizona.
This location was about twenty-two miles from the present town of
Prescott, and in May, 1864, the location was changed and the present
post established.
Source History Of Arizona
by Thomas Edwin Farish 1915
THE
PENNINGTONS
About the year 1832 two
of the common people, Elias Green Pennington of South Carolina and
Julia Ann Hood of North Carolina, young and of good courage, joined
fortunes for better or worse and turned their faces westward with the
tide of emigration that followed in Boone's footsteps across the
Appalachian ranges, through the dense forests of Kentucky and Tennessee
to the Mississippi.
The young people made
their first home near Nashville, where they engaged in pioneer farming
for about five years. But the West again tempted them; they loaded
their household goods and farming tools upon wagons drawn by slow
moving oxen, and, with their three young children, Jim, Ellen and
Larcena, started for Texas, whose independence had recently been
achieved, and whose vast extent and unknown resources attracted the
adventurous spirits of that day. After a journey of many camp fires the
hopeful and vigorous young family settled on new land near Honey Grove,
Texas, about forty miles east of Bonham in Fannin County. Here
Pennington remained about fifteen years, farming and freighting from
Shreveport and Jefferson to Bonham. The growing family soon increased
to twelve children, eight girls and four boys,—an active, resourceful,
strong-willed sort, no doubt,—well suited to the exigencies of frontier
life, which in Texas at that time was not without danger from the
Comanches, and close to the incidents of the Mexican War.
But as the country became
more thickly settled, the growing number of near neighbors, with their
fence-jumping and crop-destroying cattle, annoyed Pennington, who, like
most frontiersmen, wanted room, and wild game, and freedom from the
disadvantages of too close association with his fellows. So, leaving
his family behind, he cruised to the West and South in search of still
another and more secluded home, finally choosing a location about one
hundred and fifty miles southwest, near Keechi, not far from the Brazos
River. During his absence the mother died and was buried at Honey
Grove, leaving the family, the youngest a child in arms, in the care of
the older children. So, diminished by one, the Penningtons, thirteen in
number, again loaded their wagons and restlessly pushed on to a newer
frontier. Here they remained three or four years when it was finally
resolved, early in 1857, to join a wagon train for Golden California.
The train, which was well
equipped and provisioned, was commanded by one Sutton, the Penningtons
having three wagons drawn by oxen and mules. The road led westward by
easy stages and without misadventure until they encountered the flooded
Rio Pecos, which they were obliged to ford. Sturdy Jim, the oldest boy,
and his father's right hand man, guided his oxen through the flood,
swimming his horse beside them and encouraging the leaders by his
speech as only he knew how until they dragged the wagons through.
A number of cattle driven
with the train were drowned at this point, but the most serious damage
was to the family Bible and to the children's school books, which were
injured by the water. Once safely through, loads were unpacked,
water-soaked articles were dried, the wagons repacked and the journey
resumed. From the Pecos the route lay through Paso del Norte, up the
Rio Grande to Mesilla, through Cooke's Canyon and westward across
rolling plains to the boundary of present-day Arizona, into which they
passed through Doubtful Canyon. From this point they crossed the San
Simon Valley, threaded the long and dangerous Apache Pass, pushed on
across the Sulphur Spring valley to Dragoon Springs, crossed the San
Pedro, probably south of modern Benson, and finally, in June, 1857,
reached Old Fort Buchanan on the Sonoita, where Captain Ewell was then
in command.
The road over which the
little caravan passed was a dangerous one, a guard always being placed
at night, with a double guard at Apache Pass, of sinister hi.story. For
fear of the Apaches little hunting was done, but an occasional animal
was slaughtered out of the driven herd. The train was well supplied
with bacon, flour, dried fruits and other provisions; and with a small
stock of household goods and farming tools. Progress was slow. Fifteen
miles was a good day's journey, the distance traveled being governed by
the watering places along the road.
The Arizona of 1857 was a
wilderness almost unknown to Americans except along overland lines of
travel. There were a few squalid Mexican settlements, and the Missions
of the Santa Cruz valley; beaver hunters from the north and east had
crossed it; and following the Gadsden purchase the government began the
establishment of military posts within the newly acquired territory, at
that time attached to Dona Ana County, New Mexico. Almost all business
related in some way to the United States army. Contracts for wild hay
were let by the government to supply the cavalry, and whipsawed lumber
was brought down from the mountains for the construction of military
posts under whose protection little farms began to produce home grown
supplies. Freighting was perhaps the most important business of that
day, military supplies, merchandise for trade, machinery for the mines,
and commodities of all kinds, were brought hundreds of miles from East
and West, by means of slow moving ox teams. There were but few domestic
cattle at this time, although there were considerable numbers of wild
horses and cattle. These were sometimes hunted, and sometimes were
captured by means of extended lines of horsemen converging upon corrals
arranged to receive them. Antelope, deer, bear, and wild turkeys were
numerous, and the Apaches regarded the whole of this vast region as
their hunting ground.
In its general outlines,
of course, the country was the same then as now, but in details it
differed greatly. Everywhere the plains were grass covered to an extent
unknown at the present time, the ranges being now as a rule
over-grazed. The valley bottoms were covered by a dense growth of
perennial Sacaton grass, oftentimes as high as the head of a horseman
and so thick and tall that cattle, horses and men were easily concealed
by it. Indeed, in early days it was necessary to drive cattle out upon
the mesas at the time of the rodeos, where they could be seen and
handled. The uplands were well covered with a variety of nutritious
grasses, such as the perennial black grama, and the many annuals that
spring into growth during the summer rainy season. The abundant
vegetation, both on highlands and in valley bottoms, restrained the
flood waters resulting from the torrential storms of the region, so
that there was no erosion in valley bottoms. Instead, the rainfall
soaked into the soil and made grass. Sloughs and marshy places were
common along the San Simon, the San Pedro, the Santa Cruz, and other
streams, and even beaver were abundant in places where it would now be
impossible for them to live. The abundant grass made range fires
common, these often being set by the Indians to drive game.
In comparison with modern
Arizona, shorn of its grass by cattle and with its bare valley bottoms
torn open by erosion, the primitive wilderness of sixty years ago was
verdure clad and beautiful, and doubtless attractive to the adventurous
Americans who entered, presumably under the protection of their
government, just before the Civil War.
At Fort Buchanan, the
hardships of the journey began to tell upon our travelers. Some of the
animals gave out and Larcena Pennington fell ill with mountain fever.
The family, with their three wagons and their cattle, were thus forced
to drop out of the train. While waiting for the stricken sister to
recover the men undertook a contract for wild hay for the Fort, which,
of course, was garrisoned by cavalry. Laboriously, with scythes, hand
rakes, forks and wagons they completed their contract, but were then
obliged to wait weeks for their pay. Meantime, the Apaches raided them
and drove off their stock, leaving them in grim earnest in the heart of
an unknown and dangerous country.
Let us pause for a moment
to become better acquainted with the members of this hardy family at
the time when adverse fortune called upon them to face a life of
hardship and adventure most remarkable even among the annals of the
pioneers.
Pennington, himself, was
a South Carolinian, of Revolutionary stock, and English descent. He was
an exceptional figure—tall, straight and strong, weighing about 190
pounds. His features were aquiline and handsome, eyes blue, full
bearded, in later years clean shaven. He was a man of great
determination and courage in the midst of the dangers that surrounded
him, although, perhaps from policy, he avoided as much as possible
direct encounters with the Indians that overran the country. He was a
good farmer, hunted in time of need for his family, and for much of the
time kept wagons and teams busy in the freighting business in what is
now southern Arizona. He was affectionate to his family, and by those
who knew him personally, is described as having been a sober and very
quiet man.
