GILA COUNTY, ARIZONA
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
September
10, 1887 Tombstone Epitaph
The Posse's Return
Arrival of Sheriff Mulvenon and
Deputies
(From the Prescott Courier)
It was with a
sense of great relief to the community, when on Friday night, news was
received announcing the safety of Sheriff Mulvenor and his party. the
conflicting reports concerning the Tonto Basin trouble, and the
subsequent reported fight between the parties for whom warrants were
issued and the sheriff's party, in which it was said Mulvenon and
several of his deputies had been killed, had worked up an excitement
that was felt through the entire country, and while not altogether
believing that such a calamity as rumored had befallen the brave
officers, it was evident that a fight of some kind had taken place, but
these rumors, circulated no on knows how, were happily dispelled when
Sheriff Mulvenor telegraphed from the Verde Friday night and he and his
party were safe, and would be in Prescott the following night.
Saturday evening
Sheriff Mulvenon and Deputies Hicky and Tackitt arrived in town,
looking a little worn and bronzed from the exposures and hardships of
the trip, but with a "whole hide." Shortly after the arrival Sheriff
Mulvenon was waited upon by a representative of the Courier and
the following particulars were learned:
The Prescott party, consisting of
Sheriff Mulvenon and deputies Hicky and Tackitt left here on Sunday the
19th ult., with warrants for the arrest of the Tewksbury boys charging
them with the murder of John Pain and Hamilton Blevins. On the
following Wednesday the posse was met at Payson, by a party of six from
Flagstaff, and together they proceeded to the Tewksbury ranch in
Pleasant Valley, but found no one at home except old man Tewsbury and
the wife of John Tewksbury, the boys having escaped to the mountains.
the old man was questioned as to te whereabouts of the boys and the
causes which led to the killing of Blevins and Paine, but nothing could
be elicited from him. the Newston ranch, where the killing was done,
was the next visited, where were found the graves of the men who had
been killed. The ranch presented a complete state of devastation, the
house and barn having been burned to the ground, presumed by the Graham
party, who had gone for the estimable of burying there dead comrades.
Outside of a few chickens and a hog, not a living thing was seen round
the place. Inquiry from parties in the valley developed the fact that
the Tewksbury party, numbering sixteen, were in the mountains east of
the valley. After an ineffectual search of several days to locate the
rendezvous of the Tewksburys, and thinks had he run across them, they
would given themselves up without a word.
The valley, he
says, is in a great state of excitement, and but little is necessary to
urge on a fight that would result in the killing of scores of men. the
opposing factions consist of hard, determined men, and both claim to be
in the right, and should they come together a terrible fight will ensue.
Of the killing of
Bill Graham, Sheriff Mulvenon expresses the belief that Graham and one
of the Tewksburys met on the trail, and in the fight that followed
Graham was killed. the wounds, also on Graham's body bore out this
conjecture.
Public opinion throughout the basin
generally upholds the Tewksburys, and of their hiding from the
authorities it is only done for the purpose of safety to themselves
until the excitment dies out.
The Graham boys
were not seen by the officers, but they offered, through an emissary,
to assist the posse in the search for the Tewksburys, but the offer was
declined.
It is probable that during the coming
week a posse consisting of officers from Yavapai, Apache, and Gila
counties, will be sent out and an attempt made to dislodge the
Tewksbury party from the irregular stronghold.
Warrants have also
been issued from Apache County for the arrest of a number of the Graham
groups for depredations committed in that county, and it is probable
that a number will also be issued by the Yavapai authorities for their
participation in the burning of the Newton Ranch.
May
5 1904 Tucson Daily Citizens
Edward Tewksbury, the last of the
principals in the Tewksbury-Graham war of 1889 died in the Gila county
Hospital April 28. He had been a paralytic for a long time and his
death was hastened by pulmonary consumption. He left a wife and three
children. In 1892, Tom Graham, the last member of that family, who
participated in the war, was shot from ambush and killed near Mesa. Ed
Tewksbury was arrested, charged with the crime and indicted. After a
sensational trail at Phoenix, during which the widow of Graham
attempted to shoot Tewksbury and threats of lynching him were made,
Tewksbury was found guilty on evidence that was wholly circumstantial,
and by many considered insufficient. On an error the court set aside
the verdict and Tewksbury secured a change of venue to Pima County.
After a trial in which the jury disagreed, and confinement in the
Tucson jail for upwards of a year, the charge Tewskey was dismissed and
he was given liberty. the reason for dismissal was that the case had
been a very expensive one and there seemed to be no prospect of
securing conviction.
August
11, 1892 Phoenix , Aug 10
During the preliminary examination of
John Rhodes, accused of being one of the murderers of Thomas Graham in
the Tewksbury- Graham fued on August 22, Mrs. Graham, the wife of the
murdered man attempted to shoot the defendant and was prevented only by
a accident. This case was progressing quietly when Mrs. Graham flew at
the prisoner, placed a pistol against his breast and pulled the
trigger, but the pistol missed fired. Officers rushed to the rescue and
took the pistol away after a desperate struggle. Mrs.. Graham pleaded
for the revolver to shoot him. the justice ordered her removed from the
court room, but she returned and made a second attempt, when her
father, Rev. Milton, a Baptist Minister, took her to her hotel. Ed
Tewksbury surrendered to the Sheriff of Gila county and is expected
here today.
Ten
thousand bedraggled horses last week limped in herds through the San
Carlos Indian reservation, an arid section of Arizona. They searched
for water but found death. No one owned them, or wanted to own them.
They were scrawny, bigheaded beasts, physically degenerate. Practically
every one of the 10,000 was infected with dourine.
Dourine is a genital disease peculiar
only to horses. It swells their groins and eventually paralyzes their
hind quarters. The cause of the disease is a trypanosome, brother of
the trypanosome which causes human sleeping sickness and distant
relative of Treponema pallidum which causes syphilis. Dourine is highly
contagious and spreads rapidly among unstalled horses. Arizona fears
the spread of the disease among her domesticated herds.
Hence last week a vast, leisurely
round-up of the diseased San Carlos strays was under way. Every water
hole on the reservation had been fenced in. Sick, thirsty herds limped
from one enclosure to another, found some where they could enter and
drink. Their refreshment was their death. Men were there to kill every
one. to ship them to factories where the hides would be salvaged, the
carcasses milled into plant-nutrifying meal, the hooves made into glue
Time Magazine, Monday, Sep. 21, 1931
(Contributed by Kim T)
