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ARIZONA 

Prehistoric — Aboriginal 
Pioneer — Modem 



THE NATION'S YOUNGEST COMMONWEALTH 
WITHIN A LAND OF ANCIENT CULTURE 



By JAMES H. McCLINTOCK 



VOLUME 1 




CHICAGO 

THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING CO. 

1916 



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HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 

APR 241918 

CHARLES EUlOn PERKINS 
ttfeMOKlAL GOLUCTtON 



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ARIZONA 

Dun land, sun land, rope and spur and gun land, 
What is your enchantment that you haunt my dreams t 

View land, blue land, flash-of-every-hue land, 
Peak and plain and canon-cradle dimpling gleam. 

Sad land, glad land, poor old pagan bad land, 
Sometime to your castle we shall find the key; 

Wild land, mild land, slumb'ring, witch-beguiled land. 
Then you shall awaken, smiling, strong and free. 

— Thbebsa Russell. 



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PREFACE 



The task of writing this History of Arizona was undertaken with a degree 
of confidence much stronger than later felt when there came fuller appreciation 
of the magnitude of the task. For, though Arizona may be called the Baby State 
and though within her borders last may have been found the nation's frontier, 
her history is one of rare antiquity. When the first English entered Chesapeake 
Bay the Spaniards already had been in Pimeria nearly seventy years and the 
landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock was full eighty years after 
the passage of Coronado, who here found Indians who for centuries had lived 
in well-ordered cities. The material has not been easy to gather, though much 
has been written upon the Southwest. Yet Bancroft's volume on Arizona and 
New Mexico, issued in 1889, was the only work that approximated complete 
treatment of the subject. The author felt that he had accumulated much data 
in the course of over thirty-six years of residence in Arizona, years mainly 
devoted to newspaper and general writing, yet must confess that the field of 
Arizona history, when delved into as an occupation, has produced much that was 
strange and much that has changed his ideas on matters theretofore by him 
considered settled. The Territory has had many chroniclers of legends and 
events and many scientists have studied her ethnology and her natural features. 
There has been less trouble in finding material than in classifjdng it, balancing 
it in relative importance and finding the place into which each item best would 
fit. In this connection, in the consideration of a number of important features, 
it has been thought well to make classification by subjects, rather than to observe 
close chronological sequences. 

In the progress of the work continually has been impressed upon the writer 
a feeling that Arizona is a land apart and unique. She has her own features 
of dual climates, of peculiar native flora and fauna, of contrasting wooded and 
snow-capped mountains, rising out of waterless, sage-colored, far-stretching 
plains, of ** deserts" that become oases when torrential streams are checked — 
all broadly at variance with Nature's manifestations in any other State of our 
Union. Indeed, it has been said that only in far-oflf Palestine are these condi- 
tions in any wise duplicated. 

There is a charm in all, that includes also the history of this Sun-Kissed Land, 
even though the epoch considered be one of dreadful tragedy. The stage setting 
always has been dramatic. In the wondrous, many-hued framing of the deep 
mountain canons are cliflf dwellings and on the plains are mysterious cities of 
an unrecorded past. Across the glowing landscape have paced mail-clad con- 
quistadores and brown-robed, sandaled friars. From the stage's craggy wings 



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vi PREFACE 

have stolen forms of Indians, naked, painted, and the f oregrooi^d still is wet 
with the blood of the slain. There has been conflict, real and long-enduring, 
with successive soldiery of three nations holding back a cruel foe, and at least 
one stru^le of civil strife. 

On the pageant pathway have passed filibusters, bandits, desperadoes, cow- 
boys picturesque on broncos and prospectors with their humble burros, creaking 
carretas with their horn-yoked oxen, emigrant trains bound for the land of gold, 
freighting ** outfits" with wagons of wondrous size and long strings of strain- 
ing mules, **thoroughbrace" stage coaches, settlers who literally bore a rifle on 
every plow beam, engineers, through whose transits a rosy future first was 
seen — and lastly the railroad, bearer of a modem and stable prosperity. Long 
sections of the panorama must be shown to secure realization of the travail 
through which the State has come into her newer life — and then of her more' 
modem progress there must be detail. 

What we of the territorial generation have known as the real pioneers of 
Arizona, those who came before or about the time of the Territory's organiza- 
tion, nearly all are gone, though there remain a few such men as Hughes, Genung 
and Banta to give evidence at first hand concerning the days when life was the 
only cheap article in the Southwest. 

It is appreciated that the tale presented of early days may be over-sangui- 
nary and that large space has been devoted to the Indian warfare, of most 
unhappy memory. But no other part of our Nation ever fought its way to the 
star of civilization through such tribulation as here known, and this day is made 
the happier by contrast with the dark and bloody past. 

The author owes much to Dr. J. A. Munk for the free use of his wonderful 
collection of Arizoniana (of 7,000 titles) in the Southwest Museum in Los 
Ailgeles. He would acknowledge also his indebtedness to scores of Arizona 
friends who have contributed much material and the Help of good counsel and 
sympathetic interest. 

There has been attempted only the plainest of condensed narrative, yet it 
has been sought to present as vividly as could be done the full story of "The 
•\rarvellous Country.'' The result it is felt must have its percentage of error, 
both of omission and commission. But herewith it is presented, done in sincerity 
and in the love of the land of which it deals. 

Jas. H. McClintock. 

PncExix, Arizona, January 1, 1916. 



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CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

NAMING OF THE LAND 

**Arizonat** a Word of Papago Origin, First Applied to a Northern Sonora District — 
Later Spread Over the Cadsden Purchase and Accepted for the Territory 1 

CHAPTER II 

ARIZONA'S ANCIENT SETTLEMENT 

Casa Crande and the Valley Pueblos — Their Antiquity and Their Desertion — Clijf 
DiPellings and Dipellers — Connection ipith the Modem Indians — Stone Corrals — 
Petroglyphs 4 

CHAPTER III 

INDIANS. HISTORIC AND TRIBAL 

Aboriginal Peoples of Arizona, Peaceful and Otheripise — Origin, Customs and Devel- 
opment — Unguistic Stocks — Nomadic and Sedentary Tribes — Reservations — Efforts 
at Education 18 

CHAPTER IV 

THE SPANISH CONQUEST 

Cabeza de Vaca — Juan de la Asuncion, First Traveler in Arizona — Marco de Niza and ' 
the Seven Cities — Coronado*s Expedition — Alarcons River Exploration — Nerv 
Mexican Settlement 41 

CHAPTER V 

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 

The Jesuits Till Their Expulsion in 1767 — Entry of the Franciscans — Padre Cards, 
His Travels and Martyrdom — Foundation of San Francisco by De Anza — 
San Xavier 63 

CHAPTER VI 

AMERICAN OCCUPATION 

Passage of Pike, Pattie and Carson — Mexican Rule to 1846 — Kearny s Victorious 
March Through to the Pacific — The Mormon Battalion — Its Capture of Tucson . . 82 

•vii 



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via CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

EARLY MINERS AND PROSPECTORS 

Spanish Silver Mines and the Planchas de Plata — American Operations Along the Border 
— First Copper Production at A jo — Placers — Walker and Weaver Expeditions. 101 

CHAPTER VIII 

AMERICAN SURVEYS 

Work of the Boundary Commission — Sitgreaves, Aubrey and Whipple on the Thirty- 
fifth Parallel — Beales Wagon Road — Experiences i»ith Camels — Surveys Along 
the Cila 113 

CHAPTER IX 

SOUTHWESTERN FILIBUSTERS 

Attempts of Pvndra^ and Raousset de Boulhon to Establish French Colonies Near the 
Border — Walker*s Expedition — Crabb*s Great Plans and Their Disastrous Termina- 
tion — Grant Oury\ Dash 1 24 

CHAPTER X 

THE PRE-TERRITORIAL PERIOD 

Old Tucson, a Border Metropolis — Its Foundation and Name — Yuma and the River 
Camps — Politics, i»hen Arizona Extended from Texas to the Colorado — Confederate 
Activity 131 

CHAPTER XI 

WITH THE STARS AND STRIPES 

The Regular Army in Arizona and Its Leaders — Southi»estem Military Posts — Aban- 
donment at the Outbreak of the Civil War — Forts and Camps, Past and Present . 1 45 

CHAPTER XII 

ARIZONA IN THE CIVIL WAR 

Confederate Invasion of the Southipest — Huniers Capture of Tucson — Picacho Pass 
Fight — Carletons California Column — Mor»rys Arrest — Apache Pass — Ner» 
Mexican Military Administration 1 58 

CHAPTER XIII 

EARLY INDIAN TROUBLES 

The Apache Character — Mangos Coloradas and His End — Hoi» Cochise Started on 
The War Path — Border Desolation — Oatman Massacre — Captivity and Rescue of 
Olive Oatman 1 72 



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CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER XIV 

APACHES IN NORTHERN ARIZQNA 

Raids on Early Mining Camps — lVoolsey*s Pinole Treaty — Wots of the Verde Valley 
Settlers — John Toi»nsend — Hostile Mojcnfes and Hualpais — The Arizona Volun- 
teers 185 

CHAPTER XV 

INDIAN BORDER DEPREDATIONS 

Protests of the Governor and Legislature — Eskiminzin — The Work of Cochise in South- 
rpestem Arizona — Death of Lieutenant Cushing — Loot of the Hughes Ranch — 
Depredation Claims 1 98 

CHAPTER XVI 

RETALIATION AND CONCILIATION 

Camp Crant Massacre — Vincent Colyer, Attorney for the Apaches — General Hoi»ard*s 
Effective Service — Cochise Surrenders — His Death — Indians Herded upon Reser- 
vation 206 

CHAPTER XVII 

CLOSING IN ON THE APACHE 

The Great Crook Campaign of 1872 — Loring Massacre — Date Creek Conspiracy — 
Fight of the Caves — Del Shay — King*s Fight at Sunset Pass — Victorious 
Death 218 

CHAPTER XVIII 

RAIDS FROM THE RESERVATIONS 

Outbreak of Scouts at Cibicu — Middleton Ranch Attacked — Geronimo Escapes — 
Murders of Sterling, Cohig and Knox — Fight of the Big Dry Wash — Agency 
Conditions 232 

CHAPTER XIX 

THE FIRST SONORAN CAMPAIGN 

Surrender of the Geronimo Band and Its Escape — Murder of the McComas Family — - 
Zulick*s Warning against Violence — Crarvford Killed by Mexicans — Crook 
Reigns 243 

CHAPTER XX 

END OF THE APACHE WARS 

General Miles in Command — Capture of Geronimo*s Band — Deportation of the Chiri- 
cahuas — Reynolds* Murder — Escape and Depredations of the Kid — Peace at Last, 
after Centuries of Bloodshed 259 



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X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXI 

PIONEER TRANSPORTATION 

Stage Coaching through the Indian Country — The Famous Butterfield Contract — Trials 
of Mail Contractors — Perils of the Road — Wayside Stations and Their Tragedies — 
Freighting fcp Wagon — Mexican Carretas 270 

CHAPTER XXII 

FROM CAMELS TO AUTOS 

Jefferson Daifis* Experiment i»ith *'Ships of the Desert*' — Beak's Experiences with 
Camels — Turned Loose on the Arizona Plains — The Faithful Burro — Modem 
Roads and Bridges — Military Telegraph Lines 283 

CHAPTER XXIII 

SOUTHWESTERN RAILROADS 

Helped fcp Land Grants and Subsidies — Fremont's Large Plans — Coming to the Southern 
Pacific and Santa Fe Systems — How the Arizona Branch Lines Were Built — The 
PhelpSrDodge Roads— Railroad Lights that Failed 288 

CHAPTER XXIV 

THE MIGHTY COLORADO 

Early Transportation on Arizona's Only Navigable Stream — The First Steamboats — 
Difficulties of the Pioneer Skippers — Explorations within the Grand Carton — Powell 
and Stanton Parties — How a Gorge Was Dug and the Material Removed. . . .302 



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Arizona — The Youngest State 



CHAPTER I 
NAMING OF THE LAND 

'^Arizona* a Word of Papago Origin, First Applied to a Northern Sonora District — 
Later Spread Over the Cadsden Purchase and Accepted for the Territory. 

The namje ''Arizona,'' has been of disputed origin. On the face of things it 
would seem to have come from two Spanish words, arida (arid, dry, barren) 
and zona (zone), so called in a general way by the Spaniards who traveled north- 
ward from the "zona templada," the temperate highland of Mexico. What 
more natural than to speak of going to the ' ' dry country ! " Euphony in Spanish 
pronunciation would account for the inversion of the usual form of noun and 
adjective. Yet there are many, skilled in the Spanish tongue, who insist that 
the word cannot be of Spanish origin. 

Samuel Hughes, one of the oldest of Tucson's residents, has contended that 
it is derived from **ari-sonac," meaning ** place of chastisement," by its form 
inferring that the victims were small people, or children, and joins with other 
well-informed students in centering the origin of the name in northern Sonora, 
entirely outside of the boundaries of the present State of Arizona. 

Pred W. Hodge, the distinguished ethnologist of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, a scientist who has done much in the Southwest, also finds for *'ari-zonac," 
though he translates it from the Papago as meaning ''small springs." 

Hodge is sustained with the small change of the noun to the singular form, 
by Dr. M. P. Freeman of Tucson, who has gone deeply into the subject and 
who has chased the name down in Spanish history. From his relation is quoted : 

Some time prior to the date of its publication in Barcelona, Spain, in 1754, Padre Ortega 
wrote his ''Historia del Nayarit (the district south of the Gila), Sonora, Sinaloa y Ambas 
Calif omias;" in this, speaking of the mines of Sonora, he refers to the Planchas de Plata, 
that were discovered "a corta distancia del Beal de Arizona" (at a short distance from the 
Beal of Arizona). Beal at the time was applied to ''the town in whose district there were 
silver mines." Although published in !l754, this history bears conclusive internal evidence of 
having been written in the City of Mexico not later than the year 1751, and contains the first 
printed mention of which I have any knowledge of the name of our State, although it undoubt- 
edly appears in manuscript in the archives of the City of Mexico and of Spain, in the 
government correspondence had in 1736, relative to the interest of the government in this 
discovery. Ward, in his ** Mexico in 1827," he being the English charge d'affaires in the 
City of Mexico at the time of his writing, states that he had seen the correspondence, and says 
that a decree of Philip the Fifth ends by declaring the ** District of Arizona" to be Royal 



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2 ABIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

property. The omisBion of the final ''c" from Arizonac, in this cade, has no special sig- 
nificance, nor has that of Ortega in his ''Historia." The Indian name of their rancheria 
in the vicinity was undoubtedly Arizonac; this name the Spaniards probably adopted and 
applied to the locality in general, dropping the **c** in their pronunciation and spelling of it. 
Ortega makes no suggestion whatever as to the possible meaning of Arizona, or Arizonac. 
But this early mention of the name now borne by the State, I consider a most interesting 
historical fact. 

Prof. B. H. Forbes of the University of Arizona, delving a bit into the 
Papago-Pima idiom, finds that **ari" means ** small, '* usually applied to a babe 
or child, while **sonae'' means ** ever-flowing spring." He believes that 
the latter word has been confused with the Papago word **soni," ** which con- 
veys the idea of low position, associated with violence," thus explaining and 
seeking to wipe out the Hughes theory. Professor Forbes, pursuing the subject, 
interprets several local names out of the Papago tongue, such as Arivaca, *' little 
marsh" and Chooksonac, ** black spring," possibly alkaline. He points to the 
fact that, twenty-eight miles southwest of Nogales is the old Arizona ranch, on 
the Rio Arizona, just north of the Sierra Arizona, with the Planchas de Plata 
only six miles distant. In that locality the name is an old one, and there is a 
natural assumption that it spread northward till it embraced all of Pimeria and, 
eventually, the western half of southern New Mexico. The fact that it was 
spelled variously on old maps and in old manuscripts would detract not at all 
from the strength of the statement. 

Bancroft, in his History of Arizona and New Mexico, gives some support to 
this localizing of the word and suggests that the true meaning would be found 
in study of the tongues of the nearby Indians, treating as mere guesses most 
of the explanations extant on the basis of similar Indian or Spanish words. 
One of these, contained in an early geography, was to the effect that, as the 
Gadsden Purchase had the shape of a nose, ''Arizona" could be traced to the 
Spanish ''nariz," in the form of *'narizona," assumed to be a **large-nosed 
woman." John D. Walker, a Pima scholar, told it was from *'orlison," meaning 
** little creeks." 

Again, there is the variation of ''Arizuma," said to be Aztec for ''Silver 
Country," though the translation is open to inquiry concerning identity of the 
translator, for Arizona never was an Aztec province. Colonel Poston some- 
where gained the impression that Arizuma was an Aztec word meaning "rocky 
country." This should have some weight, as it often appears in this form in 
early chronicles and as Poston generally has been credited with naming the Ter- 
ritory at the time of its organization. He himself was a bit modest on the 
subject. His own account of the oflScial naming of the future State has been pre- 
served. It follows: 

On my return from Washington in 1856, I met at El Paso, William Claude Jones, then 
Attorney General of New Mexico, and on our journey up the Bio Qrande we discussed the 
propriety of making a petition to Congress for the organization of a territorial government 
between the Rio Grande and Colorado. At La MesiUa, Jones, who was a lawyer and poli- 
tician, wrote the petition, and when it came to giving the proposed territory a name he wrote 
it * * Arizona. * * The petition was signed by everybody in MesiUa who could write, and some 
who could not, and sent by mail to General Busk, at that time senator from Texas. This is 
the first time that I know of the word Arizona having been used in any official or Gov- 
ernment communication. The petition is probably filed in the archives of the Senate at 
Washington as General Rusk presented it to Congress. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE \ 3 

Isaac D, Smith, an Arizona pioneer of large experience among the Papago 
Indians, in an article published many years ago in Tucson, most concisely gave 
his views concerning the origin of Arizona's name. He wrote: 

As to the name of Arizona, there is very little mystery about it. If a person feels 
like traveling eighty-five miles southwest from Tucson to a place called Banera, west of 
Sasabe about eight miles, and south of the boundary line about one mile, his curiosity may 
be gratified. At that point about 300 years ago, lived a great many Indians, and in the 
vicinity is a small creek, which the Mexicans now call Sucalito, but which the Indians caU 
Aleh-Zon (meaning young spring). At the head of this creek is a spring, but during rainy 
weather other small springs start up, hence the name. This large village the Spaniards 
destroyed about 100 years ago. At the present time there are only a few hundred Indiana 
who live there, and from the village and creek Arizona received her name. 

The burden of proof sustains Doctor Freeman, Mr. Hodge and Mr. Smith. 
All would indicate that little reason exists for further research along this line. 



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CHAPTER II 

ARIZONA'S ANCIENT SETTLEMENT 

Casa Grande and the Valley Pueblos — Their Antiquity and Their Daertion — Clijf 
Drpellings and Dipellers — Connection with the Modem Indians — Stone Corrals — 
Petrogl^phs. 

The identity of the people who once inhabited the valleys of Southern 
Arizona and their final disposition are questions that strike every visitor to 
Casa Grande and other such ruins, though possibly the first query will concern 
their probable age. The unthinking have called the southern pueblo remains 
"Aztec," something they assuredly are not. There also has been a desire to 
make more of the valley dwellers than they really were — to endow them with 
knowledge even superior to that of today and with possession of mystic lore 
like unto that of the priesthood of ancient Egypt. In fact, they were peoples 
not materially different from the pueblo dwellers of today, along the Rio Grande, 
at Zuni or in the Hopi villages — they were Indians, of ordinary sort, of a 
settled, agricultural type. They dwelt in communities for mutual protection, 
and, being of gregarious inclination, living by the fruits of their own toil, natur- 
ally they were peaceful — though well equipped for the defense of their own. 
Such houses as Casa Grande and the great houses near Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa 
could have housed only a small part of the ancient population of the Gila and 
Salt River valleys, and it is probable the farmers usually lived in villages close 
to their fields. 

That they were deeply devotional is shown by the finding of sacrificial imple- 
ments not dissimilar to those now in use in Zuni, and elaborate must have been 
their rituals, covering the course of their daily lives, as well as their ceremonials 
of worship. They knew that water would run down hill and hence dug canals 
from the rivers to irrigate their fields, and these canals were dug broader and 
longer as the extent of the cultivated area enlarged. Nothing about it all was 
mysterious. Almost any of the sedentary Indians of today would do as well 
under like circumstances. 

It should be appreciated by the casual viewer, as well as by the student, 
that the Southern Arizona valleys were not settled within a year, nor were 
they hastily abandoned. It is probable that even centuries were consumed in a 
slow migration through the valleys and that most of the towns were in ruins 
before the last of the clans finally abandoned the ground. 

What made them move? From one familiar with the same type of Indian 
could come a hundred possible reasons. There may have been a failure of their 
water supply, for such streams, as the Gila often go dry for months. Alkali 
may have risen in the lands. There* could have been an epidemic of disease. 

4 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 5 

The medicine men might have announced there was naught but bad luck in the 
house. There may have been earthquakes, accepted as a sign from the gods of 
the underworld. There may have been wars, even among themselves, though 
the olden-time Apache may have been the same as he was on the coming of the 
white man. Possibly the best guess of all, considering pueblos of historic times, 
is that it became easier to move than to clean up, to clear away the debris of 
malodorous filth that had accumulated in each town. In Arizona Indian settle- 
ments the fierce summer sun is about the only sanitary agent known, save the 
occasional rain. 

Though the chronology of the Pimas runs not back that far, it is not im- 
probable that a remnant of the ancient Gila and Salt River VaUey settlement 
was swallowed up in the later Pima immigration, possibly before the time the 
, fierce Aztecs marched down from the Northwest to subdue the gentler Toltecan 
people around the great lake of Mexico. Of a verity, the valley people long had 
been gone when the Spaniards came, nearly four hundred years ago, and had 
left no tradition behind. Carbonized wood remained of their roof rafters. 
Mayhap, conjecture that the valleys were settled 1,000 years ago would not come 
far from the real i)eriod, though Gushing rather inclined to a view of even more 
remote occupation. 

One point assuring the antiquity of the house people lies in the fact that 
they knew the use of no metal. In a small cave in a hill near Tempe, Frank 
Gushing found, with other ancient relics, a fragment of copper, roughly fashioned 
as a cutting instrument, probably accidentally smelted from copper carbonate 
ores used in the lining of an estufa, an aboriginal cooking pit. A similar piece 
was found near the mouth of Tonto Greek. In a ruin just west of Phoenix, Wil- 
liam Lossing found three little copper anklet bells, similar to sleigh bells, within 
each a small pebble, to serve as elapper. These bells undoubtedly were from the 
ancient mines of Santa Rita, where the Mimbres Valley Indians dug out native 
copper and fashioned it into crude ornaments. A similar ''hawk's bell," curi- 
ously marked, was given to Dorantes of de Vaca's party in 1536. J^ewkes found 
a few bells in the Little Golorado ruins. 

The successive outgoing migrations may have been in any direction. All 
evidences point toward the north as the way taken by many. There is a chain 
of pueblo-type villages, with central castles or communal houses, almost all the 
way from the Gila to Zuni and to Tusayan. This continuity within the Verde 
Valley has been established by the researches of Gosmos Mindeleflf and of Doctor 
Fewkes. In the valley of Tonto Greek are similar ruins of great antiquity. 

Gushing brought Zunis down to work on the excavation of Los Muertos, 
south of Tempe, where he and his red helpers unearthed scores of proofs of a 
Zuni connection. Though Gushing in his makeup had a strong strain of romance, 
that may have colored his delightful narrations and detracted from the scientific 
value of his findings, he knew more of the Zuni people and of their tribal lore 
than any other white man, and his declarations of this connection are entitled 
to all deference. 

The Hopi (Moqui) have tales of a southern origin for at least two of their 
clans. It should be understood that the Hopi, though rated by Powell as of 
the same linguistic stock as the Shoshone, Ute and Gomanche, really are a com- 
posite people, with a language in which are found Tanoan, Piman and Keresan 



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6 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

words. The Snake elan has a tradition of coming from the north, from the San 
Juan country, and its priests in confirmation show ancient shrines in canons on 
the route that was followed by the migrating people southward. The Bear clan 
came from the eastward, from the country around Jemez. Most important, con- 
sidering the perplexity with which ethnologists have studied the disposition of 
the agricultural people who once occupied the Salt and Gila River valleys, it is 
a Hopi tradition that the Water House (the Patki) and the Squash (Patun) 
clans came from the South, from *'the cactus country.'' 

On the Mogollon plateau are two large ruins and, thirty-two miles north- 
ward, in the valley of the Little Colorado, near Winslow, are the remains of 
five towns called by the Hopi **Homolobi." Of these there is good tribal his- 
tory to the eflfect that the settlements were abandoned because of rising alkali. 
The same condition was developed on the same ground by Mormon pioneers less 
than forty years ago. The Patki group include the Lizard, or Sand, Rabbit, 
Tobacco and Rain Cloud divisions. It has a record of life in Homolobi and of 
residence in Palatkwabi, near San Carlos in the Gila Valley. The Little Colo- 
rado villages. Doctor Fewkes believes, were occupied as late as 1632. From the 
same locality is assumed to have come the Lenya (Flute), a somewhat older 
migration. Of rather late date also, are some of the 140 cliff or pueblo ruins 
in the Cafion de Chelly (Tsegi), many of them of undoubted Hopi origin. But, 
it should be understood, in places in the Southwest are evidences of successive 
flows of human tides, during indefinite spaces of time, to be measured by cen- 
turies. 

It may be significant that the Hopi between 1866 and 1870 asked oflScial 
permission to settle in the Tonto Basin, whence, according to tradition, some 
of their ancestors had come. It then was remembered that the Hopi first were 
known to the Spaniards as living in the land of Tontonteac, possibly only a 
striking verbal similarity. In 1892 the same Indians fiercely refused an offer 
by the Government to move them from their hill tops to a more fertile locality. 

In the same connection there seems fo have been established a general kin- 
ship between the pueblo people and the cliff dwellers, who, possibly through 
environment, were forced into different habits of life and custom. Even within 
historic times cliff dwellings of northern Arizona have known temporary Indian 
occupation. 

The legends of the people of Tusayan are many and often are contradictory, 
as is natural considering the various origins. But generally, they tell of long 
periods of wanderings, of stoppings for '* plantings," and of repeated building 
of houses. 

0A8A GBANDE, THE ANCIENT < 'GREAT HOUSE" 

Without doubt the best-known and best-preserved prehistoric structure within 
the United States is Casa Grande, in the Gila River Valley, about twelve miles 
southwest of Florence and about sixteen miles from the Southern Pacific rail- 
road station of Casa Grande. The name is Spanish, simply meaning ** large 
house," but it also has been known among Indians and Spaniards as *'The 
House of Montezuma." This would assume an Aztec origin. Indeed, old ruins 
generally in south-central Arizona have been known to the Spanish-speaking 
Indians as ''Casas de Moctezuma." A rocky formation at the end of the Sierra 



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CASA GRANDE RUINS 




CLIFF DWELLING NEAR ROOSEVELT 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 7 

Estrella, just west of Maricopa station, is known to Indians and whites alike as 
** Montezuma's Head.'' Possibly this has its greatest degree of value in showing 
the inaccuracy of a popular understanding, for there can be no support what- 
ever of the theory that the Aztecs had anything whatever to do with the build- 
ing of Casa Grande or any of the ancient houses of the Gila and Salt River 
Valleys. 

The first historic mention of Arizona's ancient towns was by Friar Marco de 
Niza in 1539, with a second by Pedro de Casteneda in connection with the Coro- 
nado expedition the following year. They probably started the Aztec idea, for 
a ruin somewhere oflf on the northern desert, they called Chichilticalli, un^ler- 
stood to have been **Red House" in the Aztec tongue. Many students have tried 
to show that the route of Coronado embraced the locality of Casa Grande, but it 
probably came not nearer than seventy miles, on the San Pedro. 

There seems little doubt that the first European who ever saw Casa Grande 
was a Jesuit priest, Eusebio Francisco Kino, who led a band of friars into north- 
em Sonora about 1668, who established a chain of twenty-nine Jesuit missions 
and who labored among the Indians of Pimeria and Papagueria until his death. 
In 1694 to him was repeated a tale heard by Lieut. Juan Mateo Mange, nephew 
of Don Domingo de Cruzate, the new Governor of Sonora. Mange had heard 
from Indians in northern Sonora of the existence of some great ancient houses 
near a river that flowed to the west. In November of the same year, Kino 
started on a trip of discovery and was led by Indians to Casa Grande, at that 
time apparently in almost as ruinous a condition as now. A Spanish chronicler 
told that Aztec traditions referred to this Casa Grande as having been a tem- 
porary abiding place of the Aztecs on their march southward to the valley of 
Mexico. Kino again visited the great house in the fall of 1697, accompanied by 
an escort ccwnmanded by Capt. Cristobal M. Bemal, coming down the San 
Pedro. The young soldier Mange was a member of this second party. Mass 
was said by Padro Kino in one of the rooms of the great house, where the same 
ceremonial had been performed on his previous trip. Mange wrote a very 
interesting account of his trip and accurately described the ruins, adding a rough 
sketch and a ground plan of the main building. He told that the middle was 
four stories high and the adjoining rooms were three stories, the walls two 
yards thick, of strong mortar and clay, **so smooth on the inside that they looked 
like planed boards and so well burnished that they shone like Puebla earthen 
ware." The roofs of aU the houses had been burned, save the ceiling of one 
room, which was of wooden beams, with superimposed layers of mortar and 
hard clay on reeds. He inferred that the settlement or city had been inhabited 
by a civilized race under regular government, this ** evidenced by a main ditch 
which branches oflP from the river into the plains surrounding the city, which 
remained in the center of it." The guides told that a distance of a day's jour- 
ney northward were similar ruins, undoubtedly those near Phoenix and Tempe, 
and also spoke of ruins in another *' ravine which joins the one they called 
Verde." In 1736 and in 1745 there are records of visits to the ruins respectively 
by Padre Ignacio Keller and Padre Jacobo Sedelmaier, missionaries from 
northern Sonora. 

In .1762, in the **Rudo Ensayo," an anonymous writing attributed to Padre 
Juan Nentyg, is still another circumstantial account of the main building. 



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8 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Padre Francisco Garces, who first carried the cross into western Arizona, vis- 
ited Casa Grande in 1775 on an exploring trip that started at the presidio of 
Tubac. He was a member of a party of 239 persons, led by Lieut.-Col. Juan 
Bautista de Anza, and which included also the Franciscan Padres Font 
and Tomas Eixarch. Both Garc6s and Font have left descriptions of Casa 
Grande. The former introduces in his narration an odd tale of hostility between 
the Hopi, the pueblo dwellers of northern Arizona, and the Pima, who dwelt 
in the vicinity of Casa Grande, in which he assumes **That the Moqui (Hopi) 
anciently extended to the Gila in early days." In this he was sustained by 
the evidence of Indians living in his mission of San Xavier, who told that the 
Moquis had built the houses whose ruins and fragments of pottery are still vis- 
ible. Padre Garc6s therefore concluded that the ancient people ** could be 
Moquis, who came to fight and that, harassed by the Pimas, who always have 
been numerous and valiant, they abandoned long ago these habitations on the 
River Gila; as also have they done this with that ruined pueblo which I found 
before my arrival in Moqui; and that they retired to the place where now 
they live, in a situation so advantageous, so defensible and with such precau- 
tions for self-defense in case of invasion." 

Padre Font heard Indian tradition, '* which all reduces itself to fiction, 
mingled confusedly with some catholic truth." The Casa Grande, or Palace 
of Moctezuma, may have been inhabited some 500 years before, according to the 
stories and scanty notices that, there were of it and that the Indians gave, 
** because, as it appears, the Mexicans (Aztecs) found it when in their transmi- 
gration the devil took them through various l^nds, until they arrived at the 
promised land of Mexico and in their sojourns, which were long, they formed 
settlements and built edifices." The reverend historian spoke especially of 
finding the ground strewn with pieces of jars, pots and plates of various colors, 
**an indication that.it was a large settlement and of distinct people from the 
Pima of the Gila, since these know not how to make such potterj'." Padre 
Font recites one lengthy Pima legend, that of El Hombre Amai^ (The Bitter 
Man), which has been repeated substantially in similar form by later investiga- 
tors. In this legend is the story of a flood, from which refuge was taken on a 
high mountain range, called the Mountain of the Foam (Sierra de la Espuma), 
assumed to have been the Superstition range, described as **cut off and steep 
like a comer of a bastion, with, high up near the top, a white brow as of rock 
which also continues along the range for a good distance, and the Indians say 
that this is the mark of foam of the water which rose to that height.*' 

In 1871 the structure was visited by Capt. F. E. Grossman, who tried to 
trace the connection between the ruins and the modem Indians, and who found 
at least one sustaining legend, telling that the Pimas claimed to be the dii^ect 
descendants of a Chief So-ho (of whose line Si-va-no erected Casa Grande), 
who governed a large empire long before the Spaniards were known. His people 
cultivated the soil, dug immense canals, spun cotton cloth and made baskets 
and earthenware. The narrator refers to the certainty, '*that the house was 
built before the Pimas knew of the use of iron, for many stone hatchets have 
been found in the ruins, and the end of lintels over doors and windows showed 
by their hacked appearance that only blunt tools were used. It also appears 
that the builders were without trowels, for the marks of fingers of the workmen 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 9 

are plainly visible both in the plastering and in the walls where the plastering 
has fallen oflf." 

The first American visitors were trappers, hunting the beaver, which were 
abundant in nearly all the Arizona streams of continuous flow. Among these 
visitora were the Patties, about 1825, and in 1833, Pauline Weaver, a French 
trapper, who led the Rich Hill party of placer miners in 1863. 

Lieut.-Col. Wm. H. Emory in 1846 had sketches made of the ruins still 
showing the central upper room and heard from the Indians their own version 
of the immaculate conception, from which sprang the founder of the race which 
built all the houses found in ruins. 

Scientific observation at Casa Grande was made by A. S. Bandelier and 
Dr. J. W. Fewkes about 1892. The former noticed that the pottery resembled 
that excavated by Mr. Gushing in the vicinity of Tempe, of a class common to 
eastern and central Arizona ruins. He stated his belief that the larger house 
was a fortress provided as a place of retreat in time of attack. He also told 
that the Pimas claimed to be lineal descendants of the Indians who built and 
inhabited the large houses of the Gila and lower Salt River, that they attributed 
the 'destruction and abandonment of Casa Grande and other ruins to various 
causes and that they held that the villtlges were not contemporaneously inhabited. 
The most systematic and only thorough exploration of the Casa Grande set- 
tlement has been made by Dr, J. W. Fewkes of the Division of Ethnology of 
the Smithsonian Institution, who returned to Casa Grande for work during two 
winters between 1906 and 1908. The record of the work done by Dr. Fewkes 
is too voluminous to even digest. Most of it was done outside of the principal 
structure. He opened up a number of mounds that turned out to be pueblo 
houses, in two cases practically pyramids built upon the debris of probably 
older structures, abandoned after centuries of use. A number of compounds 
were excavated and several ceremonial houses. It was deduced that the canals 
had been dug by means of wooden shovels, the earth probably carried to a dis- 
tance by women and children. There were reservoirs for the conservation of 
water, not always connected with the irrigation ditches, possibly for holding 
water for drinking. Compared with the ruins of the Salt River Valley, com- 
paratively few mortuary remains were found, though as at Tempe, there were 
evidences both of burial and of cremation. Apparently the settlement was of 
a much later date than in the neighboring valley and the period of occupation 
seemingly was much shorter. 

Dr. Fewkes has expressed an opinion that the builders of Casa Grande 
might racially be traced down to the Pimas of to-day, a statement which has 
brought out strong opposition from a nuniber of sources. It is understood 
that the' decision, which is not by any means final, was reached only after re- 
solving of many doubts founded particularly upon Pima legends and upon the 
character of the pottery and domestic implements found. On the other hand, 
it would appear much easier to believe that the builders of Casa Grande (Pima- 
*'Va-a-ki'') and of the great houses of the Salt River Valley, the *'Hohokam'' 
of the Pimas, were the progenitors of some of the dozen pueblo building tribes 
now living in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. The char- 
acter of the buildings of the lower valleys is not very different from the archi- 
tecture of the Zufiis, Moquis or New Mexican Pueblos, all of them industrious 



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10 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

people, with a relative degree of civilization that dates far back of the coming 
of the Spaniards, when the tribes of Pimeria were found by the Spaniards about 
as they were fifty years ago. The similarity in pottery cannot be considered 
evidence of great weight, for the designs on the ancient ware too readily could 
have been copied by the modem Indian potters. It should be noted also that 
the best of the modem pottery is of Maricopa manufacture. The Maricopas 
have lived near Casa. Grande for a comparatively short period of time. Among 
the Pimas the making of pottery, save of the rudest kind, is understood to have 
been comparatively modem. 

According to J. B. Alexander, for some time agent at Sacaton, *' There are 
few Pima legends with a» text that seems to be adhered to closely. In general 
a Pima legend can readily be manufactured on short order, and the Indians 
themselves are most accommodating in obliging a stranger with a tale sustaining 
his own belief." 

The writer has asked many old Pimas about the Hohokam and has rarely 
gotten any answer except, **We don't know anything about them.'' In 1880, 
while going to the great com dance on the upper Pima reservation, in com- 
pany with the old war chief of the Pimas, there was passed the great ruin on 
the Tempe road, east of Phoenix, a structure with six times the area of Casa 
Grande. The old Indian was asked what he knew of the ancient building. He 
called it **Una Casa de Montezuma" and added in Spanish, with a sweep of his 
hand, **When here came the fathers of my forefathers, all then was as it is 
now. We know nothing of these people." 

The Casa Grande ruins for a number of years have been maintained as a 
national monument with a paid caretaker. The main building has been covered 
with a hideous roof of sheet iron, similar to that sometimes used over hay- 
stacks, but necessary to preserve it from further disintegration by the elements. 
Dr. Fewkes also has concreted the tops of some of the walls uncovered by him. 
But these obviously modem additions, it is hoped, will serve the purpose of 
preserving for the eyes of future generations a link of highest value connecting 
with a comparative civilization of which there is no written record. 

A CENTER OF PBEHI8T0BI0 DEVELOPMENT 

Within the Salt River Valley, without doubt was the seat of the highest 
development of Arizona's prehistoric tribes. Scattered over the valley are thou- 
sands of mounds that mark where ancient houses and castles once stood. 

There were seven principal settlements within the valley, each having a large 
central building or commercial house, around which have been left indications 
of the presence of many dwellings, even hundreds. Besides these were at least 
an equal number of what seem to have been villages and hundreds of detached 
houses, probably placed within the irrigated holdings. On the whole, the ruins 
generally show about the same extent of aging and of dilapidation, and the evi- 
dence would seem rather in favor of the theory that the valley at one time was 
occupied over nearly as great a cultivated area as now is known, and by a much 
larger population. As told elsewhere, the time of settlement undoubtedly 
was prior to that at Casa Grande and, as Salt River carries a much greater 
flow of water available for irrigation than does the Gila, to that degree the 
settlement and acreage tilled were larger. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 11 

The prehistoric canal systems of the Salt River Valley have been traced by 
Herbert R. Patrick and Jas. C. Goodwin, gentlemen deeply interested in south- 
western archaeology, and both have made maps after long and careful study. 
It has been found that the ancient canals of the valley practically have been 
duplicated, and on much the same lines, by the canals that irrigate the lands 
of to-day. As a rule, these old canals are on somewhat higher levels, for it has 
been found that where the old ditches can be traced to the river bank, the river 
bed is shown to have been lowered by erosion from eight to fifteen feet. The 
dams probably were much the same as those built by the early white farmers, 
of mesquite sticks, with brush and rock, easily taken out by freshets and easily 
put back by man. In the aggregate, Mr. Patrick measured about 135 miles of 
main canals in the ancient systems. At the time of his survey, 1903, the total 
nuleage of the modem system was only ten miles more. The longest of the 
ancient canals was about twelve miles, though one system had about twenty-eight 
miles, including branches. The area irrigated by these old systems he computed 
as approximately 140,000 acres, which was just about the same as the irrigated 
area within the same year specified; therefore, considering the average acreage 
cultivated to the Indian family of to-day, he believed that under the old canals 
there may have been approximately 20,000 families, or a population of about 
100,000. In this estimate Mr. Patrick figured that the entire valley was occupied 
at one time. This may not have been the case. As the ancient dwellers migrated 
from point to point, they may also have migrated from canal system to canal 
system, and the occupation of the valley may have been consecutive, involving 
a much lessened estimate of the population. 

The only exploration worth considering that has been given the Salt River 
Valley ruins was by Frank Hamilton Gushing, in 1887. Mr. Gushing, then a 
member of the Hemenway-Southwestem ArchsDolc^cal expedition, though con- 
nected also with the Smithsonian Institution, was especially well equipped for 
the work and had the assistance of a number of skilled specialists (one of them 
Fred W. Hodge) in various lines of ethnologic investigation. He did very 
little outside of the area of a buried city seven miles south of Tempe, which he 
named **Los Muertos,'' the **Gity of the Dead." 

Under the searching spades of his workmen many low, long gravelly knolls 
and other elevations, covered with mesquite and sage brush in rank growth, 
proved the debris of thirty-six large communal houses, constituting a city, from 
which were gathered almost numberless implements and remains of aboriginal 
art. The city thinned out into suburbs and beyond these were found farm 
houses, of which the fire-hardened floors were uncovered at least two miles dis- 
tant. The smaller houses had roofs of mud, of substantially the same character 
built by the Mexicans of to-day. There were a number of public ovens, great 
cooking pits, lined with mud and a natural cement, with fragments of rock, 
whi^h in places had been melted by the excessive heat. One of these pits was 
fifteen feet in diameter and seven feet deep. 

The main temple, a structure much larger than Gasa Grande, though 
smaller than a similar ruin near Phoenix, was surrounded at a distance of about 
sixty feet by a mud wall, within which were a number of subordinate structures, 
as well as a couple of open courts. Mr. Gushing found no doors in the exterior 
walls of the main structure, though there were windows and port holes, and thus 



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12 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

inferred that the interior was reached by ladders, as is the ease to-day in some 
of the northern pueblos. 

Death and the dead apparently had few terrors for these people, for mixed 
in daily association were the urn-graves of their friends and relatives and the 
adobe sarcophagi of their priests. Within the main group were found thirty- 
two skeletons, a few of women and children. A couple of the skeletons were 
nearly six feet in length, though the average stature was low, and the skulls 
were similar to the Peruvian type. The skeletons lay in vaults, usually placed 
in the corner of a room supposed to have been occupied by their tenants in life. 
The floors show evidences of having been filled in level with the top of the 
tomb, or the tomb was built up till the ceiling was reached. One of the 
skeletons, where the sutures of the skull had consolidated, was that of a man 
who had reached at least the age of 100 years. It was inferred that persons so 
buried were considered as possessed of power to separate at will the spirit from 
its earthly tenement. The remains of the commoner people were incinerated, 
then placed in burial urns, covered with saucer-like lids. Beside were placed 
miniature earthen vessels, filled with food for the journey to the happy hunting 
grounds and then the whole was covered with earth to a depth of from one to 
several feet. Several cemeteries were opened, each with dozens of these pot- 
tery funeral caskets. The burial plats were scattered, seeming to show that 
every family or small clan had a separate and convenient place to deposit its 
dead, near the wall of its block of dwellings. The level of the land appears to 
have changed little during the centuries and only in a few places had rain or 
wind betrtyyed the existence of these ancient burial grounds. Around each 
burial always were found a number of broken vessels, usually comprising a ccwn- 
plete household set. They were broken in order to **kill'* them, that their spirits 
might accompany their lately deceased owner on his journey to the happy hunt- 
ing ground. This same custom is known in Zuni land. This practice of bury- 
ing food and water vessels, as well as beads, prayer sticks, etc., also was known 
among the ancient Hopis, a fact developed by the explorations of Dr. Fewkes 
in the prehistoric pueblo of Sikyatki. 

A feature of sentimental as well as ethnologic interest was the finding of a 
number of ** killed" earthen images of dogs, close beside the remains of chil- 
dren. The deduction is most obvious. Older persons, possessed of the esoteric 
knowledge of the phratries, could find their way through the darkness on the 
trail that led to the eternal abiding places. Not so with the children. With 
each, very logically, was buried the dog that had been its especial plajonate on 
earth, for the spirit of the faithful animal could be depended upon to lead the 
way home. Judging from the latter-day Mexican or Indian village, surely 
there must have been a large supply of dogs, probably of the common hairless 
Mexican **pelon" type, yet there must have been an occasional shortage, indi- 
cated by the substitution of the earthen image. 

Gushing rather inclined to the belief that Los Muertos was abandoned after 
an earthquake, of which he found a number of signs. Under one fallen wall 
was found the skeleton of a man who had thus been crushed to death. Gushing 
called it '*A Tragedy in Bone." But there were cranial differences, and it is 
probable that the bones were those of some prowler of later years. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 13 

Gushing had differences with his backers and so his data covering Los 
Muertos never has had publication, save in a few detached papers by himself 
and his associates. His greatest work was that in Zuni, where he lived for six 
years and whence he led his brother chieftains back in 1882, to secure from the 
Eastern Ocean a supply of water for the ritualistic ceremonies into which he 
had been initiated. He died April 10, 1900, aged 43, his fatal illness largely 
due to the hardships of his life among the Zuni. 