Jim, the oldest of the
children, was a tall, rawboned, red-faced young fellow, not so large as
his father, quiet and hard-working. He was especially skillful with
oxen. His friend Oteno speaks of seeing him unload logs from the Santa
Rita mountains by sending the two leading spans to the back of the load
where they pulled off the logs one by one while the wheel oxen held the
wagon in place. In all this they were guided mainly by the voice of
their driver.
Jack, the second boy,
seems to have taken part in many enterprises of the time,—freighting,
handling cattle, washing gold on the Hassayampa. He was affectionate
and loyal to his family and friends. On one occasion, at the Cooke's
Canyon ambuscade in 1861, when one of his party was wounded and about
to be left to the Apaches, though only a boy of eighteen, he leveled
his rifle upon his companions and compelled them to rescue the wounded
man. Green was a tall, quiet boy who liked to be with his father. He
seems to have been especially loved by his sisters. He also was
affectionate and loyal, losing his life finally in defense of his
father's body at the time of the ambuscade on the Sonoita. All of the
men were especially kind and chivalrous toward the women of their
household, a trait consistent with their southern origin. Of the
daughters, the older took charge of the motherless family. One of them,
Ellen, taught the younger children to read, others helped the men with
field work, sometimes they did sewing for the officers' wives at the
Fort. There were eight of them in all, vigorous and capable, able to
ride and handle firearms, cheerfully making the best of the hard life
they were obliged to endure.
Thus equipped in
experience and character the Penningtons, with stout hearts, set about
making a home and a living for themselves in the midst of an Indian
infested wilderness. A ditch was taken out of the Sonoita below
Buchanan, and a small field of corn, pumpkins, squashes, beans and
vegetables was planted. The money for the hay contract came, more
animals were purchased and the family moved over to the Santa Cruz,
where we hear of them in the old Gandara house at Calabasas in
September, 1859; at the stone house near the Mexican line in 1860; on
the Sonoita a few miles below Buchanan in the same year; at the stone
house again and at the Mowry mine in 1861 and 1862. They moved often,
from restlessness, from fear of the Indians and because of the slender
advantages to be gained here and there from a change.
At first they escaped
personal injury, although the Apaches were seen from time to time, and
their fields were occasionally robbed of green corn and vegetables.
Indeed, the Indians themselves stated subsequently, at a time of truce,
that they spared the Penningtons for a time because they could usually
steal of them the provisions they needed on their way to and from
Mexico.
Meanwhile, in December,
1858, Larcena Pennington married John Hempstead Page, in Tucson, which
at that time was a little adobe town of a few hundred souls, mostly
Mexicans. Mr. Page was then engaged, in partnership with Captain
Reynolds, in whip-sawing pine lumber in Madera Canyon in the Santa
Ritas, and in hauling it to Tucson —a perilous but paying business at a
time when the U. S. quartermaster paid 25 cents a foot for boards. And
so it happened that, in March, i860, Mrs. Page, desiring to escape the
chills and fever that then prevailed in Tucson, persuaded her husband
to take her with him for the next load of lumber. It was doubtless a
jolly party—Page, his wife, the little Mexican girl, Mercedes, whom
Mrs. Page was teaching to read, and Reynolds, that traveled the old
road under the big mesquites, up the Santa Cruz to the Canoa, then
turned eastward and drew near to the mouth of the canyon behind their
slow moving oxen.
Self-reliant and
careless, after the manner of that day, they gave little thought to
danger or to the party of five Apaches that were even then watching
them from the hills flanking the mouth of the canyon. They pitched
their tent that night beside the running stream flowing from the canyon
and installed a few items of bedding and furniture they had brought
along. This camp was not at the Big Rock where still stand the ruins of
a stone house and corral, but was about two miles below. The night
passed without incident and breakfast was disposed of early next
morning. Reynolds took his gun and went after game, while Page, about
ten o'clock rode up the canyon to see about his next load of lumber.
Mrs. Page and little
Mercedes were thus left alone, exposed to the Indians, who had been
watching them since the day before. Soon after her husband's departure,
Mrs. Page was resting in her rocker in the tent, when her little dog
began to bark. Then a scream from the child outside, who had been
gathering bright colored oakballs, warned her of danger. The little
girl was quickly caught by the approaching Indians and, immediately,
Mrs. Page saw them entering the doorway. She sprang to the bed and
seized a pistol that lay under the turned-up covers, but the weapon was
wrested from her before she could shoot. She tried to run but was
stopped. One of the Indians spoke a little Spanish, and by words and
signs told her (what was not true) that they had just killed Mr. Page
as he drank at a spring, and that the saddle they carried was his. Mrs.
Page began to scream for help, but one of the Apaches put his lance to
her breast and threatened to kill her if she did not stop. The Indians
then proceeded to loot the camp, cutting open sacks of flour,
scattering the provisions and making ready to go with whatever they
could take away. The camp was quickly spoiled, and the Apaches, with
their prisoners and plunder, began their flight. A little way from the
ruined camp they stopped to rip open a feather bed they had been trying
to carry. Until this time Mrs. Page had remained unterrified, feeling a
certain contempt for her savage captors; but when she saw her precious
feather bed thus cruelly assailed, she seemed to realize fully her
danger and screamed again, but her captors once more stopped her by
threatening her with their lances; and the party started along a well
beaten trail that led along the side of the mountain, almost north.
The five Indians in the
party were young with one exception—an older man who spoke Spanish.
They were armed only with bows and arrows, and lances. The prisoners
were not molested except when their captors, evidently in high glee at
their success, pretended to ambush them from behind trees or playfully
pointed the captured pistol at them. One of the Apaches melted snow in
his hands for them to drink. Mrs. Page was pushed or pulled up steep
places in the trail and Mercedes was carried pick-aback. Their hats
were restored to them from the plunder and fair progress was made, the
savages seeking safety in one of their camps on the San Pedro. One of
the Apaches, an ugly black fellow, was pointed out to Mrs. Page as her
future owner and this may have accounted for the mercy shown.
The journey continued to
the northeast and north through hilly country. Mrs. Page began,
secretly, to tear off bits of her dress and bend twigs along the trail
to guide a following party. She told the little girl to do this also,
but the Apaches stopped them and forbade them to speak to each other
again.
In this fashion they
traveled all day, one of the party staying behind to warn them of
pursuit. Mrs. Page talked a little in Spanish with her captors. The
older man said that this country was once all theirs, but that now many
of their people had been killed by the whites—"pong, pong, pong." Mrs.
Page answered as best she could, keeping in good courage and hoping for
rescue by the party she knew must soon follow.