TOLTEO AND AZTEO MIGRATIONS 

Many scientists consider the primitive occupation of the southern Arizona 
valleys to have been cotemporaneous with the Toltec period. According to 
Biart, the Toltecs came from the northwest, probably from central California, 
finally settling around Tula, about twenty-five miles from the Mexican lake. 
The journey consumed 124 years and ended about the year 667. A gentle 
and industrious people, they suffered much at the hands of barbarous hill 
tribes, by famine and the ravages of locusts, and, finally, after the death of 
their eighth king, the race seems to have scattered f nnn the decaying cities into 
Yucatan and Guatemala, where there already was even a stronger grade of 
relative civilization. Then came the Aztec invasion, also from the northwest, 
the vanguard the warlike Chichimecs, who absorbed the Toltecan remnant, and 
utilized the agricultural andj industrial knowledge possessed by their predeces- 
sors. The Aztec pilgrimage started down the Pacific Coast about 648, even 
before the date of the Toltec 's final settlement. Within the migration were 
seven tribes. The journey must have been a severe one in the passage of the 
southwestern deserts. It is possible that southern Arizona for a time was pos- 
sessed by them, but a direct and westerly route is indicated by the fact that 
Culiacan is given especial mention as a point where a pavilion was erected in 
honor of Huitzilipochtli, the God of War. There it was that the immigrants 
took to themselves, the new name of Mexitli. After many vicissitudes, and, like 
the Hebrews, for a while in captivity, the tribesmen finally established them- 
selves in 1325 at Tenochtitlan, on the great lake where there had been seen on a 
rock an eiigle, with a snake in his talons, fulfilling a prophecy of the priest- 
hood. 

PEOPLE WHO BXJILDED WITHIN THE 0LIPF8 

The cliff dwellings of Arizona are possibly a bit more of a puzzle to the 
archaK)logist than are the pueblo ruins of the valleys. These cliff dwellings are 
found, in OQte shape or another, all over the State. The largest settlement was 
in the Canon de Chelly (Tsegi) of the Navajos in the State's northeastern 
comer. All over northern Arizona, in the gorges that open out from the Little 
Colorado, in Hell Canon, Walnut Canon and down toward the Verde; are a suc- 
cession of cliff dwellings that seem of rather modem occupation and of which, 
indeed, the pueblo-dwellers of to-day have tradition. From some of these 
cliff houses have been taken mummies, desiccated in the dry Arizona air, that 
would appear to have been laid away in the fiesh only a few score of years ago 
at the most. Archaeologists are rather inclined to believe that the people of 
the cliffs were not particularly different from the people who dwelt in the val- 
leys, and that their houses in reality were fortresses placed at points of inacces- 



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14 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

sibility to the Apaches or other primeval lahmaelites who might attack. The 
fact that some of the mummies taken out were those of a small people and that 
the roofs of the rooms and the doorways alike were low are considered of rela- 
tively little moment, when the view is taken that the houses really were not 
intended as permanent habitati(ms, but rather as refuges in the time of dire 
peril, when their builders had been driven from their fields in the valleys below, 
or possibly used as sleeping places in troublous times. It is told that in the 
Sierra Madre mountains of northern Mexico similar cliflf houses were occupied 
within the last century by Indians who kept beyond the pale of Spanish au- 
thority. The Sobaipuri, now mixed with the Papago, are said to have been cliff 
dwellers in the mountains along the San Pedro. 

The best-known and most photographed cliff dwelling in the Southwest is 
the so-called Montezuma Castle on Beaver Creek near Camp Verde, with smaller 
houses scattered around the lip of Montezuma Well, a deep and mysterious sort 
of small lake that occupies an ancient volcanic opening. Below Camp Verde 
there are also some very interesting caveate dwellings. They have been explored 
and described by both Cosmos Mindeleff and Doctor Fewkes. 

At the head of Cherry Creek, in Tonto Basin, set in the walls of the great 
canons that break through the uplifted rim of the MogoUon plateau, are several 
very large cliff dwellings, so inaccessibly placed that they have been subject to 
little vandalism either by Indians or whites. In similar cliffs on the eastern 
edge of the Sierra Ancha chain, facing down on Cherry Creek 2,000 feet below, 
in what is called Pueblo Canon, set in an air-slaked lime stratum, is a wonder- 
fully interesting group of cliff dwellings, well preserved for the coming of the 
archaeologist. 

Fully typical of cliff dwellings in general, and yet embracing two of the 
largest of the kind in the Southwest are ruins within a canon now only a couple 
of miles diiitant from the main traveled automobile road between Phoenix and 
Globe and about four miles from Roosevelt. These ruins thus are readily acces- 
sible to the tourist and are well worth a visit by anyone interested in the pre- 
historic peoples of the Southwest. The lower is the smaller, but the better pre- 
served. Its roughly moulded walls fill a shelf-like open cave 140 feet long, forty 
feet in extreme depth and thirty feet in extreme height. The exterior wall, 
now broken, was built upon the edge of the cavern ledge, above what once was 
a sheer descent of about twenty feet. The building is of three floors, even now. 
The rooms have notably high clearance and a few years ago still in place was a 
rough upper flooring from which could be touched the cave roof at front and 
rear. Here it was, without doubt, that the primitive home guard peered over 
the low parapet and where the papoose in days of yore had his playground. 
The lowest floor is of clay, hard-trodden. The upper floors had typical con- 
struction. Fixed firmly in the walls were set slender red cypress logs, rough 
hewn at the ends, the work of the stone or obsidian axes appearing not unlike 
the tooth marks of beavers. Across the logs were laid small cypress or juniper 
boughs ; then came the ribs of the giant cactus, then river reeds and lastly a well- 
packed coating of adobe clay. 

The so-called ned cypress is to be found in all the cliff dwellings of the 
Tonto Basin region, sound and firm wherever it has been kept dry. Some of the 
beams, peeled of bark, are about ten inches in thickness and often twenty feet 



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CLIFF DWELLINGS OF CANOX DE CHELLY 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 15 

long. The wood is ideal to the man with a jaekknife, resembling in color and 
grain the Spanish juniper so much used for cigar boxes. It is inferred that the 
trees must have been found in many parts of central Arizona at the time the 
cliff dwellers builded. It is said to be peculiar to Arizona, yet now it is found 
only in two places. One is in a grove near the Natural Bridge, sixty miles to 
the northward of the Roosevelt cliff dwellings, and the other, now comprising 
only a few trees, is in the Superstitions, about twenty miles west of the caves. 

The upper ruin has suffered within very modem times by fire. Within 
both were found pottery by the wagon load, with a number of stone implements 
and half a dozen corn mortars (metates). The pottery closely resembles in 
marking that of the valleys of the Salt and Gila, with the same terrace designs, 
jagged lightning flashes and twice-broken life lines (signifying nourishment). 
When the writer first visited these ruins in 1889 he found half-carbonized com 
cobs, mixed with broad bean pods and bits of fiber that indicated that mescal 
was on the bill of fare, either of the builders or of the Apaches who may have 
utilized the shelter in later years. 

In the valley below are the remains of houses and of irrigating ditches, one 
<»f which had been dug through hard limestone with remarkable precision and 
^Fhich is assumed to have crossed Sally May Creek by some form of high and 
Jong aqueduct. A latter-day ditch follows the same line but at lower elevation, 
^or the river bed is not where it was in prehistoric days. 

There have been, tales, more or less disputed on scientific authority, to the 
effect that in sealed jars within the tombs of Egypt have been found grain, there 
placed in the days of the Pharaohs, that germinated when planted by its nine- 
leenth-century discoverers. Something of the same sort has been known in 
Arizona, for it is told there have been several instances where beans and com 
found within the cliff dwellings have still proved capable of germination. The 
most notable instance of this sort was when, about 1905, a few very large pink 
(teans were found by Miss Sharlot Hall in a little hole in a cliff dwelling sixteen 
miles from Jerome. The hole had been sealed with mud and was air tight. 
Several of the seeds proved fertile, producing a strange, large bean of good 
quality. Mrs. Frank Turner of Oak Creek tried, in her garden, the planting 
of a few beans found by Thomas Brown in a Verde cliff dwelling in 1898. One 
<.»f the seeds proved fertile and sent out a; strong vine that bore immense bean 
pods. r 

I have been told by cowboys that in the canon of the Verde, above the mouth 
of Deadman Creek, there is a cliff dwelling that has been overwhelmed by a 
lava flow, indicative of much greater age than believed possessed by such hab- 
itations, for there are no indications in the vicinity of recent volcanic activity. 
Along the same line was the report of Colonel Greenwood in 1867 of finding, 
in a cave in the San Francisco mountains, a broken jar into which lava had 
flowed and of human bones in the same volcanic material. Around these peaks 
undoubtedly were the last volcanic eruptions within the Southwest, not only 
from the main mountain, but from hundreds of small cones that surround it. 
The whole region, now densely forested, in places carries over 100 feet in depth 
of scoriae. A fairly strong story of antiquity is that credited to Indian Trader 
Adams of Fort Defiance, who, on the San Juan river, is said to have found 
pottery in solid sandstone, fifteen feet below* the surface. There are stories of 



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16 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

pottery and metates and even of a primitive fireplace found, in wells dug near 
Phoenix and Florence. 

STONE <<OOBItALS" IN THE HILLS 

Within the mountains of Arizona occasionally are encountered what the 
cowboys call stone corrals. They are built usually of cobblestones, taken from 
the bed of some nearby creek, rarely rising over a few inches above the ground 
and seemingly placed without having had any cementing material other than 
mud. Dr. Fewkes has an explanation of the mystery. He believes that these 
lines of cobblestones were merely foundations for reed built or wattled huts, 
such as now used by the poorer Mexicans, the light superstructure given a better 
basis* on the stones than would have been known had' it been built directly upon 
the ground. This method of building ** jacals" on stones is known to-day among 
the Opatas, a very intelligent and industrious Indian tribe of southeastern 
Sonora, allied ethnologically with the Pimas. One of these ** stone corrals" in 
the valley of Deadman Creek, on the western slope of the Mazatzal range of 
central Arizona, was measured by the writer. It was practically half a mile 
long, divided into many rooms, the outer lines of stones closely following the 
course of the creek, which seemed to have changed not at all since the time of 
building the great communal house. It is not at all improbable that these houses 
were built by Indians of a latter-day occupation, not by the prehistoric peoples. 

ANCIENT MINERS OF PAINT AND TUBQUOISE 

Though the ancient peoples of the Southwest lived in their own stone age, 
nevertheless they mined. A dozen miles north of Parker have been found old 
workings that have been explored to the depth of 175 feet, where with stone 
hatchets had been dug out a ledge of remarkably pure ferric hydrate, used for 
paint, probably both for facial and pottery decorations. It is not improbable 
that the Colorado River Indians later used the same source of supply. In the 
croppings of the present United Verde mine at Jerome were found pits wherein 
the ancients and possibly the later Indians dug for red oxides and for blue and 
green copper carbonates, used for paint. In Mohave County, in mines now 
owned by the Tiffany^ of New York, turquoise was mined, as also at a point in 
the Dragoon Mountains in southeastern Arizona. 

Taking all in all, it is believed that the problem of the identity of the ancient 
Southwestern races, in a general way, is not so hard to solve, if the investigator 
starts with the present day and works backward, keeping in mind the undoubted 
fact that climate and 'natural conditions have changed little if at all during 
several thousands of years. This has been proven by the forest investigations 
of Prof. A. E. Douglass. Like the climate, and under unvarying conditions of 
environment, the Indian character, either within the predatory nomadic or the 
sedentary pueblo type, has had little reason for change and in fact has changed 
little for centuries. 

PETBOOLTPHS, THE ABOBIOINAL BOAD SIGNS 

Nearly all the mountain trails of Arizona are well marked by aboriginal 
signboards. Few are the trails that were not laid out originally by Indians or 
their predecessors. The markings are found usually on boulders, chipped in, 



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MONTEZUMA\S CASTLE 




MONTEZUMA'S WELL AND CLIFF DWELLINCiS 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 17 

probably with flint or basalt tools. Fred Hodge calls them **petroglyph8.'' 
Many of them undoubtedly are the direction signs of prehistoric road associa- 
tionSy indicating water or direction, possibly warnings of places of ambush, in 
this respect corresponding to the ** slow-down" signs looked for by the local 
motor-car traveler. The commonest figure shown is the coiled snake, which 
may have meant either water or danger. Some of them undoubtedly were the 
sign manual of travelers, who decorated their routes somewhat as ambitious 
tramps today paint their names on railroad stations. Then again, and this is 
especially notable on the highways over which passed the clans that later joined 
with the northern pueblo-dwellers, the markings undoubtedly are ritualistic in 
character. Near the cliflf dwellings usually are to be found rather elaborate 
sets of petroglyphs. Sometimes, as in the Sierra Anchas, a section of the cliff 
will be covered with clear designs showing a triumph on returning from battle, 
much with the same idea as was known in ancient Egypt. Few of the designs 
indicate any accurate sense of proportion. Generally they look very much like 
the cartooiis that used to appear in newspapers showing Johnny and His Slate. 
Connell, one of our best authorities on the modem Apache, states that the 
modem Indians have had nothing whatever to do with the hieroglyphics that 
we now find, unless with those of the ** Painted Rocks'* on the Gila, which were 
carven for the double purpose of indicating the separation point between the 
lands of the Tumas and the Maricopas and for permanent indication of a 
treaty of peace, thus signed far more permanent than any European ** scrap of 
paper." Another link was found in northeastern Arizona by Dwight B. Heard 
of PhoBnix, in Canon de Chelly, a cliff marking that clearly represents a mailed 
Spanish soldier and his steed. This is absolutely the best connection ever found 
between the petroglyphs of the hills and historic times. It was found very near 
one of the finest of southwestern cliff dwelling groups, but probably the etcher 
was a Navajo of artistic tendencies. 

THERE WAS NO ANCIENT EMPIBE 

It is very unlikely that any great, preponderant influence, authority or 
empire ever was acknowledged by the local aborigines. It is even improbable 
that there was any especial central influence, other than religious custom, con- 
trolling such a concrete settlement group as known on the Salt River, though 
there must have been mutual consideration involving the distribution of water. 
Under practically the same conditions to-day live the people of the several 
independent pueblos of the Hopis. Local conditions caused local changes, 
usually gradual and as slow as the changes in the conservative Indian mentality. . 
Nowhere on the North American continent, possibly save in southern ^Mexico, 
does there appear to have been any sign of human progress toward enlighten- 
ment such as known by the Europeans, and the Indians of the land we now term 
the Southwest were in no respects remarkable. A thousand years ago undoubt- 
edly they were much the same as they were one hundred years ago. There had 
been communal separation and tribal minglings, and languages had changed, 
but natural conditions remained constant and with them a general adherence, to 
established custom that already had been found best suited to the environment. 



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CHAPTER III 
INDIANS, HISTORIC AND TRIBAL 

Aboriginal Peoples of Arizona, Peaceful and Otherr»ise — Origin, Customs and Develop- 
ment — Linguistic Stocks — Nomadic and Sedentaty Tribes — Reservations — Efforts 
at Education. 

The old-time expression, ** There is no good Indian but a dead one,'* is far 
from true in Arizona, despite a bloody history of Indian warfare. Not a tenth 
of the Indians of Arizona have given trouble to the whites and the peaceful 
conditions of the average reservation rather are a reflection upon ** civilization," 
as demonstrated in the average city. If any large proportion of the Indians of 
Arizona had been hostile, it is probable that travel through the Southwest still 
wrould be needing the protection of troops. Elsewhere in this work much, neces- 
sarily, is told of Indian warfare, but it should be understood that nearly all 
was with only small bands of Apaches, renegades from the reservations, repre- 
senting not the tribe, but groups. Possibly best is the explanation that the 
criminally inclined of the tribe, too lazy to work and defiant of restraint, took 
to the hills for pillage, with murder and torture only pleasant incidents thereto. 
Undoubtedly, also, there was the same keen enjoyment known in ambushing a 
lone prospector as the prospector himself might have felt in stalking a deer. Of 
course, there was jealousy of a superior race, even hatred, but the Indian outlaw, 
like the white outlaw, essentially was nothing more than a common thief, who 
preyed upon the property of the industrious. It is even probable the white 
settlers were welcome, for did they not bring horses and cattle that could be had 
for the mere taking? Before the American settler came, the Apache bandit had 
to go far down into Mexico to steal horses and the other valuables he craved. 

It is probable to this day there are people in the East who believe that the 
Apache's fight was on the righteous base of defending his own land and people 
against a mercenary invader. In truth, the bandit Apache had no land that the 
white man could take, save the rugged hills, and no property, unless it were his 
share of the deer and rabbits. The only aboriginal loss was supremacy — the right 
of the red man to do as he chose, at the expense of his weaker or richer red 
brother. To-day the Arizona Indian as a whole is much better off than he was 
even thirty years ago. The peaceful Indian is protected in his peace and in his 
property rights. The Indian reservations are ample and satisfactory to even 
their occupants, while a paternal government in several of the reserves is provid- 
ing future riches in the installation of irrigation systems. 

Indian schools are found wherever there are Indians and especial attention 
is being paid to practical things. There is keen medical oversight and the young 

18 



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HOPI SNAKE DANCE 
Snake and antelope priests and snakes 




HOPI SNAKE DANCE 
Magic circle of corn meal 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 19 

are healthier than their forbears. The day of the '^v^d" Indian is past. His 
children are being trained toward the day of eventual independence and of 
capable citizenship. 

INDIAN UNGUISTIO SUBDIVISIONS 

Arizona Indians by scientists are divided generally into three grand linguistic 
divisions. Two are relatively local, the Yuman and Piman. The other, including 
the Apache and Navajo, are considered as Athapascan, with supposition of a 
northern origin. The Hopi, the only pueblo-dwelling tribe in Arizona, have a 
dialect declared Shoshonean in origin, though full of words traceable to con- 
nection with other tribes. Allotted to the northern Yuman classification are only 
the Cocopah, Diegueno, Havasupai, Maricopa, Mojave, Tonto, Walapai (Hualpai), 
Yavapai and Yuma. This segregation in Frederick Webb Hodge's ** Handbook 
on the American Indians'* is presented on the authority of Henry W. Henshaw. 

The Piman family, according to Hodge, is **one of the Nahuatl or Aztec family 
of Buschmann, and of the Sonoran branch of the Uto-Aztecan family of Brinton, 
but regarded by Powell as a distinct linguistic stock.*' It embraces within 
Arizona only the Pima and Papago. The family is a tremendous one, extending 
far down into Mexico and closely allied with a number of the 100 or more Mex- 
ican Indian subdivisions, though the language has Shoshonean features. South 
of Casa Grande is a small, but separate Piman subdivision, the Quahatika. 

An Indian tribal name frequently is merely an instance of the usual Cau- 
casian misunderstanding of the red brother. Without doubt, when the first Span- 
ish invaders thrust their forefingers at the first of their Piman captives and 
demanded, ** Who are youT' the prompt answer in each case was, **Pi-maa-tche," 
which is simply good Indian for, **I don't understand." So, owing to the 
primary ignorance and the stubborn insistence of others, **Pima" they ever after 
have been. Their real name is *'0-o-tahm," which is interpreted simply as 
*'The People," with accent presumably upon the **the." The Hopi (Hopiti — 
"peaceful people") of the north, by their neighbors more generally have been 
called Moqui, meaning **dead," ** decayed" or again interpreted as *' dirty- 
nosed." The Tonto band of Apaches can hardly like the name, for it is Spanish 
for '*fool." '*John Dazin's Band" of Cibicu Apaches was so styled from the 
fact that its chief had been called ** Jondaisy" by Navajos, whom he had fought. 
The name in the Navajo- Apache tongue means '*mule." Its origin lay in a 
tall head dress worn by the chief, possibly resembling mule ears. 

THE PUEBLO-DWELLING HOPI 

Among the aborigines of the Southwest the Hopi (Moqui) are to be considered 
as the best type of hard-and-fast conservatives. They have changed little since 
the coming of the Spaniard and their superstitions have withstood the assaults 
of christianizing influences, both militant and pacific, under which the Pueblos 
of New Mexico have yielded. The same repelling circle of sacred com meal that 
was laid at Awatobi in 1540 against the passage of Tovar and Padre Juan Padilla 
seems ye^t to be around the hill-top towns, where the mysteries of the ancient days 
still are preserved, and even commercialized, as in the snake dance. 

The Moqui, ethnologically considered elsewhere in this work, have been the 



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20 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

subject of much purely speculative literature. The morning gatherings on the 
housetops for a breath of very necessary fresh air and to secure warmth from 
the sun have been construed as for a time of prayer for the return of Montezuma, 
of whom the tribesmen know as much as they do of Tolstoi. They are a gentle 
people, but obstinate and willing to shed blood in defense of either home or habits. 
In the way of abstract virtue the whites well could take pattern from them. But 
the tales of their departed grandeur are bosh ; they are now, save for a forced 
education of the young in the Indian schools, much as they were 400 years agone. 

Following the early Spanish exploration, missionary priests were sent into 
Tusayan (Hopiland) and brought with them the practical gifts of horses, cattle, 
sheep and fruit trees. Before the supernatural impressions of the Spanish invad- 
ers had worn oflf, the Hopi, in common with the Rio Grande Indians, nominally 
accepted Christianity. About 1600, three mission churches were built, namely, 
San Bernardino in Awatobi, San Bartolome at Shongopovi and San Francisco, 
for Walpi and Oraibi. At first, wonderful success attended the efforts of Padre 
Francisco Porres, who, it was claimed, converted and baptized 800, the entire 
population of a village. Yet in 1633 Porres was martyred, poisoned. It is told 
by the Indians of to-day that the holy friars, supported by Spanish soldiery, for 
a time made piety a bit burdensome. Especially onerous was a task set the 
Indians of bringing on their shoulders from the far-distant San Francisco Moun- 
tain forest the long, straight timbers needed for the roof rafters of the chapels. 
But, save for the Porres incident, matters seem to have moved along quietly till 
1680, when the Hopi joined in the great Pueblo rebellion. Even the mission 
churches, with their rafters of painful memory, were burned, and to the saintly 
list of frontier martyrs were added the names of Padres Jose Figueroa of Owatobi, 
Jose Trujillo of Shongopovi and Jose Capeleta and Agustin de Santa Maria of 
Oraibi and Walpi. 

In 1692 there is Spanish record of normal submission of the tribe, which had 
rebuilt several settlements at higher levels on the mesas, where defense would be 
the easier. In that year they were visited in November by Governor Vargas, with 
a force of sixty-three soldiers and with two priests. After a showing of hostility, 
the Indians finally permitted the Spaniards to enter the plaza at Awatobi, where 
a cross was erected and 122 Indians were baptized. At other villages Vargas 
replaced the plaza crosses and assured the people of the pardon for their mis- 
deeds. But no priests or soldiers appear to have been left behind. 

Despite their abandonment, the native Christians of Owatobi nominally 
remained in the faith, thereby gaining the enmity of the pagan villages. In the 
spring of 1700 the village was visited from Zuni by Padre Juan Garaychoechea, 
who found that the mission had been rebuilt and who baptized seventy-three 
Indians. This peaceful visitation brought on dire disaster, that with complete- 
ness stamped Christianity out of Tusayan. By falltime there had developed 
almost open warfare between the pagans and Christians, the latter being called 
** sorcerers." In Awatobi one of the principal men, Tapolo, a pagan, turned 
against his own people, and, before dawn, through a door in a great wall that had 
been built by the Spaniards, admitted a host of the enemy from other villages. It 
was the time of the year for the sacred rites and it was known that nearly all the 
men would be in the underground kivas. So provision had been made by the 
invaders, besides weapons, of cedar-bark torches and bundles of inflammable 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 21 

material. According to the native tale, the leading men of the village were found 
in the taain kiva ** engaged in sorcerers' rites." The ladders that furnished the 
only egress from the kivas were drawn up, down the openings were cast the 
torches and firewood and upon them armfuls of red peppers that had been torn 
from the walls on which they had been hung to dry. Then, while the main body 
ravaged the houses, arrows from above finished the work that suffocation had 
begun. Only a few of the men and elderly women were saved, individuals who 
had special knowledge concerning agriculture or valued rituals. The remaining 
captives were taken out on the sandhills and there tortured, killed and dismem- 
bered, in what must have been a hideous orgy of blood, quite unlike the usual 
characteristics of the people, led by the medicine men and by refugees from the 
Rio Grande pueblos. The children were distributed among the people of the 
other pueblos: It is told that no less than 600 victims were included in the mas- 
sacres within the village and on the plain without, where there is still pointed out 
a place known as the '* Death Mound.'' Then the village, including the rebuilt 
mission church, was utterly destroyed, and to-day it is merely a ruin, one of the 
few to be found within a historic period. 

That the Indian tale of early martyrdom was not overdrawn has been demon- 
strated by Dr. J. W. Pewkes, who, a few years ago, made careful investigation of 
the ruins of the village. Despite the protests of old Hopis, he dug down into the 
main kiva and there found the bones of the Christians who had perished 200 years 
before. At variance with the axiom that **the blood of the martyrs is the seed 
of the church" is the history of the Hopi since that date. 

In the following year Governor Cubero raided Tusayan but with little effect. 
In 1706 Captain Holguin was thrust back toward the Rio Grande by the hostile 
tribesmen and a similar result attended the campaign in 1715. In 1719, by the 
influence of the Franciscan priesthood, 441 Tiguas were brought back from 
Tusayan to repeople the old pueblo of Sandia. In this period there was a dispute 
between the Franciscans and Jesuits concerning the jurisdiction in which Tusayan 
should be placed. Though this dispute was settled in favor of the Franciscans, 
and though occasional priestly visitations seem to have been made, there was little 
of religious instruction. About 1775 Padre Escalante visited the tribe. The 
same priestly explorer came again the following year after the failure of his 
expedition to reach the misisons of California by a northern route. This trip 
ended necessarily in the deserts of Utah, after arrival at the Great Salt Lake. 
The outgoing route was by way of San Juan but the return was across the Colo- 
rado through the Hopi towns. From the west in July, 1776, came Padre Fran- 
cisco Garces, whose oflPer of ministration was roughly repulsed. 

In 1780 Governor Anza seized a time of great tribulation among the Hopi to 
oflPer assistance, suggesting that the tribe migrate to the Rio Grande valley. Only 
thirty families departed, seemingly swallowed up thereafter among the Pueblos. 
The previous years had been hard ones. No rain had fallen for three seasons. In 
1775 smallpox is claimed to have taken 6,698 out of a total village population of 
7,494, and in the drouth had perished all but 300 of 30,000 sheep. These figures 
were gathered by Padres Fernandez and Garcia, who found that two of the pueb- 
los had been entirely abandoned. The smallpox epidemic was general also along 
the Rio Grande, where more than 5,000 Indians perished. 



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22 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

The first mention of American visitors was of the arrival in 1834 of a trapping 
party of 200 men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, who entered Arizona 
by way of Bill Williams Fork. It is told that at the Hopi towns the trappers 
robbed the gardens and shot about a score of the people. 

After 1846 the tribe received much attention from the Mormons, who followed 
their traditional policy of making friends with the aboriginal Lamanites of the 
Book of Mormon, and who established Tuba City on Moencopie Wash, seventy 
miles northwest of Oraibi. At Tuba the Mormons erected a fine woolen mill, with 
the idea of there consolidating the wool trade of the Hopis and Navajos, but the 
enterprise proved unsuccessful. 

There was a terrible smallpox epidemic in 1843-44, as told by Lieutenant 
Whipple in the journal of his Pacific railroad report. In May, 1858, the pueblos 
were visited by Lieut. J. C. Ives of the Corps of Topographical Engineers in the 
course of his survey of the Colorado River. Ives was warned by the Indians that 
he could not penetrate to the Colorado over the waterless desert and an effort 
made by him in this direction proved a failure, and the party had diflSculty in 
reaching Fort Defiance. 

About the time of the organization of the Territory of Arizona reports on the 
tribe were made by Indian Commissioner Chas. D. Poston and by CoL Kit Carson, 
telling of famine and poverty. Poston had most extraordinary information that 
he had found a linguistic connection between the Hopis and the Welsh, and that 
he was told by some intelligent Welsh Mormons **that the Moqui chiefs could 
pronounce any word in the Welsh language with facility but not the dialect now 
in use." Carson managed to divert some Navajo supplies to the Hopi. 

With few exceptions the Hopi and Americans appear always to have been on 
good terms. There was trouble in the villages, however, in 1891 when Col. H. C. 
Corbin, then Assistant Adjutant-Qeneral of the Military Department of Arizona, 
had to be sent to Oraibi with four troops of cavalry to quell disturbances that 
had been started by possibly over-zealous employees of the Indian Bureau, who 
had been gathering school children in the pueblos. The leaders in the incipient 
insurrection were taken to Fort Wingate as prisoners of war. 

Bravery of an unusual sort was called for in 1899 when Lieutenant McNamee 
was sent with a detachment of the Ninth Cavalry to enforce on the villagers an 
observance of health regulations prescribed by the Indian Agent. Many Indians 
had died of smallpox, largely due to the unsanitary conditions. The lieutenant 
found the Indians prei>ared to die rather than clean up, and his job of sanitation 
was done only after capturing the red men and roping them securely. Half a 
dozen or more had to be knocked senseless with carbine butts. The colored troop- 
ers then drove the multitude to a place where they could be bathed and properly 
clothed, while the agent disinfected and fumigated. In the afternoon the hostiles 
were permitted to return after they had been cleaned and fumigated and after 
they had been given new clothing in place of the old rags that had been burned. 

THE NAVAJO, PBOSPEROUS AND FREE 

The Navajo (Na'-va-ho) are to be considered the principal tribe of the South- 
west, if mere numbers gives right to that di3tinction. While it cannot be said 
that the tribe is advancing rapidly in acquirement of the knowledge of the 
whites, there is no touch of the decadence known in the Southwest among so 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 23 

many of the aboriginal people of less sturdy stock and of less independent char- 
acter. Indeed, before many years the increasing population of the Navajo reser- 
vation will need more room than now afforded or the tribesmen will have to turn 
to some industry other than that of sheep rearing. 

The name of the tribe very generally has been assumed to have been derived 
from the Spanish word **navaja," applied to a knife, especially a clasp knife. 
There even has been reference in this connection to a mountain on the reservation 
where the Indians once secured obsidian for fashioning into cutting instruments. 
The real origin of the name, however, seems to lie in the Tewa word **Navaju," 
meaning *'the place of large plantings," especially designating the Navajo corn- 
fields. The early Spanish explorers knew the tribe as the ** Apache of Nabajoa." 

There has been a general disposition, both among the scientists and the local 
population, to consider the Apache and their cousins, the Navajo, as among the 
most ancient of the aboriginal tribes of the Southwest, passing even back of the 
history of the Pima. This view seems a mistake, according to a report of 
Frederick Webb Hodge, than whom there is no more careful investigatar and 
whose deductions seem always notable for common sense. He has looked into the 
subject from the inside, through Navajo tradition and tribal history, assisted by 
the deep researches of Dr. Washington Matthews, and finds the genesis of the 
Navajo only from 500 to 700 years agone. Then was the time of the creation of 
the original **House-of-the-dark-cliffs'' people, the title readily to be interpreted 
as **cliflf-dwelling." Thestoek plainly was Athapascan, not at all conjoined with 
that of the Apache, though various bodies of the latter, already resident in the 
Southwest (though not in the present Arizona), at the coming of the Navajo did 
join their small numbers with those of new arrivals. It is believed that the Apache 
did not occupy the region of southern Arizona or northern Sonora nor the plains 
of Texas as late as the middle of the sixteenth century, but more probably ranged 
over limited areas in northwestern and southwestern New Mexico. The Navajo 
were a composite people even before the eighteenth century, the tribe then embody- 
ing remnants of the Athapascan, Shoshonean, Tanoan, Keresan, Zunian, Yuman 
and possibly other Indian linguistic stocks. The first acquisition of flocks, follow- 
ing the coming of the Spaniards, about 1542, utterly changed the character of the 
tribe. 

The Navajo are destitute of any really central authority, though they have 
prominent men, who may be considered chiefs by courtesy, of large influence 
within circumscribed localities. Settlement within villages or in permanent houses 
could hardly be possible until the Indians have lost their horror of the dead, which 
leads them to pull down and abandon and even to set on fire the **hogan'' in 
which a death occurs. While this is wasteful, undoubtedly it is sanitary. Living 
out in the open, in small groups, in tempM)rary homes, the Navajo appear to have 
almost escaped the recurrent visitations of smallpox that were so serious among 
the pueblo dwellers around them. There seems to have been a change in morality 
for the better. In the early days military authorities told of the wide spread of 
the most vicious diseases of the whites. The betterment may be accounted for by 
the fact that the tribe maintains a more generally isolated life than any other in 
the Southwest. 

Little assistance is received by the tribe from the United States government, 
this consisting only in the gift of a few wagons and agricultural implements and 



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24 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

in the support of schools. Throughout, the Navajo have a healthy independence 
that is refreshing. While they have a history far from peaceful, the casual 
traveler across the reservation is as safe as he would be in a New England village. 
Prospectors they dislike, a failing shared by nearly all the southwestern tribes. 
But they appreciate fully the power of the great chief in ** Wasitona'' and rarely 
molest either fellow-tribesmen or whites. Rugged health is the attribute of almost 
every individual, and there is every indication that coming centuries will know 
the Navajo as one of the most considerable of the subdivisions of population in 
the Southwest. They have all reason for peace, for they have become rich in herds 
and silver. ' 

Early in the period of contact with the Spaniards, the Indians commenced 
making woolen blankets, utilizing a knowledge of weaving that had come from 
the Rio Grande Pueblos. Many of the early blankets, of which highly valued 
samples are preserved unto this day, were made by unraveling the threads of a 
peculiar red cloth, brought from Europe and called ** bay etc.'* The early dyes 
were from the roots and from mineral oxides. With the coming of the railroad, 
the Navajos greeted with enthusiasm the advent of Germantown yam and of 
Diamond dyes. Most of the Navajo blankets of to-day, however, are made of wool 
that has been grown on the reservation. For floor rugs they have few equals for 
beauty and durability. The Indian generally shows good taste in the use of 
colors and in the laying out of designs and uses nothing that would serve to depre- 
ciate the quality. While some imitations are made by carpet factories in the East, 
they look as little like a Navajo blanket as does a section of ingrain carpet. 

Probably from the Spaniards was learned the art of working silver. The 
silversmithing industry to-day is an important one within the tribe, though the 
work usually is rude and is to be valued especially for its Indian associations. 

It is a notable fact that among the Indians of the Southwest the Navajo are 
least notable for either basketry or pottery. There are a very few basketmakers 
among them, said to be descendants of Ute or Piute captives, and their products 
are close copies of the ordinary ceremonial baskets, which are bought in large 
numbers by the tribe from the Indians to the northward. The art of making 
pottery seems to have once been possessed by the tribe in large degree, but is in 
decadence. 

NAVAJO WABFABE OF EABLT TIlfES 

The earliest of the Spaniards seem to have had little trouble with the tribe, 
which occupied itself in a desultory warfare with the Apache, apparently more 
by raiding parties than ever by any general tribal movement. In 1783 the 
Navajo sullenly resisted an attempt to put them under Spanish rule, though in 
the same year the Spanish governor reported that they had again become sub- 
missive after a fight in the Canon de Chelly (Tsegi, '*in the rocks' '), wherein the 
Spanish forces were led by Lieut. Antonio Narbona, with a small force of Span- 
iards and a larger force of New Mexican Indians. There was occasional trouble 
between the Spaniards and Navajo for years thereafter, probably almost wholly 
due to the desire of the Indians to add to their flocks at the expense of the Pueblos 
of the valleys. 

It is not improbable that some of the early-day troubles of the Indians were 
not altogether their own fault, as they had to do with Mexicans and whites of the 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 25 

usual reckless frontier type. At one time it is told that no less than 1,500 Navajos 
were being held as slaves in New Mexico. In 1834 fifty New Mexicans, led by 
Jos6 Chavez, were kiUed in Canon de Chelly. 

In 1846, following the advent of the American coastbound military expedi- 
tions, the Navajo were guilty of depredations among the pueblos of New Mexico 
and had to be visited by Col. Alex. W. Doniphan at the head of a considerable 
force of soldier>\ Three years later Col. John M. Washington marched into the 
Navajo country to the Canon de Chelly and he, like Doniphan, made a treaty. 
Either seems to have been the proverbial ** scrap of paper." A military inspector 
in 1850 estimated that the Indians had stolen from the New Mexican Pueblos in 
eighteen months no less than 47,300 sheep. Like the Apache, the Navajo could not 
understand why the Americans should object to the spoiling of the Mexicans, 
whom the Americans and Indians alike had fought. 

Fort Defiance, supposedly commanding the reservation, was established about 
1849, and an effort was made, by gifts and kindly treatment, to bring the Indians 
into some semblance of order. But this was hard, owing to the lack of any general 
tribal authority, and isolated raids upon the surrounding Indians continued as 
theretofore. There appears to have been very little aggression directly concern- 
ing the whites and very little of the Apache type of history that affected Amer- 
icans, though the Spanish-speaking people seemed by the Navajo to be generally 
classed with the Pueblos. An interesting instance of this general attitude was the 
hanging of a New Mexican captive, executed in 1854 by some Navajo chiefs, sur- 
reptitiously substituted in the very face of the military authorities for a Navajo 
murderer whose execution had been demanded. 

A rather more serious condition started a couple of years later in the murder 
of a negro servant at Fort Defiance. The Indians refused to surrender the mur- 
derer and offered resistance to a number of military expeditions. It would appear 
that the Indians were too rich in live stock to sustain the military raids into their 
country, so this particular trouble was short lived. Yet in 1860 there was a 
rather serious Navajo attack upon Fort Defiance. 

Nothing really effective appears to have been done until the arrival in New 
Mexico of the California volunteers under General Carleton. Then the Indians 
were closed in upon, great numbers of them were captured, their sheep and horses 
were seized or destroyed, 7,300 of the tribe, then estimated as 12,000 in number, 
were driven into captivity at Bosque Redondo, in the upper Pecos Valley, and 
the red men were made to appreciate the benefits of peace, at a governmental cost 
of $1,500,000 a year. It should be noted that Carleton 's policy was not materially 
different, in the making of reconcentrado camps, from that which met with such 
American objection when put in force by General Weyler in Cuba before the war 
with Spain. There was an idea that the Indians could be made farmers. The 
people of New Mexico looked with disfavor, however, upon the settlement of this 
large and lawless tribe in their midst and upon the seizure for the Indians' benefit 
of any considerable extent of farming land. At last it was appreciated that 
concentration was good only as a war measure and the Indians were sent back 
home, in May, 1868, by way of Fort Wingate, which had been made the tempo- 
rary agency. The beneficent government, June 1, 1868, provided a reservation 
of 3,328,000 acres, within which land could be taken in severalty by the Indians, 
though this does not appear to have been done to any considerable extent. Seed, 



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26 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

cattle, 30,000 sheep and 2,000 goats were given the tribesmen and provision was 
made of school houses at various sub-agencies, though this last does not appear 
to have been enthusiastically demanded by the Indians. 

Col. Kit Carson, whose service against the Indians was most effective, was 
rather of the opinion that the Navajos on the whole had been badly treated and 
that the whites ''while always cursing the Indians, are not willing to do them 
justice." He expressed confidence in his own ability to make a lasting peace 
with the tribe and referred to the fact that the Navajo really were not at war 
with the Americans, but had inherited warfare with the New Mexicans, and sadly 
he told, in the campaign of 1863, of destroying several thousand peach trees in 
Cafion de Chelly, of leveling fields of com and of driving away great herds of 
sheep. The older Indians still remember Kit Carson as a friend, despite the stern 
circumstances that accompanied the execution of his military duty. His bravery 
was unquestioned and the Indians delightedly told how they surrounded him on 
the top of a rock near Port Defiance, whereon he was kept for three days till 
he managed to make his escape. 

In 1892, Lot Smith, a prominent Mormon, was killed by Navajos for fencing 
a spring. 

Some trouble with the Navajo Indians was known in November, 1899. Large 
bands of Indians had been off the reservation hunting deer and antelope in defi- 
ance of the game laws and, incidentally, had maltreated E. M. Montgomery, a 
cowboy. Deputy Sheriff Hogan at the head of a posse that embraced himself, 
Montgomery and two others, found the offending Indians, six in number, at a 
point thirty-five miles southeast of Flagstaff. The members of the posse, expect- 
ing no trouble, left their horses with the rifles in the saddle scabbards and 
approached the Indians, who suddenly produced rifles from under their blankets 
and opened fire at short range. Montgomery was killed almost instantly. Morgan 
was shot three times and Deputy Hogan received one bad bullet wound. Their 
rifles gone with their stampeded horses, wounded as they were, the white men 
closed in on the Navajos. Hogan, his pistol emptied, wrested a rifle from one of 
the Indians and with it shot the chief of the band and another Indian. When 
the fight was done five Indians lay upon the ground, three dead and two wounded. 
Troops were sent out to round the Indians back into the reservation and the 
trouble did not spread further. When tried in the District Court, the Navajos 
showed the authorities that they had thought the oflScers bandits and hence had 
resisted. The chief of the band, Be-go-etin, though 70 years old and still suffering 
from a bullet wound in the body, rode all night to be in time for his trial. All 
were discharged. 

In 1907, excitement was caused by a report of Navajo trouble in northeastern 
Arizona and southeastern Utah, where an Indian agent declared his life had been 
threatened and that cattle had been stolen. The Indians were surprised by the 
sudden advent of two troops of cavalry. They offered resistance, two of them 
were killed and the balance of the band were captured. The six ringleaders were 
sent by the military authorities to technical imprisonment at Port Huachuca, 
where Chief By-al-il-le and his companions were generally kept engaged in work 
around the post, their confinement being little more than nominal. They wanted 
to go home, however, and so, early in the fall of the year, in their behalf legal 
proceedings were started in Cochise County, attorneys alleging that they were 



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!'^^^^*:^i^if^S^^^ 




HOME IX THE NAVAJO COUNTRY 



KITONI, NAVAJO CHIEF 
HUBBELL TRADING POST AT GANADO 



NAVAJO SUMMER HOME IN THE 
FOREST 

NAVAJOS AT A "CHICKEN PULL" 
AT GANADO 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 27 

confined without warrant of law. This contention failed in the District Court, 
but was sustained in the Supreme Court of the Territory. In the meantime about 
all the Indians had been sent home and so the incident passed, important mainly 
through the fact that the final decision also could have been applied in the case 
of Geronimo and other Arizona Indians who had been taken to Florida, and it 
might also have had application to the transfer of some of the southern Indians to 
Indian Territory. The Supreme Court denied the theory that a state of war 
existed with the Indians that authorized summary military action. 

THE NAVAJO BE8EBVATI0N AND INDySTBIES 

The Navajo is the largest Indian reservation in the United States, generally 
desert in character, occupying a stony and barren expanse that is only too well 
drained by numerous deep canons that lead toward the Colorado. The limits of 
the reservation have been extended from time to time and it is not improbable that 
the Government even yet will have to seek more ground for Navajo occupation. 
It now has lapped around the Hopi reserve and has its western boundary practi- 
cally along the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, extending down to and 
embracing the station of Canon Diablo on the Santa Pe railroad. To the north- 
ward the reservation line extends to the San Juan River in Utah. 

A part of the enlargement was the addition of land along Moencopie Creek, 
embracing the former Mormon village of Tuba City, where a school has been 
established. Not only was this purchase from the Mormons advisable as a benefit 
to the Indians, but served to eliminate friction that had been known there many 
years. The Navajo, who seem to consider the district as their own, had been 
guilty of petty depredations that at one time had caused the issuance in the 
District Court of Coconino County of an injunction, which it was proposed to 
have executed by a body of armed men under command of the sheriff. The 
Indians offered resistance and the matter was not carried very far. 

Though the Navajo as early as 1744 were politic enough to express a desire to 
receive instruction in Christianity, a movement toward their conversion at that 
time, led by Padre Menchero, seemed to have been attended by dismal failure, 
even though reinforced by many gifts. Efforts toward imparting Christian 
instruction seem to have been handicapped by continual wars waged by the 
Navajo against their northern neighbors. The most systematic effort toward 
their Christianization started in the latter part of 1895, at Cienega Amarilla, 
northwest of Gallup, at the direction of Mother Katherine Drexel, who had 
founded the Order of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for the Conversion of 
Indians and Negroes. A mission was established in 1897 at St. Michaels under 
charge of the Franciscan order. This mission has assumed a large degree of 
importance in later years through the unremitting and intelligent research of 
the missionaries into the Navajo tongue. The language of the tribe has been 
systematized by them and even a grammar has been published, primarily in order 
that the gospel might be given the tribesmen in written form. The Franciscans 
state that the Navajo language is a beautiful one, with conditions controlling the 
grammar that have no parallel in any known language, necessitating new rules. 
English letters are wholly incapable of carrying the word sounds and the lettering 
finally adopted by the friars, generally, is that of the Polish alphabet. 

A similar work has been attempted at the Rehoboth. mission of the Christian 



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28 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Reformed Church, six miles from Gallup. There, Rev. L. P. Brink of Tohachi, 
N. M., has had printed a tranriation of a part of the Bible into the Navajo 
vernacular, based upon an alphabet, dictionary and grammar prepared by him. 

The total population of the reservation in 1913, reported by the Board of 
Indian Commissioners, was 31,635, practically all of full blood. Inasmuch as the 
total Indian population of Arizona is set at several thousand less than the rating 
of this one tribe, it should be explained that the Navajo reservation of 12,000,000 
acres extends over into New Mexico and Utah. In the same year the Navajos' 
estimated personal property consisted of 1,500,000 sheep and goats, 325,000 ponies 
and mules and 30,000 head of cattle. The blanket manufactures for that year 
approximated a value of $500,000 and agricultural products about $250,000. 
Upon the reservation a governmental survey has determined the timber to be 
worth $7,500,000, while the estimated profit on the mining of the coal in sight, at 
a very low figure, some time is expected to aggregate $150,000,000. 