Just before sunset the
Apache traveling behind to warn the party of pursuit, ran up saying
that the Americans were coming. The pace quickened, but Mrs. Page,
exhausted with the day's travel, could not go faster. As they went up a
narrow ridge with a steep slope on one side, they made her take off her
spencer and heavy skirt, again telling her (she thought by way of
warning) that the Americans had killed many of their people. They
motioned her to go on ; then as she turned and started she felt a lance
in her back and sprang forward and fell down the steep side of the
hill. The Apaches followed, thrusting at her with lances and striking
her with rocks, until she lodged against a big pine tree and one of the
Indians stunned her with a stone. The savages, thinking her dead,
dragged her behind a tree where she might not be seen from the trail,
and taking her shoes left her in a bank of snow. Reviving shortly
after, she heard the Americans on the trail above, and her husband's
voice, referring to the trail, saying, " Here it is, boys." She tried
to move and speak, but was too weak to make them hear, and they passed
on, being deceived by the fact that one of the Apaches had just put on
her shoes. They followed this false trail beyond the Catalina
Mountains, where it was lost, and the party went to Tucson to equip a
second, and, finally, a third expedition to rescue the prisoners. When
her husband's party had passed on, Mrs. Page again lost consciousness
and lay at the pine tree, she thinks, about three days. Her wounds,
fortunately, were cooled by the snow and, finally, she again revived.
To understand the heroic
and almost unbelievable effort for life now made by this young woman of
twenty-three, we must remember that she was in the hills just east of
the present site of Helvetia; bruised with stones and cut with sixteen
lance wounds in her back and arms, without shoes, water or food, almost
without clothes, and without a beaten pathway, for she feared to follow
back along the Indian trail. There is no doubt of the locality for she
clearly remembered that, after traveling northeast and north all day,
just before she was attacked, she saw down in the plain toward the
setting sun, a small sharp pointed hill. There is but one such landmark
on Pioneers of Early Arizona 19 the route and distance traveled, and
that is Huerfano Hill, about three miles west of Helvetia. She must,
therefore, have fallen at a point twelve or fifteen miles from the camp
left that morning and she remembered that Page afterwards told her it
was fifteen miles.
Gathering her strength
for the effort, she attended to her wounds as best she could, ate a
little snow to slake her thirst, then crawled down the slope to level
ground and slept. Awaking at sunrise she knew the directions back to
camp, since it was sunset when she was struck down. Being weak from
loss of blood, and without shoes, she was soon unable to stand; but day
by day she crept on, partly supporting herself on her hands and
subsisting on seeds, herbage and wild onions, with snow water to drink.
Night by night (unable to lie on her back because of her wounds) she
crouched upon her knees and arms on the ground and dreamed of food; but
when in her sleep she reached out for the pot of beans before her, she
awoke to find her hands clutching only gravel. Once she came to a
bear's nest and longed to lie in the mass of soft grass and leaves, but
dared not and crept away. And so her terrible journey continued for
about ten days. Her feet became filled with small stones; her bare
shoulders were blistered with the hot sun ; her head was a mass of
clotted blood ; and yet she kept on— desperately, indomitably on, to
the southward. Then at last she came to a point on a high ridge
overlooking the road that led into Madera Canyon and saw below her some
men with an ox team near the camp from which she had been taken. She
could hear their voices plainly, and the sound of blows struck on their
wagon tires. She tied her petticoat to a stick and waved it and
screamed, but could not make them hear, and they passed on. Again she
resumed her fearful journey and in two days more reached the teamster's
camp, where she found fire still smoldering in a log by the roadside.
Then she carried a stick on fire at one end to her husband's ruined
camp nearby, where she scraped up some flour and some coffee yet
remaining on the ground. Tearing a square piece from her clothing and
putting the flour on it, she went down to the stream nearby and mixed a
little pat of dough and baked it at her fire. After she had eaten the
bread and some of the coffee, and had bathed her wounds, she was
refreshed and slept the night there. Next morning she started up the
road to the sawyers' camp, probably the one at the Big Rock. As she
drew near she was seen, but not at first recognized. With clotted hair
and gaping wounds, nearly naked, emaciated and sunburned, she was at
first mistaken for an unfortunate outcast squaw and the men ran for
their guns. She called to them that she was Mrs. Page and was finally
recognized; but one. Smith, declared that she was a spirit, unable to
believe that she could return alive after more than two weeks of such
hardship. One of the men then carried her into the camp where she was
fed and washed and clothed with rough but sympathizing care, and a
courier sent to Tucson for a doctor. The messenger reached Tucson just
as Mr. Page was about to start on a third attempt to find his wife. He
had followed the trail from the looted camp through the Rincons to a
point beyond the Catalinas. Then he returned and went out again; and
again returned for still another party. These expeditions must have
taken a number of days and roughly confirm the statement that it was
sixteen days from the time Mrs. Page was captured until her return.
After two days she was taken to Tucson, where she fully recovered. The
little girl, Mercedes, captured with her, was exchanged later by
Captain Ewell for certain of his Apache prisoners. She grew to
womanhood and became the wife of Charles A. Shibell, well known as a
pioneer, and for many years recorder of Pima County. But the desperate
and almost incredible adventure of Mrs. Page was only a warning to the
Penningtons of disasters to come—little heeded, however, in those days
when danger was the atmosphere to which men and women were too well
accustomed. For ten years, until the remnants of the broken family went
back to Texas, the traditions of the Sonoita and the Santa Cruz are
full of their personalities and adventures. Only a year later, in March
or April, 1861, Mr. Page was ambushed and killed by Apaches north of
Tucson while conducting a load of goods to old Camp Grant. He was
buried where he fell, at the top of the hill beyond Samaniego's ranch,
on the old road; and all that Mrs. Page ever saw of him was his
handkerchief, his purse and a lock of his hair. Her daughter, Mary, was
born in September of that year, and shortly afterward she rejoined her
father's family at the Stone House on the Santa Cruz. This location was
a most dangerous one, however, although the Penningtons were strangely
spared by the Apaches themselves while they lived here. The Indians
were at their worst during the early sixties, the country being
virtually unprotected by the Federal government at a time when the
energies of that government were engrossed by the Civil War.
On one occasion, about
this time, Mrs. Page and her baby girl fled with others to the Mowry
Mine, which was fortified and offered protection from the Apaches. But
smallpox broke out among the refugees, Mrs. Page and her baby being
among those attacked. Mowry nursed his smallpox patients as best he
knew how, but nearly starved them to death on a scanty diet of flour
and water, believing that "no grease" should be fed to those ill of
this disease. Most of the patients, however, recovered from both the
disease and the treatment. Not long after, in June, 1862, Mowry was
arrested by Federal authorities, his mine was confiscated, and he was
sent to Fort Yuma as a Rebel sympathizer.
We now hear of the
Penningtons, in 1862 and 1863, at the old Gandara house at Calabasas.
Next, they are in Tucson in 1863 ; in Tubac in 1864; at the Sopori
Ranch from 1866 to 1868; at Tubac again in 1868; and. at Fort
Crittenden in 1869. This restless, almost nomadic, life was
characteristic of the time and reminds us of the story of Kirkland,
another pioneer of that day, of whom it was said that after he had
lived a short time in one place his chickens would come up and suggest
another move by turning over on their backs to have their legs tied !
But before going further
with the personal narrative in which we are concerned, let us pause to
take note of the conditions that confronted the pioneers from i860 to
1870.
Of government there was
little, except what was enforced by each man for himself. Until Arizona
became a separate territory in 1863, the Gadsden Purchase was attached
to Bona Ana County, New Mexico, with the only available court of
justice at Mesilla. Sometimes criminals were turned over to the army
officers at the posts, but more frequently they were summarily dealt
with. Gradually, under the new Territorial government, courts were
established in the larger towns; but the annals of the time are
commonplace with bloodshed and violence, and murderous crimes which
sometimes met with swift reprisal, but which too often remained
unpunished
Over all this thinly
settled region hung the Apache scourge. During this whole decade these
Indians plundered and murdered almost at will. For a time, in 1861 and
1862, even the United States troops were withdrawn and the Apaches,
believing this to be from fear of themselves, became bolder and more
murderous than before. Truces with the government, in which good
behavior was promised in return for rations, were always broken; and
the unsettled policy toward the Indians accomplished nothing toward
their reformation or control. The settlers in fact had a very poor
opinion of the military protection which was afforded them at this time
and for the most part took the matter into their own hands. With what
determination they did this is attested by the annals of such men as
Pete Kitchen and William Rhoades, King Woolsey, Bill Oury, and many
others like them, who held this country at a time when it was
practically abandoned by its own government.
The commerce of southern
Arizona at this time related mainly to mining enterprises and to the
troops. Mining machinery, supplies for military posts and manufactured
articles for trade all had to be expensively freighted from the nearest
landing places at Guaymas and Alima, or overland by way of Texas.
Government contracts for wild hay for the posts, and for lumber, were
an important source of revenue to adventurous takers. High prices
offered for corn and other farm products stimulated agricultural
industry near the military posts; and the first herds of American
cattle were brought in from Texas to make rations for the presumably
peaceful Apaches.
The main route of travel
at that time was the California overland road which traversed southern
Arizona from east to west and which connected with military posts,
mining camps, and irrigated valleys throughout the region. Oxen were
used at first for freighting purposes. They were strong and gentle, did
not stray readily, and required no harness, which was very expensive in
those days. They made the best fraught animals as long as there was
abundant grass for them along the road. In time, however, as the grass
was eaten out, and feed had to be carried, mules and horses, which eat
less, replaced the oxen. Freight rates were 7 to 8 cents a pound from
Yuma to Tucson; and 9 to 10 cents a pound from Yuma to Calabasas. From
Tucson to Calabasas the rate was i cent, and from Tubac to Tucson 1/2
cent a pound. The U. S. quartermasters paid 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cents a
pound for corn; and 25 cents a foot for rough pine boards from the
Santa Rita mountains.
Under such conditions and
with such incentives, the Penningtons, like others of their time,
engaged in whatever afforded the best returns for the time being,
moving frequently as convenience or interest required. From the records
of the time and from the testimony of a few yet living who knew them we
gather a scant account of their varied and active life. In December,
1859, Jim Pennington located a homestead on the Santa Cruz and in 1865
testifies,
I have lived upon the
same at all times only such as I was compelled to leave on account of
Indians and the unsettled condition of the country." In August, 1861,
Jack Pennington appears at Cooke's Canyon in New Mexico in the ambush
of a wagon train enroute for the Rio Grande. In the course of the
fracas one of the party was wounded and about to be left behind, when
Jack, who was but a boy, with his levelled rifle compelled his
companions to place the wounded man in a wagon, thus finally saving
him. In 1864 we again hear of him washing gold on the Hassayampa; and
finally, in 1870, he came back from Texas to aid the broken family to
return there.
The main occupation of
the family was freighting, and the Penningtons, with their heavy wagons
and teams of twelve to fourteen oxen, were much of the time on the
road. Thus we hear of them—Jim in a fight with a small war party that
ambushed him and captured his oxen, on his way to the Patagonia mine;
and on other occasions at Oatman Flat on the Yuma road. Much of the
time the men were cutting lumber in Madera Canyon in the Santa Ritas
and hauling it to Tubac where there was a sawmill, to the Cerro
Colorado and other mines for timbers, and to Tucson. At Tucson for a
time they operated a saw pit in the street originally called the Calle
del Arroyo. As the name signifies, this street was, at least partly, in
an arroyo or dry water course that lay immediately to the south of the
old walled town. This depression, or arroyo, was conveniently utilized
as a saw pit by throwing across it timbers on which to support the pine
logs, which were then whip-sawed into boards by men standing, one in
the arroyo and the other on the log above. In course of time, when the
streets of the old Mexican town were renamed, the Calle del Arroyo was
called Pennington Street after the men whose rude place of business it
was; and so it remains to-day. It was while hauling lumber to Tucson,
in August, 1868 that Jim Pennington finally met his fate. Camping by
the road north of San Xavier, his oxen were stolen by Apaches during
the night. Next morning he and his teamster pursued the Indians, but
were ambushed in the hills west of Tucson and Jim was killed. He was
buried first at Tucson, afterward at the Sopori Ranch, where a wooden
headboard still marks his grave.
Of the women—those who
waited anxiously at home for the news of disaster that they continually
expected—we also catch occasional glimpses.
C. B. Genung relates that
in April, 1864, he found the Pennington women, with two boys and little
Mary Page, living in Tubac. Except for them the place seemed to be
abandoned at that time, and the danger from Indians was great. Every
morning the two boys, with guns as long as themselves, carefully
reconnoitered each side of the path to the spring from which the women
then carried the water supply for the day. The Sopori Ranch, about ten
miles from Tubac, was also their abiding place from 1866 to 1868. This
was an extremely dangerous location, being in the path of Apache war
parties passing to and from Mexico. The ranch house was fortified, with
stone walls surrounding it and with the walls pierced by port holes for
guns. They were never attacked here although the dove and turkey calls
used by the Indians as signals were sometimes heard. One morning the
youngest sister, Josephine, picketed her favorite pony a short distance
below the Sopori Ranch house, but she had not reached the door before
an Apache ran out from the bushes, jumped on the horse and made off
with him.
Not withstanding the
danger, these brave women made the most of a hard situation. They
cultivated a small field in the adjacent creek bottom, irrigating it
from a ditch that flowed close under the little rocky hill on which
their fortress home was perched. Under the walnut trees that fringed
the ditch they did their washing, and many an hour was passed in
sewing, which was all done by hand.
A small separate building
was set aside as a schoolroom, and here the older sister, Ellen, who
had gone to school in Texas, taught the younger children with the help
of the Bible and the battered school books that had been brought
through the Pecos years before. For amusement they had to depend upon
themselves. They had little intercourse with Americans except for
occasional passers by, from whom we have several accounts of them at
this time.
Often times, at the
Sopori, at the close of day, when the men were due to return from a
freighting trip, the women would watch and wait with dread and
apprehension, fearing disaster, until the crack of the long whip and a
well known voice encouraging the oxen, would finally reassure them.
There was much fever in
this region also, in early days, due to the grass grown and swampy
condition of the river bottoms, with consequent mosquitoes and malaria.
A sister, Ann, died here in 1867 and was buried in the Sopori Cemetery.
At about this time, also,
Ellen, the older sister, married one Barnett, who was a member of the
first Territorial Legislature.
Diminished in numbers,
the Penningtons drifted back to Tubac in 1868 and to Fort Crittenden in
1869, probably hoping for greater security there.
But in June, 1869, the
Apaches again took heavy toll of this devoted family, this time killing
the father and Green, now grown to manhood. These two were at work in
their field on the Sonoita about fourteen miles below Fort Crittenden.
The father was plowing, with his rifle slung to his plow handles, while
Green was repairing an irrigating ditch some distance away. Just after
the older man had turned back on his land, the savages in ambush shot
him down from behind. The boy might have escaped, but not knowing that
his father was dead, remained to fight off the Apaches. He was mortally
hurt, but finally reached the ranch house where he remained until
rescued by cavalry from the fort, to which the alarm had been carried
meantime. Green, and his father's body, were brought to the Fort, where
eight days later the young man died. These two, father and son, were
buried in the cemetery on top of a little hill just above the railroad
cut nearest the site of old Fort Buchanan. Mr. Sidney R. DeLong, then
quartermaster of the Fort, read the burial service over them.