APACHE SUBDIVISIONS— RACIAL CHARACTER 

It should be understood that the Apache people are by no means a nation and 
never have they been held together in any particular bonds of national or political 
union. Within Arizona, the principal bands include the Chiricahua, Pinaleno, 
Coyotero, Aravaipa, Tonto, San Carlos and a few others, annexes of one or 
another of this list. The Mojave- Apache and Yuma-Apache are Indians of Colo- 
rado River Valley origin, who drifted eastward and who were known in the early 
chronicles as Yavapiu, or Yampai. Speaking a common language are the Mescal- 
lero of the Rio Grande Valley, the Ojos Calientes of the Mimbres and their allies, 
the Janos of northern Sonora, the Chiricahua of the Dragoon and Chiricahua 
Mountains, the Coyotero, Pinal or San Carlos of the White and Pinal Mountain 
section, and the Tonto of Tonto Basin. Yet despite their apparent consanguinity 
and the fact that they occupied contiguous territory, most of the bands were at 
war with each other and lived in continual fear of savage reprisals. The worst 
of these Indians from the standpoint of the American have been the Chiricahua, 
which have furnished the greater number of bandit gangs against which military 
operations have had to be directed. 

The Aravaipa, who lived near the mouth of the San Pedro River, according to 
Connell, have a language distinctly their own, though in general characteristics 
and habits they resemble their neighbors. 

Aboriginal industry among the Apache seems to be confined to the making 
of baskets, in which exceptional skill is shown. Possibly the greater number of 
the well-decorated Apache baskets in outside ownership have come from the allied 
Mojave-Apache. 

The word ** Apache'' is understood to have its origin in the Zuni word for the 
Navajo, meaning simply ** enemy." For themselves the Apache have much the 
same designation as the Navajo, **Tinneh'' or **Dine.'' The Apache dialect is 
said to have a vocabulary rarely including more than 600 words and the Indian 
uses his supply with the utmost economy, making a look or gesture suflSce wher- 
ever he may. According to Connell, the Apache, properly known as such, never 
scalp, but always crush the heads of their victims, to keep the late lamented from 
recognizing them, with possibly disastrous results, when met hereafter in the 
happy hunting grounds. 



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APACHE SQUAW WITH NOSE CUT OFF 
INDICATING ADl'LTERY 

SQUAW MACK, AL SIEBER AND TONTO 
SCOUTS. 1885 



TALKLAI, APACHE CHIEF 
AN APACHE MANSION 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 29 

The Apache, in common with nearly all of the southwestern tribes, rarely ever 
camp in a river or creek bottom, usually choosing a little mesa or shelf somewhat 
removed from the water. There are a number of reasons for this : One is that 
the higher site was better capable of defense, but the principal cause is that the 
bottom land always is warmer in summer and cooler in winter than the mesa 
above. 

Captain Bourke found the Apaches most singular in one respect. lie had 
heard that certain of the tribes in Africa used castor oil in cooking, but no other 
tribe was so greedy for this medicine as were the Apaches. He tells, * * Only on 
the most solemn occasions could they gratify their taste for castor oil — the condi- 
tion of the medical supplies would not warrant the issue of all they demanded. 
But taste is at best something which cannot be explained or accounted for ; I recall 
that the trader at the San Carlos Agency once made a bad investment of money 
is buying cheap candies ; they were nearly aU hoarhound and peppermint, which 
the Apaches would not buy or accept as a gift.*' 

The wild Indian character at Fort Apache thus was set forth by Agent C. W. 
Crouse: ** Apache morality is very low; he manifests little feeling of obligation 
toward any. To him lying and stealing are no great sins, just conveniences." 
Yet in a late report the agent at San Carlos wrote: **The Apaches are sensible 
Indians and are in my opinion progressing toward civilization in a very satis- 
factory manner." In common with other southwestern Indians they have become 
a labor reserve that eventually will be of the greatest value in the work of upbuild- 
ing the commonwealth. 

Though the clan system is not so well developed among the Apache as with 
the more sedentary tribes, yet there are clans of many sort, each with its peculiar 
ceremonials and dances. Sacred to all Apache and Navajo are the bear and fish, 
which never are eaten. Banta tells how he drove a number of Navajo chiefs, 
insulted, from a conference by merely threatening them with a dried fish. 

It is probable that the death roll from Apache forays would have been double 
the actual figures, however awful that number may be, were it not for a super- 
stition of the tribesmen that forbade an attack after nightfall. The Apache was 
an abnormally superstitious individual, to whom the rustling of the leaves indi- 
cated voices of invisible spirits and who cowered with dread at every manifesta- 
tion of natural forces that was not readily explainable to the processes of his 
limited mentality. He would march at night to be upon vantage ground at 
daylight, which was his favorite time to attack. A mail rider through dangerous 
country always made his journeys by night and if the journey were too long 
for one ride he would hide himself securely in some rocky fortress against the 
possible coming of the redskins. An interesting experience that well shows this 
feature of Apache custom was that of George Turner, an elderly resident of 
Globe, who, in 1882, while traveling at night in the Cherry Creek Valley, unex- 
pectedly came around the point of a rocky hill into the camp of a large band of 
hostiles, the same that later was broken up at the fight of the Big Dry Wash. 
Turner, feeling assured of death, rode past a number of small fires, around which 
the Indians had undoubtedly been crouching when they heard the sound of his 
horse 's hoofs. But every Indian had fled into the rocks, from which undoubtedly 
a hundred pairs of eyes saw the old man pass, and yet he was allowed to go 
without molestation. 



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30 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

As early as 1862, Agent W. P. N. Amy, in a report made to Col. Jas. U 
Collins, New Mexican Superintendent of Indian Aflfairs, suggested that all the 
Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona should be gathered together upon one 
reservation, and reported a suitable location would be on the Gila, south of the 
MogoUon Mountains, about where the Indians eventually were herded by Crook. 
This suggestion, followed after a similar one made by Colonel Bonneville in Sep- 
tember, 1857, he then stating that the Gila valley offered a location **most admir- 
ably adapted for the home of the Indians.*' Later the superintendent reported 
to the Secretary of the Interior that Confederate agents had been among the 
New Mexican Indians, Apaches, trying to stir them up against the federal 
government. 

From La Paz, Hermann Ehrenberg, January 11, 1866, suggested to the 
Secretary of the Interior that all the unruly Apache be sent to join the Navajo 
on the Pecos reserve in northern New Mexico and that all the peaceful Indians 
of Arizona be placed on a reservation on the Gila below that of the Pima. 

The White Mountain Indian reservation was established November 9, 1871, 
but has had a number of changes since that time. It lies generally north of the 
Gila River and has its head agency at San Carlos on that stream. It has been 
diminished on the westward in order to eliminate several mining fields. To the 
northward, within it, lies the military reservation of Fort Apache. The Apache 
comprehended within the main reservation generally have been transferred from 
other sections of the Southwest. They embrace a considerable number of sub- 
tribes or bands, not necessarily historically friendly or associated, a feature that 
permitted the employment of Indians as scouts with safety during military 
Apache campaigns. 

The White Mountain reservation was extended in the latter part of 1872 to 
include the whole valley of the Gila River from New Mexico westward for 200 
miles. This brought out an effective protest from the Legislature of 1873, in 
which was stated that the White Mountain Indians had never cultivated lands 
less than forty miles north of that river and that the upper part of the reserva- 
tion would not be used if reserved for them. It was further reported that ** set- 
tlement has already commenced and large irrigating canals are now being con- 
structed in the valley of the Gila, a short distance above old Camp (Joodwin; 
that at this point is found the largest body of arable land in Arizona, and if 
opened to civilization is destined to become the largest settlement in the Terri- 
tory; that many have settled there in good faith and if now driven off will be 
compelled to abandon all they have ; that by excepting this portion of the Gila 
Valley from the reservation, the rights and interests of the Indians will not in 
the least be impaired and simple justice will be done to a large number of indus- 
trious citizens and the prosperity of the Territory will be greatly advanced." 

The issuance of rations to the Apache at San Carlos was discontinued July 1, 
1902, save only in the way of charity, such as is the custom among other tribes. 
This was the very last of the ration system in Arizona. 

The mountain-dwelling Apache first were gathered in the Verde Valley, at 
Fort Apache and in the Chiricahuas. There was fear that this lack of rations 
might send the Indians out on the warpath, but it is a fact there followed the 
fullest peace with the redskins. 



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OLD PIMA A(;KXCY, 1877 





[ 






StaK -^^..iM^c^^l 



HOPI VILLAGE OF WALPI 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 31 

As the history of Apache warfare is a large feature in the history of Arizona, 
much will be found elsewhere in this work concerning this diverse tribe, sons of 
Cain within the Southwest. 

THE FRIENDLY PIliA OF THE PLAINS 

Only in the unhappy outbreak of 1751 has the Pima nation as a whole been 
other than friendly since the coming of the white people, and in that trouble the 
Gila Pimas had little part. The Pima naturally is of a very decent sort, happy 
in disposition and not at all quarrelsome with his neighbors, a reasonably good 
farmer and skilled in irrigation. As a rule the tribe has a rather virtuous repu- 
tation and the peculiar diseases of the pioneer period have done little damage. 
Living in more permanent habitations than their neighbors, it is to be deplored 
that tuberculosis has found many victims, while trachoma has attacked the tribe 
severely, though possibly in little greater degree than other Indians throughout 
the United States 

When the Southern Pacific railroad came through in 1879, the Indians were 
free passengers on the freight trains, joyously accepting the opportunity for 
travel. The privilege had to be withdrawn, for not only did the redskins become 
a nuisance from their numbers, but the practice was found to be spreading small- 
pox among the tribes. Unlike their Yuman neighbors, the Pimas buried their 
dead, in a sitting posture, beneath an underground shelter of poles. 

One of the early agents nearly forced the Pima on the warpath by an attempt 
to change tribal customs too suddenly. Especially, he insisted that the woman 
should ride and the man walk where only one pony was available. Signal fires 
blazed on the hilltops and there was a tribal gathering at Sacaton, where condi- 
tions were so serious that all of the whites, save the agency officials, were hurried 
away to Casa Grande. But peace was restored when Agent Wheeler acknowl- 
edged his error, thereafter declaring that the Pima were **the best Indians in 
the world." A later agent, A. H. Jackson, called his charges **a drunken and 
sullen people," showing he did not know how to approach them. 

Pima records carry back but little into the past. The tribal history is to be 
found only in legends passed through generations, or engraved upon sticks, of 
which a half dozen have been found. Some of these sticks are still being kept up 
by duly honored tribal historians. In Frank Russell's excellent work on the 
Pima, is given a full transcript of a stick record that started in 1833 and that 
continued to date. 

The principal chronicles were those of the never-ending warfare with the 
Apaches^ who seem to have worried them from all sides. Also there was trouble 
with the Yumas, due to protection extended to the Maricopas, a Yuma offshoot 
at war with the parent stock. 

The narrative on one stick started in 1833, some years after the Maricopas 
had fled their river brethren. It was a year of meteoric showers and of floods, 
that showed the wrath of the gods. A large band of Yumas crept up on the 
Maricopa village and captured a number of women. The Pimas overtook the war 
party at the Gila, save^ the women and killed nearly all the invaders. Apache 
raids upon the settled and prosperous Pimas were common in those days, yet the 
year 1837 passed at Gila Crossing in peace. The following year a large war 
party of Apaches was destroyed. Truly Indian in its simple monotony is the 



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32 ARIZONA—THE YOUNGEST STATE 

chronicle of fights with marauding Apaches and revengeful Yumas, repeated year 
after year. Occasionally there is reference to Apache forays upon the Papagos. 
In 1850 record is made that 134 Yumas were killed and their bodies left on the 
field, on the slopes of the Estrella Mountains, south of the Gila, after the invaders 
had surprised the Maricopa village. Many Pimas were wounded but none killed. 
Despite this blow, the Yumas came again in 1857, reinforced by a number of 
Mojaves. They killed a number of Maricopa women, found gathering mesquite 
beans, and burned the Maricopa village. While the Yumas wasted time in the 
singing of triumphal songs, the Pimas gathered from every village and, by noon 
of the following day, occupied in force the ground between the Yuma camp and 
the Gila River. Mounted Pimas and Maricopas repeatedly charged the enemy, 
doing large execution. The Yumas, exhausted by the fray and suffering from 
thirst, tried to break through the cordon and gain the river. In a last attempt, 
in compact body, they were ridden down by their mounted foes. Their formation 
was broken up and a hand-to-hand melee followed, from which only a single Yuma 
brave escaped. He had been stunned by a blow from a club and had been covered 
by a heap of the slain. At night, recovering consciousness, he managed to slip 
away, to carry to his tribesmen news of the disaster. To all of which, the red 
historian, as he fingered the stick, added, *'And the Yumas came here to fight 
no more.*' 

Of interest to the now populous Salt River Valley are tales of how in several 
instances Apache marauders were chased into the valley near Phoenix and Tempe. 
In 1850 three Apaches were surrounded on a hill near Tempe. They built a 
stone fort, but this was charged by the Pimas at sunset and the three were slain. 
Eight years later a large band of Apaches, caught out in the broad valley and 
unable to evade their mounted pursuers at the end of a thirty-mile flight, took 
refuge on the summit of Tempe Butte, where all save one met death behind rock 
defenses. Only a few years ago Pimas and Maricopas were prevailed upon to 
give a mimic battle upon this same butte, now embraced within the corporate 
limits of Tempe. 

There was only passing reference to the Civil War, mainly in connection with 
the capture in 1861 of Agent Ammi M. White by ''soldiers from the east,'' a 
Confederate column. This was important to the Pimas, as affecting the market 
for their wheat. Briefest of mention is made of the famous ** Fight of the 
Caves," in the Salt River Canon in 1873, when a squadron of the Fifth Cavalry, 
assisted by Apache, Pima and Maricopa scouts, killed scores of Superstition 
Mountain Apaches, who refused to surrender. But, in the language of the Pima 
historian, **Owl Ear,*' '*it was a sight long to be remembered !' ' 

Brief mention is made in the chronicles to the only murder of a white man 
ever known in the tribe. It happened in 1880, near the Indian village of Casa 
Blanca, where two young Pimas killed a tramping American for his arms and 
a few dollars in silver. The Indian police soon found the culprits, who confessed 
and who thereafter were hanged in Florence. Their bodies were delivered up to 
their tribesmen, who agreed that full justice had been done. Yet there were a 
number of instances, unrecorded on the sticks, where unoffending Pimas had 
been killed by white men, who went unpunished in the rough pioneer days. 

Something of a lesson in temperance runs through the whole seventy-year 
narrative. Occasional references are made to **tizwin'' debauches. One of the 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 33 

last of these, in the record of 1894, naively tells that, *'tizwin was made secretly 
at Gila Crossing, but no one was killed." The domestic liquor, brewed from 
rotted corn, mescal or, later, from fruit of any kind, assuredly was of the fighting 
kind. It is held that overindulgence in the white man's distillations is of com- 
paratively late date. Possibly because tizwin no longer may be made, ** bootleg- 
ging" by Mexicans became common among all Arizona Indians, leading to scores 
of arraignments before each session of the United States court. It is claimed 
that many Indians made an occupation of enticing Mexicans to sell them liquor, 
that witness fees may thus be secured. Prohibition has bettered these conditidns. 
The Pima are not only relatively industrious and honest, but they are brave 
and have been of service to the whites as scouts against the Apache. That they 
were not more generally employed is due wholly to a tribal custom that compelled 
eight days of purification of any one who had slain a man, even though com- 
mendably in war. As a result, a considerable part of a force in the field might 
be lost for a week to a commanding officer, while the Pima scouts joined in the 
ceremonials that made some one of their number again '* square" with his gods. 

IRRIGATED FARMS OK TWO RESERVATIONS 

The Arizona Pima are gathered on agricultural lands along the Gila and Salt 
rivers in Pinal and Maricopa counties, with principal reservation headquarters at 
Sacaton. The main body of the tribe is unfortunate in one respect, for the Gila's 
summer flow was taken from the red farmer by irrigation works near Florence 
in the seventies, and the situation made still worse by the building of the large 
Florence canal in 1887. These works, in turn, were left dry by appropriations 
still further up the stream, in Graham County. 

This spoliation of aboriginal rights has been protested for twenty years past, 
not for the purpose of restoring the river flow to the Indians, but to secure them 
some other adequate irrigation supply. Through the Reclamation Service of 
the Interior Department, electric power has been secured from the Roosevelt 
works and a large expanse of Indian land near Sacaton now is being supplied 
with pumped water. A large canal has been dug to take advantage of the Gila 
floods. But the main reliance is to be upon water stol'age at San Carlos, where, 
upon favorable report made by a trio of army engineers, may be built a dam, to 
cost about $6,000,000, designed for the storage of water to supply 40,000 acres 
of Indian land and 50,000 acres around Florence. 

The Pima and Maricopa Indian reservation lies along the Gila River from a 
point a short distance below Florence down to the junction of the Gila and the 
Salt, embracing the ground upon which the Pima were found at the time of the 
coming of the white men. It is probable that the tribe has had the longest period 
of residence in any one locality of any of the southwestern Indians. The reserva- 
tion was established in February, 1859, with 110 square leagues of land. Engineer 
in charge was Col. A. B. Gray. At the conclusion of the survey gifts of farming 
implements, seeds and clothing, provided by Congress to the value of $10,000, 
were distributed to the Indians by Lieut. Sylvester Mowry. 

January 10, 1879, an order was issued extending the main Pima reservation 
eastward to join the White Mountain reserve, but there was an immediate and 
natural howl and the order was revoked. While there is no memoranda available 
of the lines of the proposed extension, it is not improbable that it would have 



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34 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

taken in much of the fertile Gila Valley around Florence, as well as the great 
mining districts around Ray and Winkelman. 

On the north bank of the Salt River, from a point about ten miles northeast 
of Phoenix and eastward to the mouth of the Verde River, lies the Salt River 
reservation, occupied by a few hundred Pima Indians, now of rather superior 
development, favored by the possession of good lands, well watered through 
perpetual water rights to a large flow from the Arizona canal. 

These Indians, like the Mojave-Apache on the McDowell reservation, have 
no ancient water rights, but have been especially favored in water distribution 
on purely philanthropic grounds. The Indians, upon the suggestion of white 
farmers of Tempe, who sought a northern buflPer against raids from the hostile 
Apache, first settled on the Salt River f^bout 1873. A few years later, however, 
there came protest from the farmers that found oflScial expression in a memorial 
of the Legislature of 1877 addressed to Congress, representing that the Indians 
on Salt River had become a nuisance, particularly on account of their large 
bands of horses, which were roving at will over that portion of Maricopa County, 
greatly to the annoyance of the citizens thereof and creating a condition that 
might compel the citizens to abandon their homes unless the Government protect 
them. Possibly the milk in the cocoanut was found in a reference to the fact that 
the Indians had placed themselves on surveyed land opened for settlement and 
had driven away a number of persons who sought to locate homesteads thereon. 
The suggestion that the Indians be sent back to the reservation on the Gila appears 
to have met with scant consideration by the Indian Bureau or by Congress. The 
northern reservation was formally designated in 1879. 

One of the strongest reservation forces for civilization has been Rev. Chas. H. 
Cook, a German clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, who came in 1870, after 
reading an article written by Gen. A. J. Alexander, commanding at Port McDow- 
ell, on the needs and virtues of the Pimas. Dr. Cook has been the staunch 
defender of his wards through all the years and throughout has been held in 
affection even by the pagans of the tribe. Himself the only teacher in 1871, the 
reservation now has as large a percentage of school attendance as would be found 
in almost any American city, while churches, both Protestant and Catholic, num- 
ber several thousand communicants. Though the Pima were slow to accept 
Christianity, the writer knows that at times of flood the Gila has been dared by 
swimming Christian Indians who would not miss their Sabbath services. In 
Phoenix now is maintained the Cook Bible School, where a score or more of Indi- 
ans, mainly Pimas, are training for the Christian ministry, to work among their 
tribesmen. 

Though representatives of almost all western tribes are to be found among the 
pupils of the Phoenix Indian Industrial School, one of the largest three in the 
Union, Pimas there predominate in number. This school was started at McDowell 
in 1890, transferred to Phoenix the following year and again changed, in 1892, to 
permanent quarters a few miles north of the city, where, upon 160 acres of 
ground, expensive buildings have been erected and where facilities have been 
provided for the education of the hand, as well as for the development of the 
mind. Tremendous influence for the better has been exerted within the Arizona 
tribes by the return of students from this school," though the influence of the older 
Indians still is felt in the tribal governments. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 35 

THE CHRISTIANIZED PAPAOO 

The Spanish pa^es found the Papago the most docile of all the tribes of the 
northern Sonora region. Unlike their generic brothers, the Pima, the Papago 
seemed to find agreeable the teachings of Christianity, which at a very early date 
became mixed with their own tribal cults. Their record is marred only by the 
rebellion of 1751. The tribe readily submitted itself to the direction of the white 
man, built mission churches, tilled the soil and dug in mines. 

The origin of the name years ago generally was accepted as referring to the 
christianization of the Pima, for **Papa'* is the Spanish word for Pope. With 
more thorough inquiry of later years there has come dispute of this understand- 
ing. Hodge has found that the Indians call themselves **Pa-pah-o-o-tam.'' The 
latter half, more nearly pronounced as **oh-oh-tahm,'* is the name applied by the 
Pima to their own tribe- and people. Papavi or papabi is the Papago name for 
bean. Beans constitute the principal food of the Papagos, who are said to have 
been known to the Mexicans as Pimas Prijoleros. The Papago early adopted the 
Mexican custom of wearing hats and, unlike the neighboring Pimas and Mari- 
copas, cut their hair, somewhat in the Quaker style. Within Arizona they now 
number about 5,000. 

The San Xavier reservation, by executive order, was withdrawn from entry 
for the benefit of the Papago Indians in 1874. In 1890 allotments in severalty 
covering 41,000 acres within this reservation were made to 360 resident Papagos. 
Further allotments later were made for the benefit of the Indians at various set- 
tled points through Pima and Pinal counties. A material addition to the Papago 
reservation area was the grant of a township of land on the Gila River below 
Gila Bend. The tribe, though living largely by agriculture and grazing, has 
nomadic sections, to be found in camp around almost any spring between Tucson 
and the Gulf of California. 

The Papago, despite the early axiom, is a good Indian, even when alive. 
Generally he is honest and he will work even beyond the necessities of driving 
hunger. As a whole the tribesmen have been much more orderly than a similar 
number of whites. They have been charged with cattle stealing and probably in 
truth, but the losses in reality have been small on this account. About 1883, 
Sheriff Bob Paul tried to arrest a Papago in the village of Coyote in the Baboqui- 
vari hills. He found his man, who was wanted for horse stealing, but Paul in turn 
was seized by the Indians and held prisoner, while a frightened deputy sheriff 
fled to spread a wild tale of Indian insurrection. A posse of about twenty-five was 
raised at Tucson, to find on arrival near the village that Paul already had been 
liberated. Though the Indians gathered in force, Paul, who united good common 
sense with an extraordinary degree of bravery, managed to avoid a conflict and 
to secure from the Indians a promise to bring into Tucson the men who had caused 
the trouble, a promise that was faithfully kept. 

In the summer of 1914 materialized a claim for an undivided half interest in 
3,284 square miles of land, mainly in Pima County, on the basis of quit-claim 
deeds by Papago Indian chiefs, representing seventeen villages. The grantee was 
Robert F. Hunter of New York, now deceased, whose heirs are seeking acknowl- 
edgment of their claims and possession of property estimated worth $1,000,000. 
It was alleged that the Indians were citizens of Mexico at the time of the Gadsden 
purchase and thus had property rights they were privileged to transfer. 



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36 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

The Papago make only a fair grade of pottery and their baskets, generally of 
eactus fiber, are not as good as those of the Pima. The Sobaipuri, frequently 
mentioned in early Spanish chronicles, were a branch of the Papago. The Indi- 
ans tell that the Sobaipuri once were a cliff-dwelling people and that the merging 
with the valley Papago was wholly due to the depredations of the Apaches. 
This merging, according to the Rudo Ensayo, happened in 1772, bands of 
the Indians leaving the San Pedro valley to find new homes around Santa Maria 
Soamca, San Xavier and Tucson. The tribe is recorded as having been the most 
warlike of all the Pima. 

According to legends heard by Missionary Cook, the Papago and Pima, then 
a numerous people, came into the present land of Arizona al>out the year 350, 
driving hence the Moqui, or the people of whatever name that lived in the ancient 
houses on the Gila. About the first experience had by the Pima with Spaniards 
other than in passing expeditions, happened when a number of the tribe were 
invited to join with the Papago in a feast at Tucson, where they ate beef for the 
first time and enjoyed it greatly. This happened at some indefinite time, about 
100 years ago. Some time later with the Pima took refuge Chief Ilarab-n-mawk 
(Raven Hair) of the Papago, who had refused to furnish warriors for an expedi- 
tion against the Apache. The Mexicans pursued from Tucson and the Papago 
and his Pima hosts all fled into the bleak mountains, while the Mexicans occupied 
the villages and ate up the Indians* supplies. Finally, when there was no more 
food on the mountains, the Papago chief and his two sons surrendered themselves 
and were hanged. Then the invaders returned to Tucson. 

A great battle is said to have been fought by Papago penned up by a superior 
Apache force on the great Babotiuiveri Peak. Starvation imminent, the Papago 
warriors killed their women and children and then themselves, some of them 
leaping to death from the cliffs. A great battle was fought also in the neighbor- 
hood of Arivaca, where there has been found a heap of skulls. 

For years the Papago children have had instruction from Catholic nuns, 
established in the old priests' house at the San Xavier mission. As early as 1866, 
C. II. Lord, Deputy Indian Agent at Tucson, told of the engagement of Mrs. 
William Tonge, an American woman of experience, to open a school at San 
Xavier. Rev. Howard Billman, a Pr(*sbyterian missionary, opened an Indian 
school at Tucson January 3, 1888. The school, now supported wholly by the 
church, has several hundred attendants. 

THE MABICOPA, AN IMMIGBANT TRIBE 

The Maricopa, who occupy the western end of the Pima and Maricopa reserva- 
tion, ethnologically have nothing whatever in common with their neighbors and 
friends, the Pima, whose country they w^ere permitted to enter following a defec- 
tion from the Maricopa parent .stem, the Yuma, about 1800, though the journey 
up the Gila was one of at least a score of years, the band driven further eastward 
by continued attacks by the main body of the tribe. It is probable that the Pima, 
who at the base are a peaceful people, were pleased at such an accession of proven 
fighting men to guard their western frontier against the Apache and Yuma. 
This would seem to have been good logic, for at least thrice the Yuma were 
repulsed in serious forays into the Pima countrA^ This alliance never has been 
disturbed, though there are few instances of intermarriage and each tribe has 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 37 

maintained its own language undiluted and its own peculiar customs. Till only 
a few years ago the Maricopa burned their dead and, incidentally, heaped upon 
the funeral pyre about all the goods of the late lamented, abandoning or burning 
the residence of the deceased as well. While wasteful, this custom had many 
features of hygienic value. 

The Painted Rocks on the Gila River on the old Yuma road have puzzled 
antiquarians about as much as did the famous stone inscriptions noted in Pick- 
wick Papers. As good an explanation as any was that given thirty years ago by 
Chas. D. Poston, who before that had inquired into the matter. He then told 
that the markings on the stones were made several years after a disastrous Yuma 
war expedition of 1857, which was ambushed in an arroyo near Maricopa Wells 
and practically annihilated. This was about the last trouble between the Yumas 
on the one side and the Pimas and Maricopas on the other and it was told a treaty 
of peace thereafter was signed on the rocks, which were made a boundary monu- 
ment marking the ''spheres of influence*' of the parties to the treaty. 

Lieutenant Whipple, in October, 1849, wrote of the start from the Colorado 
of a large war party of Yumas, which, on the 30th, a short distance up the Gila, 
met and fought a Maricopa band that had harried the Yuma borders. In 1851, 
Bartlett told of seeing in Ures a deputation of IVIaricopa Indians, there to com- 
plain to the Mexican authorities over incursions of Yumas and Apaches. Henry 
Morgan, an Indian trader who lived long among the Pimas and Maricopas, 
claimed to have led the latter at the time of the last Yuma raid and told that the 
invaders lost 350 warriors. While the Maricopas had a few guns, most of the 
fighting was done with clubs, after the first few arrow flights. For years there- 
after skulls and bones were thick on the ground of the affray, near Maricopa 
Wells. 

** Maricopa" is the Pima name. The tribal designation is **Pipatsje.'' Up 
to a late date the tribe decreased rapidly, having, like the Yuma, suffered from 
contact with the worst element of the pioneer whites. It is probable that forty 
years ago the Maricopa numbered about 1,000. This number has decreased until 
less than 300 are gathered near the junction of the Salt and Gila Rivers, a dozen 
miles southwest of Phoenix, where, under intelligent direction, the Indians are 
maintaining themselves in decent fashion by agriculture, with an assured water 
supply from Salt River. 

INDIANS OF THE COLOBADO BIVEB 

The largest of the Yuman tribes is the Mojave, the dominant aboriginal people 
of northwestern Arizona. The tribe numbers about 1,500, mainly scattered along 
the Colorado from Fort Mojave to Parker, though included within the total are 
fifty at the San Carlos agency and 175 on the Camp McDowell reserve. The latter 
two seem to be descendants of the branch originally known as Yavapai. This 
tribe has decreased in number without doubt. In 1775 Garces estimated the 
Mojave at 3,000 souls. As early as 1865 the Mojave were given a separate reser- 
vation on the Colorado, though the establishment of the Colorado River reserva- 
tion on the present lines seems to date from May 15, 1876. 

The Mojave may be considered, physically, the highest type of southwestern 
Indian. Relatively he is industrious, cultivating small patches of bottom land 
where irrigation can be had from the river's spring rise, or working on the 



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38 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

surface around the mines. It is an old observation of prospectors that ** there is 
no windlass man like a Mojave." In the early days the Mojave appeared to be 
hostile or friendly according to the way he was treated by the white visitors. 
Nearly all the oflScial parties, both Spanish and American, seemed to have met 
with welcome and assistance, but some of the early trapping and prospecting 
parties had hard experiences in the Mojave country. The tribe has a chieftain- 
ship hereditary in the male line. Chief Iritaba was taken to Washington in 1863 
in company with a Pima chief, and shown the wonders of the white man's capital. 
It. is understood that both dignitaries when they returned were considered con- 
scienceless liars and that no real benefit in the way of respect for the white men 
resulted from the expense incurred. 

It is probable that the Mojave will remain tribally distinct and prosperous, 
for the Indian Bureau is working on extensive plans for their benefit, including 
the irrigation of a large tract near Parker, whereon the Indians are to be placed 
in family groups under the best of conditions that will assure prosperity and 
independence. 

The Yuma, living along the Colorado around the mouth of the Gila, have 
their history elsewhere told, for they wexe very troublesome indeed both to Span- 
iards and Americans. Till decadent through disease, they were considered physi- 
cally superior to most of the other tribes of the Southwest and were noted for 
bravery and hardiness. Unlike the other warlike tribes, they had permanent 
villages, from which only rarely did they depart on extended excursions. In 
1853 their number was estimated at about 3,000. The census of 1910 found only 
655 listed with the superintendent of the Port Yiuna Indian school. In 1873-75, 
on the Fort Verde reservation, were about 500 so>called Yuma-Apaches, con- 
sidered a mixture of Yiuna, Mojave and Yavapai, inhabiting the desert of central 
Arizona east of the Colorado. After removal to the San Carlos reservation they 
numbered 352. The word '*Yuma" is said really to come from a native term that 
means '*son of a chief," interpreted by an early priest. The tribal name is 
**Kavichan'' or ''Cuchan." 

The Yuma, given a reservation on the California side of the Colorado, lately 
have been enriched by the building through the reservation of a great Reclama- 
tion Service canal, headed at Laguna dam. After each of 809 Indians had been 
allotted ten acres of good irrigable land, the balance of the reservation was sold 
to white settlers, the proceeds to be held for the benefit of the tribe. Like the 
generality of Indians, the Yuma hardly appreciate the advantages they have been 
given to amass wealth by the sweat of their brows. Rather preferred is the abo- 
riginal method of planting com, beans, pumpkins and melons in the river ooze, 
as the spring flood is declining. Still, much is being done for the tribe, which is 
considered on the up-grade. The old military post of Fort Yumas has been 
transformed into an Indian school. 

HUALPAI— HAVA SUPAI— CHTM KH U JBVl 

One of the decadent tribes of Arizona is the Hualpai of Yuman stock, which 
occupies a reservation, granted January 4, 1883, of 782,000 acres, northward 
from Peach Springs on the Santa Fe railroad, to the Colorado River. The 
Indians, like the Mojave, by no means confine themselves to their reservation, 
but find employment or hunt almost anywhere in northwestern Arizona. They 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 39 

were reckoned among the savage tribes at the time of the coming of the white 
man and were guilty of frequent depredations upon passing emigrants luid pros- 
pectors. For many years, however, they have been pacific. It is possible that 
the limit of decrease has been reached, for about eighty children are being cared 
for at Truxton Canon, where the health of the pupils is being given especial 
attention. The reservation as a whole offers little opportunity for farming and 
the Indians have little industrial Ability. 

The Hualpai is an interesting Indian from the very fact that he has held most 
strongly to his aboriginal superstitions. Till wood became scarce and valuable, 
the dead of the tribe were cremated and the house of death was burned. This 
custom of destroying the wickiups of brush was extended to a number of neat 
frame houses that had been built for the tribe by the Government. It is probable 
the relatives exulted in thus furnishing the spirit an exceptionally fine mansion 
on high. Annually there is a *'big cry," at which the year's dead are collectively 
remembered. At the end of this four-day function in past years has been held a 
snake dance, in some ways similar to that of the Hopi. But the snakes, rattlers 
all of them, meet with a very different fate, for, instead of being released on the 
plain, they are tossed into a blazing pile of willow branches and burned to ashes, 
which are then scattered. 

The Havasupai (People of the Blue Water) is a small Yuman tribe, with a 
diminishing strength of only about 150 members. The tribe has a reservation 
of 38,400 acres, set aside in 1880, embracing mainly some rich lands in the bottom 
of the gorge of Cataract Creek, near the Grand Canon. The Havasu proudly 
claim to be the original Apaches and their legends tell of entrance to the canon 
from occupancy of the region between the Little Colorado and San Francisco 
-Mountains, wherein are scattered the ruins of many small Indian settlements. It 
is probable that to them should be credited the occupancy of a number of curious 
caves found in the lava fields below the San Francisco peaks. They also culti- 
vated a number of small patches of land in subordinate gorges of the Colorado 
Canon below El Tovar, particularly at Indian Gardens, below which are to be 
found the remains of an aboriginal aqueduct. 

The floor of the narrow canon below the great springs at the agency has been 
cultivated with diligence by the tribe, which has fields of com, beans, pumpkins 
and melons and which, a few years ago, had more than local renown for the 
peaches raised. It is told that the first peach trees brought into the valley were 
the gift of none other than John D. Lee, who fled from Utah after the Mountain 
Meadow massacre and who hid himself for parts of seven years among these 
Indians. 

There was devastation in the valley, however, on the last day of 1909, when 
a wall of water swept down the ordinarily dry canon, ten feet deep, and swept 
away the agency buildings, the school house and almost every hut, beside devas- 
tating the fields and destroying the irrigating ditches. It happened that most of 
the people were away in the hills at the time and so the death loss was small. 
Agent J. E. Coe and the reservation employees made their way from the roof of 
the agency building into an enormous cottonwood tree and from its limbs watched 
the boiling waters tear away their former home and all other evidences of human 
occupation. 

A number of years before this an enterprising company tried to build a rail- 



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40 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

road into Cataract Canon, power to be furnished from three wonderfully scenic 
falls below the Indian village, but failed after expenditure of more than $100,- 
000. If the project had succeeded, Yoseraite would have had a strong rival for 
the favor of the tourist, for the Arizona valley has marvelous scenic beauty, espe- 
cially around three waterfalls in the creek that springs fresh from the canon bed 
at the agency. 

The Chemehuevi, only about 300 in number, comprise a Shoshonean family, 
found in the Colorado Valley within the Mojave country, north of Bill Williams 
Fork. They generally seem to have been well affected in their relations with the 
whites and with their neighbors the Mojave. 

The Cocopah, so often named in the early Spanish chronicles, now number 
only about 800 and have their home in the Colorado Valley, south of the Arizona 
line. 



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CHAPTER IV 
THE SPANISH CONQUEST 

Cabeza de Vaca — Juan de la Asuncion, First Traveler in Arizona — Marco de Niza 
and the Seven Cities — Coronado*s Expedition — Alarcons River Exploration — NeJ» 
Mexican Settlement. 

There seems to be a general understanding, though in error, that the first 
white man to penetrate the land that now is Arizona was Cabeza de Vaca (Eng- 
lish — '* Cow's Plead). Some historians have sought to show that he traveled at 
least as far north as El Paso and thence westwardly through New Mexico and Ari- 
zona. His own narrative of his trip might be distorted to support such a conten- 
tion, but it is vague at the best, a veritable hodgepodge tale of hardship, starvation 
and dangers. Of one thing, however, there is certainty : the party of Cabeza de 
Vaca undoubtedly was the first of Europeans to make the journey across the 
North American continent as far northward as the Rio Grande. 

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was Treasurer and Alguacil Mayor (Chief Con- 
stable) in the ill-fated expedition of Governor Panfilo de Narvaez, Governor of 
Cuba, who had been sent with a Spanish royal warrant to conquer and govern 
the provinces that extended from the River of Palms to the Cape of Florida on the 
mainland. The start was from Cuba in March, 1528, with five vessels and 600 
men. Bad luck or bad management, possibly both, seemed to be unbroken from 
the beginning. 

After the historic march along the Gulf Coast, 247 survivors were crowded 
into five roughly constructed barges, which, September 20, put out to sea from 
Appalachicola Hay, without knowledge of navigation on the part of any of their 
steersmen, the only hope being to reach the Spanish settlements in Mexico. The 
mighty flood of the Mississippi was passed safely, but in November a couple of the 
frail barques were cast ashore on a sandy island on the coast of what is now 
eastern Texas. Of eighty who landed, sixty-five perished during the succeeding 
winter, which was spent on what was given the most appropriate title of "Island 
of 111 Fate." The narrative tells that, **Five Christians quartered on the coast 
were driven to such extremity that they ate each other up, until one remained, 
who being left ^lone there was nobody to eat him." In the end only de Vaca^s 
party survived. 

For several years Cabeza de Vaca practically was held in slavery, though he 
gained some reputation among the Indians as a medicine man. He became a 
trader, penetrating inland as far as fifty leagues, his stock in trade mainly sea 
shells and cockles. He finally escaped from what appeared to have been loose 
bondage to the coast Indians, in company with Andres Dorantes, who had been 
one of the captains of Narvaez, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado and Estevan, some- 

Tol. 1—4 

41 



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42 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

times called Estevanico (Little Stephen), the last a Barbary Moor of negroid type, 
slave to Dorantes. 

The narration as printed in Spain in 1542, written necessarily from memory, 
gives only a vague idea of direction, save that the men were striving to reach 
Spanish settlements, which they knew existed somewhere oflf toward the southwest. 
It would appear that they penetrated about the center of Texas, then struck 
further south to the Rio Grande at its big bend and thence almost westwardly 
through what now are Chihuahua and Sonora till finally, in April, 1536, after 
passing the Rio Yaqui, they encountered a scouting party of Spaniards under 
Diego Alcarez. This was at a point probably 200 miles south of what now is 
Arizona. Even then trouble was not over, for it appears that the refugees had 
difficulty in saving their kindly native guides from the Christians, * * who sought 
to rob them and to make slaves of them." Finally, safety and comparative com- 
fort were found on reaching Culiacan in the present Mexican state of Sinaloa, 
where Melchoir Diaz, a humane and energetic oflScial, was captain of the province. 
The main difficulty experienced by Cabeza de Vaca and his companions in resum- 
ing contact with civilization at first was that they could bear no clothing nor could 
they sleep except on the bare floor. 

The leader then returned to Spain, which he reached in August, 1537. There- 
after he was honored by being made Governor of a settlement on the Rio de la 
Plata in South America. Though returned to Spain under charges, he appears 
to have lived through a comfortable old age. 

Dorantes remained in Mexico and later was heard from in an unsuccessful 
attempt to raise an exploring party into the land farther northward than that 
through which he had journeyed. Of Estevan, however, much more remains to 
be told. 

SICALLPOX AND OTHER PLAQXTES 

Before dismissing the subject of Narvaez, it should be told that he seems to 
have been responsible for the introduction of smallpox into New Spain, not in 
proper person, but through a negro servant he had brought from Spain to Vera 
Cruz on his unfortunate expedition of 1520, when sent by the King to displace 
Cortez. In Mexico before the days of the Spaniard had been known a plague, the 
matlazahuatl, which may have been a form of yellow fever, and which is known 
to have carried off hundreds of thousands. But it attacked human beings on the 
highlands, as well as along the coast, and is said to have been the cause of one 
of the great migrations to the southward. In the unsanitary, communistic life of 
the Indians, of whatever sort, smallpox found for its spread an ideal field. Accord- 
ing to Padre Torribio, the disease had destroyed half the population of Mexico. It 
was believed to return in especial virulence every seventeen years. It has been 
epidemic ever since. So common has the disease become and so little feared 
among the Mexicans of the Arizona border that women frequently expose 
their infants to it, that they ** might have it over with" early in life. The plague 
never has been a really serious one among the Americans of the Southwest, but, at 
different times, almost has wiped out a number of Indian tribes and communities. 
Vaccination was ordered by the King in 1805, and Pattie is said to have vaccinated 
a large number of Spaniards and Indians during his stay on the Califomian 



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NEW MEXICO, 1656 

French map of N. L' Anson d* Abbeville from the Munk collection. 
Note California shown as an island 




SONORA (NEW NAVARRE) 1750 
French map of Robert de Vangondy, Paris 



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ARIZONA— THE TOXJNGBST STATE 43 

coast. Scurvy also was common in Spanish days, on land as well as sea, and has 
been known in Arizona since its American occupation, as also has cholera. 

HEBNANDO OOBTEZ, THE OBEAT OAPTAIK 

While Hernando Cort^z was absent in Spain, receiving the honors due to a 
great conqueror and explorer, New Spain was left under the government of 
Nuno de Quzmdn, his bitterest enemy. Enmities such as these were common 
among the jealous Spaniards, especially where high titles conflicted and where 
dignities were in question. It was Guzmdn who had been named at the head of the 
royal audencia, upon which was placed the investigation of the charges brought 
against the Great Captain. The malicious report returned seemed to have had 
no attention from the government and yet when Cortez returned to Mexico in July, 
1530, he found himself practically devoid of actual authority. Guzman, seeking 
also to add new kingdoms to the Spanish crown, in that year had headed north- 
ward an army of exploration and conquest, comprising several hundred Span- 
iards, who went at their own expense, and 14,000 Indians. There had come to 
the City of Mexico more or less definite reports concerning great kingdoms to 
the northward and particularly that of the Seven Cities, described as even richer 
than Mexico itself. The expedition worked as far northward as Culiacan. where, 
probably traveling too far from the seacoast, it became tangled in the gorges of 
the Sierra Madres and its leader, discouraged, turned back. 

Cortfe had started a naval expedition to the northward along the coast of 
Mexico, into the **Gulf of Cortez," the Gulf of California, also known as the 
Vermillion Sea. The only record of it seems to come through ecclesiastical 
sources, and more especially concerning the assignment to each vessel of a Fran- 
ciscan friar, appointed by Padre Antonio de Citta Rodrigo, Superior of the 
Province of Mexico, who, though indefinitely, is reported to have sent by land 
northward at the same time two of his friars, with a guard of a captain and twelve 
soldiers. It is more or less inferred that these friars were Juan de la Asuncion 
and Pedro Nadal. 

Cortez, deprived of his administrative authority, still had undisputed rights 
of discovery and exploration under the crown. October, 1533, at his own expense, 
he sent northward two vessels, but with little result, for the captain of one, Diego 
Becerra, was murdered by his sailors on the coast of Jalisco and the leader of 
the mutineers and twenty other Spaniards were massacred by Indians while on 
shore. 

The Great Captain, after two failures, resolved that he himself would lead an 
expedition, so with three ships he set out from Chiametla in April, 1535. They 
found the port where the murderers of Becerra had been killed, on the southeast 
coast of the peninsula of California. They named the bay Santa Cruz, but it is 
assumed to be what now is known as La Paz. The visit is important only in that 
on that occasion the land is supposed to have been formally named by Cort6z 
** California." This expedition was as much of a failure as its predecessors and 
Cortfe was not unwilling to return to the City of Mexico when cordially sum- 
moned thither by the new Viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza. 

Not satisfied, Cortez, in the summer of 1539, sent still another expedition up 
the coast, commanded by Francisco de TJlloa. One of the ships was lost on the 



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44 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

coast near Culiaean, but the others continued northward till they reached the 
head of the gulf. 

This practically ended the activities of Cortez on the western continent. 
Impoverished by the expenditure on these expeditions of not less than 300,000 
pesos and finding no support from the Viceroy for further plans he had made 
in the same direction, the Great Captain returned to his native land, where he 
died in 1547. 