With the loss of their
father and two brothers, the broken family now gave up the unequal
contest with adverse fortune. The remaining sisters, with a young
brother and little Mary Page, now put their slender belongings together
and came to Tucson. Here they made a last effort to escape from this
land of tragedies and outfitted for California. At the Point of
Mountain, twenty miles on their road, the widowed sister, Ellen, became
ill of pneumonia and the party returned to Tucson, where Ellen died. A
little later, brother Jack, who had gone back to Texas some time
before, came for them, and they returned with him shortly after. Only
one of the original party found the way in later years to California,
the land of promise for which they had set their faces years before.
Mrs. Page remained in
Tucson, becoming the wife of William F. Scott in 1870, and living
uneventfully at the old home on South Main Street until her death,
March 31, 191 3, at the age of 76 years.
This plain chronicle of
pioneer life in old Arizona contains little of romance to commend it
even to a sympathetic reader. True, the story is ennobled by the
heroism and unselfishness which appears in it from time to time,—Jack,
refusing to leave a wounded companion to the savages ; Green,
sacrificing his life to help his father; the older sisters, taking
charge of the motherless family; the men, constantly in danger to
secure the necessities of life for those dependent upon them. But in
the main, to those who lived it, the life must have seemed barren and
disappointing at best, and purely tragic at the last when death put an
end to the contest for so many of them.
There were compensations
here and there ; and it is interesting to learn from the pioneers
themselves the motives that led many of them to accept and even prefer
the hardships and dangers of the frontier. Pennington himself seems to
have wanted elbow room, and freedom from the constraints of too close
association with neighbors. Another expresses it by saying that many of
the pioneers hated civilization. Some of them came to Arizona from the
South after the Civil War in order to get as far as possible from the
dominion of the government that had defeated them. One old miner,
referring to his youth in Arizona in the sixties, said: "Oh, we were
just young fellows out for a time." Tom Gardner said, in the same
strain, " Well, you see, there was lively minin' then, lively hoss
racin' and lively fightin '—everything was lively." Genung, tiring of
the constraints of San Francisco in the days of the Vigilantes, said
that it was excitement and adventure and freedom that attracted him to
Arizona. Adventurousness, therefore, love of freedom and hatred of
restraint, were qualities that characterized many of the men. As to the
women, there were but few American women in the country in those days,
and these, as a rule, not from choice, it is safe to say. Usually they
chanced here through military connections or some adverse fortune that
diverted them from the California road. Without the society of their
kind, often without the comforts of life, without the relief afforded
by active adventure, and often in danger, they had no choice but to
endure.
As a class the pioneers
were an essential factor in early development. They constituted an
independent citizen soldiery that cooperated with the troops while the
country was being reclaimed from the Indians. They brought in military
supplies; furnished hay and lumber to the posts ; and in many cases
were more effective than the soldiers themselves in expeditions against
the Apaches. Many of the older mines were located and worked by them;
and the possibilities of agriculture were also gradually shown. All
this paved the way for civilized government, for immigration, and,
finally, for the development of mining and agricultural industries. Too
often the character of the pioneer unfitted him for the quieter
conditions which he made possible. Too often, again, he was so broken
by a life of hardship that he derived little benefit from the results
of his own labor. Let us, then, looking back over their eventful lives,
give them due homage for what they have accomplished for us in meeting
the dangers and in overcoming the difficulties of our last Frontier.
William S. Oury
William S. Oury was born
in Wythe County, Virginia, on August 13th, 1816. In early life he
drifted to the west and was with General Sam Houston, at the battle of
San Jacinto. He came to Arizona in 1856, and engaged in stock raising
and trading. He bore his part in the early history of the Territory,
and was a member of several expeditions against the Indians. He
organized the expedition against the Indians which resulted in what has
been called the "Camp Grant Massacre. " The following is his own story
concerning it ; and is a paper read by Mm before the Society of Arizona
Pioneers on April 6th, 1885:
"Having been chosen by
our President to give a paper upon some events connected with the early
history of Arizona, the writer has selected for his theme the so-called
Camp Grant Massacre, believing it to be one of the events most
important in its result to the peace and progress of our Apache-cursed
land. To give a mere recital of the act of killing a few more or less
of the blood-thirsty savages without the details of the causes and
provocations which drove a long suffering and patient people to the
adoption of remedial measures so apparently cruel in their results,
would be a great wrong and injustice to those of our friends and
neighbors who in various ways gave sanction and aid to the undertaking,
and would fall far short of the object and aim of the writer to give
fair and impartial history.
"In the year 1870, in
accordance with the peace policy which had been decided upon by the U.
S. Government, the Final and Aravaipa bands of Apache Indians were
collected together and placed upon a reservation around Old Camp Grant
at the junction of the San Pedro and Aravaipa creeks, about fifty-five
miles from Tucson, under the supervision of military stationed at that
post. One or two agents for them had been taken from civil life, but in
a short time their management proving unsatisfactory, one Royal E.
Whitman, a lieutenant of the 3rd Cavalry, U. S. A., was assigned to
duty as their agent. Being what is termed a sharp man and of thrifty
disposition, he soon saw that there was money in the Apache, and lost
no time in the practical application of that knowledge, to do which
required outside partners, who were soon found in Tucson. A settler's
store was first started, followed by a blacksmith, butcher, and a
number of others chosen in various capacities, ostensibly for the
benefit of 'poor Lo,' 'affidavy' easy conscience witness-men, for the
boss, and, as a trite saying goes 'hell was fully inaugurated.
"The Indians soon
commenced plundering and murdering the citizens of Tucson, San Xavier,
Tubac, Sonoita, San Pedro and every other settlement within a radius of
100 miles of Old Camp Grant, in the confidence that if they escaped to
their reservation, they reached a secure haven. During the winter of
1870-71, these murders and depredations were so numerous as to threaten
the abandonment of nearly all the settlements outside of Tucson,
especially that of San Pedro, the most numerous and most important of
them all. In the meantime, the citizens of Tucson were aroused,
meetings were held upon the occurrence of each new murder or outrage,
representations were made to the right Royal Whitman, that his Indians
were plundering and murdering our people, which he denied, and stood
ready to prove by every striker on the reservation that his Indians
never left the place. Meanwhile, the work of death and destruction kept
up with ever increasing force until the slaughter of Wooster and wife
on the Santa Cruz above Tubac so influenced the people that an
indignation meeting was held at Tucson. A great amount of resoluting
and speechifying was indulged in, and it was determined to raise a
military company at once for which a paper was drawn up and signers
called for, to which eighty two Americans signed their names. The
writer was elected Captain, and all hands pledged to eat up every
Apache in the land upon the recurrence of a new outrage. A committee
was appointed to visit Department Commander General Stoneman, at the
time on the Gila near Florence, consisting of S. R. DeLong, J. W.
Hopkins and the writer. The result of the conference with the august
personage, General Stoneman, was that he had but few troops and could
give us no aid that Tucson had the largest population in the Territory,
and gave us to understand that we must protect ourselves. With this
cold comfort after a trip of one hundred and fifty miles, and the loss
of a valuable mule, we returned to our constituents, and although no
public demonstration was made, at a quiet assemblage of some of our
ablest and most substantial citizens, it was resolved that the
recommendation of General Stoneman should be adopted, and that we
would, to the best of our ability, endeavor to protect ourselves.