PBIE8TLT PIONEEBS OPENED THE WAT 

Friar Marco de Niza, a Franciscan, was one of the first Europeans to tread the 
soil of Arizona, he following closely on the heels of the blackamoor Est^vanico. 
But still leaving the credit with Mother Church, they appear to have had fore- 
runners. While the expedition of Nuno de Guzman failed in its purpose of 
finding rich cities to add jewels to the Spanish crown, it at least penetrated far 
into northern Mexico and established settlements, some of which have endured 
unto this day. The mail-clad conquistador, seeking renown and spoil, never 
journeyed on his Barbary charger faster than a brown-robed Franciscan friar 
could travel on his own sandaled teet. Fearing nothing but God, defying tlie 
devil and all his earthly representatives, considering life as only a means toward 
achieving an immortal end, contemptuous of torture and even seeking martyrdom, 
with uplifted cross the friars ever were in the van. Their work seems to have 
been only incidentally connected with the Spaniards themselves, for the Spaniards 
were firm in the faith and needed little instruction or little of the services of the 
priesthood save in the way of an occasional mass or the hearing of confessions. 
Almost solely the fervor of the pioneer friars was directed in the way of mis- 
sionary effort to reclaim from the devil the souls of the Gentiles, of the Indians of 
whatever degree. To this end no effort was too great, no sacrifice too painful. 

In January, 1538, two Franciscans, Juan de la Asuncion (Juan de Olmeda?) 
and Pedro Nadal, were sent into the northern settlements, it is said by direct 
commission from the Viceroy. It was probable that they were not the only priests 
of the northern S(»ttlements who went about that time on trips of exploration, 
seeking Indian converts l)eyond the pale of the settlements, but the average mis- 
sionary friar was a poor press agent. It was recorded that the two friars trav- 
eled across the deserts to the northwest a matter of 600 leagues (about 1,560 miles) 
from some unspecified point, probably the City of Mexico, and found a large 
river, which they could not cross. There Padre Nadal, who was noted as **muy 
inteligento en las matematicas,'' determined the latitude to be 35 deg. north. 
This would indicate arrival at a point on the Colorado River not far from Needles. 
There seems to have l)een a belief, however, among Spanish commentators that 
the Colorado was struck at a point not far from Yuma, really in latitude about 
32 deg. 30 min., and that the friar's instruments were in error. De Niza stated 
that the Gulf coast curved to the westward at 35 deg., an error of 3 deg. at least. 

There was additional data on the same subject to the effect that Friar Marco 
de Niza the following year arrived at the same river, which was called the Rio de 
las Balsas, the River of Rafts, on account of the manner in which the Indians 
ferried it. The stream was determined to have been the Rio Colorado, the 
latitude 34 deg. 30 min., and the Indians the Alquedunes. The latitude given 
must be rejected as an initial proposition. The Indians who crossed the river 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 45 

an balsas may have been Cocopahs or Yumas, who lived in the district below the 
present town of Yuma, a locality still known as Algodones. To this day these 
Indians cross the Colorado by swimming, pushing their effects ahead of them on 
miniature rafts, and the women even ferry their babies across in earthen oUas. 

About 1540, one of the rivers crossed by the Coronado expedition was called 
by Jaramillo * * El Rio de las Balsas, * ' for rafts would appear to have been neces- 
sary for the ferriage of the goods of at least one section. This must have been 
the Gila, far above its junction with the Salt, only a tributary of the latter flow- 
ing across the trail to Cibola. Assuredly, de Niza never saw the Colorado, unless 
on some unrecorded trip. There might be some value in this connection in the 
fact that the Salt in an early period was known as **Rio de la Asuncion." 

Doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of this discovery claim, which is 
based upon a paragraph in the Cronica Serafica of Arricivita, issued in 1792 
from the College of Queretaro. In some other relations of the same period there 
appears to have been a jumbling of this trip and that of de Niza. The name 
of the priest Juan de la Asuncion cannot be found by Bandelier in any of the 
records of the period. Yet a narrative by Captain Mange, the companion of 
Padre Kino, tells that in 1538 Padre Marco dispatched Friar Juan de la Asuncion 
and a lay brother on something of the same journey that de Niza later took him- 
self. This is considered in the works of Coues and Bandelier, the former, prob- 
ably with the full assent of the careful Fred W. Hodge, concluding that while 
there may have been such a journey at the time mentioned, there is no definite 
assurance that the river reached was the lower Colorado. More likely it was the 
Gila. A larger northern river of which the natives told could readily have been 
the Salado, or Salt, had the Colorado not been indicated by the detail that it was 
a ten days' journey beyond and that by it lived numerous people in walled 
pueblos. 

J0UBNETINGH3 OF FBIAB MAECO DE NIZA 

Cabeza de Vaca was passed on by Guzman, then in authority in Nueva Galicia, 
to the City of Mexico, where Don Antonio de Mendoza for more than a year had 
represented the might bf the King over New Spain. The story of the journey, 
with its hearsay evidence of rich lands beyond, seemed to confirm the Indian 
fairy tales already heard and there was much excitement throughout Mexico. 
Mendoza promptly planned an expedition to force into the northern country, but, 
true to his reputation as a careful leader, he first determined upon sending out 
a scouting party. 

There is extant a brief report made by Mendoza to the King. In this is told 
how he had sent two Franciscan friars (De Niza and Ilonoratus?) ''to discover 
the end of this firm land which stretches to the north, and because their journey 
fell out to greater purpose than was looked for, T would declare the whole matter 
from the beginning: I desired to know the end of this province of Nueva Espana, 
because it is so great a country and that we have yet no knowledge thereof.'' lie 
told of the departure of Guzman from INIexico with 400 horsemen and 14,000 
Indian footmen, **the best men and the best furnished ever seen in those parts." 
and how * * the greater part of them were consumed in the enterprise and could not 
enter nor discover more than already was discovered. Guzman at divers times 
sent forth captains and horsemen, who sped no better than he had done. Likewise 



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46 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

the Marquis del Valle Hernando Cortez had sent a captain with two ships to 
discover the coast, which two ships and the captain perished. After that he sent 
again two other ships, one of which was divided from her consort and the master, 
and certain mariners slew the captain and usurped over the ship.'* 

With some circumlocution, though with little attention to what might have 
appeared to have been grave detail, the Viceroy told how knowledge of the west 
coast had been gained by marine excursions, generally with disaster to the par- 
ticipants, it being said of Cortez, ** Although he had ships and the country very 
near him abounding with victual, yet could he never find means to conquer it, 
but rather it seemed that God miraculously did hide it from him; and so he 
returned home without achieving aught else of moment. ' ' 

Mendoza then told how he had in his company Andres Dorantes, one of the 
survivors of the Narvaez expedition, whom he employed with forty or fifty horse- 
men to search out the secret of these parts, **and having provided all things 
necessary for his journey and spent much money in that behalf the matter was 
broken off, I wot not how, and that enterprise was given over." 

But there yet remained the Moor, called the negro, Estevan, who was sent 
northward with the new Governor of Nueva Galieia, Francisco Vasquez de 
Coronado, to the city of San Miguel of Culiacan, the last province subdued by 
the Spaniards toward that quarter, being 200 leagues distant from the City of 
Mexico. The Spanish league was equivalent to 2.62 English miles. With Coro- 
nado also went Marco de Niza, Franciscan Vice Commissioner General, and his 
companion ffiar, ** because they had been long traveled and exercised in those 
parts and had great experience in the affairs of the Indies and were men of good 
life and conscience, for whom I obtained leave of their superiors.'' 

From Culiacan, according to Mendoza, a number of Indians were sent north- 
ward to spread words of peace among the tribesmen who had been driven into 
the hills by fear of the Spaniards. About 400 Indians were gathered at Culiacan, 
where they were assured of safety for themselves and people and where they were 
fed and were taught to make the sign of the cross and to learn the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, **and they were greatly besought to learn the same." They 
then departed for their homes, presumably in what is now Sonora. This action 
was taken especially in order to make easier the way of farther exploration. 

Friar Marco de Niza and his companion, with the negro and other slaves and 
Indians, went forward soon thereafter. Still later the same route was taken with 
some force by Governor Coronado, who penetrated as far as the Valle de los 
Corazones (Valley of the Hearts), 120 leagues distant from Culiacan (about the 
present location of Ures) , where he found great scarcity of victuals and the moun- 
tains so craggj^ he could find no way to pass forward, and so was forced to return 
home to San Miguel. Thereupon the Viceroy was moved to remark, *'So that as 
well on closing of the entrance, as in not being able to fiind the way, it seemeth 
unto all men that God would shut up the gate to all those which by strength of 
human force have gone about to attempt this enterprise and hath revealed it to 
a poor and barefooted friar. And so the friar began to enter the land, who, 
because he found his entrance was so well prepared, was very well received." 

The narrative of the friar, made in accordance with instructions given him 
by the Viceroy, has been preserved, a most wondrous document, showing that 



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ARIZONA— THE YOXJNGEST STATE 47 

either the northern country haa changed much since those days or that the rev- 
erend traveler dreamed dreams. 

The chronicle of the journey starts with the departure from San Mi^el on 
Friday, March 7, 1539, in company with Friar Honoratas and Estevan, who for 
the purpose had been bought by the Viceroy from Andres Dorantes, and certain 
free Indians and many other Indians of Petatlan and Cuchillo. At Petatlan he 
lost his reverend companion, who was forced by sickness to remain behind, a 
circumstance much to be deplored, historically. The journey was continued, 
**as the Holy Ghost would lead me, without any merit of mine," generally paral- 
leling the coast. Mention was made of the. coming of Indians from an island 
*'only half a league by sea," which may have been as far north as Tiburon. 
Then was traversed a desert of four days' journey, thereafter finding new Indi- 
ans, who had had no knowledge of Christians, **who told me that four or five 
days journey, at the foot of the mountains, there were many towns with people 
who were clad in cotton and that had round, green stones hanging at their nos- 
trils and at their ears and who had certain thin plates of gold wherewith they 
scraped off their sweat, and that the walls of their temples was covered therewith 
and that they do use it in all their household vessels." 

Though his instruction was to not leave the coast, after three days further 
travel he noted arrival at **a town of reasonable bigness," called Vacupa, forty 
leagues distant from the sea, a place where there was great store of good victual. 
Thence he sent certain Indians to the sea by three several ways to return with 
Indians of the sea coast that he might receive information from them. Another 
way he sent Estevan, commanding him to go directly northward fifty or three- 
score leagues '* to see if by that way I might learn news of any notable thing 
which we sought to discover. ' ' Estevan, lacking in education, was to send back 
news by Indians in the shape of crosses. '*A small cross of one handful long 
would signify but a mean thing. If he were to find a country greater and better 
than Nueva Espana he should send a great cross." Four days thereafter, came 
back a cross as tall as a man, with spoken word that Niza should forthwith come, 
for Estevan had found people who gave him information of a very mighty prov- 
ince, which was called Cibola, where there were seven great cities all under one 
lord, **the houses whereof are made of lime and stone and are very great and the 
least of them of one loft abovehead. " A northern Indian sustained the story and 
told that in the gates of the principal houses turquoise was set, cunningly wrought. 

The messengers sent westward returned on Easter Day, bringing with them 
two inhabitants from the sea coast and islands, which were said to be inhabited 
by people who wore shells of pearls on their foreheads and had great pearls and 
much gold. The islands were four-and-thirty in number, lying close together, 
with traffic conducted by rafts. 

The tale from the north was so much greater than that from the west that the 
friar with his Indians followed on the trail of Estevan, from whom he received 
still another great cross, with words to hasten him forward. Cibola he was told 
was more than thirty days journey and beyond the Seven Cities there were three 
other kingdoms called Marata, Acus and Tontonteac. He passed through the 
country of Indians called the Pintados (Painted Ones), possibly Pimas, where 
he took possession, according to his instruction, in the name of the King of Spain. 
He found respectable treatment and entertainment and the people presented him 



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48 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

**wild beasts, such as conies and quailes, maize nuts of pine trees and all in great 
abundance/' He was told that in Tontonteac the people of that country ''had 
garments of gray woolen cloth such as he wore, taken from certain little beasts 
about twice the bigness of the spaniels that had accompanied Estevan. ' ' 

Provided by the natives with ample sustenance, he passed across another 
desert of four-days travel, where the glories of Cibola were magnified and 
where he was told that the people of that land used ladders to climb into the 
upper stories of their buildings. After a five-day journey to a valley inhabited 
by goodly people, well watered and like a garden, he found a refugee from 
Cibola, **a white man of good complexion, of greater capacity than the inhabi- 
tants of this valley or than those which I had left behind me,'' and from him 
secured amplified details, one feature being *'that all inhabitants of the City 
of Cibola lie upon beds raised a good height from the ground, with quilts and 
canopies over them." An additional wonder was the description of a skin 
seen, of a beast said to have but one horn upon his forehead and '*this horn 
bendeth toward his breast and that out of the same goeth a point right forward 
wherein he hath so much great strength that it will break anything, however 
strong it be, if he run against it and that there are great store of these beasts 
in that country." Word again came from Estevan that the further he went 
the more he learned of the greatness of the country and that *'he had never 
found the Indians in any lie." 

Estevan by this time seemed to have picked up about 300 natives. The friar 
took only thirty of the principal Indians with him and with these entered into a 
wilderness on May 9. He had traveled twelve days when there was encountered 
one of Estevan 's Indians, son of the chief man of de Niza's party, who told of 
disaster. Estevan had sent before him to Cibola, in token of amit}^ *'his great 
mace made of a gourd . . . which gourd has a string of bells upon it and 
two feathers, one white and another red, in token that he demanded safe conduct 
and that he came peaceably." This token was cast to the ground by the lord of 
the city, who warned the messengers to get them packing with speed, or else 
suffer death. But Estevan, not daunted, went on, to be captured, robbed and 
shut within a great house which stood without the city, where he was given neither 
meat nor drink. The next morning the woeful Indian messenger saw him running 
away, with people following and slaying certain of the Indians which had been 
in his company. The news cast great distress upon the friar's party. He told, 
**I thought this heavy and bad news would cost me my life. Neither did I fear 
so much the loss of my own life as that I should not be able to return to give 
information of the greatness of that country where our Lord God might be 
glorified." So he bribed his party with goods that he carried and went on fur- 
ther another day's journey, when they met still more bloody and wounded Indians 
of the party that had been with Estevan. 

CIBOLA VIEWED BT DE NIZA FBOM AFAB 

In the agitation that followed confirmation of the first reports of the death 
of their kinsmen, the Indians would have put de Niza to death, but he divided 
among them his last remaining stores and finally persuaded two of the chiefs to go 
with him till they came within sight of Cibola, * * which is situate on a plain at 
the foot of a round hill and maketh show to be a fair city and is better situated 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 49 

than any I have seen in these parts. The houses are builded in order, according 
as the Indians told me, all made of stone, with divers stories and flat roofs, as 
far as I could discern from a mountain whither I ascended to view the city. The 
people here seem white, they wear apparel and lie in beds; their weapons are 
bows ; they have emeralds and other jewels, although they esteem none so much 
as turquoises, wherewith they adorn the walls of their porches and their houses 
and their apparel and vessels, and they use them instead of money through all 
the country. Their apparel is of cotton and ox hides and this is their most com- 
mendable and honorable apparel. They use vessels of gold and silver, for they 
have no other metal, whereof there is greater use and more abundance than in 
Peru, and they buy the same for turquoise in the province of the Pintados, where 
there are said to be mines of great abundance. Of other kingdoms I could not 
obtain so particular instruction. Divers times I was tempted to go thither, 
because I knew I could but hazard my life and that I had offered unto God the 
first day that I began my journey. In the end I began to be afraid, considering 
in what danger I should put myself, and that if I should die the knowledge of this 
country should be lost, which in my judgment is the greatest and the best that 
hitherto has been discovered. When I told the chief men w^hat a goodly city 
Cibola seemed unto me, they answered me that it was the least of the Seven Cities 
and that Tontonteac is the greatest and best of them all, because it hath so many 
houses and people and there is no end of them. Having seen the disposition and 
the situation of the place, I thought good to name that country El Nuevo Reyno 
de San Francisco (The New Kingdom of Saint Francis), in which place I made 
a great heap of stones by the help of the Indians and on the top thereof I set a 
small slender cross, because I wanted means to make a greater. *' And thus he 
took possession of the country- in the name of the Viceroy and Emperor and in- 
cluded the kingdoms of Tontonteac, Acus and Marata. 

The return journey was made with all speed, until he could tell his tale to 
Governor Coronado, who was temporarily absent from San Miguel, but was 
found at Campostela, in Jalisco. 

It might be well at this point to briefly state that these first of the Seven 
Cities of Cibola were nothing more than the Zuni villages, just across the Arizona 
line in eastern New Mexico, south of the latter-day town of Gallup. 

Hodge identifies the city seen by de Niza, at the foot of the hill, with Hawikuh, 
now a heap of ruins. Tontonteac was the land of the Hopis, later known as 
Tusayan. Gushing located Marata in the ruined Matyata group of pueblos, near 
the salt lake, southeast of Zuni. Acus probably was Acoma, to the eastward, the 
name possibly embracing also the other pueblos beyond, in the valleys of the 
Rio Grande and its tributaries. Incidentally, Chas. F. Lummis tells that within 
New Mexico are the ruins of about 1,500 pueblos. 

Frank Hamilton Gushing, who lived among the Zunis for years and who well 
knew their tongue, their history and their priestly secrets, learned from the 
Indians that, many years ago, there had come from the south a black man, whom 
they thought the devil. Therefore they had met him at the outskirts of the city 
and warned him away. When he refused to depart and had demanded women, 
they had beaten him to death and over his body they piled a cairn of stones, 
which they exhibited in proof of their story. 

Among all the Indians of the Southwest it is probable that the Zuni relatively 



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50 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

were the best developed and had the highest degree of civilization, abiding in 
industry and in a state of peace that seems rarely to have been disturbed by other 
tribes. They lived then as they do now, in adobe-built houses often of several 
stories, the upper stories then reached by ladders, as is the case now with the 
Ilopi and with other pueblo dwellers. Their garments of **ox hides" must be 
construed to mean tanned deer skin, for it is not likely there could have been 
much importation of buffalo hides. Of sheep there were none, save * ' bighorn. ' ' 
Doubtless Padte de Niza's unicorn was a mountain sheep. Cotton cloth there 
was, but hardly woolen, and it is very doubtful indeed if of gold or silver, more 
than occasional specimens could have been found in the villages, though turquoise 
was general and highly esteemed for ornament in practically all southwestern 
tribes. 

It is odd that, after passing through the land of the Apache, the fiercest of 
southwestern Indians, the traveler at last should have been driven back by the 
most gentle aboriginal people of the region. 

OOBONADO'S MABCH TO THE SEVEN CITIES 

Coronado considered de Niza's report of such tremendous significance that, 
keeping it in greatest secrecy, he set forth at once with the reverend traveler for 
the City of Mexico, there to confer with his friend the Viceroy, Don Antonio de 
Mendoza, declaring that at last had been found the Seven Cities, a quest in 
which Nuno de Guzman had failed. On request of the Viceroy, Friar Marco at 
once was made Father Provincial of the Franciscan Order, and from the pulpits 
was spread the news of a great land to the northward that awaited the coming 
of the Cross and its supporters. 

Possibly the best historian of the journey of Coronado was Pedro de Cas- 
taneda of Najera, who seems to have been relatively unknown before but whose 
narrative is most interesting. Castaneda seems to have been a man of enough 
standing to make public his own estimates of things and people. In the preface 
to the text of a manuscript later published by a French translator, he sagely 
wrote : **I do not blame those inquisitive persons, who, perchance, with good inten- 
tions, have many times troubled me not a little with their requests that I clear up 
for them some doubt which they have had about different things that have com- 
monly been related concerning events and occurrences that took place during the 
expedition to Cibola or the new land, which the good Viceroy — may he be with 
God in His glory — Don Antonio de Mendoza, ordered and arranged, and on which 
he sent Francisco Vasquez de Coronado as Captain General. In truth, they have 
reason for wishing to know the truth, because most people very often make things 
of which they have heard and about which they have perchance no knowledge, 
appear either greater or less than they are. They make nothing of those things 
that amount to something and those that do not they make so remarkable that they 
appear to be something impossible to believe." 

The story was written about twenty years after the expedition took place. The 
original manuscript does not seem to be in existence in any of the Spanish 
libraries. An excellent copy, which is held in the Lenox Library in New York 
City, was translated from the original in 1895 by George Parker Winship of the 
Department of American History of Harvard University. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 51 

It would appear there was something close to a riot around the court of Spain 
when the story of de Niza was presented, together with the petition of the Vice- 
roy for permission to send an expedition into the northern land. There were a 
number of objections by adverse claimants to the honor. Especially active was de 
Soto, who had a grant of authority as successor to Narvaez, extending westward 
to the Rio de las Palmas and whose adherents wanted to extend it still farther 
westward, claiming, with some logical basis, that the explorer already was on 
the ground, ready for the journey, with a large force of Spaniards. Hernando 
de Cortfe, conqueror of Mexico, also had a claim to consideration under a royal 
license giving authority northwardly along the sea coast. At that time he was 
very much at outs with Mendoza. Cort^z, in June, 1540, in a memorial to the 
King, presented personally, claimed that de Niza's account of discoveries was 
fraudulent, based upon information given by Cortfe himself and received by the 
soldier from Indians of Santa Cruz, ** because everything which the said friar 
says he discovered is just the same these said Indians had told me ; and in enlarg- 
ing upon this and in pretending to report what he neither saw nor learned, the 
said Friar Marco does nothing new, because he has done this many other times 
and this was his regular habit, as is notorious in the provinces of Peru and 
Guatemala." 

Other claimants were Nuno de Guzman and Pedro de Alvarado, but the 
Council for the Indies seems still to have been considering the fine points of the 
dispute when Viceroy Mendoza finally started the expedition of Coronado. 

This expedition was utilized by the Viceroy very acceptably to himself in 
ridding Mexico of the burden of maintaining several hundred useless young 
members of the Spanish aristocracy, who, with no ability in the arts of peace, had 
come to New Spain to seek their fortunes. Mendoza was a diplomat of the first 
order, granting most graciously the petitions of scores of young wastrels that they 
be permitted an opportunity in the extension northward of the Faith and of the 
power of the Crown. He appears to have done Coronado a service also in choosing 
all sorts of officials for the expedition, officers who had resounding titles but with 
little power attached. 

The expedition was reviewed by the Viceroy before it started from Cam- 
postela. There were about 300 horsemen, according to Castaneda, and a consid- 
erable force of footmen, together with possibly a thousand Indian bearers and 
servants. The review must have been a gorgeous affair, though held in a wild 
land remote from the refinements of Spain. The horses, of true Barbary stock, 
generally were from the ranchos of the Viceroy. Many of the riders were in 
armor or at least wore coats of mail, while the footmen carried cross bows and 
arquebuses and some of them sword and shield. The natives were in full war 
panoply, generally armed with dub or bow. Behind were herds of cattle and 
bands of sheep to assure food, and there were extra horses and mules loaded with 
camp supplies, as well as with a number of swivel guns in the way of artillery. 
Coronado was described as having been a truly gorgeous figure, leading the van 
in a suit of golden armor. 

The start was made February 23, 1540. Culiaean was reached March 28. 
There was delay of a fortnight, for the expedition already had proven unwieldy 
and its members needed rest and re-equipment. At Chiametla the expedition 
nearly suffered disaster, due to the arrival of Melchior Diaz and Juan de Saldivar, 



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52 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

returning from an expedition northward directed by the Viceroy to check up the 
testimony of Friar Marco. 

Diaz had left Culiacan the previous November with fifteen horsemen and 
had traveled as far as the mountains just to the southward of Cibola, taking the 
same route that de Niza had followed. He turned back at Chichilticalli, which 
appears to have been at a point in the San Pedro valley, not far from thf* junction 
of the San Pedro with the Gila. Diaz joined Coronado, sending Saldivar on to 
report to the Viceroy. Though Coronado forbade Diaz to make public the result 
of his investigation, it soon became noised around that he had failed to sub- 
stantiate the friar's story. De Niza, with the courage of his convictions, had 
elected to go with the Coronado expedition and pluckily stood his ground against 
the charges, preaching a special sermon in which he seems to have persuaded 
Coronado and soldiers alike that their quest w^ould not be in vain. Diaz appears 
to have been a man of substantial character and of rare integrity. Before his 
expedition, he had been placed in charge of the Culiacan district, where the resi- 
dents received Coronado and his officers with especial cordiality. 

A naval annex under command of Hernando de Alarcon hugged the western 
shore of Mexico northward, but at no time got into touch with the land forces. 

Probably on the advice of Melchior Diaz, Coronado took about 100 picked 
men, both horse and foot, the latter including three friars, and himself led this 
force in advance, picking out a way for the main body. He left Culiacan April 
22. There is more or less dispute over his route in general, but it would appear 
that he struck the valley of the Sonora river and followed tlie stream to its 
source, thence crossing a broad divide and following down another river valley 
until he reached Chichilticalli, where there was an ancient house, in ruins. 

There has been a supposition, based upon the apparently erroneous con- 
nection of Chichilticalli with Casa Grande, that this northern river valley was 
that of the Santa Cruz, but the tabulations of distance and many other col- 
lateral features indicate that the valley was that of the much larger San Pedro 
River. The mouth of the San Pedro is in an extremely rocky country and the 
journey thence northward would have been through a region almost impassable. 
It is more logical that Indian guides indicated the far easier route through the 
Aravaipa Canon eastward from a point not far from the site of the modern 
mining camp of Mammoth. This route would have been the more direct and 
would have been favored by an ample water supply. Chichilticalli, meaning 
**Red House'' in the Aztec tongue, does not at all describe Casa Grande, which 
was built of caliche, with no suggestion of redness about it. Though the early 
summer season might have been w^et, Casa Grande plain usually is arid in the 
extreme and even an advance party would have found difficulty in passing 
through to the Gila, and still more difficulty in traveling through the high moun- 
tains beyond. There is an additional detail that pine nuts were found near 
Chichilticalli. And ancient ruins are everywhere in Arizona. 

From Chichilticalli, Coronado and his advance party undoubtedly followed 
the line of present day roads from the Gila River to Fort Apache, and thence 
over a fairly level country. This section of the journey is described as having 
been most trying, with horses and Indian carriers both tiring and dying, with 
poor provision and little grass, but, probably, in the upper valleys of the Little 



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tr^^trr \jjut'j^i^. .-i^vty^- 




NEW MEXICO, 1765 
Map of Isaak Tirion. From the Munk collection 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 53 

Colorado watershed, **were found fresh grass and many nut and mulberry 
trees/' 

Unlike de Niza's journey, the party appears to have found few Indians 
and to have been met with no great showing of hospitality. After passing the 
wilderness north of the Gila River, four Indians were found, who seemed to 
have signaled the coming of the Spaniards. Cibola was reached July 7, 1540, 
when Coronado and his advance guard were halted by violent resistance before 
the first of the ** cities, '^ the mud-and-stone-built communal village of Hawikuh, 
which later was rechristened by the Spaniards after Granada, the beautiful 
Spanish birthplace of the Viceroy Mendoza. 

The Indians, with their sacred meal, drew lines on the ground beyond which 
they forbade the Spaniards to pass. A shower of arrows was the answer re- 
turned a summons to surrender given by Hernando Vermizzo, who was Sent for- 
ward as herald and ambassador. Finally, in spite of the pacific instructions of 
their leader, the soldiers shouted the sacred war cry of ** Santiago'' and put the 
Indians to flight, driving them into the shelter of their own defenses. Coronado 
marshaled his men again and advanced his forces against the town. It was 
found that little could be accomplished by the crossbow men or those who 
handled the arquebuses, but the main position of the defenders was taken by a 
charge, led by Coronado himself, whose golden annor hardly proved adequate 
to protect him from rocks thrown by the defenders. Twice he was knocked 
to the ground, receiving bruises that confined him to the camp for days there- 
after. A number of the attacking party were severely wounded by arrows, but 
none seem to have been killed. That night the soldiers fortified themselves and 
rested, after gorging with food found in the houses and most sorely needed. 
The same night the Indians abandoned the place. The first of the fabled Cities 
of Cibola at last was in Spanish possession. But of the gold and precious stones, 
of the doors whose lintels were studded with turquoise, nothing could be found. 
It was sitnply a mud-built pueblo village, inhabited by Indians whose needs 
were few, and rarely satisfied at that, and who would appear to have had noth- 
ing to excite the cupidity of any European. 

Castaneda rather severely remarks in his narrative, **When they ( Coronado 's 
advance guard) saw the first village, which was Cibola, such were the curses 
hurled at Friar IVIarco that I prayed God may protect him from them. It is a 
little unattractive village, looking as if it had been crumpled all up together. 
There are mansions in New Spain which make a better appearance at a distance. 
It is a village of 200 warriors, with houses small and having only a few rooms 
and without a court yard. One yard serves for each section.^* 

Friar Marco seemed to have remained confident through all the long and 
arduous journey and to have exhorted the soldiers in all hopefulness whenever 
the prospect appeared poor or when the stories he had heard were proven falla- 
cious. Bandelier says, however, that the Friar was not the liar he would appear 
at first sight, and that the things he told he really saw were so, and that the tales 
of gold and precious stones brought back by him all were qualified as having 
only been heard. There seems no doubt, however, that he became persona non 
grata with Coronado and his soldiers just as soon as the loot of Cibola developed 
the fact that it was merely a poverty-stricken Indian village. 



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54 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Possibly broken in spirit, but giving ill health as his reason, he left Zuni 
about August 3 on his return to Mexico, accompanying Juan de Gallego. He 
remained in southern Mexico till his death in Jalapa seventeen years later. 

Gallego carried hack to the main body, which had accomplished about half 
the distance to Cibola, an order to march on. It appears to have been under 
capable leadership, that of Don Tristan de Arellano, and to have liad no mis- 
haps in its journey, which was completed about the beginning of the winter. 

OOBONADO'S EXPLORATIONS AND BETUBN 

It was not until the July following the capture of Zuni that a westward ex- 
pedition was undertaken, Don Pedro de Tovar being sent with about twenty 
men and Friar Juan de Padilla, a Franciscan, to verify the report that at 
twenty-five leagues distant there were high villages, with warlike people in 
the province of Tucano or Tusayan. The Spaniards met with only slight oppo- 
sition, though, led by the militant priest, they charged the Indians when the 
latter hesitated over submission. Little of value was learned from these people, 
the Hopi of to-day, save information concerning a large river still farther to 
the westward. 

The report brought back by de Tovar led to the sending of a second expedi- 
tion, under Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, with about twelve soldiers. The start 
was made from Cibola late in August, with instructions to return within eighty 
days. At Tusayan Cardenas was well received by the Indians, who gave him 
guides for the journey. His way thence was over one of the most ancient roads 
of the continent, the great Moqui trail, which still is visible and is used, run- 
ning straightway to the lip of the Grand Canon of the Colorado River, first 
touching its rim at a point a few miles west of the present Grand View trail 
into the canon, within about a dozen miles of Bright Angel trail, where has 
been established a hotel that to-day bears the name of Tovar. 

From the canon the same trail bends a little to the southward and, generally 
paralleling the canon at a distance of about twelve miles, finally drops through- 
the gorge of Tope Kobe into the wonderful canon of Cataract Creek, where 
lived and still live the Havasupai tribe. This trail was one commonly used by 
the Navajo, Hopi, Havasupai, Hualpai and other Indians of northern Arizona^ 
a commercial highway over which were taken for exchange the special products 
of the tribes. 

But Cdrdenas, who had taken twenty days to reach the canon, a seemingly 
unnecessarily long time, was satisfied to return when once he had made an 
attempt to cross the gorge. His report told that the river seemed to be three 
or four leagues below them. In reality they were about 5,000 feet above the bed 
of the river and about eight miles from it by the present trails. It was told 
that the country was elevated and so cold that, save in the warm season, no 
one could live there. Three days were spent looking for a passage down to the 
river, ** which looked from above as if the water was six feet across, though the 
Indians said it was a half a league wide." Captain Melgosa and two com- 
panions, light and agile men, chose what appeared to be the least difficult place 
and went down until those who were above them were unabla to keep sight of 
them, but they returned in the afternoon saying that they had gone only a third 
of the way and that rocks that seemed from the top to be about as tall as a 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 55 

man in reality were bigger than the great tower of Sevilla. The Indian guides 
incorrectly told them that the western way beyond, presumably along the same 
Moqui trail, had no water within three or four days' travel. Cdrdenas returned 
with the information that the upper reaches of the Bio Tison had been encoun- 
tered and that the canon was impassable. Without doubt he was the first 
European who ever feasted his eye upon the glories of the gorge. 

Coronado soon led his men into the Rio Grande Valley, where he explored 
diligently, ever hoping to find the wealth of the Indies. His principal quest 
later was the golden kingdom of Quivira, the journey leading across the buffalo 
plains till finally Quivira was found, a large settlement of semi-nomadic Indians, 
reached in August of 1541 by a party of thirty horsemen, led by himself. He 
had sent his main force back to the Rio Grande pueblos. The farthermost point 
reached probably was in northeastern Kansas, beyond the Arkansas River. 

Having absolutely failed to develop any riches, the expedition of Coronado, 
by himself and his followers, seems to have been considered a failure, for their 
explorations, however important to future generations, had brought them nothing 
but travail. So, early in 1542, the greater part of the army was marshaled and 
started back to Mexico. A few Mexican Indians were left in several pueblos. 
Three friars, led by Juan de Padilla, refused to depart, having found ample 
treasure in the souls of the natives. Padilla, who had been with Coronado to 
Quivira, returned to the plains with a Portuguese companion and several Indian 
and negro servants to meet martyrdom, which probably had been expected by 
him. Docampo, the Portuguese, managed to escape with several others of the 
party and eventually reached Tampico on the Mexican Gulf, with a story that 
they had been captured by Indians en route and had been held as slaves for 
ten months. Friar Juan de la Cruz was left at Teguex, where, in November, 
1543, he met death at the hands of those he sought to serve. The third of the 
clergy was Friar Luis de Escalona, who stayed behind at Pecos, and of whom 
nothing further ever was heard. 

Coronado, though meeting reinforcements and supplies at Chichilticalli, re- 
turned to Mexico, early in the winter of 1542, with only a ragged remnant of the 
magnificent force with which he had set out two years before, his ranks thinning 
rapidly after the conunand reached Mexico as the wearied men dropped out in 
each successive settlement. It was a sad homecoming, for many had been left 
behind dead, many slaves had been lost and scores of unfortunates had been 
sacrificed. The situation bore heaviest of all upon the Viceroy himself, for 
Mendoza had not only risked his personal fortune in outfitting the expedition, 
but, without authority, he had drawn upon the royal revenues for the unlucky 
enterprise. Still, it is told so firmly had he established himself in the govern- 
ment of Mexico, by reason of honesty of character and rare ability of adminis- 
tration, even this failure did not cause the ruin expected to his political standing. 

Of Coronado there seems to have been no further political record. He re- 
signed his governorship of Nueva Galicia and retired to his Mexican estate. 
That he was an honest man and an able commander there seems no reason to 
doubt. His failure was not. one of administration, but was due wholly to a 
belief in stories which had been shared with him by practically all the people 
of New Spain. 



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56 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

A commentator of the times piously observes: **It was most likewise chas- 
tisement of God that riches were, not found on this expedition, because, when 
this ought to have been the secondary object of the expedition and the conver- 
sion of all those heathen their first aim, they bartered with fate and struggled 
for the secondary; and thus the misfortune is not so much that all of those 
labors were without fruit, but the worst is that such a number of souls have 
remained in their blindness/* 

ALABCON» FIRST TO SAIL THE COLORADO 

The Colorado River first was navigated by Hernando de Alarcon, who had 
been sent in command of several vessels to explore the northwest coast of 
Mexico at the same time that Coronado was heading for Cibola, which then 
hy geographers was placed on or near a large body of water. 

Alarcon started from Acapulco ^lay 9, 1540. At the port of Culiacan he 
added the ship San Gabriel to his fleet and sailed several weeks after the de- 
parture of the land expedition. He skirted the desert shores of the west coast 
till he reached sand bars at the head of the Gulf of California, the same obstruc- 
tion that had turned back UUoa, who had been sent north by Cortez the previous 
summer. Despite the protest of his pilots, the Spanish captain found a way 
around the shoals into the mouth of a large river, with so strong a current that 
his sailing vessels were unable to make any headway. With twenty men and 
two boats he started upstream August 26, 1540. A number of natives were 
met and were won over with gifts of trinkets. They made possible further 
progress by dragging the boats by ropes, relays of different tribesmen being 
readily found for the service at need. It may be worthy of note that in later 
days the Cocopahs, Yumas and ^lojaves rendered like service to flat boats and 
small steamers, on which they were found especially valuable as deck hands, 
owing to their amphibious nature. 

Alarcon made report that he laid the groundwork for the conversion of 
those people and received generous supplies of com and other provisions. But 
constant inquiries concerning Cibola and the march of the Coronado expedition 
met with no satisfactory response till he had traveled far up the river. Then 
was found a man from whom was learned that Cibola was a month's journey 
away by a good trail. This Indian seems to have told a thoroughly straight 
story concerning the Cibola dwellers, whom he said he had visited simply in 
curiosity after hearing of the great wealth of the land. Also were heard tales 
of people who lived further away than Cibola, who had houses of wood for win- 
ter and who lived in pavilions during the summer and of great animals, that 
may have been the buffalo. 

Later Alarcon received satisfactory intelligence through Indian sources that 
Coronado had reached Cibola, but was unable to find a man of all his force 
willing to undertake an overland journey as bearer of a message to the land 
commander. So the expedition returned to the ship, taking only two and a half 
days to accomplish a distance that had consumed over fifteen days on the upward 
journey. 

With replenished supplies, Alarcon then made a second up-river journey, 
starting September 14 and again wa.s towed by the friendly Indians. He esti- 
mates that he traveled about eighty-five leagues to a point which probably took 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 57 

him past The Needles and to the beginning of the canon, where rapids turned 
him back. He erected a cross at his northernmost point and chose to call the 
stream El Rio de Buenaguia. Near the mouth of the river, where one of the 
ships had been careened on shore, was built a chapel in honor of Nuestra 
Senora de Buenaguia (Our Lady of Good Guidance.) 

One of the principal resting places for the army of Coronado was in a little 
province^ probably near the Sonora River, called by Cabeza de Vaca, Cora- 
z6nes, because the people there had offered him the hearts of animals. There 
was founded a settlement named San Hieronimo de los Coraz6nes, but this 
was abandoned and moved to a valley which had been named Senora, 
possibly the origin of the latter-day name of Sonora. From this point 
several expeditions were made to the westward, one of them led by the doughty 
Captain Melchior Diaz, who found giant Indians who lived in big communal huts 
• that held often 100 persons and of whom was told, **on account of the great 
cold they carry a firebrand (**tison'') in their hands when they go from one 
place to the other, with which they warm the other hand and the body as well, 
and in this way they keep shifting it over now and then.'' Hence, the name 
given the Colorado River, **Rio del Tison," described as two leagues wide at its 
mouth. Fifteen leagues up the river, on a tree, was found written, **Alarcon 
reached this place; there are letters at the foot of this tree." The letters were 
found in a sealed jar and told how Alarcon had been unable to proceed farther 
and had returned with his shipc to New Spain, explaining that the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia was a bay and not a strait as had been thought. Alarcon told how he had 
been there in the year 1540 and, having waited for many days without news 
from Coronado, he had been obliged to depart, because the ships were being eaten 
hy the teredo, the marine worm. Captain I)iaz crossed the river with men and 
luggage in large wicker baskets, which had been so coated with gum that they 
did not leak. He marched westward for four days but found only the desert, 
growing worse as he proceeded. He returned into northern Sonora on his way 
to the Corazones Valley. On the journey he was fatally wounded with his 
own lance, of which the butt end pierced his groin, and he died before reaching 
the settlement. Thus ended the life of one of the sturdiest of the Spaniards 
and, probably, one of the best. 

SPANISH SETTLEMENT OF NEW MEXICO 

Two-score years had passed after the expedition of Coronado before its failure 
had been so mellowed by time tliat further explorations were undertaken. Then 
it was not the thought of gold that served to inspire the explorers, but the mis- 
sionary spirit of the devoted friars. In 1581 Padre Agustin Rodriguez secured 
church and secular permission for a journey to the.northward and, in company 
with two other Franciscans, Francisco Lopez and Juan de Santa Maria, set 
out from San Bartolomo in northeastern Mexico. With him went a guard of 
soldiers under Captain Chamuscado and a number of Indians. The soldiers 
went as far as a pueblo village just north of Albuquerque in the Rio Grande 
Valley and th^n started back, the captain dying on the way, but the Franciscans 
carried their cross still farther. They found so many natives and so much 
work to do that Padre Juan de Santa Maria was sent back to ask for more 
clergy. The messenger was murdered by Indians while resting under a tree. 



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58 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Lopez, about the same time and Rodriguez soon afterward, received crowns 
of martyrdom in Indian villages in north-central New Mexico. 

Already, however, the story told by the soldiers on their return had affected 
the piety and pride of Antonio de Espejo, a wealthy mine owner of Santa Bar- 
bara, who, late in 1582, started northward into New Mexico by way of Chihuahua. 
Not till they had passed Isleta did the expedition learn of the murder of the 
friars. 

Espejo was a man of high spirit and enterprise. With only two followers 
he explored towards the northeast into the buffalo country, then up the Rio 
Grande and westerly with his whole command, to the towns of the Jemez Indians, 
continuing to the pueblo of Acoma, where he was very kindly received. Three 
days later he started westward again, proceeding to Zuni, which was identified 
as Cibola, finding three Mexican Indians, who had been left from the Coronado 
expedition, Andres of Culiacan, Qaspar of Mexico and Antonio of Guadalajara, 
The trio told Espejo that to the westward was a rich country full of precious 
metals and in it ai great lake. So, with nine soldiers, Espejo pressed on. At 
twenty-eight leagues he came, at Awatobi, to the Moqui villages, where he claimed 
he found 50,000 people, a lai^e overestimate. Securing Indian guides and 
looking for mines, he is supposed to have penetrated nearly as far as the site of 
Prescott. In this region he found a silver vein, from which he brought back 
rich specimens. His Indian guides told him of the Colorado River, asserting 
that it was eight leagues wide. It is probable there was meant the Grand Canon, 
which in places is nearly as broad as represented. The great lake must have 
been wholly in their imagination, however, unless it were the Great Salt Lake, 
far to the northward. 

Espejo went no farther westward, however, but made fairly thorough ex- 
ploration of the present New Mexico, returning by way of the Pecos River to 
his home, which he reached September 20, 1583. His expedition had cost 10,000 
ducats and was wholly at his own expense, and as Twitchell justly observes, he 
had accomplished as much as had Coronado and his army. 

Seven years later another expedition made its way up the Salado River (the 
Pecos), under the leadership of Gaspar Castano de Sosa, then Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor of Nuevo Leon. Sosa, when in northern New Mexico, rejoicing over the 
news of reinforcements, found a force of Spanish soldiers had followed only to 
arrest him for having undertaken exploration without proper authority. So 
both parties returned to Mexico forthwith. 

In 1595 the expedition of Francisco Leiva Bonilla was sent into Texas against 
Indian raiders. Bonilla appears to have satisfactorily accomplished his mission 
of revenge and then to have started on his own account to find and enjoy the 
riches of Quivira. He was murdered by a subordinate, one Juan de Humana, 
who assumed the command. Save for two membei*s, the entire expedition was 
ambushed and destroyed a few weeks later, somewhere on the plains. 

The first real settlement of the Rio Grande Valley was made by Juan de 
Oiiate of Zacatecas. Onate was not only wealthy but very well connected and 
had married a granddaughter of Hernando Cortez. With ten Franciscan friars, 
about 130 soldiers and a number of colonizing families, under royal warrant, 
he started his expedition from San Bartolomo in January, 1598, after a year 
of vexatious oflBcial delays. In May the Rio Grande was crossed below El Paso 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 59 

and the land was formally declared taken into the Spanish kingdom. Onate 
in his capacity as governor, established his capital on the west side of the Rio 
Grande near its junction with the Chama. He named the new settlement San 
Gabriel. There in August, when the slower traveling colonists came, was erected 
the first Christian church in New Mexico. Oiiate, like Espejo, was a great 
traveler and, himself and by representatives, explored almost every nook of the 
Southwest. His principal trouble with the Indians was with the arrogant people 
of Acoma, a pueblo town considered impregnable, on the top of an almost inac- 
cessible mesa. The people of Acoma had killed Onate 's nephew. Captain Saldi- 
var, and a number of his men in most treacherous manner. Against the vil- 
lage were sent seventy men headed by Vicente de Saldivar, a brother of the 
murdered captain. He gained the s\immit of the cliflf by strategy and there 
was terrible retribution at the hands of the mail-clad Spaniards. Only 600 sur- 
vived of the 3,000 inhabitants of Acoma. There was no further threat of rebel- 
lion for a while among the Pueblo villagers. 

One of the expeditions of Onate was to the Zuni and Moqui pueblos and to 
the Colorado. With Chaplain Pedro Escobar, he reached the Colorado down the 
valley of a stream which he called San Andres, probably Bill Williams Fork of 
the present day, for he could hardly have made his way through the Colorado 
Canon. He followed the Colorado to its mouth, renamed it Rio Grande de 
Buena Esperanza (Good Hope) and made notation of the different tribes of 
Indians. The mouth of the river he named Puerto de la Conversion de San 
Pablo. He crossed the Gila and on the Gulf of California, January 25, 1605, 
found a fine harbor around an island. About the same road was taken on the 
return trip, which was accompanied with grave hardships. The soldiers had 
eaten all of their horses by the time they had made their way back to San Ghibriel, 
April 25, 1605. 

In this same year the capital was removed to Villa Real de Santa F6 de San 
Francisco (which, variously is noted as settled from 1582) apparently with lit- 
tle ceremony and without any record left that tells the reason for such an im- 
portant change. Soon thereafter was built the church of San ^liguel, which 
still stands, probably the oldest Christian church structure within the United 
States. Three years later Onate was succeeded as Governor by Pedro de Peralta, 
but seemed to have retained some authority and to have continued his exploring 
trips. There is a record that Vicente de Saldivar made a trip to the Grand 
Canon in 1618. 

A number of Spanish (Jovemors succeeded in rather rapid succession, in- 
cluding a romantic character, Diego de Penalosa, a Peruvian, who took oflBce in 
1660. There would appear to have been more or less disorganization. In 1679, 
when Antonio Otermin became Governor, there had been complaint of years 
of severity toward the Indians, both by the Spanish soldiery and by the priest- 
hood. Of especial mention was the punishment of a large number of Indians, 
at the instance of oflBcials of the Inquisition, for maintaining their ancient rites. 
As early as 1645, forty Indians had been hanged for witchcraft. 

NEW MEXICAN INDIAN REBELLION OF 1680 

August 10, 1680, following a plan that had been prearranged by a Pueblo 
Indian ** wizard" named Pop6, the Pueblo towns revolted and Spaniards 



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60 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

about 400 in number, save a few of the young women, were massacred in the 
outlying pueblos. But nearly 2,000, including 155 Spanish soldiers, assembled 
at Santa Fe, which was fortified against a horde of thousands of Indians. August 
19 the Spaniards made a sortie and captured forty-seven Indians, who were 
executed on the public plaza. The next day, however, it became evident that the 
town could not be held and so retreat was commenced with only a few horses 
to carry goods or the sick. The Indians were content to see their foes leaving 
and offered no further molestation, though it is told that the Spaniards were 
followed for seventy miles down the river, that the Indians might be assured 
they were really leaving the country. The refugees made winter quarters about 
thirty miles north of El Paso, at San Lorenzo, from which point most of them 
later made their way to the settlements in Chihuahua. 

No less than twenty-one members of the Franciscan order died on the day 
of the insurrection, nearly all of them suffering horrible deaths, for the priests 
especially were blamed by the Indians for the suppression of ancient tribal 
rites. The churches were burned and the garments of the priesthood and the 
decorations of the altars were flaunted by Indians in the plaza in dances that for 
years had been proscribed. The baptized Indians were washed with soapweed in 
the rivers and they returned to their Indian names and rejected all Spanish 
customs and the use of the Spanish tongue. 

Otermin organized an unsuccessful attempt to regain the country, at the 
head of a large force from Paso del Norte, but, with a short intermission, Pop6 
retained supreme authority, a veritable savage emperor among the Pueblos, until 
he died, in 1688. 

SPANISH FRONTIEB ADIONISTBATION 

Santa Fe was recaptured in September, 1692, by Gtovemor Diego de Vargas, 
who had been sent with several hundred Spaniards to return New Mexico to 
the dominion of the Spanish crown, Vargas appears to have been a diplomat, 
and his first expedition was successful throughout and untarnished by blood. 
He visited practically all of the pueblos, marching even as far westward as the 
Moqui towns, in all promising pardon from the King and absolution by the 
church. The latter was given by a priest who accompanied each expedition. In 
December, 1693, however, on a second entrada in force, the Tanos Indians re- 
fused to evacuate Santa Fe, where the houses were needed by the shivering 
Spanish soldiery and so were driven out. It is told that at daybreak the Span- 
iards broke through the defenses and slaughtered hundreds of the inhabitants. 
Bolsas, the Indian leader, and seventy of his warriors were executed on the plaza 
and 400 women and children were distributed among the Spaniards as slaves. 

Vargas had the usual reward of patriots, for in 1696 he was deposed as Gov- 
ernor and his enemy, Pedro Rodriguez Cubero, placed in his stead. Vargas, 
indeed, spent about three years in prison in Santa Fe, charged with peculation in 
office, though the King, in remote Spain, had ordered him given the thanks of the 
Crown and a choice between the titles of Marquis and Count. When the word 
of the King finally came, Vargas was re-established as Gubemador, with the 
added dignity of Marquez de la Nava de Brazinas. But his renewed honors 
failed to protect him from death, which came in April, 1704, while he was leading 
an expedition against the Navajo. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 61 

An ad interim Governor, Francisco Cuervo, is to be credited with the estab- 
lishment, in 1706, of the Villa de San Francisco de Alburquerque, named after 
the Governor's patron, at the time Viceroy of New Spain. The Viceroy modestly 
altered the name to San Felipe, in honor of King Philip, but Albuquerque today 
is the name of New Mexico's most populous city. 

Few of the twenty-seven succeeding administradores of New Mexico seem 
historicaUy material. It is probable the rapid successsion of appointment within 
New Spain meant that oflScial loot had to be gathered quickly before some courtier 
arrived from Mexico or Madrid to succeed to the oflSce and its prerogatives. 
There are records of many political quarrels, complicated by disagreements with 
the clergy, of expeditions against many sorts of Indians and of trouble with the 
Indians of the missions. Twitchell, in his admirable work on New Mexico, de- 
clares that at no time did the Church or the Inquisition have the power of life or 
death over the Indians. Charges of witchcraft, with possible penalty of death, 
were heard before civil or military tribunals. It would appear that the mis- 
deeds of the simple natives were extended leniency in much larger degree than 
given offending Europeans. 

It was during the administration of Gov. Joaquin de Real AUencastre, in 
1807, that Pike made his famous, though involuntary, trip through New Mexico. 
Lieut. Facundo Melgares, the same who had charge of Pike's escort to the City 
of Chihuahua, was the last Spanish Governor of New Mexico. Pike had observed 
in his notes that this Spanish officer was the only one he had met who seemed to 
be really loyal to the King. 

FRENCH CLAIMS IN THE SOUTHWEST 

For fifty or more years there was friction in the Southwest between the Span- 
ish and French. The latter, on the discovery rights of La Salle's expedition 
completed in 1682, claimed in their Province of Louisiana the land westward from 
the Mississippi, north of tlje Red River, extending to a point not far east of Santa 
F6, possibly to the Pecos, before the line bent to the northwest. In Bancroft, 
without comment, is found a statement that in 1698 the French almost anni- 
hilated a Navajo force of 4,000 men, from which could be inferred that the French 
had penetrated, and in force, their new territory to some point within or near the 
present area of Arizona. But the story is most improbable. It is more likely 
that there was a fight between the Indians and a comparatively few of the ad- 
venturous French trappers of the day. From a number of sources have been 
picked up the following items : In 1700 the French destroyed a village of Jumanos, 
in northern New Mexico. In 1719 Governor Valverde, while on an expedition to 
the northward, was told of a battle between the Apaches and French, the latter 
having Pawnees and Jumanos as allies. The Apaches were of the Jicarilla 
branch, that ranged at that time as far eastward as the Kansas plains. In 1720 a 
Spanish expedition of fifty men into the valley of the Arkansas, in southern Colo- 
rado, was said to have been annihilated by French and Pawnees. That the French 
had succeeded in establishing trade in the Southwest is shown by an order of the 
Spanish King in 1723 prohibiting any traflBc between the French and the outlying 
colonies of New Spain. In 1727 the French raided the Indian village of Cuar- 
telejo, 130 leagues north of Santa Fe. In 1739 nine French Canadians arrived at 
Santa F6, where several of them established themselves. In 1743 one of them was 



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62 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

ehot after trial and conviction on a charge of trying to incite rebellion among the 
Indians. In 1747 warfare against the Spanish was incited by thirty-three French, 
who had sold firearms to the Jicarillas. This border skirmishing was concluded in 
1762, when France ceded to Spain all her possessions west of the Mississippi. It 
should be remembered, however, that Spain in 1800 turned Louisiana back to 
France and that only three years later Napoleon, to spite England and for a pay- 
ment of $15,000,000, turned this enormous western empire over to the United 
States. ' 



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MAP OF PADRE KINO, 1702 



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CHAPTER V 
MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 

The Jesuits Till Their Expulsion in 1767 — Entr'^ of the Franciscans — Padre Carces, 
His Trco^els and Martyrdom — Foundation of San Francisco by De Anza — San 
Xavier, 

Following the return of Coronado, there appears to have been a lapse of nearly 
a century and a half wherein Pimeria Alta was left unvisited by white men. 
This is hardly to be believed, considering the zeal of the early missionaries and 
the adventurous character of the Spaniards, who had established themselves in 
so permanent a manner in the outposts of Sinaloa and lower Sonora. Even the 
lure of the silver mines was not as strong as the attraction to the clergy toward 
the land where so many heathen yet remained in spiritual darkness. 

In 1590, at the request of the Governor of Durango and Nueva Biscaya, the 
Jesuit order was called upon to furnish missionaries for Sinaloa. Fifty years 
later they had spread their work northward into the Yaqui country and along the 
Sonoran Gulf coast. 

There was a long period of relative stagnation, both spiritual and temporal, 
till 1681, when Padre Eusebio Kino (Kuhn) was sent from Mexico to work with 
the tribes of Pimeria Alta, with the Rio Gila as the northern boundary of the 
territory thus assigned. He had been a professor in the University of Ingolstadt, 
Bavaria, where he had bound his life to the conversion of the American Indians 
if, through the intercession of St. Francis Xavier, he should recover from a fever. 
He did recover and he started soon thereafter for America. 

In 1683, under a decree granting the ecclesiastical field of Lower California to 
the Society of Jesuits, a party of priests was sent to La Paz, where Admiral Isidro 
Otondo y Antillon renamed the country **La Provincia de la Santisima Trinidad 
de las Calif omias." This expedition has local importance mainly for the fact 
that one of these priests, named as cosmographer, was none other than Kino. He 
labored for seventeen months on the California peninsula, then returned to 
Sonora. 

In 1687 Padre Kino had established four missions, his headquarters at San 
Juan de Dolores, San Ignacio de Caborca, San Jose de Imures and Los Remedios. 



PRONUNCIATION — Spanish pronunciation is regular and can be learned easily. For the benefit 
of readers unfamiliar with the tongue, the following notations are presented : a has the sound of a 
in far : e that of e in they ; i that of ee In seen ; o that of o in so ; u that of oo in food ; J and x that 
of a harsh h; fi that of ny in lanyard; y or 6 (when standing alone, meaning "and") that of ee in 
see; 11 (a single letter in Spanish) generally that of y in yard. In words place Inflection on accented 
vowels, as cftntara, corazdn ; where not accented, ending with a vowel or n or s, inflection is on the 
penultimate syllable, as canta'ra, cataclis' mo ; "where not accented, ending with a consonant, except 
n or 8, Inflection is on the last syllable, as principal', conocer'. In Mexico, b and v, pronounced as a 
labial V, and j and x, pronounced as a harsh h, seem interchangeable. H always is silent. 

63 



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64 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

These missions in 1690 were inspected by Reverend Juan Maria Salvatierra, who 
came from the City of Mexico and who was accompanied on his round by Padre 
Kino. They then met many Indians of different tribes and were invited to go 
farther northward with the work. Some of these Indians were Papagos, who had 
come 120 miles. It was told that their pleading soon thereafter led to the estab- 
lishment of the mission of Guebabi, near the present Sonora frontier. 

In 1692, it is known that the missionaries spread their activities among the 
different tribes of the western part of Arizona, and that in 1694 two missions, 
Inmiaculate Conception and St. Andrew's, were established by Kino among the 
Pimas on the Gila River. Within what is now included Sonora and Arizona had 
been founded twenty-nine missions, including seventj'-three Indian pueblos. Of 
these it is told that the mission of San Xavier was one of the most flourishing. 

Kino was a wonderful traveler. In 1694 he had completed the first visitation 
of his entire territory. He made a memorable journey into the present Arizona, 
starting from Dolores February 7, 1699, with him going Captain Mange, a most 
careful narrator, and a second priest, Adam Gilg. They cut across the deserts, 
probably favored by the rainy season, striking the Gila three leagues above its 
mouth ; thence continuing on to the Colorado, where they tarried only two days, 
before starting on their return journey up the Gila. This chronicle is mainly 
interesting through the designation of the streams. The Colorado is named 
Rio de los Martires. Kino called the Gila, Rio de los Apostoles and four of the 
branches he grouped as Los Evangelistas, though only one of them bore the name 
of a saint. While the pious names appended to the Colorado and Gila have been 
lost in the passing of centuries, the names he applied to the four branches have 
endured, to-wit, tlie Salado, Verde, Santa Cruz and San Pedro. He named all 
the Indian villages on his route, placing each of them under the protection of 
some saint and doubtless assuring the wondering natives that their lot would be 
bettered by reason of the ghostly protection. Some of these names up the Gila 
are set forth on his map. 

In March of the following year, in company with his friend, Padre Salva- 
tierra, with whom he had worked on the peninsula, he set out from Dolores with 
the intention of reaching the latter 's mission of Loretto by land. They went as 
far north as 32 deg. north latitude, where they looked across a narrow strait and 
saw the mountains of California. Then their provisions gave out and they had 
to return. 

Padre Kino died in 1710, while still working among his beloved Sonora Indians 
and at the age of 70 years. A historian of the times told that he had baptized 
more than 48,000 Indians. In the same chronicle, that of Calvijero, is told: **In 
all his journeys he carried no other food than roasted com ; he never omitted to 
celebrate Holy Mass and never slept upon a mattress. As he wandered about he 
prayed incessantly or sang hymns or psalms. He died as saintly as he had lived. ' ' 

However great a traveler. Kino left no very permanent church record in Ari- 
zona, and his field seemed to have been lightly considered by the church authori- 
ties in comparison with their more important work to the southward. At the time 
of his death there was only one permanent mission in all of what now is Arizona, 
and after hi^ last trip to the Gila in 1702, there seems to have been no priestly 
visitation north of Guebabi for a score of years, though there is some reference 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 65 

to the services of Padres Jos6 Perea and Alejandro Bapuani at San Xavier in 
1720. 

In 1723 the Jesuits re-entered the country, but found it impossible, by reason 
of the presence of savage Apaches, to pass beyond the mountains in which were 
the missions of Tubutama and Guebabi. The missionaries scattered, however, 
through all of Pimeria, there being record of Father Ignacio Keller, missionary 
of Santa Maria Suamca, who had several times visited the friendly Indians along 
the Rio Gila. In September, 1743, with a small guard, he passed the Rio Gila, 
only to be driven back by hostile Indians, several days' travel to the northward 
of that stream. 

In the latter part of 1744 Padre Jacob Sedelmaier traveled eighty leagues 
northward from Tubutama, where he reported he found 6,000 Papagos and about 
the same number of Pimas and Coco-Maricopas dwelling in difEerent rancherias. 
These Indians, when informed of the priest's intention to pass through to the 
country of the Moquis, soon persuaded the traveler that it was impracticable. 
But vrith the assistance oi the Coco-Maricopas he traveled westward to the Colo- 
rado and entered the country of the Cuchans (Yumas), enemies of the Coco-Mari- 
copas, though of the same generic stock. 

In May, 1721, an attempt was made by Padre Juan de Ugarte, an associate of 
Salvatierra's, to find a way through to the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia. He sailed from San Dionisio Bay in May of that year with two small 
boats, with an Englishman, William Strafort, as pilot. The larger ship wa» 
stranded for a while in the shallow channel between the Isla Tiburon and the 
mainland. Proceeding northward, the water changed to a muddy red and the 
mouth of the Colorado was entered, probably at the time of its maximum spring 
freshet, for the current was so strong that the ships could make no headway 
against it. Another voyage to the mouth of the Colorado was made in July, 1746, 
in two open boats by Padre Consag, but the rapid current again prevented any 
material exploration. 

PIMEBIA BEVOLT OF 1751 

The missions soon passed through great tribulations. It is jHMSsible that the 
good Jesuit fathers rather overworked their indolent charges. The Indians, 
weary of discipline, revolted November 21, 1751, killing about 100 Spaniards and 
destroying the missions and towns. In the old Spanish chronicles especially were 
mentioned the southern Pima and Ceris tribes, though the Papagos also joined the 
rebellion, covering all the tribes in the land known as Pimeria, as distinguished 
from Apacheria, to the northward, where dwelt the wild pagan Indians of the 
hills. A number of priests met martyrdom at the hands of the Indians and prac- 
tically aU other Spaniards had to flee from the country. Three years later a 
priest was again at San Xavier, whose two Jesuits had escaped, for in its records 
are found, too briefly telling a story of bloodshed and privation, the following 
note, written and signed by Padre Francisco Paner: '*0n the 21st November, 
1751, all the Pima nation rebelled and deprived this mission of its spiritual min- 
ister until now 1754, in which year the Indians have returned to their pueblo, 
meaning, as they say, to live peaceably. And, for the authenticity of this writ- 
ing, I sign it.*' 

The revolt had been instigated, according to a church historian, by a certain 



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66 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Luis, from Saric, Sonora, who pretended to be a wizard and who made the Indians 
** consider as advantageous to them what he intended for his own benefit." Luis 
had received appointment from the Spaniards as * * Captain General of the Pimas 
of the Mountains. ' ' 

This rebellion by no means was as bloody as that known in New Mexico in 
1680, possibly owing to want of material upon which to work. Yet there were 
three ecclesiastical martyrs. Padres Francisco Xavier Saeta, Enrique Ruen and 
Tomas TeUo. The smelting furnaces were destroyed and the mine pits were filled 
in everywhere along what is now known as **the border." Indeed, there have 
been found such filled-in shafts in the hills south of Phoenix. One of the Spanish 
mines of the period, possibly that farthest north, may have been the **01d Monte- 
zuma" or ''Black Jack," twelve miles west of Vulture, where a fifty-foot shaft, 
which had been sunk in steps, was found filled in. The ore was soft and was rich 
in silver. There has been absolute denial that the padres ever compelled their 
charges to work in the mines or that the Church itself ever held ownership in any 
mines of Pimeria Alta. So to other Spaniards must be ascribed this work. 

Backed by soldiery, the Jesuits returned, undismayed, the following year to 
the Santa Cruz Valley and northern Sonora. The military presidio of Tubac, the 
northernmost of all, was established in 1752 to guard both Guebabi and San 
Xavier, as well as a half dozen visitas, including Tumacacori, Calabazas and 
Tucson, all of them merely rancherias, where many of the Indians had mani- 
fested some interest in religion. To the southeast a relatively strong garrison 
seems to have been maintained at Fronteras and Janos. In 1754 was built the 
mission of Tumacdcori. 

EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS 

The jealousy and treachery that were so notable in the conduct of Spanish 
affairs concerning New Spain, on a number of occasions embraced also the devoted 
and unselfish work of the religious bodies. Most notorious in this connection was 
the decree in 1767 of King Carlos III, expelling all members of the Society of 
Jesus from his dominions. It is told that at the time Masonic influences con- 
trolled the court of Spain. This is doubtful, however, for the decree of expulsion 
did not concern any other of the Catholic religious orders. The reason probably 
was to be found in Spain itself, where it is told that the enemies of the Society 
of Jesus laid before the king a forged letter alleged to have been from the Su- 
perior-General of the Jesuits, in which was stated that the writer bad in his 
possession convincing proofs of the illegitimacy of the Spanish king. This letter 
is said to have had the effect of driving the monarch almost to insanity and to a 
demand upon the Pope that the Jesuit order be totally suppressed. The Jesuits 
then in New Spain had more than 100 Indian missions. 

The Jesuits submitted without protest to what the great Franciscan historian, 
Engelhardt, has called ** a brutal order carried out in a manner which would have 
disgraced any pagan tyrant of old, ' ' and accepted their deportation to Europe, 
often under circumstances of hardship that gave them the honor of martyrdom. 

The Jesuit missionaries who worked in what now is Arizona between 1690 
and 1767 have been listed by Archbishop J. B. Salpointe. They comprised Manuel 
Aguirre, Manuel Diaz del Carpio, Joaquin Felix Diaz, Alonzo Espinosa, Manuel 
Joseph Garrucho, Miguel Gerstner, Ignacio Xavier Keller, Francisco Kino, Igna- 
cio Lorasoain, Bernardo Middendorf, Juan Nentivig, Francisco Paner, Ildefonso 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 67 

de la Pena, Alejandro Rapuani, Bartolomeo Saenz, Juan Maria Salvatierra, Jose 
Perea de Torres and N. Pfeffercom. 

OOMINO OF THE FBANOISOANS 

The Marquis de Croix, Viceroy of Mexico, made application to the Guardian 
of the Franciscan college of Santa Cruz de Queretaro, Mexico, requesting him, on 
the part of King Charles III, to send at least twelve priests of his order to take 
charge of the missions of Sonora. Though it called for brethren needed at home, 
the petition was granted and, March 27, 1768, ** after a long and painful voyage/' 
fourteen missionaries were landed at Guaymas, whence they proceeded to San 
Miguel de Horcasitas, where they fixed their headquarters. Among the missions 
considered important enough to require the presence of a priest was San Xavier, 
to which was assigned Rev. Francisco Garces. 

The Jesuits had started religious work **at about seventy points in Sonora 
and New Mexico, including Guebabi, with two more pueblos and the presidio of 
Tubac (mission of Santa Gertrude), attended from it and El Bac, with the Pre- 
sidio of Tuyson (mission of San Agustin), three leagues distant.'' This designa- 
tion of Tucson as a presidio would seem to indicate a military settlement fully 
eight years before the date given in any other chronicle, but one probably tem- 
porary in character. 

The Franciscans detailed from 1767 to 1827 were : Juan Jos6 Agorreta, Pedro 
de Arriquibar, F. de la Asuncion, Joaquin Antonio Belarde, Juan Antonio Bere- 
noche, Mariano Bordoy, Baltazar Carillo, Gaspar de Clemente, Juan Corgoll, 
Rafael Diaz, Juan Diaz, Tomas X. Eixarch, Juan Bautista Estelric, Felix de 
Gamarra, Francisco Garces, Solano Francisco Garcia, Cristostomo Gil de Bernabe, 
Diego Gil, Narcisco Gutierres, Ramon Liberos, Juan Bautista Llorenz, Ramon 
Lopez, Juan Maldonado, Matias Jose Moreno, N. Nadal, Juan Bautista Neldar- 
rain, Marcos de Niza, Angel Alonzo de Prada, Jose Ignacio Ramirez, Gregorio 
Ruiz, Manuel Saravial, Juan Vario, Bartolome Ximeno, Florencio Ysanez, Fran- 
cisco Zuniga. 

The missions which had escaped going to complete ruin during the Indian 
revolt had hardly been started again when the Jesuits were expelled, so Padre 
Garces found San Xavier in a pitiable condition. 

Building these mission churches must have been a serious strain upon the 
resources of both the church and its Indian converts, for the only compensation 
received by the missionary was an allowance of $300 per annum for provisions. 
The Spanish government retained a degree of jurisdiction over the missions, and 
it had formally been decreed by the King that the Indians should be treated 
fairly. Two classes of Indians were known, those who worked for themselves and 
those who placed themselves under the care of the Church. The latter were fur- 
nished with food and clothing for themselves and families. Early in the morn- 
ing, the entire pueblo was called to church for morning prayers and mass. After 
their morning meal, the laborers were assembled by the ringing of a bell and were 
detailed to their work, which they were permitted to quit a little before sundown. 
Evening prayer, in the Indian language, was said by a priest standing in the 
middle of the plaza, and every word was repeated by selected Indians, who stood 
between him and the houses. A church writer narrates naively, that, ** notwith- 
standing these orders, many of the Indians fled every day from their respective 



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68 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

squads before reaching the place where they had to work, and tried only to be 
present at meals. Nevertheless, these are the men, who by their work, enabled 
the missionaries to build them houses and churches, learning at the same time how 
to earn their living in the future. That the Indians must have been happy under 
such a rule nobody can doubt." 

PADBE OAB0E8 AND HIS MI88I0K8 

Possibly the title of *' Patron Saint of Arizona" should go to Padre Garc&. 
Though more militant in his methods than Kino, he yet often traveled alone 
and without military escort, fiercely maintaining his doctrines and fighting the 
devil in whatever painted Indian guise he appeared. He was at least as great a 
traveler as Kino in mileage, but covered a much larger area of territory. Unable 
to master aU the Indian tongues of the Southwest, he evolved a< picture lesson 
he believed efficacious. It consisted of a lai^e banner, borne before him by a 
mozo. On one side of the canvas was a picture of the Blessed Virgin. On the 
other side was a terrifying representation of a condemned soul in hell. On 
his breast he wore a large crucifix, which in the presence of the natives he was 
accustomed to kiss at frequent intervals, thus hoping to provoke wonder and 
questioning. When he approached a strange community he would have turned 
toward the natives, if their demeanor proved hostile, the threatening side of the 
banner, but if they were peaceful he permitted them a sight of the picture of the 
Mother of God. Garces appeared to have had a good working knowledge of the 
Pima-Papago tongue and doubtless reached the western Apaches, Maricopas 
and Mojaves through the Yuma language. 

The missions on the Gila and Colorado appear to have been guarded by the 
transfer of troops from the presidio of San Miguel Horcasitas in Sonora, fol- 
lowing the approval of the presidio sites by Captain de Anza and the Inspector- 
General, Don Hugo 'Conor. At the passage of the second Califomia expedi- 
tion of de Anza in November, 1775, which was accompcmied by Padres Garces, 
Font and Eixarch, the Pimas are reported to have manifested great joy in see- 
ing the priests, who were lodged in a shed of boughs, in front of which, though 
Gentiles, the Indians had planted a large cross, thus showing that there was 
some remembrance of the teachings of Padre Kino. 

The Pimas and other tribes along the Gila were visited several times by the 
zealous Padre Garces. He met with only kindness from the Indians, who yet 
refused to have missions established in their viQages. The mission of San Capi- 
strano de Uturituc, established by Kino, had been abandoned long before, as 
weU as all effort by the Indian converts to maintain their faith. Compared with 
the large degree of success that had attended the efforts of missionary priests 
among the Papagos, it is notable that little could be done with the ethnologically 
allied Pimas. According to the Cronica Serafica, the Pimas were inclined to the 
practice of intercourse with the evil spirits, inherited from their ancestors and 
preventing germination of the evangelical seed in their hearts. There were 
many of them who were considered Christians because they had been baptized, 
**but who knew more of deviltry than of Catholic doctrine." The Jesuits said 
that the infernal enemy availed himself of the poor intellectual capacity of the 
Indians to prevent them from thinking of things relating to the soul and to the 
future life ; that the practice of witchcraft caused damage not only to their ene- 



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RriXS OF Tl'CSOX M1^SI()\ 
(IMioto bv Dr. Miink, \y\U\) 




TrMACACORI MISSION', IX 1913 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 69 

mies, but even to the missionaries who had never oflfended them and who, never- 
theless, suffered in their health and even died, some of them, of the effect of 
diabolical arts used against them. All this is a rather severe arraignment of the 
good Pima Indians, who ever have been the friends of the white man and who 
greeted the coming of Padre Kino and of his priestly successors even with en- 
thusiasm. It is a fact, however, that the religion of the white man made little 
progress with the northern Pimas until after the schooling of the children in 
governmental institutions. 

DE ANZA'S FOUNDATION OF SAN FBANOISOO 

San Francisco, the metropolis of the Pacific Coast, was founded by a little 
military party .from Tubac, led by Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza, comandante of 
that presidio. The Captain, a native of Sonora, whose fame appears to have 
reached to the' capital of New Spain, was, on his own suggestion, ordered tc 
break a road from the Sonora settlements to the mouth of the Gila, on up to San 
Gabriel and thence up the coast, preparatory to the movement of a large body 
of colonists, intended for settlement of the shores of the great bay that had been 
found by Portola in 1769. 

Anza left Tubac January 8, 1774, with thirty-four soldiers. For the expenses 
of the expedition the Viceroy of Mexico had made a grant of 21,927 pesos and 
two reals. The money came from the pious fund, devoted to the work of chris- 
tianizing the Indians. Anza marched by the southern route, much more difficult 
than that down the Gila, going by way of Caborca, San Marcelo de Sonoitac and 
across the desert, called *'E1 Camino del Diablo,*' (Devil's Journey) to the 
junction of the Colorado and Gila Rivers. He was led by an Indian, Sebastian 
by name, from the mission of San Gabriel, California, but the chief guide of 
the expedition really was Padre Garces, to whom Anza was instructed to look 
for advice on all occasions. "With Garces came Padre Juan Diaz, who had made 
the same journey three years before. In ecclesiastical chronicles is told how 
Anza confirmed Chief Palma as head of the Colorado Indians, hanging around 
his neck a silver medal. 

February 9, the party forded the Colorado and started into the desert, re- 
turning to the river ten days later for recuperation, starting again March 2. 
During the waiting time the reverend fathers diligently sought the conver- 
sion of the natives and broke up many pottery "idols" that were brought them 
by the Indians. The journey across the Colorado desert was made successfully 
and on March 22 the weary party entered the mission of San Gabriel, near Los 
Angeles, where almost famine conditions were found. 

Padre Garces went back with some of the troops to the Colorado, which was 
reached in twelve days, to find that men there left with cattle had deserted, 
fleeing to Caborca on receipt of news that Anza and his party had been killed 
by the savages. 

Captain Anza went on to the Presidio of Monterey (established about four 
years before) with six men, arriving April 18, but stayed only four days. He 
returned to San Gabriel in May and soon thereafter started back with a dozen 
soldiers for Tubac, arriving there on May 26, his trip apparently designed merely 
as a demonstration that the route was a practicable one. From Tubac, Anza 
went to the City of Mexico to report to the Viceroy in person. 



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70 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

The report proved acceptable and Anza was ordered again from Sonora 
overland to California, instructed to recruit his troop from Sonora, where 
drought had caused destitution, and to take along wives and children to assure 
the permanency of the new settlement that was to be established far to the 
north. Anza was directed also to c€irry supplies of seeds and flour and cattle. 
For this expedition the pious funds were drawn on in the sum of $2,000, taken 
from two missions in the department of San Bias by order of the Viceroy 
Bucareli. 

Anza's second expedition was organized at San Miguel de Horcasitas, Sonora, 
September 29, 1775, though ordered in the February preceding, when Anza had 
been raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The soldiers received two years 
pay in advance and rations for five years. As spiritual advisor was detailed 
Padre Pedro Font, who at the request of Viceroy Bucareli was directed to turn 
his Sonora Indian mission of San Jose de los Pimas over to Padre Joaquin 
Belarde. Padre Qarces was directed by the Viceroy to accompany the expedi- 
tion as far as the Rio Colorado, in order to ascertain the sentiments of the Yumas 
concerning the placing of a presidio and one or two missions along the river. 
Padre Tomas Eixarch joined the party at Tubac, from which the start was 
made on October 22. 

Besides Anza and the three priests, the party included officers, soldiers, mule- 
teers, soldiers' families, Indians, etc., in all amounting to 240 persons, with 
530 horses, 165 pack mules and 350 head of cattle. There were eight births on 
the trip. Mass was said every morning and there were sermons on Sundays and 
feast days, while at night the rosary was recited, for it should be understood 
that the purpose of the expedition primarily was the spreading of the faith 
among Gentiles, so proper devotions were considered essential on the part of 
the missionary troop. The second trip was by the much easier route through 
San Xavier, **Tuquison," the Pima visita of San Juan Capistrano de Uturitue, 
Agua Caliente and the mouth of the Gila, where the Colorado was forded on 
November 30. Colonel Anza in the name of the Viceroy conferred upon Palma 
a baton with a silver point as a mark of distinction and also clothed him in a 
uniform. Padres Garcfe and Eixarch remained with the Yumas. The main 
expeditioii reached San Gabriel January 4, 1776. There was a delay of several 
weeks while Colonel Anza and Capt. Fernando Xavier de Rivera y Moncada, of 
the local garrison of ** Leather Jackets,'' made a trip to San Diego, where the 
Indians had been in revolt. On February 21 Anza resumed his march, hy way 
of San Luis Obispo and Monterey, at the latter point being joyously welcomed 
by the presiding Padre Junipero Serra and the military and ecclesiastical 
population. 

With an advance party, including Padre Font, Anza took the route north- 
ward along the coast and came upon the Golden Gkite at Point Lobos. A few 
miles eastward in a pleasant cove, March 28, 1776, was founded a presidio, neai' 
the present Fort Point and upon the same land now known as **The Presidio" 
and occupied by the military establishment of the United States. Surely it was 
a tremendous change, to the damp fog of the straits, for the soldiers he had 
brought from the sunbaked valleys of the Southwest. Over the hills to the 
southeast a couple of miles was found a pleasant valley, agreed upon as the site 
of the mission, to be known after Our Lady of Sorrows. To-day that section 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 71 

of San Francisco still is known as **The Mission/' and its old adobe-built 
church,- flanked by a little churchyard, is still ** Mission Dolores/' 

After traveling around the bay, to the Suisun marshes, and locating another 
mission site near the bay's southern end, Anza returned to Monterey, April 8. 
He turned over command of the colonists to Lieutenant Moraga, with orders to 
march to the port of San Francisco and there establish a post. Himself, Padre 
Font and a considerable party started southward. On the road he had a dis- 
agreeable encounter with the jealous Captain Rivera, who had chief military 
authority on the coast, but who had almost suffered excommunication by reason 
of his arbitrary demeanor toward the missionaries. He reached the Colorado 
River May 2, near the present Yuma at a settlement then called Portezuelo de 
la Concepcion Purisima. Padre Qarces was off on an exploring trip, but Anza 
was joined by Padre Eixarch, Chief Palma and several Indians, who accom- 
panied him back to San Miguel de Horcasitas, which was reached June 1, 1776. 
His report to the Viceroy seems to have met with appreciation, but both he and 
Captain Rivera were censured for quarreling in manner detrimental to the mili- 
tary service. But, thereafter Anza served as governor of New Mexico, from 
1778 to 1789. He also secured promotion to a full colonelcy, at $2,400 a year. 

The establishment of the now-great city of San Francisco by an Arizona 
soldier and his party of poverty-stricken Sonora colonists has a flavor of romance, 
rare and grateful within this prosaic age. It matters little that the actual settle- 
ment was under an inferior ofiicer, for the idea of a through road connecting 
all the provinces of New Spain without dispute was that of de Anza. No small 
degree of credit also attaches to his feat of guiding across the deserts the units 
of his motley command. Rivera and Padre Palou had been on the peninsula 
before him and, in December of 1774, had planted a cross upon Point Lobos, the 
jut of land just south of the Golden Gate's entrance, a point that had been 
named Punta del Angel de la Guardia. 

Moraga, left under the authority of Rivera, was allowed to leave Monterey 
June 17, to carry out his instructions, taking with him two priests, seventeen 
soldiers and a few colonists, the greater number to come by water on the famous 
San Carlos, which had been the ship tender for Portola. The Lieutenant reached 
Dolores June 27 and at the Presidio founded a settlement of fifteen tents just 
five days before the American Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by 
the tongue of a bell that in the summer of 1915 rested on the grounds of the 
Pennsylvania building, within the Panama-Pacific Exposition, not a rifle shot 
from this site of the first Spanish colony. 

The San Carlos, driven by adverse winds as far south as San Diego, was 
seventy-three days on her voyage from Monterey. On September 17 the Presidio 
was dedicated, with a mass by Padre Palou in a little chapel that had been pro- 
vided. On October 8 there was a solemn procession across the hills to Dolores, 
there to dedicate La Mision de Nuestro Serafico Padre San Francisco de Asis. 
A few months later, Moraga led his soldiery in the founding of the mission of 
Santa Clara and of the pueblo of San Jose Guadalupe, to these distributing 
parts of his original Sonora colonists. He died July 13, 1785, still in command 
on the peninsula. The influence of the southern colonists on the history of 
California can be appreciated when it is told that in 1790 all of Alta California 
had a population of less than 1,000, exclusive of Indians. 



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72 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

THE TBAVELS OF PADBE OABOES 

After Garces and Eixarch had ^)een left in their new field of labor among 
the Yumas, the former started on a round of historic exploration. His first trip, 
undertaken in 1775, was to the southward, among the Cajuenches, whom he had 
visited in 1771, who manifested such horror at his picture of the condemned 
soul that they would not look upon it again. Through the country of the Coco- 
pahs, he reached the mouth of the Colorado and then returned to the Puerto de 
la Concepcion. About this time, on account of the rising river, the priests moved 
their station to an elevation of land where later was built the modem Fort 
Yuma in California. 

In February, 1776, the energetic missionary started up the west side of the 
Rio Colorado, received pleasantly by the Jamajab (Mojave) and Chemevet 
(Chemehuevi) Indians. While Garc& had been preceded by at least two parties 
of Caucausians into the valley of the Colorado, he was the first white man ever 
seen by the living Indians of the locality and was visited in all curiosity by the 
natives. He found the Indians to the northward superior to the Yumas and 
other tribes, less troublesome and less thievish, and added, **As I am the first 
Spaniard who entered their country, they made much of this event." From 
some point in the Mojave country on the Colorado, Garces was guided westward 
by Mojaves until he reached the mission at San Gabriel, which he had visited 
before with Anza in 1774. From San Gabriel, the friar made a general explora- 
tion of south-central California, as far northward as the lower San Joaquin Val- 
ley. His return to the Colorado was at the starting point, not far from the 
present site of Needles. 

Thence he struck eastward, guided by a Mojave into the ^country of the 
Yavapais, where he found a guide who claimed to have been to Moqui and to 
know the road thereto. He found the Yavapais very friendly and with five of 
them made most of the journey across northern Arizona to the village of Oraibe. 

On his way to the Moqui villages. Padre Garc6s had a wonderful trip, to 
which he really did not do justice in his narrative. He had passed through the 
country of the Jaguallapais (Hualpais), incidentally naming the present 
Peach Springs as Pozos de San Basilio. He was headed for the Rio Jabesua and 
for the tribe of the same name. If he say it carefully, after the Spanish method, 
the reader may connect this word with the modern Havasu, the dwellers on 
Cataract Creek within the tremendous canon of the same name, Garcfe was not 
content with the name, however. He changed the designation of the stream to 
Rio de San Antonio. Eventually, at the edge of the mesa, he came upon what 
he called "Voladero," a precipice or abyss, where he had to descend a ladder 
of wood, his Indians taking his mule down by another route. The pluck of the 
wandering priest well was shown by his willingness to use this frail and dan- 
gerous aboriginal pathway, which was part of the direct Hualpai trail, one of 
three that still lead into the canon. Probably the same route was taken in 
1858 by Lieutenant Ives, who made very much more fuse over it than did Garces, 
who called it only **a difficult road.'* It is probable that he found the Hualpais 
just about the same as they are to-day, a well-disposed tribe of about 200, tilling 
the soil. His way out was by the canon of Tope-kobe, along the clear old aborigi- 
nal Moqui trail, that even yet is used by the Moquis and Navajos in their traffic 
with the Supais and Hualpais. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 73 

Without much reference to his directions, which are vague indeed, Garc6s 
undoubtedly saw the Grand Canon first from the same point from which it was 
viewed by Coronado's captain and thence traveled to the Moqui villages on the 
very same trail. He told that he halted at the side of one of the most profound 
cajones, that ever onward continued, and that within this flowed the Rio Colo- 
rado. ''There is seen a very great sierra, which in the distance looks blue and 
runs from southeast to northwest, a pass open to the very base, as if the sierra 
were cut artificially to give entrance to the Colorado into these lands. '* 

It would appear that Garc6s for the occasion felt his ordinary religious nomen- 
clature unavailable, for he named the canon in honor of the Mexican Viceroy, "El 
Puerto de Bucareli." Escalante had called it "El Rio Grande de los Cosninos." 
The padre found across his path still another large stream known to the Indians 
as Jaquesila, singularly similar to that of the Yuman designation of the Gila, 
"Hah-qua-si-il-la," but he had to change the name to the San Pedro. He iden- 
tified it very plainly as the Little Colorado, for he said that its running water 
was very dirty and red and that it could not be drunk. It is possible that he did 
not go straightway to Oraibi but that he passed the Little Colorado somewhere 
near Moencopie "Wash, though the journey thither would have been diflBcult and 
apparently useless. 

The Moquis were found most inhospitable, though at Oraibi there was an 
Indian who addressed him kindly and who told him in Spanish, "Father, these 
are chichimecos (wild Indians) and they do not want to be baptized ; nor do they 
believe you are a priest; but I recognize you, for I am baptized.'' He invited the 
missionary to accompany him to Zuni and to Acoma. The invitation had to be 
declined, for the Yavapai guides refused to accompany him further. He sent a 
letter, however, by the Zuni to his missionary. 

The priest stayed in Oraibi, huddled at night in a little niche he had found. 
Every Indian had fled from him and he could find none with whom to converse. 
Finally, at sunrise on the third day, he was approached by a multitude in festal 
array, who, though offering no violence, told him that he could not remain. With 
uplifted crucifix, he addressed them with a fiery si>eech of mixed Spanish and 
Indian words, telling them that it was out of love that he had come to speak 
to them of the Lord Jesus Christ, who had allowed himself to be crucified for their 
welfare, but he seemed to make no impression and was escorted to a point outside 
the pueblo. Saddened by his failure, he hurried back to the Mojave country. 
He did not return to the mouth of the Gila on this trip, but, following down the 
Colorado, crossed that stream twelve leagues above the Gila and traveled east- 
ward through the country of the Coco-Maricopas and Pimas, finally reaching San 
Xavier September 17, 1776, after an absence of nearly eleven months, in which 
he had traveled 1,000 leagues, had visited nine tribes and had met about twenty- 
five thousand Indians. 

Padre Garces was a most systematic sort of individual, who kept a close diary 
of his travels. Much of this diary with his quaint observations on religion, morals, 
ethnology and geography, has been preserved and has had delightful translation 
by Coues. A copy of the priest's diary was sent through the Viceroy to the 
King himself. 



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74 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

MASSACRE OF THE SPANIARDS BY YUB£AS 

The padre, while lion-like in his personal courage, retained an opinion that 
success among the Yumas could be secured only under the protection of a strong 
presidio. In this he was in full accord with Colonel de Anza. But troops were 
few in the province. In February, 1779, Garces practically was ordered to return 
to Yuma, together with Padre Juan Diaz, as soon as the secular authorities had 
furnished the necessary guards and supplies. Only twelve soldiers with a ser- 
geant could be secured after waiting till August. The journey was made by the 
desert route through Sonoitac, Garces leading the way and finding conditions at 
the mouth of the Gila very much changed for the worse since his last visit, with 
the Indians at war with each other, disregarding his counsels for peace. They 
found also that Chief Palma, relying upon the promises of the secular authori- 
ties in Sonora, had promised supplies of tobacco, clothing and other articles, which 
the priests were unable to bring. Even the necessities of life were lacking for 
the missionaries and soldiers. • 

Report upon the subject to the authorities in Sonora brought back only lofty 
instructions for the establishment and maintenance of two mission pueblos among 
the Yumas, with details for the surveying of a townsite and placing thereon of 
houses in orderly style, that the Indians might be attracted '*by the good example 
and sweet manners of the settlers." To carry these out, from Sonora in the fall 
of 1780 was sent an additional force of 20 colonists, 12 laborers and 21 soldiers — 
all with wives and children. There was blundering throughout and all despite 
the reports made by Garces and of the veteran Anza. A pueblo was erected under 
the title of Concepeion, opposite the Gila's mouth, where the settlers from Mexico 
took possession of Indian fields, in defiance of a royal regulation, issued for the 
protection of the natives. Under instructions from Croix, a second pueblo was 
placed three leagues down the river, bearing the pretentious name of San Pedro 
y San Pablo de Bicuner. Padres Garces and Juan Antonio Barraneche had 
charge of the Mission Imaculate at Concepeion and Padres Juan Diaz and Jose 
Matias Moreno at Bicuner. 

The Church records uniformly give the Yumas about the worst character of 
the tribes of the Southwest. They had welcomed the Spaniards with the idea 
that from them wealth was to be secured. But when permanent settlers were 
established among them, with priests who lived without luxury and colonists who 
tilled the soil for a living and with soldiers both brutal and licentious, the atti- 
tude of the Indians soon changed to hatred. Even Chief Palma, who had been 
to the City of Mexico and had seen the grandeur of the Spaniards and who had 
been baptized with all ceremony in a cathedral, was humiliated by being placed 
in the stocks. ^ 

In June, 1871, from Sonora, bound for Santa Barbara, there came to Con- 
cepeion, Capt. Fernando Eivera y Moncada, late of Monterey, now made Lieu- 
tenant Governor of Baja California, with a party of recruit soldiers and emi- 
grants. The settlers and a part of the military he sent on to San Gabriel. Some of 
his soldiery he sent back to Sonora and with a half dozen of his force and a 
greater part of the horses and cattle of the expedition he made camp about the 
site of the present town of Yuma, intending to remain for a brief period of 
recuperation. His horses and cattle, said to have numbered nearly 1,000, ate the 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 75 

green mesquite beans, on which the Yumas largely depended for food, giving 
pretext for an outbreak. 

The four priests for months had seen signs of a breaking storm, but their 
appeals to both the Spanish soldiery and to the Indians seemed of little effect. 
On Tuesday, July 17, 1781, Padre Garces had commenced the second mass when 
without the church were heard the wild yells of the Indians. Comandante San- 
tiago Islas rushed from the church to get his weapons but was stricken down 
as he passed the doorway. Corporal Baylon followed and also was set upon by 
the Indians. It is told that Padre Garc& appeared in the doorway and, himself 
receiving many blows from clubs, gave the dying corporal absolution. The 
Indians then scattered into the Spanish settlement, where they killed or mortally 
wounded almost all foreigners. Padre Barraneche in the afternoon slipped out 
of the church and found some dying Spaniards, to whom he^gave the last 
sacraments. 