"A few days afterward, in
the beginning of April, 1871, the arrival of a courier from San Xavier
brought the sad intelligence that Indians had just made a descent upon
that place and driven off a large number of horses and mules. The alarm
drum the usual way of collecting our people was beaten, a flaming
cartoon carried by a man who accompanied the drummer was displayed with
the following inscription: Injuns! Injuns! Injuns! Big Meeting at the
Court House Come Everybody Time for Action has Arrived.' This device
had been so frequently resorted to, and the results had been so
unsatisfactory, that it failed to draw. Meanwhile a party of citizens
had saddled their horses and learning from the San Xavier courier the
direction the marauding Indians had taken, rode off, hoping to
intercept them before they reached Cabadilla Pass. In this they were
disappointed because the Indians had gone into the pass before they
arrived, but they met the pursuing party from San Xavier and the whole
party followed through the pass and overtook the rear Indian driving
the stock, on a tired horse, and killed him and recovered some of the
cattle the other Indians escaped with the horses and freshest cattle.
Upon the return of the party to Tucson, I hunted up Jesus M. Elias, and
had a long conference with him in which he said to me: 'Don Guillermo,
I have always been satisfied and have repeatedly told you that the Camp
Grant Indians were the ones destroying us. I have now positive proof,
the Indian we have just killed, I will swear, and others will swear, is
a Camp Grant Indian. I have frequently seen him there, and know him
well by his having his front teeth out, and, as a further proof, when
we overtook the Indians, they were making a direct course for Camp
Grant. Now, it devolves upon you as one of the oldest American
residents of this country to devise some means of saving us from total
ruin, which the present state of affairs must inevitably lead to if not
remedied. See your countrymen, they are the only ones who have money to
furnish the supplies necessary to make a formal and effective campaign
against our implacable enemies. I know my countrymen and will vouch
that if arms, ammunition and provisions, however scant are furnished,
they will be ready at the first call.' I replied, 'Don Jesus, I will
answer that at all times I will be ready to do my part, and will at
once issue a call for the assemblage of my people at the court house
where you can publicly state what you have just told me, and some
concerted plan can be adopted which may give the desired relief/ With a
sad shake of his head, he answered: 'Don Gruillermo, for months we have
repeatedly held public meetings at which many patriotic speeches have
been made, and many glowing resolutions passed; meanwhile our means of
subsistence have been rapidly diminishing and nothing has been
accomplished. We cannot resolute the remorseless Apache out of
existence if that could be done, everyone of them would have been dead
long since besides, giving publicity to the course we might pursue
would surely defeat any plan we might adopt. You are aware that there
are wealthy and influential men in this community whose interest is to
have the Indians at Camp Grant left undisturbed who would, at the first
intimation of an intent to inquire seriously into their operations,
appeal to the military, whose ear they have, and frustrate all our
plans and hopes. ' I saw at once the force of his arguments, and
replied: 'Lay out a plan of action and I will aid you with all the zeal
and energy I possess. ' He then developed the following plan: 'You and
I will go first to San Xavier, see Francisco the head Papago there, and
have him send runners to the various Papago villages, notifying them
that on the 28th of April we want them to be at San Xavier early in the
morning with all the force that they can muster for a campaign against
our common enemy, the Apaches Francisco to be prepared to give them a
good breakfast on their arrival, and send messengers to me at once. '
This matter being satisfactory, we returned to Tucson. Don Jesus said:
'I will see all the Mexicans who may desire to participate in the
campaign and have them all ready to move on the day fixed. You will
make arrangements with the Americans you can trust ; either to take an
active part in the campaign, or render such assistance in supplies,
arms, ammunition, and horses as will be required to carry out the
expedition. And, on the day fixed, April 28th, news of the arrival of
the Papagoes at San Xavier having first been received, all who were to
be active participants in the campaign to leave town quietly and singly
to avoid giving alarm and rendezvous on the Rillito opposite San
Xavier, where the Papagoes will be advised to meet us, and where as per
arrangements, the arms, ammunition and provisions were to be delivered
and distributed. All hands having arrived at the rendezvous, the
command to fully organize by the election of a commander whom all shall
pledge to obey implicitly. When thus organized the company to march up
the Rillito until the trail of the Indians, who had committed the
recent depredations at San Xavier was struck, which was to be followed
wherever it led to, and all Indians found on it killed if possible.
'Here you have the whole plan of the Camp Grant campaign as proposed by
Mr. Elias and concurred in by the writer.
"For its successful
fulfillment, we both went to work with all our hearts, he with his
country men, the Mexicans, I with mine, the Americans, and both
together with our auxiliaries, the Papagoes. Early in the morning of
April 28th, 1871, we received the welcome news of the arrival of the
Papagoes at San Xavier, and that after a short rest and a feed they
would march to the general rendezvous on the Rillito. Soon after Elias
informed me that the Mexican contingent was quietly and singly leaving
town for the same destination, and soon after the writer, having given
proper directions to the extremely small contingent of his own
countrymen, silently and alone took up the line of march to the common
rendezvous. By three P. M. all the command had arrived, also that which
was still more essential to the successful issue of that campaign,
to-wit, the wagon with the arms, ammunition and grub, thanks to our
companion, the Adjutant General of the Territory, whose name it might
not be discreet to give in this connection, but who is well known to
almost every member of the Society of Pioneers. As soon as the writer
was convinced that no further increase was to be expected, he proceeded
to take account of the stock with the following result: Papagoes, 92;
Mexicans, 48 ; Americans, 6 in all 146 men, good and true. During our
stay at the general rendezvous, a number of pleasantries were indulged
in by the different members of the party upon the motley appearance of
the troop, and your historian got a blow squarely in the right eye from
an old neighbor, who quietly said to him: 'Don Guillermo, your
countrymen are grand on resoluting and speechifying, but when it comes
to action they show up exceedingly thin,' which in view of the fact
that 82 Americans had solemnly pledged themselves to be ready at any
moment for the campaign, and only six finally showed up, was, to say
the least, rather humiliating. However, everything was taken
pleasantly. Jesus Elias was elected commander of the expedition, and at
4 P. M. the company was in the saddle ready for the march. Just then it
seemed to me that we had neglected a very important precautionary
measure, and I penciled the following note to H. S. Stevens, Esq.,
Tucson: 'Send a party to Canada del Oro on the main road from Tucson to
Camp Grant, with orders to stop any and all persons going towards Camp
Grant until 7 A. M. of April 30th, 1871.' This note I gave to the
teamster who had not yet left our camp, who delivered it promptly to
Mr. Stevens and it was as promptly attended to by him. But for this
precaution, our campaign would have resulted in complete failure from
the fact that the absence of so many men from so small a population as
Tucson then contained was noted by a person of large influence in the
community, at whose urgent request the military commander sent an
express of two soldiers with dispatches to Camp Grant, who were quietly
detained at Canada del Oro, and did not reach the post until too late
to harm us.
" After writing and
dispatching the note above referred to, the order ' Forward' was given,
and the command moved gaily and confidently on its mission. About 6 P.