The attack had been well organized. At the lower settlement, Padres Diaz 
and Moreno were among the first to fall. The sacred images and altar vessels were 
cast into the river and the band of assassins started up the stream, bearing on a 
pole Moreno's head. Across the river, Rivera had been attacked with fury. He 
had thrown up intrenchments and from their shelter made great slaughter among 
the Indians. But there was a torrent of arrows and clubs under which the Span- 
iards fell, one by one, until at noon the bloody work was finished. 

In the afternoon the Indians turned their attention to the church at La Con- 
cepcion, which by that time had been abandoned by the friars and a number of 
their converts. The chapel and the homes of the Spaniards were plundered and 
destroyed, but Chief Palma used his influence to at least delay pursuit of the two 
escaping priests. He finally, on the following day, sent out a party to bring the 
priests back without injury. But his instructions were forgotten when the mis- 
sionaries were found in the hut of a christianized Indian couple and the priests 
were slain, almost the last of the entire number of Spaniards. Something of 
sanity appears to have come to the Indians after this act, for the two bodies were 
reverently buried in the sand and over them was erected a cross. 

The news of the massacre went through the Pimas and Papagos to the Spanish 
missions in Sonora and later was confirmed by the appearance of a Spaniard, who 
had managed to escape. It is told that from Altar a single soldier was dispatched 
to the Colorado to verify the news and that he was put to death as soon as he ar- 
rived. Later arrived a letter from Chief Palma, written by Matias, a prisoner, 
asking pardon for what had happened. A strong force of troops was forthwith 
sent by General de Croix from Altar, under Captains Fages and Tueros. No 
Indian was found around the Colorado settlements. In the ruins of Bicuner, five 
months after the massacre, were identified the bodies of Padres Diaz and- Moreno, 
which lay where they had fallen, and later were disinterred the bodies of Padres 
Garcfe and Barraneche. A number of Spanish captives were rescued and the 
command then returned to Altar. The prisoners declared that the Indians had 
moved eight leagues further down the river, because around the mission nightly 
had been seen a ghostly procession, canning candles, preceded by one carrying a 
cross. This procession would march many times around the chapel and then 
disappear. 

Governor de Croix had made elaborate plans for the punishment of the tribes. 



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76 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

but it was not until September 15 of the following year (1782) that action was 
taken. One hundred and sixty men were sent from Altar to meet at the Colorado 
River a force of Spaniards and native allies from California points. There was 
bloody work for a while. Of the Indians 108 were killed and eighty-five were 
captured, while ten Christian prisoners were liberated. Yet Palma was not cap- 
tured and the Indians remained hostile until overpowered by the United States 
troops many years thereafter. As is told by an old Spanish writer: ** Neither 
presidio, mission, nor pueblo ever again was established on the Colorado; and 
communication by this route never ceased to be attended with danger. Truly, as 
the Franciscan chroniclers do not fail to point out, the old way was best; the 
innovations of Croix had led to nothing but disaster ; the nuevo modo de conquis- 
tar was a failure." 

Francisco Garcfe was bom in Aragon, Spain, April 12, 1738, and entered the 
Franciscan order in his native province. He was ordained priest when 25 and 
when 28 years of age became an inmate of the famous missionary college of Que- 
retaro in Mexico, to which his body and the remains of his brothers in martyrdom 
were returned July 19, 1784, for permanent sepulture. 

Possibly as good an epitaph as Garces could have had is that given him by 
Coues, who wrote: **Garc65 was a true soldier of the cross, neither greater nor 
lesser than thousands of other children of the Church, seeking the bubble of salva- 
tion at the price of the martyr's crown ; his was not his own life, but that of God 
who gave it. Better than all that, perhaps, this humble priest, like Abou ben 
Adhem, *was one who loved his fellow men. It made him sick at heart t(t see 
so many of them going to hell for lack of the three drops of water he would 
sprinkle over them if they would let him do so. I repeat it — Garcfe, like Jesus, 
so loved his fellow men that he was ready to die for them. What more could a 
man do — and what were danger, suffering, hardship, privation, in comparison 
with the glorious reward of labor in the vineyard of the LordT This is true 
religion, of whatever sect or denomination, called by whatever name." 

A modem touch to the dreadful story of the murdered priest was given in 
1915, when at Yuma a moving picture company, on the very ground of the 
martyrdom, staged an elaborate play called ** Padre Garc6s' Mission,'* with all 
the assistance that could be given by the Indian and Mexican population of the 
locality. 

MISSIOK OF SAN XAVIEB DEL BAG 

Most notable among all the churches of the Southwest, is Garces' old mission 
of San Xavier del Bac, in the valley of the Santa Cruz, nine miles south of 
Tucson. Without doubt it is the most beautiful church structure of the South- 
west. Though some of its out-buildings have crumbled, as well as the adobe walls 
that once encompassed it, the old church still rises in beauty and majesty, some- 
what repaired of late years through the interest of the Bishop of Tucson. 

The structure itself is of stone and brick, with interior measurements of 
105x27 feet ; of cruciform shape, with a transepts 21 feet square. Interior decora- 
tions, in many places almost illegible, cover nearly all the available wall space, 
with a number of frescoes and with two paintings, representing the presentation 
of Jesus in the Temple, and a "Lady of the Pillar'* of the Spanish legend of 
Saragossa. There is a profusion of gildings and arabesques in Moorish style. 



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MISSION OF SAX XAVIER DEL BAG IN 1877 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 77 

Each of the twelve Apostles has his image. The main altar is dedicated to Saint 
Francis Xavier, the patron chosen by the Jesuits. At the entrance, in low relief, 
is the coat-of-arms of the order of Saint Francis of Assisi, founder of the Fran- 
ciscan order, as well as a life-sized statue of Saint Francis. Thus are shown the 
dual establishment of the two great Catholic orders that in sequence occupied the 
structure. In the belfry are four rough home-made bells of small size. Only one 
of the contemplated two towers ever was completed. A connecting building, for- 
merly used by the priests, was repaired by the government in 1873, and later has 
been used by a sectarian school for the Indians. 

Though the parish for years has had no resident priest, its spiritual needs 
are supplied from Tucson. The old church is cared for reverently by the Indians 
of the Papago village that surrounds it, for the Papagos wish to be considered 
good Catholics, and indeed show good results of long years of devotion to the 
faith. 

In keeping with the humility enjoined by Saint Francis upon his disciples, no 
mention is made in any records or upon the walls of the church of the names 
of any of the priests who erected the structure. It is probable, however, that it 
was commenced in 1783, under the administration of Padre Belchasar Carillo, 
who was pastor from May, 1780, until 1794. Succeeding was his assistant. Padre 
Narciso Qutierres, who remained in charge till 1799, having as successive assist- 
ants Mariano Bordoy, Kamon Lopes and Angel Alonzo de Prado. The date 
* * 1797, ' ' cut on one of the doors of the church, is said to be that of the structure 's 
completion. Padres Carillo and Qutierres were assigned successively to the mis- 
sion at Tumac&cori, from which their bones, in 1822, were transferred by Padre 
Liberos from the old church to a new one and were buried in the sanctuary at the 
gospel side. The date of the death of Padre Qutierres appears to have been late 
in 1820. 

In 1810 began evil days for the missions of the Southwest. When the cry for 
independence was started throughout New Spain, remittances from the Spanish 
government began to fail, but each of the missionaries kept to his work with a 
stout heart through the lean years that followed. The final blow was the expulsion 
of the Franciscans, following the fall of the colonial government in Mexico, De- 
cember 2, 1827. The mission at San Xavier never was abandoned, as the Bishop 
of Sonora placed it under charge of the secular parish priest at Magdalena, who 
could visit it only on rare occasions. 

In 1859, the territory embraced within Arizona, by an order from Rome, was 
added to a diocese of New Mexico, with headquarters at Santa Fe. The Bishop, 
Right-Rev. J. B. Lamy, soon thereafter sent into Arizona, his Vicar-General, 
Rev. J. T. Machebeuf, who found San Xavier the only mission church that had 
not dropped into ruin. His report told that the temple had been damaged by 
leakage and he busied himself in having it plastered to prevent further damage. 
The Indians welcomed the priest with delight and rang the bells in joy. The 
missionary found they still remembered some prayers and that even a few were 
able to sing at mass. Articles for the altar were produced from hiding places 
where they had been kept by the Indians in trust. 

In 1898 an added incentive to devotion was provided by Bishop Henry 
Granjon of Tucson near the San Xavier church in a replica of the Shrine of 



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78 . ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Lourdes, the grotto excavated in solid rock, lyherein a niche was cut for the 
image of the VirgiA. 

By presidential proclamation, the old Tumacacori mission was set aside in 
1908 as a national monument. The proclamation referred to it as ''one of the 
oldest Spanish mission ruins in the southwest, erected probably in the latter 
part of the sixteenth century, largely of burned brick and cement mortar, instead 
of adobe and in remarkable repair considering its great age, and of great histori- 
cal interest." Ten acres of land, including the missies buildings were deeded 
to the United States by V. Mendez, who had acquired title under the homestead 
law. 

THE FBIDAT FAST IN T^ AMERICAS 

There has been an impression among Catholics that the Sonora- Arizona re- 
gion possesses a special indulgence annulling the usual Friday fast, the one 
explanation being that in the early days fish could not be had and that meat, 
fresh and dried, was the principal article of diet, at times the only food supply 
available. The editor on this point sought the assistance of Bev. Novatus Benz- 
ing, 0. P. ^I., rector of the Phoenix parish, whose researches show that no such 
indulgence ever was granted by the Church upon the Western Continents. About 
the time of the joint reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, when the Spaniards were 
fighting the Moors, a dispensation of this character was granted Spain, in recog- 
nition of her valiant service in the cause of Christianity. When Spaniards came 
to America they brought with them the idea that the dispensation was a per- 
sonal one to all Spaniards. So the error has continued to the present day, con- 
sidered as referring to Spanish-speaking localities, including Sonora, Arizona, 
New Mexico and California. In 1898 the revered Bishop Salpointe, while on a 
visit to Rome, asked information on this question and received it substantially as 
herein stated. But there was decision at the same time that, inasmuch as the 
practice had continued so many centuries and the error had become fixed by 
usage, no penalty would attach to this violation of the ordinary canons of the 
Church. It is probable the fast rule is about as well observed nowadays in the 
Southwest as elsewhere. 

OOSMOGRAPHEBS OF THE OLDEN TIME 

Old pictures and old maps always are of keen interest when illustrating 
scenes or showing the natural features and settlement of some land we know. 
No artists accompanied the Spanish explorers or missionaries of old, but even 
in those remote times there were geographers. 

In the Munk Library is a very rare, quaint and beautiful volume, a '*Cosrao- 
graphie, contayning the Chorographie and Historie of the Whole World and all 
the Principall Kingdoraes, Provinces, Seas and Isles Thereof," by Peter Heylyn 
of London, of date 1677 and noted as the fifth edition. The Spanish map of New 
Spain herewith reproduced from this volume is notable especially for its delinea- 
tion of the American west coast. California is shown as an island, its eastern 
shores laved by the Mare Vermiglio, into which was made to flow the Rio del 
Norte, in the text described as rising in the land of Quivera, separating the 
province of Tiguex from that of New Mexico and falling into the sea above 
the Province of Cinaloa. Quivera is assumed to have traffic with China or Ca- 



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HENRY R. GRANJON 
Bishop of Catholic diocest of Tucson 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 79 

thay, *'for when Vasquez de Coronado conquered it, he saw in the farther sea 
certain ships, not of common making, which seemed to be well laden and did 
bear in their prows the figures of Pellicans; which could not be conjectured to 
come from any country but one of these two. ' ' 

Equally strange and interesting are the cosmographer's references to the 
Vermillion Sea and to its northern extension, the so-called Rio Buena Guiay which, 
Heylyn insisted, was in reality a strait of the sea, with a rapid current from the 
northward. He wrote that it was known as a river till about 1620, **at which 
time some adventurers, beating on these coasts, accidentally fell upon a straight 
but violent passage on the north hereof, which brought them with a strong cur- 
rent into Mer Vermiglio; discovering by that accident that the waters falling 
into that sea was not a river, as formerly had been supposed, but a violent break- 
ing in of the Northern ocean ; by consequence, that this part of California is not 
a demi-island, or peninsula, but a perfect island." 

Much better known is the map of Padre Kino, drawn from his own travel 
experience in the upper part of New Spain. In it he used three languages, Latin, 
Spanish and his own native German. The nomenclature is well worth careful 
study. Moqui is used in place of Cibola. The Colorado is given its correct Latin 
name, but the Gila-Salt is the Rio Azul (Blue River) or Blau Fluss, the latter 
being merely the German of it. Into this flows the Hila P'luss or Spine Pluss. 
** Spine" may have been intended either for Sping (spring) or Spinne (spider), 
both German. The latter theory is defensible, for tarantulas undoubtedly were 
to be found in the Gila valley. The Santa Cruz and San Pedro are the only other 
streams noted within the present Arizona. The Apaches are noted in proper 
locality, as are the Yumas and Coco-Maricopas, the last an early-day compre- 
hension of the Cocopahs, Maricopas and Chimehuevis. There was a brave show- 
ing of missions or places of priestly visitation. Above the Gila's mouth on the 
Colorado was placed the mission of St. Dionysius, with the date 1700. The ruins 
of this mission were found by Emory in 1846. The visitas of St. Peter and St. 
Paul were in the Gila valley to the eastward, with an establishment date of 1699. 
Similarly, most of them merely points where mass had been celebrated, were 
the designations farther up the Azul, St. Mathias, St. Maccaboeus, St. Thaddoeus 
and St. Simeon de Tucsam. Continuing up the Santa Cruz branch were St. 
Angelo, St. Bonifacius, St. Franciscus, St. Catherine, St. Augustinus (the In- 
dian visita near the site of Tucson) and St. Xavier du Bac, which is noted as 
**Oberfuhr,'' indicating its principal place among the missions. On the San 
Pedro were St. Augustinus, St. Marc and St. Salvator. Casa Grande, much mis- 
placed, IS shown as a church because two devotional services, at least, had been 
known within its walls. 

Another missionary map was that of Padre Pedro Font, drawn by him with 
much skill at Tubutama in 1777 and found in the archives of California. It 
has its principal importance in its tracing of the two routes taken by de Anza 
to California, Font having been spiritual adviser on the second expedition, and 
an indication of the path of Padre 6arc6s on his Moqui trip. Most of Kino's 
visitas were not noted on this later map, but on the Santa Cruz have been added 
the presidios of Tuqulson and Tubac, the mission of Tumac&cori and the village 
of Calabasas. There were presidios at Santa Cruz, San Bernardino and Janos 
and a settlement as Fronteras. 



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80 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

It is evident that the Spaniards built in many places till local conditions, 
such as lack of water or an over-supply of hostile Indians, made them move on. 
The first habitations are assumed to have been the wattled huts of the natives. 
But there was early change to structures of adobe, sun-dried mud bricks. This 
was counseled or commanded by none other than the King of Spain himself, in 
a proclamation made public at Guadalajara, December 20, 1538, and to a degree 
enforced by Coronado in northern New Spain. 

The good friars gave names of sanctity to every water course, hill and Indian 
village. Nowhere were the blessings of the saints more profusely showered than 
upon the natural features of the land that now is Arizona. These names so 
devoutly bestowed in the neighboring California, New Mexico and Sonora have 
been maintained, but in Arizona they have been lost, very generally, even in 
localities where the Spanish language long was predominant. The lordly San 
Francisco mountain, dominating the landscape in much of northern Arizona, 
owes its name to the designation of the region by Padre Marco de Niza as El 
Reyno de San Francisco. Of rivers, pious designations still attach to the Santa 
Maria, Santa Cruz, San Pedro, San Carlos and San Francisco. Of localities the 
postoflSce list is shockingly modem. The village of Garces in Cochise County 
possibly has few inhabitants who appreciate the honor of the name or who know 
its pronunciation. Other official reminiscences of the past are San Bernardino, 
near the olden-time presidio site, San Carlos and its Indian reservation, San 
Rafael, within an old Spanish grant and San Simon in the eastern valley earlier 
known as that of the Sauz. Saint David and Saint Joseph are of Mormon nam- 
ing, while Saint Johns was so designated by one of the sons of Moses. The 
saints are considered in a few other scattered examples, such as San Xavier, the 
Santa Catalina and Santa Rita mountains, Santo Domingo wash, ranchitos such 
as San Jose, near Solomonville, but, on the whole, the nomenclature of Arizona is 
secular in tone to a remarkable degree. 

EABLT DESIGKATION OF THE STREAMS 

Save the Colorado, all Arizona streams may be described as torrential in 
character, none of them deep enough or of low enough gradient to carry any sort 
of navigation. The largest is the Salt, rather oddly mapped as flowing into 
the Oila, a much smaller stream, above the junction: Early Spanish explorers 
named all the Arizona streams, but few of their names remain. The Colorado 
first was known as el Rio Tison (firebrand) and then Buena Guia. Father Kino 
in 1697 called it Rio de los Martires and Escalante Rio de los Cosninos, after the 
Indians of the country. As interpreted by an early explorer, the Colorado River 
by the Cuchans (Yumas) was called the Hah-weal-asientic, the first syllable 
apparently standing for river, for Bill Williams Fork was called Hah-weal-hah- 
mook and the Gila Hah-qua-si-il-la. The Maricopas called the Gila Hah-quah- 
sie-eel-ish. Whipple interpreted the Yuma name for the Gila as **Salt Water." 

It would appear that the **il-la'' part of the aboriginal designation is suffi- 
cient reason for the word *'Gila,'' which in days gone by had many other forms. 
The name seems to have been used first in 1630, when Benairdes wrote of the 
**Xila.'' Onate in 1604, probably on suggestion of his chaplain, called the stream 
Rio del Nombre de Jesus, Pattie, as late as 1825, said it had been known as Rio 
del Nombre Jesus Cristo. Padre Kino, 1698, named it Rio de los Apostoles, with 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 81 

its confluents, the Salado, Verde, Santa Cruz and San Pedro, grouped as Los 
Evangelistas. He also called the lower Gila the Blue and the upper the Hila or 
Spine, as noted on his map. Other names found for the stream were the Sonaca 
and the Coral. 

The Salt seems mixed up with the visit of Friar Juan de la Asuncion in 1538, 
for it was known in early Spanish times as Rio de la Asuncion, as well as Asump- 
cion. Coues inclines to the belief that the friar really discovered the Gila. 
Sedelmaier about 1748 wrote of the Azul and of the Rio de la Asumpcion, ** com- 
posed of two rivers. El Salado and El Verde, which on their way to the Gila run 
through a very pleasant level country of arable land, inhabited by the Coco- 
Maricopas, who were separated from the Pimas by a desert** — ^all of which is 
far from clear. Pattie knew it as the Black. 

The Salt also was known as the Salinas, a Spanish form that should have 
been retained, rather than the less euphonious English name it bears. The 
headwaters of Salt River are not saline. The waters of the stream at any point 
are healthful enough, but in the lower stretches are tinctured by a strong flow 
from Carrizo Creek, a stream which passes through large deposits of calcium 
carbonate and calcium sulphate. Whipple in 1851 wrote: **The Salinas is a 
beautiful stream, clear as crystal, large as the Gila and, to our surprise, not salt. '* 

In one old chronicle the Verde is named as Rio Alamos, most appropriate, for 
no stream in Arizona has more cottonwoods. In general the Verde best was 
known as the San Francisco, because its headwaters were near the San Fran- 
cisco mountains. 



PADRES — Rather for uniformity, the designation "Padre" (Father) has been glyen generally to 
priests and friars of both Jesuit and Franciscan orders who, under Spanish auspices, took part in any 
of the southwestern military expeditions or missionary efforts. This is not exact, as many of the 
missionaries really were friars. Even Marco de Niza, who had high rank within his order, was known 
as Fraile. 



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CHAPTER VI 
AMERICAN OCCUPATION 

Passage of Pikc^ Pattie and Carson — Mexican Rule to 1846 — Keam}f*s yictorious 
March Through to the Pacific — The Mormon Battalion — Its Capture of Tucson — 
Old Bill Williams — American Rule in Nei» Mexico — Peonage Accepted as Legal. 

The purchase of Louisiana from the French in 1803 was the cause of the entry 
into the Rocky Mountain region of many bold hunters and trappers, who passed 
by the buffalo of the plains to look for the more uncommon pelts that were 
to be found on the headwaters of the Colorado and Rio Grande. Many of these 
trappers worked southward to Taos, whence came supplies of the grain and fruits 
so valued by the hunters. 

A notably historic milestone was the arrival in Santa F6, March 3, 1807, 
of Capt. Zebulon M. Pike and his command, the first American soldiers ever known 
in the Southwest, captured by the Spaniards while camped, in error, on Spanish 
territory on the headwaters of the Rio Grande. On the whole. Pike was well 
treated by the Spaniards, though compelled to go to Chihuahua, and his report 
of his experience was the first of consequence made by any American concerning 
the character of Spanish occupation of what we now know as the Southwest. 

Among the mountain trappers were the Patties, Sylvester and son. The 
younger, James 0., left a record of his joumeyings. Mexico and its dependen- 
cies only a couple of years before had passed from the Spanish crown when the 
Patties, with the consent of the New Mexican authorities, late in 1824, started 
down the **Helay" looking for beaver, finding the trapping field a good one. 

The younger Pattie in 1826, while the elder remained at the Santa Rita mines, 
accompanied a party of French trappers on a trip down the Gila. The narrative 
is interesting mainly from a circumstantial account of a conflict with the Papmgos, 
designated as **Papawar,'' at a village near the junction of the Gila with the 
Salt. This is doubly remarkable because the Papagos usually have been friendly 
with Americans and secondly because the location, within the Pima country, was 
one very soon thereafter occupied by the Maricopas. The Indians had met the 
party with all expressions of amity, but were distrusted by Pattie, who, his warn- 
ings unheeded, made a separate camp with one of the Frenchmen. At midnight 
the expected happened and the French party was almost annihilated, but Pattie 
and his companion fled northward. They reached Salt River (noted as the Black) 
and for observation climbed a hill that some imaginative narrator has identified as 
Hayden's Butte, on the edge of the present town of Tempe, where they were joined 

82 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 83 

by the French captain, the only member of the main party who had escaped. 
There is a bit of flavor of fiction about the whole narrative, especially in the 
opportune finding the next night of a party of twenty-nine Americans in camp 
nearby. With dramatic effect was told how the conjoined party marched against 
the offending village, how the warriors were enticed to the river by the sight of 
two of the white men and how in the ensuing melee 110 dead Indians were left 
on the field after the villagers fled. Then the town was entered, fragments of the 
unfortunate Frenchmen, scattered aU over the village, were gathered together 
and decently buried and the town was destroyed by fire. One section of the new 
party, according to Pattie, trapped northward to the land of the **Mokee." 

On one expedition the Patties worked down the Gila to its junction with the 
Colorado, which they called the Bed River, on the way having a little trouble with 
the Apaches. Upon reaching the Colorado they started upstream, probably the 
first white men ever seen in the locality since the murder of Padre Garc6s. Very 
little finesse seems to have been used, so there was trouble with the fearless 
Mojaves, who ambushed and slaughtered a number of men who had gone a short 
distance up what later was known as Bill Williams Fork. A rescuing party only 
found fragments of the bodies, apparently prepared for roasting before a great 
fire, probably the only assumption of cannibalism ever charged against the south- 
western Indians. It was told that the principal chief of the Mojaves shot a horse 
and himself immediately was killed by the Americans. It is to be remained that 
the Mojaves on the whole seemed in the early days to be about the best disposed 
of all the Colorado River Indians, and so it must be assumed that the Pattie 
party gave cause for the treatment given it by the redskins. 

A record was made in the narrative of arrival at a point on the northward 
journey where there was encountered an impassable canon, around which the 
party had to climb, the river seen at an immense depth below, in a great chasm. 
Then there followed a journey of fourteen days, in which it is claimed a distance 
of 100 leagues was traveled and yet such a careful commentator as Dellenbaugh 
can not figure it out whether the party went to the north or the south of the Grand 
Canon. April 10 the river again was reached and keen pleasure was felt in the 
abundance of water and in the fact that the Americans again had come into a 
beaver country. The party finally made its way through the wilderness to the 
Yellowstone country and thence to Santa Fe, where the Governor confiscated all 
the furs brought back. 

Undismayed by this experience and after the younger had made a trading trip 
to Guaymas, the Patties in the fall of 1827 started again for the Gila, with a 
numerous party and under the authority of the Governor of New Mexico. Only 
a section managed to reach the Colorado, where the horses were stampeded by 
the Yumas. The trappers burned the huts of a Yuma village, but could not regain 
their horses and thus were left in desperate plight. They had tools, however, and 
managed to construct eight canoes, assumed to have been cottonwood dugouts, 
with which they started down the Colorado, hoping to reach the Mexican settle- 
ments. The canoes were united in pairs with a platform amidships, on which were 
piled the supplies and the furs of the expedition, which started on its journey into 
the unknown December 9, 1827. There was good trapping along the river and the 
supply of pelts increased, so that even another canoe had to be constructed. They 
found the Cocopah Indians friendly, but on New Year's Day fell in with a ruder 



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84 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

tribe, the Pipis, probably Papagos or Seris. They were mystified by the action 
of the tide and had the same experience with the great bore of the Colorado as 
had been known to the earlier Spanish explorers. 

On February 10 at last had to be given up the plan of making the journey by 
water. The rich cargo of furs was buried in deep pits and the AmOTcans started 
over the desolate stretches of Lower California, finally making their way to the 
settlement of Santa Catalina. This mission was destroyed by Indians in 1840. 
It was a point not far from San Diego, to which the disarmed Americans were 
marched and imprisoned. They were treated with much severity, the Mexicans 
choosing to interpret their visit as that of a hostile force. The elder Pattie died 
in prison. The younger was permitted to go back with a Mexican party to find 
the buried furs, which in the meantime had been ruined by water. The sur- 
viving Pattie finally was permitted to embark upon a vessel bound southward and 
managed by way of the City of Mexico to return to his Kentucky home, near 
Cincinnati, Ohio, penniless after six years of strenuous endeavor and of keen 
peril. 

KIT OABSOK AND EABLY TBAVEL 

While the noted Kit Carson never had residence in Arizona, he had much to 
do with its pioneer history. In 1827, at the age of 17, and a year after he had 
left Missouri, he was on the upper Gila. Soon thereafter, a member of a trapping 
party led by Ewing Young, he had his first Indian fight, with Apaches on Salt 
River, in which fifteen redskins were killed, without the loss of a white man. 
Young trapped along the Salt and San Francisco (Verde) and then crossed the 
desert to the Colorado, into the country of the Mojaves, who treated the party 
well, providing food that was badly needed. In 1829 Carson's return was made to 
New Mexico, by the Gila route, with trouble on the trail with Indians, presumably 
Yumas. In one fight ten Indians were killed. He passed again over the same 
route in 1846, with fifteen men, having dispatches from Fremont, with whom 
he had been in California. He was turned back in New Mexico to guide the 
Kearny column and, with Lieutenant Beale, gained large credit in creeping 
through the Mexican lines into San Diego. In March, 1847, with Lieutenant 
Beale, he carried dispatches back along the Gila route with a guard of a dozen 
men. Reaching Washington, he was presented to President Polk, who appointed 
him Lieutenant in the U. S. Rifle Corps and sent him back with dispatches, taking 
the northern route through Arizona, with one Indian fight. Returning, at Santa 
Fe he learned that Congress had refused to confirm his appointment. In August, 
1853, with a well-armed force of herders, he drove 6,500 sheep from the Rio 
Grande to California, there selling at $5.50 a head. Returning, he was appointed 
Indian Agent for New Mexico. His service during the Civil War is given mention 
in this work. He died at Fort Lyon on the Arkansas River, May 23, 1868, of an 
aneurism, due to a fall from a horse years before. 

In 1827 a Doctor Anderson passed down the Gila Valley to California, leading 
a considerable party. The expedition had no trouble whatever with Indians, and 
noted particularly hospitable treatment at the hands of the Pimas and of the 
Maricopas, ^he latter tribe being encountered about eighty miles to the westward 
of its present location on the Gila. 

Another noted character of pioneer days in the Southwest was Jedediah S. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 85 

Smith, the first white man to cross the plains, who appeared to have been as 
patriarchal in his demeanor as would be indicated by his name. With sixteen 
men, he entered what now is northeastern Arizona in the fall of 1826, coming 
down the Virgen River, which he named after President Adams, passing into the 
country of the Mojaves, whom he found peaceful. Thence he journeyed to San 
Gabriel, where he had trouble with the Mexican authorities, but was released. 
Returning to the Colorado, the Indians, possibly not Mojaves, said to Ifave been 
instigated by the Spaniards, though this is a doubtful story, attacked his party, 
killing ten men and capturing all its equipment. With two others, Smith es- 
caped into California. He was killed in 1831 by Comanches in Northern New 
Mexico. 

In 1832 Isaac J. Sparks led an expedition down the Gila River to Yuma and 
made his way through to Los Angeles. This party had much trouble with Indians. 
In one encounter about fifteen Indians were killed of a band that had been acci- 
dentally encountered while on its way to Sonora on a horse-stealing expedition. 

In 1834 a party of northern trappers, said to have been 200 in number, 
marched from the mouth of Bill Williams Fork to the Moqui villages and thence 
to the northward. Apaches about 1836, on the upper Gila, killed the Charles 
Kemp party of twenty-two trappers. 

A party of nearly fifty passed through Arizona in 1844, including Francois 
de van Coeur, who was one of Kearny 's scouts two years later. This party had 
continued encounters with hostile Apaches and lost one man on the trip. South- 
em Arizona was reached by following the valley of the San Francisco River 
(Verde) to its junction with the Salt. 

A number of parties of trappers, hunters and prospectors drifted into Arizona 
during the score of years following, before the Mexican regime had passed, \^hile 
many New Mexicans passed though to California. Pauline Weaver, a French 
trapper, early established personal relations with the Indians of several tribes 
and made comprehensive trips throughout the southwestern part of the present 
Arizona long before he led the famous Rich Hill expedition in 1863. He is said 
to have visited the Pima villages as early as 1832. 

Two years after the road had been made clear by American military expedi- 
tions, in 1848 a party, organized in New Orleans and headed by Dr. 0. M. Wozen- 
craf t, made its way through southern Arizona, probably the first to traverse what 
later became one of the principal transcontinental highways, by way of Apache 
Pass and the Sonoita, finding protection and food among the Pimas and ferrying 
the Colorado by means of a rawhide boat. Thereafter the same road, though 
usually by way of Tucson, was taken by no less than 60,000 travelers, bound for 
California and the gold fields. Supply stations were established at difi^erent 
points along the route, and a regular ferry was started at Yuma. 

These were days of harvest for the Apaches, who made southern Arizona a 
veritable charnel ground. In the vicinity of Apache Pass, bones of slain cattle 
paralleled the road for miles, and little clumps of human graves were in sight 
from any point. The emigrants usually traveled in companies. Careless ones 
separated themselves only to be spied by the savage watchers of the hills and 
swept down upon and destroyed. The Apaches of those days had no occupation 
other than that of rapine and plunder, and the passage of the well-provided and 



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86 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

almost defenceless Americans offered opportunities for bloodshed and pillage that 
appealed to them as ideal. 

FBEMONT AND BILL WILLIAMS 

John C. Fremont, the ** Pathfinder, " passed through Arizona in 1849, leaving 
Kit Carson's home in Taos in February and making his way to California by 
the Gila route, through Socorro, Santa Cruz, Tubac and Tucson, apparently 
without incident of importance. The trip was made possible by Felix Aubrey, 
who, at Taos, had loaned him $1,000, with which to purchase mules for the trip. 
Fremont at the time had hardly recovered from the hardships of his fourth 
expedition, in which, despite the warnings of western hunters, he had tried to 
cross the high passes of the Rockies in the dead of winter. He laid the blame 
elsewhere than on himself. In a letter to his wife, dated January 27, 1849, he 
wrote: **I had engaged as a guide an old trapper well known as Bill Williams, 
and who had spent twenty-five years of his life in trapping various parts of the 
Rocky Mountains. The error of the journey was committed in engaging this man. 
He proved never to have in the least known or entirely to have forgotten the whole 
region of country through which we were to pass." This guide was the same 
Bill Williams whose name is borne by a mountain and by a river in northern and 
western Arizona, wherein he had trapped for years. He is said to have been a 
Methodist preacher in Missouri, but showed no piety when he drifted, about 1825, 
into the Columbia river region, where he soon became noted as an Indian fighter, 
as well as for a broad knowledge of Indian tongues and for his habit of hunting 
alone. The Utes called him **Lone Elk.'' 

Lieut. Geo. D. Bretherton, who traveled the Virgen River route in 1848, in 
company with Kit Carson, was the narrator of a fantastic tale concerning Bill 
Williams, told him by a member of Carson's party. It was to the effect that, 
some years before, Williams had led a party of thirty men into Lower California 
and there had despoiled the Mexicans of 1,500 head of horses and mules. About 
200 Mexicans followed and so hard pressed the Americans that two-thirds of the 
loot had to be abandoned on the desert. Beyond the edge of the desert, Williams 
halted his worn-out expedition and, in desperation, waited for the coming of the 
avengers. But three days passed without an attack and it became evident that 
none was intended. So Williams and his men proceeded to turn the tables. They 
ambushed the enemy's camp at night and drove away every horse and mule, 
leaving the Mexicans to return on foot, if they could, across the desert. But 
the tale was not then ended, for the great band of stock was run off by Indians 
somewhere to the eastward and Williams and his men had to tramp back to their 
starting point, Santa F6. Williams is believed to have been killed in the winter 
of 1849, either by Utes or by Mexicans of his own party, in the Rockies, not far 
from the point where Fremont had to turn back. Triplett had a story, however, 
that he was killed by Blackfeet Indians in the Yellowstone country, and that 
his faithful horse refused to leave the body and had to be killed on his master's 
grave. 

NEW MEXICO UNDER THE MEXICANS 

The name ''New Mexico" appears to have been applied first in 1563 by 
Francisco de Ibarra, who led an expedition beyond Casas Grandes in Chihuahua 



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Tl'OON IX 1H56 
(From Bartlett's Narrative by periiiis8ion of 1). Appleton & Co.) 




FORT YUMA IX 1856 WITH SITE OF Yl'MA IX FORKCUIOIXI) 
(From Bartlett's Xarrative by permission of 1). Appleton & Co.) 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 87 

and the same region also appears to have been called Nueva Andalueia. The 
present name generally was accepted during Espejo's time, about 1583. 

On September 27, 1821, the City of Mexico was entered by General Iturbide, 
who on March 19 of the succeeding year was made Emperor of Mexico with the 
title of Agustin I. Iturbide lasted only till March, 1823, when he was banished. 
He returned the following year, was apprehended and, on July 19, 1824, was 
executed. 

The first New Mexican Governor under the new nation was Antonio Viscarra, 
installed July 5, 1822, but the first regular appointee was Bartolome Baca, who 
assumed oflSce under the title of Jefe Politico. In 1824, New Mexico, Chihuahua 
and Durango were constituted a State of the Mexican Union. In 1828 all Span- 
iards were ordered to leave New Mexico, under the termp of an act of the Mexican 
Congress. Only two aged priests were permitted to remain, they on payment of 
$600 a year each. 

The people of New Mexico revolted against the Mexican government, August 
1, 1837, following the imposition of new and heavy taxes and the arrival of 
Col. Albino Perez of the Mexican army, who, though a stranger, had been 
appointed Governor. Perez was deserted by his soldiers and himself was assassi- 
nated about a league southwest of Santa F6 by Indians from Santo Domingo, who 
had followed him as he sought to escape on foot. 

The head was hewn from the body and taken to the headquarters of the in- 
surgents near Santa F6. Santiago Abreu, a former Governor, two of his broth- 
ers and a number of government oflScials, were hunted down and killed. The 
revolutionary party installed Jos6 Gonzales of Taos as Governor. Gbnzales him- 
self later was overthrown by a counter-revolution, started by Manuel Armijo, 
who immediately sent word to the central government of Mexico submitting his 
allegiance. In consequence he was given appointment as Governor, which he 
held for nine years. In January, 1838, he defeated the rebel army and captured 
Gonzales, whom he caused to be executed at once. 

TBOXJBLOUS ENDING OF BflEXIOAN RULE 

No less than eighteen executives, many of them ad interim, held office in Santa 
Fe in the brief span of twenty-four years wherein New Mexico was a part of the 
Mexican Republic, even a worse record than known under the Iberian crown. 
In 1839 the United States established a consulate in Santa Fe, with Manuel 
Alvarez in charge, he continuing in office till the time of American occupation, 
occasionally in hot water through the hostility of the rabble population and of 
some of the Mexican officials. The Texans claimed westward to the Rio Grande 
and, following the start of a Texan expedition westward in 1841, the situation 
of Americans in Santa F6 became so grave that Alvarez and his local compatriots 
united in a petition asking help, addressed to Daniel Webster, then Secretary 
of State But the Texan army had naught save bad fortune, for General McLoud 
and his 320 men were captured by New Mexicans under Armijo at a point not 
far from the present Tucumcari. The prisoners were sent into Mexico, not 
executed. In the same year the Cook party of Americans was captured near San 
Jose by 100 New Mexicans, headed by Diego Archuleta and Manuel Chavez. 
John McDaniel, a Texan desperado, with fifteen of his kind, in April, 1843, at- 
tacked and murdered Don Antonio Chaves on the Arkansas river and looted 



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88 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

his train. It is gratifying to read that McDaniels and nine of his crew later 
were hanged for the deed at St. Louis, Mo. A similar sort of bandit, *' Colonel" 
Snively, was captured by Capt. John Cook, U. S. A., after Snively had raided 
a wagon train and kiUed sixteen men. This would appear to have been the same 
individual who first worked the Gila placers and who was killed by Indians in 
central Arizona. Therei was trouble with the Utes in 1844. The last days of 
Mexican rule were lean ones, with no money available for the pay or subsistence 
of the troops called to repulse the advance of the Americanos. 

Following the transfer of New Mexico to the United States, the population, 
except Indians, was embraced within American citizenship, contingent only 
upon declaration otherwise. Very few made this declaration in order to con- 
tinue Mexican citizenship, but a number moved southward across the Rio Grande. 

New Mexico was considered, roughly, as the land lying between Texas and 
the Rio Colorado. The northern boundary seemed indeterminate, but generally 
was considered as running westward from a point in the present Colorado, near 
the source of the Rio Grande, which then had the somewhat amplified designa- 
tion of El Rio Grande Bravo del Norte (The Great Brawling River of the 
North). 

AMEBIOAN CONQUEST OF NEW MEXIOO 

The American conquest of the Southwest was one accomplished with little 
trouble and with seemingly little resentment on the part of the populace, though 
there were but few save Spanish-speaking residents in either Arizona or New 
Mexico. It is possible that the pueblo-dwelling Indians, who comprised the 
greater part of the population, had no dislike to the proposed change of masters, 
though nominally included within the defensive forces raised by the Mexican 
officers. 

Santa Pe was the objective point of an expedition organized at Fort Leav- 
enworth in 1846, under command of Col. Stephen W. Kearny. It consisted of 
1,658 men and sixteen pieces of light artillery. An army of 5,000 men, mainly 
Indians, was gathered for defense and the brave Governor Armijo, after call- 
ing upon the people of New Mexico to rise and repel the invader, marched 
from Santa Fe to a mountain pass to the northward to offer battle. But his 
Indian forces stampeded at the mere narration of the prowess of the Americans 
and Armijo saw defeat certain and retreated without offering battle. Santa F6 
was reached August 18 and captured without incident Kearny, promoted to 
be General, did not stay in the city, however, but at once started the building of 
Fort Marcy on a mesa overlooking the city, where he could both command the 
settlement and repel possible attack. He gathered the people in the plaza and 
told them that their lives, property and religion were safe and that they had 
become American citizens. Juan Bautista Vigil was made Governor and most 
of the former oflScers were sustained in their positions after they had taken 
the oath of allegiance to the United States. Later, on September 22, Charles 
Bent of Taos was made Governor, with Doniciano Vigil as Secretary and Francis 
P. Blair as District Attorney. 

After setting the government of the Territory in order. General Kearny on 
September 26 started for California, leaving behind Colonel Doniphan, who was 
under orders to join General Wool in Chihuahua. The Navajos thought about 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 89 

this time that the Americans had come to aid them in driving out the Mexicans, 
but Doniphan and his Missourians stayed for a while until he showed the wild 
Indians the error of their ways. December 14 he started for Mexico, leaving 
in command at Santa Fe Col. Sterling Price, later celebrated in the armies of 
the Confederacy. Near the present Los Cruces, Doniphan made a good begin- 
ning by defeating an attacking Mexican force. 

Soon thereafter a general uprising was planned by the deposed Mexican 
officers, supported by Padres Ortiz and Gallegos. It was planned that there 
should be a general rising December 19. A delay till Christmas Day afforded 
time for the information of the Americans, who promptly arrested the leaders. 
The following month the insurrection broke out unexpectedly and on January 
19 a body of Mexicans and Indians at Taos killed Governor Bent, Prefect Vigil, 
District Attorney Leal, Narciso Baubien and Pablo Jaramillo, the last named 
the Governor's brother-in-law. Americans also were killed at a number 
of other places. Colonel Price had only a small force, in all amounting to 310 
men. Some of these were local Americans who had rushed to the colors and a 
number of prominent New Mexicans. The American commander did not wait 
for the arrival of a hostile force that was marching down the Rio Grande, but 
offered battle in the field. There were two engagements near Santa Cruz and 
Embudo and one at Taos, to which the New Mexicans, inferior to the Americans 
in everything but numbers, had been driven. The rebellion finally was wiped 
out by an engagement at Fernandez de Taos, in which the Americans at short 
range battered down the walls of the church that had been transformed by their 
foes into a fortress. The battle was a sanguinary one. Captain Burgwin and 
about a score of Americans fell, but at least 150 of the insurgents were killed. 
Their leader, Montoya, and fourteen others were executed, after trial for the 
murder of Governor Bent and his associates. Others sentenced to death for 
treason were pardoned by the President of the United States on the ground that 
no treason could be shown while Mexico was at war with the United States. 

BEOINKINGS OF AMEBIOAN OOVEBNMENT 

After Bent's death, Donaciano Vigil, a native New Mexican, was made 
Governor and a Legislature was called, to meet December 6, 1847. Ten acts 
were passed, approved both by the Governor and by the military commander, 
Price. One of the ten was for the foundation of a university. Price thereafter, 
by military order, abolished the offices of Territorial* Secretary, United States 
Marshal and United States Attorney, as unnecessary. He laid a 6 per cent 
import tax at the territorial border and assessed gambling houses $2,000 a year. 
This military domination, passed on to Col. J. M. Washington, continued even 
after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when the country naturally might have 
been assumed to have passed under civil authority. It should be noted also that 
Kearny's military code had not been fully approved at Washington. A four-day 
convention, which met in October, 1848, its chairman Rev. Antonio Jose Martinez, 
a Catholic priest, made petition to Congress for the allowance of the common 
rights of territorial government, declaring against the introduction of slavery 
and against any cession of territory to Texas. The population of New Mexico 
was stated at from 75,000 to 100,000. In September, 1849, a similar convention 
urged about the same action by Congress. It elected Hugh N. Smith as Delegate 

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90 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

to Congress, but he was refused recognition at Washington. Even at that early 
date there was discussion over statehood, though much complicated by slavery 
questions. President Taylor favored statehood at once for both California and 
New Mexico. 

While these questions of admission were being debated, Texas was attempting 
to take possession of the eastern half of New Mexico, but its Commission, sent 
to start several county governments, was turned by the military. The boundary 
trouble finally was settled by an act of Congress September 9, 1850, offering 
Texas $10,000,000 to abandon her claims to New Mexico and to certain other 
lands farther to the northward, in Colorado and Kansas, especially. This was 
accepted by the Texas Legislature in the following November. 

A following legislative assembly memorialized Congress against the harsh 
military rule and against taxation without representation. Embezzlement was 
charged in office and intimidation even of the church. The only printing press 
was said to be in the hands of the military party. Stiff charges of malfeasance 
were filed against Chief Justice Houghton by Attorney Rich. H. Weightman, 
who had come from MissoTiri as captain of an artillery command, who later 
killed Felix Aubrey and who in the Civil War died a colonel in the Confederate 
forces. Col. John Monroe, military commandant and local court of last resort, 
refused to consider the charges. Houghton challenged Weightman and there 
was a duel, in which neither was hurt. 

Colonel Monroe called a convention for May 15, 1850, at which was formu- 
lated a constitution for a proposed State. This document was approved by the 
electors and Henry Connelly and Wm. S. Messervy were elected, respectively, 
Governor and Delegate to Congress. The popular action was nullified by Colonel 
Monroe, bringing out a protest to Washington. As a result, Monroe was ordered 
to keep his hands off civil affairs. 

Not until March 3, 1851, was New Mexico given a full civil government, 
under the terms of an act passed by Congress September 9, 1850, at the same 
time that California was made a State. The first Governor appointed by the 
President was Jas. S. Calhoun. Under his call, a Legislature convened at Santa 
Fe June 2, 1851, with Padre Martinez. as President of the Council. Theodore 
D. Wheaton, an American lawyer, was Speaker of the House. Governor Calhoun 
had been Indian Agent in New Mexico and was well acquainted with local con- 
ditions. His term of office included grave troubles with the Navajo and Apache 
Indians, and also with Col. E. V. Sumner, the military commander, who appears 
to have been very much at outs with the civil government. In one of the Gov- 
ernor's final reports, he pathetically wrote: ^*We are without a dollar in our 
territorial treasury, without munitions of war, without authority to call out our 
militia and without the co-operation of the military authorities. *' He started to 
Washington in May, 1852, but died enroute. He was succeeded by former 
Mayor Wm. C. Land, of St. Louis, and he, in 1857, by Abraham Rencher, of 
North Carolina. 

During Col. Sumner's administration of military affairs were built several 
army posts, including Fort Defiance on the Navajo reservation and Fort Union. 
In 1859 trouble with the Navajos became acute and it is told that during two 
years no less than 300 citizens were killed by the Indians, who, on February 7, 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 91 

1860, tried to capture Fort Defiance. Colonel Canby thereafter undertook an 
active campaign against the hostiles, whom he punished severely. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, New Mexico, possibly through irritation 
over Texas' attempts at encroachment, was generally Union in sentiment, though 
nearly all her territorial oflSeials, appointees of President Buchanan, headed by 
(Jov. Abraham Rencher and Delegate M. A. Otero, were rated as disaffected. 
The same was true of the ranking oflBcers of the regular army in New Mexico. 
In 1861, by Lincoln, Henry Connelly was appointed Governor, with a complete 
overturning of the territorial offices and with abrogation of a slavery statute. 

THE SEPA&ATION OF ARIZONA 

The association of Arizona with New Mexico ended February ?4, 1863, when 
Congress passed* an act establishing the Territory of Arizona, which formally 
was organized at Navajo Springs in December of that year. Arizona appears 
to have had very little consideration in the days when it was embraced within 
New Mexico and best was known as the haunt of troublesome Indians. The only 
really settled portion was along the Santa Cruz River, including Tucson and 
Tubac, and there the residents appear to have had and to have demanded very 
little government. 

New Mexico to-day is a sort of linguistic island within the United States, 
probably the only section wherein a foreign language is more commonly used 
than English. At the same time there is presented the curious anomaly that of 
its population at the last census, 304,155, only 23,146 are recorded as foreign 
bom, a percentage of native bom probably unsurpassed in any other State of 
the Union. 

The history of New Mexico would be the richer had it not been for an 
American Governor who, in 1869, according to W. II. Davis, having despaired 
of disposing of the immense mass of old documents and records deposited in his 
oiBce, by the slow process of using them to kindle fires, had sold as junk the 
entire lot, an invaluable collection of material bearing on the history of the 
Southwest and its early European and native inhabitants. 

Peonage seems to have been given official sanction within New Mexico fol- 
lowing the American occupation. Witness to this, a letter written by order of 
General Carleton to Capt. J. H. Whitlock, commanding Fort Selden, reproving 
that oflftcer for failure to deliver a peon to the latter 's master and for the tenor 
of the Captain's letter asking instruction on the matter at issue. Peonage in the 
order is treated as voluntary servitude and not as real slavery. The practice 
later was forbidden by Congressional act. 

General Carleton was selected to command the New IMexican expedition of 
1862 not only for personal fitness for independent action, but because he had had 
prior military service in the country and knew it well. In 1853, while a captain of 
dragoons, he had led several parties of exploration from the Rio Grande settle- 
ments, and of at least one such trip, taken to the ruins of the Gran Quivera, there 
remains a record. It is especially interesting in its criticism of the Spanish- 
speaking inhabitants of the region, reciting: **In no rancho or village have we 
seen a solitary indication of industry, cleanliness or thrift since we left Albu- 
querque; and it may be remarked, parenthetically, that we have yet to see in 
that town the first evidence of these cardinal virtues. Indolence, squalid poverty. 



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92 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

filth and utter ignorance of everything beyond their cornfields and acequias 
seem to particularly characterize the inhabitants who are settled along the east 
bank of the Rio Grande. ' ' Of the town of Manzana was remarked : * ' It enjoys 
pre-eminently the widespread notoriety of being the resort of more murderers, 
robbers, common thieves, scoundrels and vile abandoned women than can be 
found in any other town of the same size in New Mexico, which is saying a good 
deal about Manzana.'' All of which rather indicates that Carleton was hardly 
prepossessed in favor of the people of the land he was to hold within the power 
of the Union. 

RECORD OF KEARNY'S WESTERN DASH 

General Kearny's special command or escort on leaving Santa Fe for Cali- 
fornia, September 25, 1846, comprised 300 United States dragoons under Lieut.- 
Col. E. V. Sumner. With him was Lieut. W. H. Emory of the Corps of Topo- 
graphical Engineers, who had been ordered to join the expedition to chart its 
progress through the unexplored regions of the Southwest, and to Emory is to 
be credited a very dear and interesting account of the journey. This was the 
same Emory who later was at the head of the Boundary Survey and who became 
the best topographical authority of his day upon the Southwest. Another journal 
was kept by Capt. A. R. Johnston, but this latter chronicle abruptly closed on 
the death of its author at the battle of San Pascual in southern California, before 
the command had reached the coast. Leading the van was none other than the 
famous scout, Kit Carson, who had come eastward over the same route a few 
months before. With his party of scouts was Pranc^ois de van Coeur. 

Kearny's column traveled fast, though delayed at times by the hauling of 
a couple of small but cumbersome howitzers mounted on small wheels. The Gila 
was followed closely; save for the logical detour around the middle box caiion, 
where the Aravaipa Canon trail was taken leading into the San Pedro Valley. 
This trail was found a veritable highway, with many tracks of horses, mules and 
cattle, most of them pointing northward, for it was used continually by maraud- 
ing Apaches returning from Sonora with the spoils of war. From the Gila Valley 
northward, Indians showed an extension of the same trail, that led to the Moqui 
and Zuni villages, constituting the shortest and best route that could have been 
taken by the Kearny expedition had it been properly advised. There was little 
doubt that this same aboriginal trail was that taken by de Niza and Coronado, 
who thereby must have been saved a vast amount of tribulation in the wilderness. 

On the upper Gila much trouble was experienced in gaining the confidence 
of the Apaches, who made a most unpleasant impression upon the party, though 
the Indians did no damage and finally were made to understand that the Amer- 
icans were far different from their hereditary enemies, the Mexicans. One chief 
tried to fix up a scheme with General Kearny to raid the Mexican settlements of 
Sonora, offering to bring up a large force of Indians as reinforcement for the 
troops. The Apaches were called *'Gilands'' C'Gilenos"). 

The San Pedro was followed down to its junction with the Gila, which was 
crossed at about the site of the present town of Winkelman. Thence the party 
worked down the Gila, most of the time near the stream, which was crossed and 
recrossed a score of times. Lieutenant Emory notes the naming by himself of 
Mineral Creek, where croppings and stains of copper were seen, and he predicted 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 93 

that the time would be seen when tjie Gila would bear on its tide heavily laden 
flatboats, floating down to deep water, with copper ore for reduction. Mineral 
Creek has borne that name to this day and in the hills along its course are some of 
the richest and most productive copper mines in the Southwest. Lieutenant 
Emory's flatboats must be represented, however, by the trains of ore cars taking 
the product of the Ray mines, 10,000 tons a day, to the concentration works and 
smelter at Hayden, near Winkelman. 

Finally the explorers, footsore and with sore-backed and half-starved horses, 
made their way through the last canon of the Gila, the great gash in The Buttes, 
a dozen miles above the site of Florence, and with joy and wonderment beheld the 
great Casa Grande plain stretching away to the blue mountains in the far 
distance. 

In the first day's journey thereafter there were encountered the first Pima and 
Maricopa Indians seen. These Indians received the warmest of good words from 
the historians of the expedition. While passing through the Pima country the 
camps were continually full of Indians, offering melons, grains and provisions 
for sale, asking white beads or money in exchange. Johnston was struck with 
their unassumed ease and confidence in approaching the camps, **not like the 
Apaches, who bayed at us like their kindred wolves until the smell of tobacco and 
other agreeable things gave them assurance enough to approach us. The Pimas 
have long lived at their present abode and are known to all the trappers as a 
virtuous and industrious people. . . . The Indians exhibit no sentiments 
of taciturnity ; but on the contrary give vent to their thoughts and feelings with- 
out reason, laughing and chatting together; and a parcel of young girls with 
long hair streaming to their waists, and no other covering than a clean, white 
cotton blanket folded around their middle and extending to their knees, were as 
merry as any group of like age and sex to be met with in our own country. ' ' 

Emory wrote something to the same effect: '* To us it was a rare sight to be 
thrown in the midst of a large nation of what are termed wild Indians, surpassing 
many of the Christian nations in agriculture, little behind them in the useful arts 
and immeasurably before them in honesty and virtue. During the whole of 
yesterday our camp was full of men, women and children who wandered among 
our packs unwatched and not a single instance of theft was reported. ' ' 

The Indians had had a taste, however, for the white man's firewater and 
mention is made of an interpreter who '*told the General he had tasted the liquor 
of Sonora and New Mexico and would like to taste a sample of the United States. 
The dog had a liquorish tooth and when given a drink of French brandy pro- 
nounced it better than any he had ever seen or tasted. " 

Emorj'^ had written in his daily journal of continually finding ruined remains 
of the habitations of ancient peoples. Sharing interest with the good Indians 
was Casa Grande, within the Pima country. He called it the remains of a three- 
story mud house. The Indians called it *'Casa Montezuma," but the bibulous 
interpreter admitted that the Pimas after all knew nothing of its origin. Emory 
was, however, told the old Pima story of the primeval woman of surpassing 
beauty, who rejected all courtiers, though her goodness and generosity were unlim- 
ited when there came a time of drouth. One day as she was lying asleep a drop 
of rain fell upon her and from an immaculate conception she bore a son, the 
founder of a new race, who built all these houses. An immaculate conception 



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94 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

story, of one sort or another, is to be heard among most of the southwestern 
tribes, as well as a tale of the Flood. 

EMOBT PROPHESIES ON THE SOUTHWEST 

Not far from Yuma the expedition unexpectedly ran across a number of 
Mexicans, driving about 500 horses from Sonora to California, undoubtedly for 
the use of the Mexican forces on the coast. The chief of the party represented 
himself as the employee of several rich rancheros, but later it was learned that 
he really was a colonel in the Mexican army. The horses, though nearly all wild 
and unbroken, were a valuable find, for the horses and mules of the Kearny expe- 
dition were lean and worn out. That the horses were indeed for the remounting 
of General Castro's command in California was definitely determined through 
the capture of a Mexican messenger, eastward bound with letters for Sonora, 
telling how the Californians had thrown off the detestable Anglo- Yankee yoke 
and had re-established Mexican authority. 

Before leaving Arizona, Lieutenant Emory made a few observations concern- 
ing the country at large that are of interest to-day. He said : * * In no part of this 
vast tract can the rains from Heaven be relied upon to any extent for the cultiva- 
tion of the soil. A few feeble streams flow in from different directions from the 
great mountains, which in many places traverse this region. The cultivation of 
the earth is therefore confined to those narrow strips of land which are within 
the level of the waters of the streams, and wherever practiced in a community 
with any success or to any extent involves a degree of subordination and absolute 
obedience to a chief repugnant to the habits of our people.'' He believed that 
along the Salinas (Salt) and some other rivers land could be found capable of 
irrigation. A memorandum was made of the Mexican highroad between Sonora 
and California, which, from the ford of the Colorado below the mouth of the 
Gila, crossed a fearful desert toward the southeast, that endured for nearly a 
week's journey. 

There were also some observations concerning the Indians at large. The 
Pimas were considered the best, with a high regard for morality and with a 
desire for peace, though without any incapacity for war. The Maricopas were 
considered a bit more sprightly than their neighbors. The Apaches lived prin- 
cipally by plundering the Mexicans, and near the headwaters of the Salinas was 
told of the existence of a band of Indians known as the * * Soones, ' ' who in manner, 
habits and pursuits **are said to resemble the Pimas, except that they live in 
houses scooped from the solid rock. Many of them are Albinos, which may be the 
consequence of their cavernous dwellings." This description of the Zuni pueblo 
dwellings, on hearsay evidence, is about as good as any heard by Friar Marco de 
Niza. 

The Colorado River was crossed by the expedition November 24. The stream 
was forded at a point where it was about one-third of a mile wide and four feet 
in extreme depth, with a river bottom about ten miles wide, overgrown with 
thicket. Prediction was made by Captain Johnston that the river ** would at all 
seasons carry steamers of large size to the future city of *LaVaca' at the mouth 
of the Gila.'' 

Emory stated his belief that the Colorado always would be navigable for 
steamboats, though full of shifting sandbars above the mouth, and that the Gila 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 95 

might be navigated up to the Pima villages, and possibly with small boats at all 
stages of water. He wrote of seeing near the junction of the two streams, on the 
north side, the remains of an old Spanish church, built near the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, by the renowned Padre Kino. **The site of this mission,*' 
he predicted, **will probable be the site of a city of wealth and importance, most 
of the mineral and fur regions of a vast extent of country being drained by the 
two rivers." That the Gila was in rather abnormal state of clarity is shown by 
his reference to the ** sea-green waters lost in the chrome-colored hue of the 
Colorado." In these latter days the Gila usually discharges a flood that is nearly 
black into the brick-red waters of the Colorado. 

The column was met at La Pascual, on December 6, by a superior force of 
Mexicans under command of Gen. Andres Pico. Kearny did not wait for attack, 
but set his column in motion at 2 a. m., with Captain Johnston in command of 
the vanguard. The enemy, encountered about daylight, was charged and driven 
from the field in disorder. That resistance was keen was indicated by the fact 
that the United States forces had a casualty list of eighteen killed and fhirteen 
wounded. Among the killed were Captains Johnston and Moore and Lieutenant 
Hammond, while the wounded included General Kearny, Captains Gillespie and 
Gibson and Lieutenant Warner. It is told that the Mexican losses were much 
heavier. Carson and Lieutenant Beale thereafter slipped throu^ the Mexican 
lines to summon help from San Diego. 

The following day the Califomians reformed and made an unsuccessful attack. 
The enemy being in so much greater force, the situation of Kearny's command 
was not enviable, and it is possible that the long journey might have ended in 
disaster had it not been for reinforcement received on the evening of December 
10 of 180 sailors and marines, sent out from San Diego by Commodore Stockton, 
bringing clothing, provisions and ammunition. The Califomians, unaware of 
the approach of this body, were surprised and they fled, leaving many of their 
cattle. 

The following day the Americans entered San Diego in triumph, and the 
Kearny column later took a prominent part in the final overthrow of Mexican 
rule within Alta California. 

ORGANIZATION O^ THE MORMON BATTALION 

While General Kearny was making his more hurried way to California with 
a detachment of cavalry, a larger military body, of infantry, followed from 
Santa F6, comprising the famous Mormon Battalion, under the command of 
Lieut.-Col. P. St. George Cooke. This body marched southward a considerable 
distance, down the Bio Grande, thence westward to the San Pedro, thence fifty- 
five miles northward, where a trail was taken to Tucson, to the Pima villages, and 
then down the Gila. 

The Mormon Battalion was one of the most remarkable military bodies ever 
formed. It was recruited in Missouri among a people persecuted because of their 
religion and practically outlawed both by the State and Nation. Their leaders 
threatened with death and threatened with pillage in their temple city of Nauvoo 
in western Illinois, as well as in Missouri, they had finally decided to move west- 
ward, in the hope of finding a promised land, wherein they could dwell \\ithout 
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96 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

This desire was conveyed through Mormon channels to President Polk, to 
whom, about the same time, went a suggestion that from these Mormons might be 
recruited a sturdy band of volunteer soldiery that would serve well in conquering 
and occupying California. Elder J. C. Little of the Latter Day Saints' New 
England Conference, went to Washington, at first with the idea of securing for 
the Mormons work in the construction of a number of stockade posts, which were 
designed along the line of the overland route. But, after interviews with the 
President and other officials, the President changed the plans suggested, and 
instructed the Secretary of War to make out dispatches to Colonel Kearny, com- 
mander in the West, for the formation of a battalion of Mormons. 

Colonel Kearny, who was commander of the First Dragoon Regiment, then 
stationed at Fort Leavenworth, selected Capt. James Allen of the same regiment 
to be commander of the new organization, with volunteer rank as Lieutenant- 
Colonel. The orders read: **You will have the Mormons distinctly understand 
that I wish to have them as volunteers for twelve months; that they will be 
marched to California, receive pay and allowances during the above time, and at 
its expiration they will be discharged and allowed to retain as their private prop- 
erty the guns and accouterments furnished them at this post." 

Captain Allen proceeded at once to Mount Pisgah, a Mormon camp 130 miles 
east of Council Bluffs, where, on June 26, 1846, he issued a circular inviting 
recruits, in which was stated: **This gives an opportunity of sending a portion 
of your young and intelligent men to the ultimate destination of your whole 
people at the expense of the United States, and this advance party can thus pave 
the way and look out the land for their brethren to come after them. " President 
Brigham Young of the Mormon Church and his associates gave their support. 
George Q. Cannon, later President of the Church, stated some secret history in 
years thereafter, probably on mere hearsay evidence: '* Thomas H. Benton, 
United States Senator from the State of Missouri, got a pledge from President 
Polk that if the Mormons did not raise the battalion of 500, he might have the 
privilege of raising volunteers in the upper counties of Missouri to fall upon them 
and use them up." 

July 16, 1845, five companies were mustered into the service of the United 
States at Council Bluffs, Iowa Territory. The company officers had been elected 
by the recruits, including Captains Jefferson Hunt, Jesse B. Hunter, James 
Brown and Nelson Higgins. George P. Dykes was appointed adjutant, and 
William Mclntyre assistant surgeon. It would appear that the only practical 
soldier in the lot was the commanding officer. 

The march westward was started July 20, the route leading through St. Josepli 
and Leavenworth, where were found a number of companies of Missouri volun- 
teers. Colonel Allen, who had secured the confidence and affection of his soldiers, 
had to be left, sick, at Leavenworth, where he died August 23. At Leavenworth 
full equipment was secured, including flintlock muskets, with a few caplock guns 
for sharpshooting and hunting. Pay also was drawn, the paymaster expressing 
surprise at the fact that every man could write his own name, ** something that 
only one in three of the Missouri volunteers could accomplish. ' ' August 12 and 
14 two divisions of the battalion left Leavenworth, about the same time the main 
body of the Mormon exodus crossed the Missouri River. 

The place of Colonel Allen was taken, provisionally, by First Lieut. A. J. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 97 

Smith of the First Dragoons, who proved impolitic and unpopular, animus prob- 
ably starting through the desire of the battalion that Captain Hunt should suc- 
ceed to the command. The first division of the battalion arrived at Santa Fe 
October 9, and was received by Colonel Doniphan, commander of the post, with a 
salute of 100 guns. Colonel Doniphan was an old friend. He had been a lawyer 
and militia commander in Clay County, Missouri, when Joseph Smith was tried 
by court martial at Far West in 1838, and had succeeded in changing a judgment 
of death passed by the mob. On the contrary. Col. Sterling Price was considered 
an active enemy of the Mormons. 

On the arrival of the battalion in Santa Fe, Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, an 
officer of dragoons, succeeded to the command under appointment of General 
Kearny, who already had started westward. Capt. James Brown was ordered to 
take command of a party of about eighty men, together with about twoscore of 
women and children, and with them winter at Pueblo, on the headwaters of the 
Arkansas River. 

Colonel Cooke made a rather discouraging report upon the character of the 
command given him for the task of marching 1,100 miles through an unknown 
wilderness. He said : ''It was enlisted too much by families; some were too old, 
some feeble, and some too young ; it was embarrassed by too many women ; it was 
undisciplined ; it was much worn by travel on foot and marching from Nauvoo, 
Illinois ; clothing was very scant ; there was no money to pay them or clothing to 
issue ; their mules were utterly broken down ; the quartermaster department was 
without funds and its credit bad ; animals scarce and inferior and deteriorating 
every hour for lack of forage. So every preparation must be pushed — hurried." 

THE MORMON MABCH THBOUGH ARIZONA 

After the Mormons had sent their pay checks back to their families, the 
expedition started from Santa Fe 448 men strong. It had rations for only sixty 
days. The commander vnrote on November 19 that he was determined to take 
along his wagons, though the mules were nearly broken down at the outset, and 
added a delicate criticism of General Fremont's self-centered character. **The 
only good mules were taken for the express for Fremont's mail, the general's 
order requiring the twenty-one best in Santa Fe." 

Colonel Cooke soon proved an oflBcer who would enforce strict discipline. He 
had secured an able quartermaster in Brevet Second Lieut, George Stoneman, 
First Dragoons, in later days Colonel of regulars in Arizona, and, after discharge, 
with the rank of General, elected to the high position of Governor of California. 

Before the command got out of the Rio Grande Valley, the condition of the 
commissary best is to be illustrated by the following extract from verses written 
by Levi W. Hancock : 

We sometimes now for lack of bread. 

Are less than quarter rations fed, 

And soon expect, for all of meat. 

Nought less than broke-down mules, to eat. 

The trip over the Continental Divide was one of hardship, at places tracks 
for the wagons being made by marching files of men ahead to tramp down ruts 
wherein the wheels might run. The command for forty-eight hours at one time 



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98 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

was without water. Prom the top of the Divide the wagons had to be taken down 
by hand, with men behind with ropes, and the horses driven below. 

Finally a more level country was reached, on December 2, at the old, ruined 
ranch of San Bernardino, near the southeastern comer of the present Arizona. 
The principal interest of the trip, till the Mexican forces at Tucson were encoun- 
tered, then lay in an attack upon the marching column of a number of wild bulls 
in the San Pedro Valley. It had been assumed that Cooke would follow down the 
San Pedro to the Gila, but on learning that the better and shorter route was by 
Tucson, he determined upon a more southerly course. 

Tucson was garrisoned by about 200 Mexican soldiers, with two small brass 
field pieces, a concentration of the garrisons of Tubac, Santa Cruz and Fronteras. 
After some brief parley, the Mexican commander. Captain Comaduron, refusing 
to surrender, left the village, compelling most of its inhabitants to accompany 
him. No resistance whatever was made. When the battalion marched in, the 
Colonel took pains to assure the populace that all would be treated with kindness, 
and sent to the Mexican commander a courteous letter for the Governor of Sonora, 
Don Manuel Gandara, who was reported ** disgusted and disaffected to the 
imbecile central government.*' Little food was found for the men, but several 
thousand bushels of grain had been left and was drawn upon. On September 17, 
the day after the arrival of the command, the Colonel and about fifty men 
** passed up a creek about five miles above Tucson toward a village (San Xavier), 
where they had seen a large church from the hills they had passed over.*' The 
Mexican commander reported that the Americans had taken an advantage of him, 
in that they had entered the town on a Sunday, while he and his command and 
most of the inhabitants were absent at San Xavier attending mass. 

The Pima villages were reached four days later, Pauline Weaver serving as 
a guide. By Cooke the Indians were called **friendly, guileless and singularly 
innocent and cheerful people.*' 

In view of the prosperity of the Pimas and Maricopas, Colonel Cooke sug- 
gested that this would be a good place for the exiled Saints to locate, and a pro- 
posal to this effect was favorably received by the Indians. It was probable that 
this suggestion had much to do with the colonizing by Mormons of the upper 
part of the nearby Salt River valley in later years. 

About January 1, to lighten the overload of the half-starved mules, a barge 
was made by placing two wagon bodies on dry cottonwood logs, and on this 2,500 
pounds of provisions and com were launched on the Gila River. The improvised 
boat found too many sandbars, and most of its cargo had to be jettisoned, lost in 
a time when the rations had been reduced to a few ounces a day per man. 
January 9 the Colorado River was reached, and the command and its impedi- 
menta were ferried over on the same raft contrivance that had proven ineffective 
on the Gila. 

Colonel Cooke, in his narrative concerning the practicability of the route he 
had taken, said: ** Undoubtedly the fine bottomland of the Colorado, if not of 
the Gila, will soon be settled; then all diflBculty will be removed.*' The battalion 
had still more woe in its passage across the desert of southern California, where 
wells often had to be dug for water, and where rations were at a minimum, until 
Warner's Ranch was reached, where each man was given five pounds of beef a 
day, constituting almost the sole article of subsistence. Tyler, the Mormon histo- 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 99 

rian, insists that five pounds is really a small allowance for a healthy laboring 
man, because *'when taken alone it is not nearly equal to mush and milk/' and 
he referred to an issuance to each of Fremont's men of an average of ten pounds 
per day of fat beef. 

END OF THE MABOH AND MUSTER-OUT 

December 27 the long-looked-for Pacific Ocean at last appeared, in plain view, 
and quarters were taken up at a mission five miles from San Diego, where General 
Kearny was quartered. 

After reporting to the General, Colonel Cooke issued an order congratulating 
the battalion on its safe arrival and the conclusion of a march of over 2,000 miles. 
''History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has 
been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or 
deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature. . . . Without 
a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless tablelands where 
water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pick and axe in 
hand, we have worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught save 
the wild goat, and hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock more narrow 
than our wagons. . . . Thus, marching half naked and half fed, and living 
upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to our 
country. Thus, volunteers, you have exhibited some high and essential qualities 
of veterans." 

The Mormons marched northward, and in Los Angeles had a number of 
personal encounters with men of Fremont's command, it being charged that 
Fremont himself had done all he could to arouse ill-feeling against the Mormons. 
Stories had spread among the Mexicans that the Mormons w^re cannibals, espe- 
cially fond of tender children. A small fort was erected commanding the town 
of Los Angeles, laid out by Lieutenant Davidson of the First Dragoons, with 
places for six guns. 

Following practical rejection by the men of an offer of reinlistment, the 
Mormon Battalion was discharged at Fort Moore, Los Angeles, July 15, 1849, 
exactly a year from the date of enlistment. The ceremony was brief. According 
to Tyler, the companies were formed in column and "the notorious Lieut. A. J. 
Smith then marched down the lines in one direction and back between the next 
line, and then in a low tone of voice said, 'You are discharged. ' This was all there 
was of ceremony of mustering out of service these veteran companies of living 
martyrs to the cause of their country and religion.'' 

On the 20th one company, made up from the discharged battalion, reinlisted 
for six months under Capt. Daniel C. Davis, to return to garrison San Diego. 

In several companies, organized under captains of hundreds, fifties and tens, 
most of the remainder of the battalion started on foot for Salt Lake, at which 
point had been established the headquarters of Mormondom. There the men 
rejoined their families and received warm welcome as well from the leaders of 
the Church. 

A list of the surviving members of the battalion, made by Tyler in March, 
1882, included the following names, residents of Arizona at that- time : Adair 
Wesley; H. W. Brazee, Mesa; George P. Dykes, Mesa; Wm. A. Follett; Marshall 



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100 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Hunt, Snowflake; P. C. Merrill, St. David; David Pulsipher, Concho; S. H. 
Rogers, Snowflake ; Henry Standage, Mesa ; Lott Smith, Sunset. 

Soon after the treaty of peace with Mexico, in the late summer of 1848, 
Maj. Lawrence P. Graham led a squadron of dragoons to California from Chihua- 
hua, marching via the old San Bernardino ranch, the Santa Cruz presidio and 
down the Santa Cruz to Tucson. Yuma was reached October 30. Records of this 
expedition especially note the drunkenness of its leader. According to John H. 
Slaughter, now owner of the San Bernardino ranch, an old ranch house, half 
a mile south of his present home and on Mexican territory, was built by this 
Graham party. The Agua Prieta spring passed by Colonel Cooke he believes to 
have been one in Anavacachi Pass, twelve miles southwest of Douglas. 



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CHAPTER VII 
EARLY MINERS AND PROSPECTORS 

Spamsh Silver Mines and the Planchas de Plata — American Operations Along the 
Border — First Copper Production at Ajo — Placers — Walker and Weaver Ex- 
peditions. 

The history of mining in Arizona is, practically, the history of Arizona. 
When the Spaniards started across the deserts north of Culiacan through Pimeria 
and Apacheria, hunting for the Seven Cities of Cibola, they sought the spread 
of the Holy Faith and of the domain of their sovereign king, but their imme- 
diate reward was to be the gold in treasure houses, later found to be mud-built 
pueblos. Since that time the mountains of the Southwest have been searched 
most thoroughly. The Spaniard of old and his Mexican successor were the best 
prospectors and the closest judges of ore ever known. But, necessarily, they 
could mine only the richer and freer veins of the metal that they found. They 
hunted for gold and for silver. The latter they smelted in rude adobe furnaces, 
from which came, for hundreds of years, much of the wealth that sustained the 
then-dominant kingdom of Spain. Along the southern border of what is now 
Arizona, they established towns, clustered around churches, and dug in mines 
of wonderful richness, mines which today are known only by name, for their 
shafts were filled and the landmarks obliterated by an Indian uprising against 
the taskmasters. 

From the time of the Spaniard to the time of the American miner was a long 
step. The first American mining followed in the pathways made by the Span- 
iards, along the southern border, where ore was taken out that was almost pure 
silver or copper and shipped by mule team to the Colorado, and thence to civ- 
ilization. But the latter-day miner was not content, and his scouts spread north- 
ward, at first along the Colorado River, and then eastwardly into the jagged 
mountains where the Apaches dealt death. By these pioneers were discovered 
the great Vulture mine and the celebrated Weaver diggings. The great Silver 
King in what is now the northern portion of Pinal county, was an accidental 
discovery, with its enormous pillar of silver, so rich that it was passed over for 
several years as being nothing but lead. The mines at Globe were located for 
silver, and there are remains still of silver mills, where veins are worked around 
the Miami valley, and McMillen at Pioneer and in Richmond basin. 

Discovery was made of the riches of northwestern Arizona, where mines that 
were found more than fifty years ago still are being worked, all the way from 
White Hills to Signal. Around Prescott hundreds of claims were worked in the 
early sixties, when the miner needed a guard of riflemen as protection for his 
life and property against the Apache. This pluck, or foolhardiness, if you choose, 

101 



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102 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

eventually wore out the Indian and pacified Arizona, the miner possibly con- 
tributing to as large a degree as the soldier in making Arizona the peaceful land 
it now is. 

THE BIOH MINE8 OF "ARIZONA" 

After the Pimeria revolt of 1751 it is doubtful if Indian labor was employed 
to any great extent in the mines of northern Sonora, where the number of mis- 
sions decreased and where the population hung close to the presidios or church 
enclosures that gave relative security against the Apache. This was the con- 
dition known as late as 1827, when a rather close inspection of the mines of 
northern Sonora was made by Lieut. R. W. H. Hardy of the English navy, who 
had little patience with the natives, or with their careless mining methods. He 
referred to three notable silver fields, **Creaderos de Plata," namely, Arizona, 
Tepiistetes, and Las Cruces, near the presidio of Fronteras. Concerning the 
Arizona, he stated, **A great deal has been said in Mexico, and in Las Cartas 
de las Jesuitas is an account of a ball of silver having there been discovered by 
a poor man which weighed 400 arrobas — 10,000 pounds! (Another account 
gives 149 arrobas — Editor.) It afterwards became the subject of litigation, add 
these learned fathers, between the discoverer and the King of Spain, which ended 
in His Majesty's declaring the^ hill where such an extraordinary treasure was 
found, his royal patrimony; and when Iturbide was hard pressed for money it 
is said that he also declared Arizona his imperial patrimony ; but that his pre- 
mature fall prevented him from sending troops to take possession of the hill. 
Certain it is that in the city more is thought of the Arizona mine than is believed 
in Sonora.*' The mines had been abandoned for many years, owing to the hos- 
tility of the Coyotero Apaches (so-called because they were believed to feed on 
the flesh of the jackal), till about fifteen years before Hardy's coming, when a 
strong party of Mexicans, led by Manuel Moi^les of Arizpe and Ignacio Tiburcio 
de Saraaniego of Bavispe, entered the forbidden country and found much more 
of the silver. 

Hardy declared that most of the mines of Sonora had **V" veins, that 
diminish in width and value with depth. Also, **Some of the largest fortunes 
which have been gained in Sonora have arisen from the extraction of copper." 
Referring to the loose habits of the gold miners, who threw away their gleanings 
of the precious metal, Hardy in novel philosophy concluded that the mining of 
copper * * appears to debase the mind less than gold. The same distinction I draw 
between copper-mine speculators and gold diggers ; in the former, with tolerable 
care, economy and industry, success is generally the result, in Sonora at least; 
in the latter enterprise much money is to be made, but it is seldom retained or 
used wisely or judiciously. These observations, however, have reference only to 
the inhabitants of Sonora, who are equally ignorant of the true value of wealth 
or education or liberty." 

Of the mines of ** Arizona," one of the most glowing accounts is that of Judge 
R. A. Wilson of California, who had delved rather deeply into the subject in 
connection with the traffic that was expected for a projected Pacific railway on 
the Gila route, eariy in the sixties, and who personally visited the northern sec- 
tions of Mexico. After passing through Sonora, he wrote that, ** Proceeding 
northward, we came to a spot, the most famous in the world for its product of 



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^i^:^"- 7 


( _^^KsK 




SMELTING FURNACES AND MULE POWER 
First American reduction works in Arizona, erected at Santa Rita, January 8, 1861 




THE DEAD CITY OF LA PAZ 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 103 

silver, the mine of Arazuma. For nearly a century the accounts of the wealth 
of this mine were considered fabulous; but their literal truth is confirmed by 
the testimony of the English ambassador. After examining the old records 
which I have quoted, I have no doubt the facts surpassed the astonishing report; 
for in Mexico the propensity has ever been to conceal, rather than overestimate, 
the quantity of silver, on account of the King's fifth, yet it is the King's fifth, 
actually paid, on which all the estimates of the production of Sonora silver 
mines are based. Arazuma, which in the report of the Minera that I have trans- 
lated for this volume appears to be set down as Arizpa (Arizpe?), was for a 
hundred years the world's wonder, and so continued until the breaking out of 
the great Apache war a few years afterward. Men seemed to run mad at the 
sight of such immense masses of virgin silver, and for a time it seemed as if silver 
was about to lose its value. In the midst of the excitement a royal ordinance 
appeared, declaring Arazuma a *creador de plata' and appropriating it to the 
King's use. This put a stop to private enterprise; and after the Indian war 
set in Arazuma became almost a forgotten locality ; and in a generation or two 
afterwards the accounts of the mineral riches began to be discredited." 

Undoubtedly the richest of the copper mines worked in the Southwest by the 
Mexicans was the Santa Rita del Cobre, not far from the present Silver City. 
Its native copper was used by the prehistoric Indians, who, with their stone 
implements, pounded the soft metal into rude ornaments and small bells. It 
was worked by white men as early as 1804. Copper, smelted in little adobe 
furnaces, was sent to the Mexican mint in Chihuahua, to be stamped into coins. 
Some of it was delivered in the City of Mexico, though at a cost of 65 cents a 
pound. Later some of the bar copper was shipped to New York through the 
Texan port of La Vaca. The mines were abandoned in 1838, probably because 
the native copper no longer was found, though Creraony, whose tale on the 
subject is to be found elsewhere in this work, blamed the stoppage on the Apaches. 

In 1851, Jose Antonio Acuiia, a Mexican who had lived among the Apaches, 
returned to Sonora with a tale that somewhere near the Rio Salado there was a 
large deposit of pure silver, which the Indians thought merely a form of lead, and 
from it had moulded bullets. An organization of 500 men was effected to invade 
the country, but was delayed by the death of its first leader, Carrasco, whose 
place was taken by one Tapia. The party reached a point on the Gila River not 
far from where Acuna said the silver was to be found, but was met in force by 
the Apaches and thought it the part of discretion to retreat. Two deposits of 
almost pure silver thereafter were found by the Americans in the country pene- 
trated, in Richmond Basin near Globe and at Silver King, both points not very 
far from Salt River. 

One of the noted mines of the Spanish era in the hills that flanked the Santa 
Cruz Valley was the Salero, a Spanish word meaning ** saltcellar. " There are 
a number of stories concerning the origin of the name. Possibly that told by 
J. Ross Browne is as good as any. The parish priest at Turaacacori was morti- 
fied at a time of visitation by a superior priest to find that he had no saltcellar. 
So Indians forthwith were dispatched to the mine to dig out and smelt some silver 
ore. The next day at dinner a mass of silver fashioned in the shape of a salt- 
cellar was presented to the reverend visitor as a memento of his trip. 



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104 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

COMINa OF THE AMERICAN MINEB 

In 1861, according to Lieut. Sylvester Mowry, American miners had spread 
themselves very generally over the southern part of Arizona, usually working 
old Spanish mines with Mexican labor. Of large importance was the Patagonia 
or Mowry mine, an **antigua" still operated. It was then described as being 
ten miles from the boundary line, twenty miles from Fort Buchanan and four- 
teen miles from the town of Santa Cruz in Sonora. Freight from San Francisco, 
by way of Guaymas, was at a cost of 4 to 5 cents a pound. At that date the 
mine had been worked for about three years for rich silver surface ore. It was 
located by Col. J. W. Douglass and a Mr. Doss and by Capt. R. S. Ewell and 
Lieutenants Moore, Randal and Lord of the United States Army. After con- 
tinued disagreements among the partners, and expenditure of $200,000, four- 
fifths of the property was conveyed to Mowry, who operated the mine, after his 
retirement from the army, till arrested by order of General Carleton and con- 
fined at Yuma, a military post he had once commanded. It is doubtful if he 
found much profit, for the ores of his property to-day are considered notably 
refractory. 

Among the men who were identified with early American mining in the 
Santa Cruz Valley were a number who enjoyed the largest prominence then or 
later. Besides Poston and Mowry and Ehrenberg were included Gen. S. P. 
Heintzelman, Col. C. P. Stone, later called by the Khedive to the organization 
of the Egyptian army. Prof. Raphael P\impelly, S. F. Butterworth, Col. John 
D. Graham and Frederick Brunckow. There was heavy toll of life taken by the 
Apaches and Mexicans and among the victims of the latter was a brother of 
Colonel Poston. 

Though there were wonderful stories of wonderful finds, and the assays 
seemed usually to get up into the thousands of dollars, the actual returns from 
mining in the days before the Civil War appear to have been far from phenom- 
enal. For instance, one of the richest of the silver mines is assumed to have 
been the Heintzelman, thirty miles from Tubac. Though some of the ore sam- 
pled up to $1,000 a ton, the gross value of the ores hoisted in 1860 ran only 
$70,804. The first run of bullion from Heintzelman and Arivaca ores, made in 
1858, was from a small mud furnace that cost $250. It took 600 hours to smelt 
about 22,800 pounds of ore, from which were secured 2,287 ounces of silver and 
300 pounds of copper, no mention being made of the lead. Later the Freiberg 
system of barrel amalgamation was used, under the direction of Pumpelly and 
of the German experts, Ehrenberg, Brunckow and Kustel. 

The Heintzelman was the principal mine of the Sonora Exploring and 
Mining Company, of which Gen. S. P. Heintzelman was President. The corpo- 
ration, mainly capitalized in Connecticut, had far from a prosperous career. In 
a report made by the President, Samuel Colt, INIay 1, 1859, after a quarter of a 
million dollars had been sunk, he stated his belief in the mine, but added, *'In 
the hands of a half-horse concern, pulling all ways and dragging its slow length 
along, it is but a hole to bury money in." The company was organized in Cin- 
cinnati in March, 1856, for the purpose of exploring the old silver mining coun- 
try of northern Sonora. With Poston at its head, an expedition was fitted out 
at San Antonio, Texas, arriving at Tucson August 22, 1856, soon thereafter 
occupying the old town of Tubac. Poston, an enthusiast and dreamer, sent 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 105 

glowing accounts of progress and statements of assays, but the promised div- 
idends never materialized. 

Poston's account of his journey westward from the Rio Grande is preserved 
and is a delightful bit of narrative, of inspection of the Santa Rita copper mines, 
of contact with Indian raiders returning from Sonora, of difficulties in the 
mountain passes and in the fording of such streams as the San Pedro, where 
the mosquitoes were unbearable, and of arrival at Tucson, where the population 
comprised about thirty Americans and three or four hundred Mexicans, with 
two American stores and a flouring mill. It was an orderly community and in 
it the only population of the Territory, save at the Arizona and the Gadsona 
copper mines at Ajo and Pajaro, beside three Germans at Tumacacori. 

The Santa Rita Mining Company, operating mines ten miles east of Tubac, 
was an offshoot of the Sonora Company and proved about as little successful. 
It was organized in 1858 and, besides its mines, which included the famous Salero, 
secured title to the old Tumacdcori ranch, including the historic mission. 

Mowry, who diligently advertised the locality in pamphlets that yet are to 
be found, listed many mines, most of them properties that had at least been 
prospected by the Spaniards. The more prominent, other than those already 
noted, were, the Eagle, close to the Mowry, the Empire or Montezuma, toward 
the Mexican line, and the San Pedro, on the eastern side of the San Pedro valley, 
a mine that had been worked by the Spaniards in 1748, with rich returns in 
gold. Far to the north, four miles from the Gila and seventy miles from Tucson, 
was the Gray or Maricopa mine, on which Brunckow in 1860 made a favorable 
report, giving high assays in gold and silver. The Cahuabi Mining Company 
in the Papago country, near the present Quijotoa, had a mine, opened in 1859, 
with argentiferous copper ores, treated by the Mexican patio system of amal- 
gamation. 

On the Sopori rancho, south of the Canoa, a Providence, R. I., company, 
headed by Governor Jackson, worked an old Spanish gold and silver mine from 
which great riches had been taken, but little had been left. To the northward, 
the Arizona Land and Mining Company, another Rhode Island corporation, 
operated the old San Xavier silver mine. N. Richmond Jones, Jr., was in charge 
of this mine, as well as of the Sopori. 

In those days Arizona was considered as embracing the southern halves of 
the present New Mexico and Arizona, and the list of mines given in Mowry 'a 
work therefore includes a number in the Rio Grande and Mimbres sections to 
the eastward. 

AMERICAN COPPEB MININa AT AJO 

The first copper mining known in Arizona, possibly the first mining of any 
sort by an organized American corporation, was at Ajo, near the international 
line, about 120 miles southeast of Port Yuma. In 1854 in San Francisco was 
formed the Arizona Mining and Trading Company, for exploration of the Gads- 
den Purchase, with especial interest in the locality wherein had been found the 
Planchas de Plata. About twenty men formed the exploring party, which, 
attracted by the Ajo croppings, left half a dozen men there to hold some claims, 
while the main body went on to the silver country, apparently with little success 
in the picking up of silver planks. The report of the find at Ajo was the cause 



Vol. 1—8 



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106 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

of much exdtem<^ut in San FraiKusco, whei-e capital for development was not 
hard to seeuix-, BtK)ii tlie rich oxide surface ore was being ImuU'd to the head 
of tht? Gulf and thenee shipped by sailing vess*.4 to San Franeisco, whence most 
of it went to Swansea, Walt-s, Thirty tons of ore shipped to Swansea ihert sold 
for $360 a ton, A small furnaee was operated for a while, aeeording to laeger. 
hi 1855 there wm tronble with the Mexican authoritie-s, who seemed to be unafjle 
to lo4]!ate the now international line. There was one determined attack by IJqx- 
iean soldiers, whom the entrenched miners managed to drive away. Aceonimg 
to Poston, the company was organized '*with Gen, Robert Allen president and 
Edw. E. Dunbar superintendent. The members wer^ Fred. A, Ronstadt, Charles 
Snehard, Chas, O, Haywood, Peter R. Brady, Jo, Yancey and many others wlio 
are dead and forgotten. L. J. F, lager at Yuma tirst packed the on? on mules. 
Then Tonilinson came from California with a train of wagons and Califoniia 
mules. The secretary went to London and brought out a steam traction engine, 
and that finbheti the busineas. These companies always manage their business 
with prudence and economy/^ 

FI.AGEES or THE GILA AND COLOEABO 

Up the Colorado River, discoveries of lode mine^ had Iw^en made as early as 
1857, but to these there will he n^ferenee in following pa^s. Of more interest 
in the pre-orgaiiizatioii period were the placers of southwestern Arimna* Emory 
in 1847 had expressed belief that placer gold was to be found on the GOa and 
pay tlirt occasionally had lifH^n washed by California emigrants. But the real 
rush started in September, 1B5B, at a point on the river twenty -four miles above 
Port Yuma. Then Gila City had its sudden rise, its brief period of activity and 
its rapid decline, Jacob Snively, later killi^d by Indians in Central Arizona, is 
credited with having done the first systematic washing on the river, hut he had 
a hundred helpei*s within a month and the camp soon had a population that 
passed 1,000. It is said to have b*'en a veritable hell on earth, with the gathered 
human scum of the Southwest come to pn*y tipou the gold diggers, Mowry vis- 
ited the placers in November of 1858 and found already laid out & town witJi 
many brush shelters and with houses of adobe in course of erection. He then 
wrote: **I saw more than $20 washed out of twenty shovelsfull of earth, and 
this by an unpractised hand. I saw several men whom I knew well would not 
have been there had they not been doing well, who told me they had made from 
$30 to $125 a day each. I purchased about $300 in gold dust out of a lot of 
more than $2,000. Several hundred men have come into the mines since I left 
Arizona. The country at this point is not inviting, and there are always at any 
gold diggings men who do not and will not work, and who, if they cannot make 
a living by gambling or by feeding on some one else, depreciate the country." 
A few years later Gila City was a memory only, with even its Mexicans departed. 