M. the trail was struck which we proposed to follow, and the march
continued through Cabadilla Pass and down the slopes o the San Pedro to
the point where the San Xavier party had killed the Indian above
referred to, when the order was given to camp, as it was about midnight
the moon going down and the trail could not well be followed in the
dark. Just at break of day on the morning of April 29th, we marched
down into the San Pedro bottom, where our commander determined to
remain until nightfall, lest our command be discovered by roving
Indians, and an alarm given at the rancheria. We had followed all this
time the trail of the Indians who had raided San Xavier, and every man
in the command was now fully satisfied that it would lead us to the
reservation, and arrangements were made accordingly. Commander Elias
gave orders to march as soon as it was dark, and believing that we were
much nearer the rancheria than we really were, and that we would reach
its neighborhood by midnight, detailed three men as scouts whose duty
it was when the command arrived conveniently near the rancheria, to go
ahead and ascertain the exact locality and report to him the result of
their reconnaissance in order to have no guess work about their actual
position, and make our attack, consequently, a haphazard affair.
Everything being now ready for the final march, we moved out of the San
Pedro bottom just at dark. It soon became evident that our captain and
all those who thought they knew the distance had made a grave mistake,
and that instead of being sixteen miles, as estimated, it was nearer
thirty miles, so that, after a continuous march through the whole
night, it was near daybreak before we reached Aravaipa Canyon, so that
when we did reach it, there was no time to make the proposed
reconnaissance, to ascertain the exact location of the Indian camp
which involved the necessity of a change in our plan of attack. We knew
that the rancheria was in Aravaipa Canyon, somewhere above the post,
but the exact distance nobody knew we were in a critical position we
were in sight of the post in either case our expedition would be an
absolute failure but our gallant captain was equal to the emergency.
Promptly he gave orders to divide the company into two wings, the one
to comprise the Papagoes, the other the Mexicans and Americans, and to
skirmish up the creek until we struck the rancheria. When the order
forward was given, a new difficulty arose, which, if it had not been
speedily overcome, would have been fatal. The command was now in plain
view of the military post the Papagoes had all the time been afraid of
military interference with us. I assured them that no such thing would
occur, and vouched for it. It happened that just as the command was
halting I had dropped the canteen from the horn of my saddle, and
dismounting to look for it in the dust and semi-darkness, behind the
troops, the Papagoes, not seeing me at the front when the order forward
for the skirmish was given, refused to move, inquiring where Don
Guillermo was. Word was immediately passed down the line to me, and I
galloped to the front, and with a motion of my hand without a spoken
word, the Papagoes bounded forward like deer and the skirmish began,
and a better executed one I never saw even from veteran soldiers. There
was not a break in either line from the beginning to end of the affair,
which covered a distance of nearly four miles before the Indians were
struck. They were completely surprised and sleeping in absolute
security in the wickiups, with only a buck and a squaw on the lookout
on a bluff above the rancheria who were playing cards by a small fire,
and were both clubbed to death before they could give the alarm. The
Papagoes attacked them in the wickiups with guns and clubs, and all who
escaped them took to the bluffs and were received and dispatched by the
other wing, which occupied a position above them. The attack was so
swift and fierce that within half an hour the whole work was ended, and
not an adult Indian left to tell the tale. Some 28 or 30 small
pappooses were spared and brought to Tucson as captives. Not a single
man of our company was hurt to mar the full measure of our triumph, and
at 8 o'clock on the bright April morning of: April 30, 1871, our tired
troops were resting in the San Pedro a few miles above the post in full
satisfaction of a work well done.
"Here, also, might your
historian lay down his pen and rest, but believing that in order to
fully vindicate those who were aiders and abetters, he craves your
indulgence whilst he gives a brief summary of the causes which drove
our people to such extreme measures, and the happy effects resulting
therefrom.
"Through the greater part
of the year 1870, and the first part of 1871, these Indians had held a
carnival of murder and plunder in all our settlements until our people
had been appalled and almost paralyzed. On the San Pedro the bravest
and best of its pioneers had fallen by the wayside instance Henry Long,
Alex. McKenzie, Sam Brown, Simms, and many others well known to all of
you. On the Santa Cruz noble Wooster and his wife, Sanders, and an
innumerable host sleep the sleep that knows no waking. On the Sonoita
the gallant Remington, Jackson, Carrol, Rotherwell, and others, were
slain, without a chance of defense, and our secretary, W. J. Osborne,
severely wounded.
"In the vicinity of
Tucson, mail drivers and riders, and almost all others whom temerity or
necessity caused to leave the protection of our adobe walls, were
pitilessly slaughtered makes the array truly appalling. Add to this the
fact that the remaining settlers in the San Pedro, not knowing who the
next victim would be, had at last resolved to abandon their crops in
the field, and fly with their wives and children to Tucson for safety,
and the picture is complete up to that glorious and memorable morning
of April 30, 1871, when swift punishment was dealt out to those
red-handed butchers, and they were wiped from the face of the earth.
"Behold, now, the happy
result immediately following that episode. The farmers of the San Pedro
returned with their wives and babies to gather their abandoned crops.
On the Sonoita, Santa Cruz, and all other settlements of southern
Arizona, new life springs up, confidence is restored and industry
bounds forward with an impetus that has known no check in the whole
fourteen years that have elapsed since that occurrence
Peter Rainsford Brady
Among the early pioneers
of Arizona, none bore a more prominent part in its development than
Peter Rainsford Brady. He came, on his paternal side, from good old
Irish stock. His mother, Anna Rainsford, was from Virginia. He was born
in Georgetown, District of Columbia, August 4th, 1825 ; received his
education, in part, at the Georgetown College, later entering the Naval
Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, from which he was graduated about the
year 1844. After cruising around the Mediterranean Sea in the United
States vessel "Plymouth," he resigned from the navy, and left his home
October 26th, 1846, for San Antonio, Texas, where he enlisted as a
Lieutenant in the Texas Rangers, and served with distinction in the
Mexican War. After the war Mr. Brady joined a surveying party under
Colonel Andrew B. Gray, who made a survey from Marshall, Texas, to El
Paso; thence across the country to Tubac and from the latter point made
branch surveys, one to Port Lobos on the Gulf of California, and the
other to Fort Yuma and San Diego. Mr. Brady served as a captain on this
expedition, and was prominent in many Indian fights. When the work was
completed, the company disbanded at San Francisco.
Mr. Brady was of an
adventurous spirit, and in his younger life preferred the wilderness to
the smooth paths of civilization. In 1854 he came to Arizona and
settled in Tucson, in which place he resided for many years, bearing
his part as a good citizen in those exciting times. After the
organization of the Territory, he held several public offices, and was
sheriff for two terms. He was married in 1859 to Juanita Mendibles, who
bore to him four children, all boys. She died in 1871, and in 1878 he
married Miss Maria Ontonia Ochoa, of Florence, Arizona, by whom he had
three boys and one girl. He settled in Florence in 1872, and made it
his home for twenty-seven years. He engaged in farming, mining and
stock raising. In 1881 he received $60,000 for his half interest in the
Vekol Mine.
He was a Candidate for
Delegate to Congress in 1871, against Richard 0. McCormick, who was
declared elected by a small majority.
Mr. Brady was in all
respects a strong man, not only physically, but mentally; of
unquestioned integrity, and in every position of honor or trust, he
reflected credit upon the appointing power. A gentleman of the old
school, he was genial, kind and hospitable. The latch-string to his
house always hung upon the outside. He served several times in the
Territorial Legislature and always with great credit to himself, using
his influence at all times to enact laws for the benefit of the
Territory.
"In 1894," says his
daughter, Miss Margaret A. Brady, "my father was appointed as Special
Agent for the Interior Department, in the U. S. Private Court of Land
Claims, and he obtained valuable information in behalf of the
Government in the Peralta-Reavis land fraud. His notes are very
humorous relative to the ridiculous claims of Reavis and his wife. I
can say that it was greatly due to my father's information that the
Government was able to identify the fraud."
In 1898 he served for the
last time in the Upper House of the Territorial Legislature, and from
the Arizona Gazette of March, 1898, I extract the following :
"Quite a pathetic little
parting scene occurred at the Maricopa depot upon the evening of the
departure of; the members of the legislature. Hon. Peter R. Brady, the
veteran councilman of the Nineteenth, whose biography has been closely
interwoven with stirring and interesting events in the early history of
Arizona, stood a little apart from the chatting group. Though still of
vigorous constitution and robust build, the whitened hair told of the
cares of many years of; active life. At the veteran's side stood a
tall, fair haired youth, ambition, energy and hope outlined in every
attribute of his makeup. The two stood with their hands clasped in an
affectionate farewell. The tears welled in the old man's eyes as he
spoke brokenly words of cheer and promise to the young man who had made
so brilliant a beginning in public life. Ashurst was equally affected.
Early in the session the two had become warmly attached, being
respectively the oldest and youngest member of the body, and often did
the young man seek the counsels of his old friend and profit by them.
" 'We will probably never
meet again this side the grave,' said the patriarch, as he gave the
young man's hand a fervent farewell wring, 'but God bless you on your
way.'
"In 1899, Mr. Brady moved
with his family from Florence to Tucson, where he lived up to the time
of his death, which occurred May 2nd, 1902, at the age of 77 years. All
his children are still living and have their residences in Arizona. His
second wife died August 14th, 1910.
Michael Goldwater
One of the earliest
business men to settle permanently in Arizona was Michael Goldwater,
who came to Arizona in 1860, locating at La Paz on the Colorado River.
At that time he was associated in business with Mr. B. Ochen, and
founded a large forwarding and trading business besides being
Government contractors and merchants. They erected the first mill upon
the Vulture Mine, and when it was completed, Mr. Goldwater, with Mr.
James Cusenberry, the superintendent, took charge of the property, and
ran the mill for about ninety days, paying off all the debts upon it
and then turning it back to the owners.
In 1870, having large
Government freighting contracts and the Colorado River having receded
from the town of La Paz, Mr. Goldwater laid out the townsite of
Ehrenberg on the Colorado River, as a result of which the town of La
Paz was soon abandoned.
In 1869 Mr. Goldwater
secured a contract to supply Camp Whipple and Fort Verde with corn, but
a corner having been made in the market, he was unable to obtain the
corn in the Territory, except at a great loss, and traveled overland to
New Mexico, where he bought his supply and freighted it in by ox teams
to Verde and Whipple.
In 1870 he opened a
mercantile business in Phoenix, the first store of any size in what is
now the Capital city. After about four years, he disposed of his
business in Phoenix, to J. Y. T. Smith, King Woolsey and C. W. Stearns,
retaining his business in Ehrenberg. In 1876 he opened a store in
Prescott, which is still carried on by his sons. For many years he was
associated in the freighting business with Dr. W. W. Jones, one of
Arizona's early pioneers. He served a term as Mayor of Prescott in the
early eighties.
Like many pioneers Mr.
Goldwater traveled over the country with his own team of horses and
buggy, and had many a narrow escape from hostile Indians. As a business
man, his career was above reproach; practical, active and far seeing,
and having great faith in the future of Arizona, he laid the foundation
for a fortune, not only for himself, but for his family. To the
Mexicans he was known as "Don Miguel " and to all others as "Mike." His
friends were not confined to any one nationality. In 1883 he retired
from business, turning his interests over to his sons, and went to San
Francisco to live, where he died in 1903. He is survived by two sons,
Morris Goldwater and Barry Goldwater, who, under the firm name of M.
Goldwater & Brother, conduct large mercantile businesses in
Prescott and Phoenix, and are very prominent in financial and business
circles in the State, as will be shown as this history progresses.
Charles Trumbull Hayden
Charles Trumbull Hayden,
whose name is linked with the early history of Arizona, was born in
Windsor, Connecticut, April 4th, 1825. When eighteen years old he
taught school in New Jersey, and afterwards near New Albany, Indiana,
and in St. Louis, Missouri. In 184-8 he loaded a wagon with
merchandise, and left Independence, Missouri, for Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where he marketed his goods and returned in the fall. He continued in
business at Independence for some time, but when the gold excitement
began in 1849, he outfitted a train of ox teams, and started over the
Santa Fe trail. He arrived in Santa Fe late in 1849, and met some
parties from California, who bought his outfit, consisting of fourteen
wagons loaded with supplies, each drawn by six yoke of oxen. He then
returned to Missouri to purchase another stock of goods and establish
himself in business in Santa Fe. He was a passenger upon the first
Overland Stage to Tucson in 1858, to which place he moved his stock of
goods from Santa Fe and established himself in business there. He
engaged in contracting with the Government for the furnishing of
supplies to the soldiers and did a large freighting business to the
mines, hauling supplies in, and ore out. He had many freight teams and
brought his merchandise in these early days from Port Ysabel on the
Gulf of California. After the close of the Civil War, supplies were
brought up the Gulf of California from California. Mr. Hayden was
appointed the first Probate Judge at Tucson under the laws of New
Mexico, and bore his part in the early settlement of that part of
Arizona by the Americans.
About the year 1870 he
came to what is now Tempe. The river was up so high that he could not
ford it, and, going to the top of the butte, it occurred to him that it
would be a good irrigating country. He returned to Tucson and, soon
afterwards, heard that Jack Swilling and his associates were taking out
the Tempe Canal. He came over to see them and established the first
ferry across the river and the first store in what is now Tempe, but
then called Hayden's Ferry. He supplied the canal builders with
merchandise and took an interest in the canal, through which he
obtained water power for his mill, which began to produce flour in the
year 1874. His business was extensive, he owned the mill, the
mercantile business, the blacksmith shop, the carpenter shop, and
practically the whole town, besides which he established other stores,
two on the Gila Reservation, and one on the Salt River. He was a
partner with a man by the name of Brooks at Prescott, and acquired some
ranch property there under the Homestead and Timber Claim Law, and
pastured cattle and other stock upon it.
In October, 1876, he was
married at Nevada City, California, to Miss Sally Calvert Davis, a
native of Arkansas. They came to Arizona on the railroad as far as
Colton, from which place they took the stage to Ehrenberg, and from
thence by his own conveyance to Tempe, which was his home up to the
time of his death in February, 1900. By this marriage he had four
children, Carl Hayden, who was the first representative in Congress
from the State of Arizona, and three daughters, one of whom died in
infancy, and two of whom are now living. His wife died in Tempe in 1907.
During the Civil War Mr.
Hayden was the only representative of the Federal Government around
Tucson for a year or two, the soldiers having been withdrawn from New
Mexico. He frequently organized the whites to resist the Apache raids.
Charles Trumbull Hayden
was a typical pioneer, fearless, independent, energetic, and generous
to a fault, which made him, to a great extent, the prey of designing
men.
Source: The Penningtons, Pioneers of Early Arizona Published by the
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society 1919 and History of
Arizona by Thomas Edwin Farish