The La Paz placers were found in January, 1862, by a party of trappers of 
which Pauline Weaver was a member, in what was named Arroyo de la Tenaja, 
seven miles east of the Colorado. The location of the field was shown by Weaver 
to Jose M. Redondo, a prominent Yuma pioneer, who on his first visit found 
rich ground, wherefrom he washed a two-ounce nugget. Within a few days, 
Redondo from Laguna headed a well-equipped party of forty miners, who were 
followed by at least 1,500 excited placeros, for the fame of the discovery spread 



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JACK SWILLING 
First settler of the Salt River Valley 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 107 

far into Mexico and California. The high tide of prosperity lasted only a few 
years, however, when the lack of water, the lessening richness of the gravel 
worked and the discovery of other placers in central Arizona combined to thin 
out the mining population. Still, the ground had been worked at times ever 
since, generally in rainy periods, and within a few years a company has been 
formed to pump water from the Colorado into the auriferous hills. La Paz for 
a while was a prosperous town, well-built, for the times, of adobe, the carousing 
ground of the miners, an important landing place for river steamers, a distrib- 
uting center for interior Arizona and the seat of one of the first Arizona courts. 

JOE WALKEB'8 EXPEDITION 

Practically the first American occupation of central Arizona north of the 
Gila was by the Weaver and Walker parties, which found placer gold in the 
gulches below and around Prescott in 1863, more than half a year before the 
arrival of Governor Goodwin and of the nucleus of the territorial government. 
Much has been written about the latter party, generally believed to have 
been diverted into Arizona by the espionage of the federal authorities as it was 
on its way to join the forces of the Confederacy. There was vigorous denial, 
however, by members of the party, who in later years insisted that the organiza- 
tion was one of adventure and exploration solely, started and kept together by 
the forceful personality of its leader. 

Among the early trappers who penetrated what is now northern Arizona 
were Joseph Walker and Jack Ralston, who, about 1860, found gold diggings 
on the Little Colorado River. This caused the organization of a party that 
started from California for the Little Colorado and which found the river but 
not the gold. Included in the membership of this party were Geo. D. Lount, 
Jos. R. Walker, Arthur Clothier, Robert Porsythe, Oliver Hallett and John 
Dickson. 

The succeeding year there was a reorganization in Colorado. The party 
struck southward, incidentally swelling its ranks by the addition of volunteers, 
among whom was included Jack Swilling, who joined at Mesilla. He had been 
a lieutenant of Texas Rangers, under Captain Hunter, and knew the westward 
trail as far as Maricopa Wells. Just why he left the Confederate service is not 
known, even by his family. He was welcomed as a valuable recruit. 

One of the few survivors of the party is Daniel E. Conner (**Kentuck*'), 
now a resident of Elsinore, Riverside County, Cal. He has written the Editor 
that the start of the expedition was in 1861, at Keyesville, Cal., where Walker 
succeeded in enlisting nineteen men, placer miners for whom the Tuolumne fields 
had become too lean and who appreciated fully the possibilities of adventure 
and of wealth that lay in the new land of which Walker had told. Aftter the 
winter in Colorado, the early spring found Walker energetically hunting for 
more men. Then it was that Conner joined. 

Of the forty or more individuals of the expedition, Mr. Conner has preserved 
the following names : Capt. Joseph Walker, Jos. R. Walker, Jr., Martin Lewis, 
Jacob Lynn, Charles Noble, Henry Miller, Thomas Johnson, George Blosser, 
Alford Shupp, John J. Miller, Jacob Miller, Sam C. ^liller, Solomon Shoup, 
Hiram Cummings, Hiram Mealman, William Wheelhouse, George Coulter, John 
"Bull,'' George Lount, Roderic McKinney, Bill Williams (not the original). 



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108 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

A. French, Jacob Schneider, John Dickson, Prank Finney, Jackson McCracken, 
John W. Swilling, Felix Burton, Charles Taylor, F. G. Gilliland, Daniel E. 
Conner, John Walker, Arthur Clothier, Robert Forsythe, Luther Payne, ''Colo- 
nel" Hardin and ** Dutch" John. The following are those whose first names 
are not remembered: Benedict of Connecticut; Young of Kansas, and Chase 
of Ohio. 

Coming out of Colorado with about sixty mules, provisions were secured at 
the Maxwell ranch. Taos was visited to see Kit Carson, possibly with the idea 
of securing his co-operation, but he was not at home. Camp was made for several 
days at a prehistoric rock corral, eight miles from Santa Fe. Then, fording the 
stream above Polvadera, the west bank of the Rio Grande was followed past the 
battleground of Val Verde and to a camp five miles below Fort Craig. That the 
officers of the fort were well disposed was shown by their gift to Walker's com- 
missary of a five-gallon keg of whiskey. Possibly with this prize in view, the 
Apaches that night attacked the Walker camp and tried to stampede its mules, 
but, according to Conner, **with no results save a liberal loss of Apache head- 
dresses," by which he meant scalps. 

At this point was made the start westward, using as a base line, for location 
and water supply, the emigrant road that had been tracked through a dozen 
years before by thousands of California-bound gold-seekers, called by Conner 
**The Old Trail." Walker and his men knew they must get away from any 
beaten path of travel if they would find any valuable mineral deposits. So, from 
the almost-unused road a series of explorations were made, generally to the north- 
ward, into the wilderness then peopled only by the Apache. Concerning their 
*'side trips," Conner tells his own story best: 

CONNER'S TALE OF WANDEBINOS 

From Fort Craig we took a northwest course through a wide, desert country everywhere, 
lost camps, no one knew any landmarks, occasionally cutting the Old Trail and leaving it 
again until winter came on. We would go northerly say fifty miles — turn westerly for a day 
or two. If we found water, all was well ; if we did not find water for a day or two we would 
make a forced march southerly to cut the Old Trail, we knew not where, even after reaching it, 
then follow the Old Trail a day to find water and, if successful, fill up the kegs and canteens 
and try it again northerly, for days and sometimes weeks, before returning to the Old 
Trail. 

This sort of conduct lasted all winter — fall and spring for that matter — these outings 
varying from ten to 200 miles, creating incidental suffering and mute distress that new 
populations even cannot and do not understand. Famishing for want of water is never 
understood by anyone except the victim. I don't deny, that on more than one such occasion 
I lost my reason and knew not who I was nor what I was doing. I helped others to lift victims 
off their saddles and on again. 

Off one of these outings, we came into the Old Trail at the Rio Mimbres in New Mexico, 
and there met two companies of soldiers bound for the Civil war. The Apaches always 
followed the Walker expedition, concentrating their ranks by the use of signal smokes. It 
was a large collection of them that followed this time. We therefore invited the soldiers to 
take a hand with us, which was accepted, and Poor Lo got the most surprising drubbing 
known even to his oldest chief. After the battle, the military kept on their march east and 
the Walker party west. 

We saw no difference upon reaching the Arizona boundary line, only that our occasional 
visits to the Old Trail disclosed more misguided dead persons, along the short distances we 
followed it, than live ones. We saw but one white man, except three at Tucson and the 
soldiers. The white man was a Mr. Grinnell of Fort Yuma, accompanied by a half-breod 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 109 

known as *' Comanche Jim" — the two men who had previously rescued Olive Oatman from 
the savages. We thus and finally, reached the old volcano crater nearly opposite an old 
renegade camp in the cordiUera, known as Pinos Altos, where our expedition captured 
Mangas, and close to another old temporary soldier camp, dignified by the name of Fort 
McLean, where the soldiers killed old Mangas, our prisoner. 

GOLD DIGOINOS ON THE HASSATAMPA 

Then came a season of long trips through the mountains, ever looking, unsuc- 
cessfully, for the golden sands. There must have been some intimation that gold 
really lay to the westward, for the party finally started on a rather straight course 
that led through Tucson and the Pima villages. * * Thence across the great desert 
to the mouth of the Haviamp (misnamed Hassayampa) ; thence to the final haven 
in the woods at Prescott in June, 1863 ; thence back to the Pimas to leave letters 
with the friendly Indians, for military escorts east and west, describing the way 
to our camp. We went back and held those woods and camp for eleven months 
longer alone before they found the way. Old Henry Wickenburg was the first 
white man to follow our trail across the Gila desert. But when the outside world 
heard of that camp the result settled a government, population and all. That 
camp was the foundation of Arizona's present government." 

On several of the northern trips the party was joined by squads of Federal 
soldiery, possibly suspicious of Walker's pacific explanations. One such joint 
expedition consumed fully two months and covered more than 200 miles of coun- 
try. Another command of California volunteers cut the Walker trail and 
followed it to the Gila, where tents were erected and the temporary post dubbed 
**Port West." From this there was prospecting all over the hills. Some of the 
soldiers went with Walker from Camp West on a six-weeks trip, as far northward 
as White River, west of the San Francisco. Soon after return, the Apaches made 
two daring descents upon the camp, in the second driving away seventy-eight 
cavalry horses. Two other joint actions with the troops against the Indians were 
on the Mimbres, in southwestern New Mexico. 

The return to the Pima villages was forced by keen necessity for provisions, 
though from the Indians could be secured little more than ** pinole," which was 
com or mesquite bean meal, sometimes sweetened. It had been determined 
that safety demanded a larger population, so letters were left at ]\Iaricopa 
Wells, addressed to friends east and west, telling where gold was to be found in 
a new and beautiful land to the northward. Little more than continued explora- 
tions in force could be done till, months thereafter, the letters brought a flood of 
gold-seekers and with them the military and thep the new territorial government. 

Even after the original paTty disbanded, Walker retained the leadership that 
seemed natural with him, wherever he might be placed. Sol Barth drifted into 
Walker Gulch from Ehrenberg, one winter day, with a burro train loaded with 
flour. Snow was falling fast and within a few hours the passes were practically 
closed. The addition of the flour supply was nothing short of providential. But 
Barth 's vision of sudden wealth through trust methods was dispelled most rudely, 
for Walker proceeded to seize the flour and to divide it equitably among the 
miners. The packer thought himself robbed. But within a few hours and 
absolutely without negotiation. Walker reappeared to pay for the flour in gold 
dust at the rate of $25 per 100 pounds. This allowed Barth no very large profit. 



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110 ARIZONA— THE YQUNGEST STATE 

for he was receiving about that time 20 cents a pound for freighting barley into 
•Whipple from San Bernardino, Cal. 

Walker was a native of Tennessee. He came to the far west in 1833, as a 
member of the Bonneville trapping party, making his way to California by the 
Yellowstone route. He guided an emigrant party to California by the southern 
route in 1843 and in 1845 started as guide for the Fremont expedition through 
Walker Pass. Though noted by Fremont as having **more knowledge of these 
parts than any man I know,'' Walker in his later years was bitter in denouncing 
the claims of the Pathfinder, who, he said, had only followed in the paths the old 
trapper had made. There is a tale that Walker planned to capture Fort Whipple 
soon after the establishment of the post and that he secured promises of assist- 
ance from many southern men in the locality, to the end that Arizona be landed in 
the Confederacy. It is told there even had been made a division of the offices 
when it was found someone had betrayed the plot to the post commandant, who 
had redoubled vigilance. About 1867 Walker joined relatives in Contra Costa 
County, Cal., there dying in 1876, aged 78. 

PEEPLE8' 8TOBT OF THE WEAVER PARTY 

Contemporaneous with the Walker expedition was that of Pauline Weaver, 
that gained fame in the .discovery and working of the wonderful Antelope Hill 
placers. The Editor is fortunate in being able to present the story of one of the 
principal members of this party, secured in a personal interview in 1890, a short 
time before the narrator's death. 

Among those who followed the ** Pathfinder '' in '49 was A. H. Peeples, a 
native of North Carolina, and a veteran of the Mexican war. He engaged in 
mining on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, until in the spring of 1863 
he found himself washing very poor gravel on Kern River. Dissatisfied, a craving 
for adventure overcame him and, inducing two partners, Joe Green and Matt 
Webber, to accompany him, started southward with the deliberate intention of 
prospecting in Apache Land. Arrived at Fort Yuma, and being more fully 
informed of the difficulties of their undertaking, the adventurers cast about for 
companions. The first and most important acquisition was Pauline Weaver. 
Weaver was at that time a man well advanced in years. He had spent a long time 
in southern Arizona, since 1832, following for the most part the occupation of a 
trapper. He was held in much esteem by both the Colorado River Indians and 
by the Pimas and Maricopas and was able to converse fluently in several Indian 
tongues. According to Peeples: 

We were delighted to gain Weaver for one of our party, though he had never dared 
to visit Central Arizona, where we proposed going, he was so familiar with the ways of the 
country that we knew we had struck just the right man for our purpose. He very rarely 
came to the settlements, but just then he was completing a treaty of peace between the Pimas 
and Maricopas and the Mojaves, being implicitly trusted as an arbitrator of the differences 
between the two parties. He was anxious to go, but we had difficulty in making up any 
considerable force. Finally we induced to accompany us an educated German, named Henry 
Wickenburg, a stout negro, called *'Ben," a young Mexican, and three Americans, whose 
names I cannot call to mind. I had a complete diary of the trip, but it was burned up about 
ten years ago. I know one thing, however, and that is, including the Mexican and the negro, 
it was a fine lot of men, ready and fully equipped to meet any danger. 



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CHARLES D. POSTON 



A. F. BANTA, 1863 





SOL BARTH 
Pioneer American Freighter 



D. E. CONNOR 
Historian of Walker Expedition 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 111 

The party started from Fort Yuma about April 1, 1863, and traveled north- 
ward along the Colorado River until was struck Bill Williams' Fork. Eastward 
they traveled along its course about fifty miles, prospecting as they went. They 
had left the stream but a few days when they camped on the slope of a mountain, 
located about eighty-five miles northwest of where the city of Phoenix now stands. 
Here, in Peeples' own language, 

I kiUed three antelope and we gave the peak the name it now bears of Antelope Moun- 
tain. I jerked the meat and while it wa^ drying a few of us went prospecting in the near 
neighborhood. As luck would have it, we struck it rich in the creek bed the very first day. 
It does seem odd that we had made as straight a course as could be run to the very richest 
placers that ever have been discovered in Arizona. Curiously enough, though, the best 
ground was right on the top of the mountain. Of course there was no water there, so we 
sorted over the ground for the coarser pieces of gold and, packed the finer dirt downi to the 
creek to wash in California style. To show how rich that ground was, I remember one day 
that only three of us were at work, by just scratching around in the gravel with our butcher 
knives, we obtained over $1,800 worth of nuggets before evening. We didn't do that weU 
every day, of course, but the amount that was taken out was something immense. 

It wasn't long before supplies began to run short and it was determined to 
go to Maricopa "Wells for more. Another thing to be noted was that the Apaches 
were getting rather numerous and it was felt that it was hardly safe with their 
small force of ten to hold down the diggings alone. Weaver, who had been elected 
captain, knew the general direction of the Wells, but the intermediate country 
was a blank to all. Following down the Hassayampa Canon, they left the stream 
belo'w the site of Seymour and struck across the sixty-mile desert in the night, 
passing to the left of the White Tank mountains and coming to Salt River near 
its junction with the Gila. Pimas were seen, and the miners were soon at the 
Wells. This was a station on the Butterfield route, only about twelve miles north- 
west of the present Maricopa. Here were found a number of men, among them 
the famous Jack Swilling, only too anxious to return with the placeros. Word 
was spread along the stage line of the discovery and before long ** Weaver Dis- 
trict,'' as it began to be called, was well filled with miners, who gave defiance to 
the Indians and found much profit in washing the sands of the Hassayampa and 
its tributaries. 

Pauline Weaver, despite his alliance with the Indians, was shot by Apaches 
in 1865 on the Copper Basin trail, possibly by mistake. Two years before he is 
said to have saved his life under similar circumstances by simulating insanity. 
He died at Verde, about 1866, a scout attached to the post, which then was at the 
mouth of Beaver Creek. Refusing to go to the hospital or into a house, the 
soldiers erected over him a tent, under which he passed away, old in years and 
worn with hardship. 

When Rich Hill was found, from Ehrenberg Sol Barth was sent to the strike 
with Aaron Bamett, the two establishing a store for Michael Goldwater at the 
new town of Weaverville. Weaver and all his crew would come in once a week 
to weigh up their gold dust on the scales of Bamett & Barth 's store and to pur- 
chase supplies, in which a very large item always was whiskey. Gold dust was 
the common com'modity, and the output of each of the different fields was readily 
distinguished by reason of different colors. That from Lynx Creek was the best 
and purest. The Weaver party usually brought in about twenty-five pounds of 



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112 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

gold a week. This was generally coarse, most of it dug out by butcher knives. 
On the proceeds the miners would spend a day or so each week in the wildest 
dissipation afforded by the rough tent village, which stood not far from the present 
settlment of Stanton. One nugget brought in by a Mexican named Clemente was 
valued at $900. 



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CHAPTER VIII 
AMERICAN SURVEYS 

Work of the Boundary Commission — Siigreaves, Aubrey and Whipple on the Thirt'^ 
fifth Parallel — Beales Wagon Road — Experiences i»iih Camels — Survej^s along 
the Gila. 

Possibly the largest work ever printed on the Southwest was the Report of 
the Boundary Commission, issued in 1857. Quite correctly it has generally been 
called the Emory report, for the whole work is dominated by the personality of 
Maj. Wm. H. Emory, who carried the survey through to completion. It is evident 
from his writings that Major Emory was a man of fullest appreciation of his own 
high character and abilities and likewise that he was an oflScer of rare courage 
that did not stickle even at sharp criticism of his superiors in rank. He was 
fortunate in the character of men of scientific acquirements detailed to his expedi- 
tion, for the chronicle of their joumeyings and researches across the then almost 
untrodden southwestern wastes checks out closely with the more general knowl- 
edge of these later days. 

On account of his acquaintance with the country, through service in the 
Mexican War, with Kearny's column, Major Emory was made astronomer and 
escort commander and, later. Commissioner of the Boundary Commission. 

San Diego was reached by Emory's party via Panama, June 1, 1849, but the 
Mexican commissioners, headed by General Conde, with their escort of 150 troops, 
failed to show up before July 1. One of the Mexican oflScers was Lieut. Porfirio 
Diaz, later President of Mexico. On the 9th of the same month astronomical work 
was started on the line eastward. In September word was received that Com- 
missioner Weller had been removed and that John C. Fremont had been 
appointed in his stead. But Fr6mont never joined the expedition and later 
declined appointment, for he had been chosen Senator from California, with 
Wm. M. Gwin. Thereafter to the office successively were appointed John R. 
Bartlett and Robert H. Campbell, the field work of the first survey being com- 
pleted under the latter in December, 1853. There appeared to have been trouble 
all through the intervening period, due mainly to lack of funds, but the surveying 
parties were disorganized by the departure of members for the gold fields, and 
the Commissioners appear to have viewed their work largely in the line of a 
pleasant trip of western exploration that led them as far afield as the California 
geysers. Emory had to make a couple of trips back to Washington to hustle funds 
for the payment of dishonored drafts he had drawn for necessary expenses and 
became so disgusted that on one occasion his resignation was offered, and accepted, 
but he was ordered back almost immediately. 

113 



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114 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

One determination reached by Major Emory, following an inquiry of Con- 
gress in the matter, was that he decided, ** Beyond all question, a practicable and, 
indeed, a highly advantageous railroad route from the upper basin of the Rio 
Bravo (Rio Grande Bravo) to the valley of the Gila exists through the new terri- 
tory. At no point on the line of survey high elevations exceed 4,000 feet." 

This determination was reached, however, after the acquirement by the 
United States of the territory south of the Gila, for, in another place, Emory 
recites: *'The Treaty of Guadalupe, therefore, fixes the line north of the parallel 
32 deg., which cut oflP entirely the communication by wagons between the two 
rivers, leaving out of view the consideration involved in securing a railway route 
to the Pacific. It was a line which, sooner or later, must have been abandoned. 
No traveler could pass nor could a dispatch be sent from a military post on the 
Rio Bravo to one on the Gila, without passing through Mexican territory. . . . 
I am now of the opinion that the Mexican commissioner was impressed with 
the importance of the advantage to his government of making a boundary which 
would not only exclude the railway route, but which would cut oflf the communi- 
cation between our military posts in New Mexico . . . and those we might 
establish on the Gila. Any other attempt to construe the words of the treaty so 
as to embrace the railway and wagon route would have been abortive." 

Very justly, high praise was given to the character of the semi-civilized 
Indians along the Gila, the Pimas and Coco-Maricopas, who were considered as 
forming a most eflScient barrier for the people of Sonora against the incursions 
of the savages who inhabited the mountains to the north of the Gila and who 
sometimes extended their incursions as far south as Hermosillo. While the expe- 
dition was at Los Nogales, Major Emory was visited by a number of chiefs and 
headmen, some of whom had come 200 miles to consult as to the effect upon them 
and their interests of the treaty with Mexico, by which they were transferred to 
the jurisdiction of the United States. Major Emory recites: **They have 
undoubtedly a just claim to the land, and if dispossessed will make a war on the 
frontier of a very serious character. I hope the subject wiU soon attract the 
attention of Congress, as it has done that of the Executive, and that some legis- 
lation will be effected, securing these people in their rights. They have always 
been kind and hospitable to emigrants passing from the old United States to 
California, supplying them freely and at moderate prices with wheat, corn, 
melons and cotton blankets of their own manufacture. 

The date of the conference at Los Nogales was June 26, 1855, and the Indians 
participating, each knowTi as ** Captain,'' were Antonio Azul, head chief of the 
Pimas ; Francisco Luke and Malai, Coco-Maricopa chiefs ; jo de Burro, Pima 
war chief; Shalan, Tabaquero and Boca de Queja, Gila Pima chiefs; Jose Vic- 
toriano Lucas, Jose Antonio, San Xavier Papago chiefs. These in reality were 
Spanish nicknames. The Indians were informed that all the rights they pos- 
sessed under Mexico had been guaranteed them by the United States and that, in 
the course of five or ten months, perhaps sooner, the authorities of the United 
States would come into the ceded territory and relieve the Mexican authorities; 
until that time they must obey the Mexican authorities and co-operate with them, 
as they had done theretofore, in defending the territory against the savage 
Apacfies. All good American citizens were called upon to respect the authority 
of Azul and his chiefs. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 115 

EMOBT NAMED AS OOMBOSSIONEB 

August 15, 1854, Major Emory at last had things placed in his own hands, very 
much to his own satisfaction, as expressed in his personal narratives, and prob- 
ably very much for the benefit 6f the service. He was named as Commissioner 
and given the largest latitude in the new task of establishing the amended bound- 
ary line under the terms of the Gadsden purchase of December, 1853, which 
aflfected only the region south of the Gila River and west of a point where the 
easternmost tributary of the Gila intersected the southern boundary line of 
New Mexico. 

The first memorandum of his work, under this new survey, was made at Paso 
del Norte, December 4, 1854. In conjunction with the Mexican Commissioner, 
Jose Salazar Larragui, an initial point was established where the parallel of 
31 deg. 47 min. north latitude cuts the Rio Grande. Throughout there appears 
to have been nothing but courtesy and good- will between the American and 
Mexican sections of the international party, the Mexicans, who seem to have been 
rather poorly equipped with instruments, accepting the computations and surveys 
of the Emory parties. 

The service of running that part of the boundary line eastward from the 
Colorado River, from a point twenty English miles south of the river's junction 
with the Gila, was entrusted to Lieut. N. Michler, Corps of Topographical Engi- 
neers. He made his observation camp, December 9, 1854, at Port Yuma. 

Before the party had completed its initial work, in April the spring rise of 
the Colorado started, and from 1,500 feet the river widened to at least five miles, 
but the work, which had been started by swimming broad sloughs, thereafter was 
dry enough, as the line was stretched out over the desert to the eastward. The 
first water was forty-five miles distant, at the famous Tinajas Altas, in natural 
wells within a mountain gully, filled during the rainy season. Michler wrote: 
** There are eight of these Tinajas, one above the other, the highest two extremely 
diflScult to reach. As the water is used from th^ lower one, you ascend to the next 
higher, passing it down by means of buckets. It is dangerous to attempt the 
highest, as it requires a skillful climber to ascend the mountain, which is of gran- 
ite origin, the rocks smooth and slippery.*' 

Within the country acquired under the Gadsden treaty, Major Emory refers 
in his work to the San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers and to a small rivulet lying 
to the east of both, variously called the Suanca, San Domingo or Rio Sauz, the 
San Simon of to-day, to the rich lands that lie in the valley of Tucson, and to 
the beautiful valleys along the San Pedro, with casual reference to "the remains 
of large settlements, which have been destroyed by the hostile Indians, the most 
conspicuous of which are the mining town of San Pedro and the town of Santa 
Cruz Viejo ; there are also to be found herein the remains of spacious corrals and 
in the numerous wild cattle and horses, which still are seen in this country, the 
evidences of its immense capacity as a grazing country." The San Bernardino 
ranch is said to have had 100,000 head of cattle and horses, which were killed 
or run off by the Indians, and the spacious buildings of adobe had been washed 
nearly level with the earth at the time of the passage of the expedition. Every- 
where were seen the remains of mining operations, conducted by the Spaniards, 
and more recently by the Mexicans. 

A number of Califomians, who had taken to themselves the name of the Arizona 



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116 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Mining Company, were working a mine in the Sierra del Ajo, west of Tucson, 
It is notable that these were about the only Americans. On the Santa Cruz River, 
a few miles north of the boundary, were found the remains of a mill for crushing 
gold quartz, and tales were heard of the picking up of silver nuggets in mining 
fields below Tucson, 

Settlement appears to have been at its lowest ebb; the largest was in the 
Mesilla Valley of New Mexico proper, containing about 1,500 inhabitants of mixed 
Spanish and Indian races. Tucson was inhabited by two Mexican troops and 
their families, about seventy persons, together with some tame Apache Indians, 
who did most of the labor in the field. Nothing but civility was received from 
Captain Garcia, who commanded the place. Lieutenant Michler found Tubac 
deserted: **Wild Apaches lord it over this region and the timid husbandman 
dare not return to his home. The mission of Tumacacori, aftother fine structure 
of the mother church, stands in the midst of rich fields, but fear prevents its 
habitation, save by two or three Germans, who have wandered from their distant 
fatherland to this out-of-the-way country." 

From Los Nogales the work was completed westward to a junction with the 
line extended from Yuma. The town of Sonoita was passed, called the door 
of the State of Sonora, a resort for smugglers and a den for a number of low, 
abandoned Americans, who had been compelled to fly from justice, **a miserable, 
poverty-stricken place, it contrasts strangely with the comparative comfort of an 
Indian village of Papagos within sight.'' 

THE ITINEBANT OOMMISSIONEB BABTLETT 

Commissioner Bartlett 's connection with the Survey was of value to posterity 
chiefly in the publication, in 1854, of two volumes of memoirs. During the greater 
part of his official life in the West he appears to have been exploring rather than 
surveying, his journeys leading to the hot springs of Calistoga, north of San 
Francisco, and into Mexico, through Chihuahua and Sonora, as far south as 
Mazatlan. These absences met with rather severe comment from his associates, 
however entertaining and instructing thereafter were found his descriptions of 
the new southwestern lands. It was charged that much of the limited appropria- 
tion for the Survey went to the equipment of the Commissioner's personal entour- 
age, and Surveyor A. B. Gray, who made his own report in 1853, referred to the 
employment by Bartlett of forty assistants and about 100 servitors, including 
artisans of all sorts, most of whom were found useless and later had to be sent 
back. 

Bartlett 's principal headquarters in the field were at the Santa Rita copper 
mines, where, in July, 1851, Gray made formal protest against the Commissioner's 
acceptance of the line west of El Paso of 32 deg. 22 min., the Surveyor demand- 
ing a change to 31 deg. 52 min. Though Gray was recalled November 4 and his 
work transferred to Emory, he practically triumphed in the end, for in the 
following August, after investigation, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 
reported that Bartlett had departed from the treaty understanding. So the line 
was established as at present known, 31 deg. 54 rain. 40 sec. of north latitude. 

The controversy was one of complication and affected the present Arizona to 
the extent that the eastern end of Cochise County would have been in Mexico 
had Gray's contention failed. 



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TINAJAS ALTAS (HIGH TANKS) WHERE YOU CX,IMB FOR WATER 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 117 

In the fall of 1851 Commissioner Bartlett sent a party under Whipple and 
Gray to survey the Gila, which theretofore had only been more or less roughly 
marked by Emory while marching with the Kearny column in 1846. Emory had 
not platted the big bend of the river north of the Sierra Estrella, for his expedi- 
tion had marched far to the south of it, but this omission caused slighting refer- 
ence to him in Bartlett 's report. Whipple stated his opinion that down the Gila 
Valley should be built either a railroad or a canal. 

The work of the survey was finished late in 1855, with monuments established, 
save where the Rio Grande itself was the boundary line. The scientific data taken 
by the expedition probably was as important in its way and as valuable as the 
definition of the line itself. The best description and illustration of the flora of 
the boundary region extant is contained in the second volume of the report, 
edited by John Torrey, from memoranda made by members of the party. The 
chapter on cactus is especially fine, and was edited by Dr. George Englemann 
of St. Louis, whose name has been perpetuated in the well-known Englemann 
spruce of the mountains of Arizona. 

8UBVET OF CAPTAIN SITaBEAVES 

The first cross-country survey of northern Arizona was made in 1852 by 
Capt. L. Sitgreaves, w^ho was sent out with instructions to follow the water course 
of the Zuni River through to the Gulf. This order, of course, he could not exe- 
cute, but, leaving the canons to the northward, he followed the 35th parallel to 
the Colorado and thence marched south to Fort Yuma. The Captain, who was 
accompanied by several experienced scouts, headed by Antoine Leroux, traversed 
a region that had been covered many years before by Spanish explorers and by 
Padre Garces. Still, the expedition was of large importance, not only as of being 
the first American mapping of the region, but as serving to show the practica- 
bility of the route followed, both for the building of wagon roads and railroads. 

In his narrative. Captain Sitgreaves referred to the prior passage of a little- 
known military expedition, one commanded by ** Lieutenant Thorn, who escorted 
Mr. Collier to California in 1849.'' Camp debris left by this party was found 
not far from Zuni. He stated that Chevelon's Fork was so known to trappers 
**from one of that name who died upon its banks from eating some poisonous 
root. ' ' The escort was commanded by Brevet Maj. H. L. Kendrick. The names of 
both soldiers, honored by Whipple, now are borne by two lofty peaks of the San 
Francisco Mountain locality. There was continual trouble with thievish Indians, 
but the only member of the party killed by Indians met death at the hands of 
Yumas, who had met the Captain with professions of good-will. Camp Yuma 
was reached November 30, after the explorers had eaten many of their mules. 

There should be passing reference to an exploring trip made in 1849 by 
Lieutenant Beckwith, who, with Doctor Randall, worked from Zuni to the Pima 
villages. Thorn was drowned in 1849 at Fort Yuma. 

AUBBET, "8KIBCMEB OF THE PLAINS" 

A volunteer survey across northern Arizona was made by Francois Xavier 
Aubrey, who, July 10, 1853, started eastward from Tejon Pass, Cal., with a 
party of about eighteen. 

His journey had little incident as far as the Colorado River. Beavers were 



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118 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

80 abundant that they cut the ropes with which a raft had been bound together, 
allowing the timbers to float away, necessitating the building of a second raft 
before the crossing of the whole party was accomplished. Indians were con- 
stantly in sight and a constant guard was kept on the camp. Gold was discov- 
ered in a gully near the river. July 31 notation was made of the finding of a 
river known to the Mexicans as Rio Grande de los Apaches, but called by the 
Americans the Little Red River and said to join with the Colorado a short dis- 
tance below. Assuredly this was not the Little Colorado, though it might have 
been Bill Williams' Fork. 

The record for days thereafter carried notations of continued attacks by 
Indians, assumed to have been Mojaves. A number were killed as they 
approached too near the camp to discharge their arrows and a couple of the 
Americans were wounded. It is diflScult to follow the course of the party, for 
no names are given of localities between the Colorado crossing and the Zuni 
villages. On August 7, however, the mountain region must have been struck, 
for Aubrey writes of cedar, pine and pinon. A few days later, **we found our- 
selves surrounded by canons, apparently from one to four thousand feet deep ; 
at least we sometimes could not see the bottom." The indefinite nature of the 
directions given seem to indicate that the party struck a little farther south, 
passing near where Prescott now stands, possibly over the headwaters of the 
Verde and along the southern edge of the Mogollon plateau. 

Aubrey's own narrative follows: 

On August 15 breakfast was taken near a camp of Carrotes (Coyotero Apacbes). As 
soon as tbe mules were saddled, at a given signal, forty or fifty Indians, apparently unarmed, 
and accompanied by their squaws and babies tied to boards in their arms, very suddenly 
charged upon us and attempted to destroy the whole party with clubs and rocks. The signal 
of attack was the taking of my hand in farewell by the chief, which he held with all his 
strength. As soon as these first Indians commenced to fight, about' 250 more rushed from 
behind a hill and brush and charged upoA us with clubs, bows and arrows. I thought for a 
few minutes that our party must necessarily be destroyed, but some of us having disengaged 
ourselves, we shot them down so fast with Colt's revolvers that we soon produced confusion 
among them, and put them to flight. We owe our lives to these firearms, the best that were 
ever invented, and now brought, by successive improvements, to a state of perfection. 

Twelve of us, just two-thirds of the party, were severely wounded. I, among the rest, 
was wounded in six places. Abner Adair, I fear, is dangerously injured. It was a very great 
satisfaction to me to find that none of our men were killed, nor any of the animals lost. 
We bled very much from our numerous wounds; but the blood and bodies of the Indians 
covered the ground for many yards around us. We killed over twenty-five Indians and 
wounded more. The bows and arrows that we captured and destroyed would have more than 
filled a large wagon. 

Before the attack commenced, the squaws kept the clubs, which were from eighteen 
to twenty-four inches long, concealed in deer skins about their children. When put to flight 
they threw their babies down into a deep, bruehy gully near at hand, by which many of them 
must have been killed. This is the first time I ever met with a party of Indians accom- 
panied by their wives and children. The presence of the latter was evidently to remove 
from our minds all suspicion of foul play on their part. I was never before in so perilous 
a condition with a party in all my life. On this occasion, which wiU be the last, I imprudently 
gave my right hand, in parting, to the Indian chief. The left must answer for leave-taking 
hereafter. 

We have thus far had so much ill luck to encounter that our arrival at our destination 
must be much delayed. First our men feU sick, then our provisions were damaged in the 
Colorado; latterly a man shot himself through the knee; our mules' feet, for want of shoes, 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 119 

were worn out; and to crown all, today, two-thirds of the party were badly wounded, and 
all have barely escaped with their lives. We are nov^ subsisting entirely on mule meat, and 
do not get as much of that as we want. We are without salt and pepper, and in their 
absence it requires a stout stomach to digest our fare. But nobody complains, and the pos- 
sibility of not doing what we have set out to do, has never entered the minds of our party. 
We traveled five miles this afternoon, with the Indians at our heels shooting arrows at us 
every moment. 

August 27 — Made fifteen miles east, crossing two streams, which are branches of the 
Gila. We met Indians today, who, I think, are not Apache Tontos, as they do not speak any 
Spanish, and refuse to answer our questions. We obtained from them over fifteen hundred 
dollars of gold for a few old articles of clothing. The Indians got gold biidlets for their 
guns. They are of different sizes, and each Indian has a pouch of them. We saw an Indian 
load his gun with one large and three small gold bullets to shoot a rabbit. They proposed 
exchanging them for lead, but I preferred trading other articles. Whether these Indians 
made these balls themselves, or whether they were obtained by the murder of miners in 
California and Sonora, I am unable to say. 

August 28 — Traveled ten miles east over a good coimtry; met with more Indians, and 
traded for some horse meat by giving articles of clothing in exchange. We traded also for 
a few hundred dollars worth of gold. Today a mule broke down and an Indian gave me 
for it a lump of gold weighing a pound and a half, less one ounce. The Indians are «o 
numerous they would destroy the party if we allowed them the least chance. But we are 
very vigilant, and select camps o'h elevated places, consequently we are unable to make any 
examination for gold in the sands of the country. The Indians call themselves Belenios 
(Gilenos). 

September 6 — Continuing northeast over a good road and level country for twenty-five 
miles, we jeached the Indian town or pueblo of Zuni, where we met with a hospitable and 
civilized population, from whom we obtained -an abundance of good provisions, over which 
we greatly rejoiced. We have subsisted for a month on mule and horse flesh, and for the 
most of the time on half or quarter rations. But as I have reached this place with all my 
men, I feel satisfied. 

Aubrey, already known as one who has won for himself in the Southwest a 
reputation as a fearless and rapid traveler, and was called **The Skimmer of 
the Plains" for a journey of 800 miles in five days and thirteen hours. He was 
killed in an affray in Santa Fe August 18, 1854, by Maj. R. H. Weightman, who 
in 1861, a Confederate Colonel, died in the battle of Wilson's Creek, Mo. 
Aubrey's name was perpetuated by a town, now dead like himself, located on the 
Colorado River at the motith of Bill Williams Fork, and also by one of the 
streets of Prescott. The Atlantic & Pacific road was built through Arizona much 
on the line indicated by him. 

WHIPPLE'S RAILBOAD BE0ONNOI8SAN0E 

In March, 1853, the Thirty-second Congress appropriated $150,000 to be 
used by the Secretary **to make such explorations and surveys as he may deem 
advisable to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad 
from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean." To this sum later were added 
appropriations of $40,000 and $150,000. The Secretary of War then was Jef- 
ferson Davis, later chief of the Confederacy. He selected as leader of the 
exploring party to traverse approximately the 35th parallel, Lieut. A. W. 
Whipple of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, who had had experience in 
the Southwest on the Gila with the Bartlett party. 

Several routes from St. Louis and Vicksburg were considered, but the real 
start of the expedition, in July, 1853, was from Fort Smith in northwestern 
Arkansas, from which a practicable route was found across the plains. 



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120 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

The personnel of the party included Lieut. J. C. Ives, topographical engineer, 
who had charge of the working survey section, and Jules Marcou, geologist. 
The work was most thoroughly done, and the report of the expedition includes 
a close study not only of the topography of the country passed over, but of its 
habits and customs, geology, flora and fauna and climatology. The railroad 
work included specifications of distances and even contours. 

From Albuquerque, left November 8, 1853, westward the route at no time 
was far distant from that of the present Atchison, Topeka and Santa F6 railroad 
system, being up the Rio Puerco and down the stream of the same name on the 
western slope to the present site of Holbrook; thence to the San Francisco 
Springs, past the present Flagstaff, and around the northern and western slopes 
of Bill Williams Mountain, where great difficulty was experienced in finding a 
satisfactory grade. This same difficulty hardly has been solved to this day. 
Thence the course veered somewhat to the southward, in respect to the opinion 
of Captain Sitgreaves that a satisfactory route could be found down Bill Wil- 
liams Fork, the Verde at first being mistaken for that stream. Bill Williams 
Fork finally was found, after more or less blind exploration of the western hills. 
From one of the illustrations, it would appear as though a camp had been made 
close to the granite pinnacles north of Prescott, now known as Point of Rocks. 
From the mouth of Bill Williams Fork it was found necessary to work up stream 
thirty-four miles to secure a site for a bridge, found near some needle-shaped 
peaks, probably the very point the Santa Fe later chose, though its route through 
western Arizona was north of that taken by Whipple. 

From the Colorado westward the road to-day probably follows the trail made 
by Whipple, leading through Cajon (box) Pass where it was determined a five- 
mile tunnel might have to be dug. Thence the way was clear to Los Angeles, 
where was found a town of 5,000 people. The balance of the way to the coast 
at the port of San Pedro, was surveyed by the simple process of tying a rag to 
the spoke of a wagon wheel. 

A short time before this, Lieutenant Williamson, working from the north- 
west, had outlined a feasible railroad route from San Francisco through the San 
Joa(|uin Valley and Tah-ee-ehay-pah Pass and to the Mojave River, where con- 
nection was made with the Whipple survey. The Southern Pacific later utilized 
this survey wholly, though Williamson's prediction that no tunneling would 
be required in crossing Tehachipi IVIountain did not prove correct, while, on 
the contrary, Whipple's fears of a long tunnel did not prove well founded when 
the Santa Fe built its line through Cajon Pass. 

On the entire trip across Arizona, nothing but good treatment was received 
from the Indians of all sorts, though the Yampais, otherwise called Yabapais, 
were found very coy indeed. The Zunis were most hospitable and sent guides 
with the vanguard of the party. Smallpox was found in Zuni, and several of 
the party later had light attacks of the disease, but messengers sent to the Moqui 
towns returned with sad news. It was declared that '* smallpox had swept off 
nearly every male adult of three pueblos. In one remained only the cacique 
and a single man from a hundred warriors. They were dying by fifties per day ; 
and the living, unable to bury the dead, had thrown them down the steep^ sides 
of the lofty mesas upon which the pueblos were built. The wolves and ravens 
had congregated in myriads to devour them. The infected bodies had even 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 121 

affected the streams. The young of the tribe had suffered less, few eases among 
them having proven mortal." 

In what was called Lithodendron Park was discovered the Petrified Forest 
"where trees had been converted into jasper." There was diflSculty in travers- 
ing the valley of the Little Colorado, which had been called by Coronado **Rio 
del Lino" (Flax River), beyond which was encountered the obstacle of Canon 
Diablo. San Francisco Springs, on the southern slope of the mountains of that 
name, were reached December 27, 1853, after fatiguing travel through deep 
snow. Ten miles beyond, until the new year, a camp was made at LeRoux's 
Springs, named after the principal guide of the expedition. 

The region just west of Bill Williams Mountain was named by the explorers 
''The Black Forest." This name it appropriately bears to-day, due to the color 
given the landscape by the dense growth of juniper. Leaving the Black Forest 
there was a waterless journey across a plain, called **Val de China." ''China" 
was given as a Mexican name for the grama grass found luxuriantly growing 
within it — Whence the origin of the present name of Chino Valley. 

About the only information concerning topography was received from a 
Mexican guide, Savedra, who, twelve years before, had journeyed into the coun- 
try with a trading party of Moquis. A large flock of turkeys was found in one 
valley passed, wherein the stream was promptly given the name of Turkey 
Creek. A prominent peak was called Mount Hope. The Sierra Prieta (Black 
Range) on the eastern side of the Verde was so named by Whipple, and moun- 
tains farther to the westward where some ruins were found were called the 
Aztec Range. 

February 7, following down Bill Williams Fork, which had been entered a 
number of days before, was passed the mouth of the Rio Santa Maria. Upon 
the right was a volcanic cone, which was named Artillery Peak. Wagons had 
to be abandoned on the failing of tired mules, but, finally, on February 20, 
1854, the expedition made camp upon the banks of the Colorado River. Whipple 
wrote: "It was a beautiful view that burst upon us as we ascended the hill and 
first beheld the Colorado sweeping from the northwest to unite with Bill Wil- 
liams Fork, almost beneath our feet. One long and loud huzza burst spon- 
taneously from the men, sending a thrill through every nerve, and dreamy fore- 
bodings were cast upon its waters and all felt relieved from a burden of anxiety." 
In the valley of the Colorado were found friendly Chemehuevis and Mojave 
Indians, who traded with the party, although with notable shrewdness, and who 
helped in the crossing of the river by means of improvised rafts. 

SUBVETS ON THE aiLA ROUTE 

Engineer A. B. Gray, in February, 1855, made a report to the directors of 
the Texas Western Railroad Company, a corporation then three years old, rec- 
ommending a route across Arizona about on the same line later followed by the 
Southern Pacific, though favor also was given a line that had been run farther 
south through Tubac. 

A survey for a railroad was made in 1854 by Lieut. J. G. Parke, whose escort 
of dragoons was commanded by Lieut. George Stoneman. He laid out several 
routes to the eastward from the Pima villages through Tucson and across the 
San Pedro, whereat was taken what was known as Nugent 's trail, not far from 

ToL I— • 



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122 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

the present Southern Pacific line. The road laid out by the Mormon Battalion 
and generally followed by California immigrants, was around the hills to the 
southward and even below the Mexican line. 

Parke's explorations were supplemented later by a survey made by J. B. 
Leach and N. H. Hutton, who found a much shorter and even easier route down 
the San Pedro to a point near the present Mammoth, from which was laid off 
a straight desert road westward. This work was completed in 1858 and a part 
of the road thus laid out was utilized by the Butterfield overland stage service 
in the same year. 

BEALE LAYS OXTT A WAGON ROAD 

Naval-Lieutenant Edward F. Beale, no longer a sailor and bearing a Cali- 
fomian title of ** General," in 1857 accepted a commission to survey through 
New Mexico on the 35th parallel. The expedition, which started in Texas, espe- 
cially is notable for its use of camels, a feature elsewhere elaborated upon. 
Rocks, gravel and lava had little effect upon the barefooted camels, though the 
mules and horses needed constant reshoeing. Beale had to pick his own way 
westward beyond the Little Colorado, observing in his report that, *'We, unfor- 
tunately, have no guide, the wretch I employed at the urgent request and advice 
of every one in Albuquerque and at enormous wages being the most ignorant 
and irresolute old ass extant." The course was around the base of San Fran- 
cisco mountain and then a bit to the northwest, between Mounts Kendrick and 
Sitgreaves. With the party was Lieut. Thorbum, U. S. Navy, whose name was 
given to a mountain northwest of Sitgreaves. 

Beale spent several months recuperating his party at Fort Tejon, Cal., and 
returned to the Colorado, with his camels, January 23, 1858. There he unex- 
pectedly found Captain Johnston, with the steamer General Jesup, sent to ferry 
him over. The steamer had brought also from Fort Yuma an escort of fifteen 
soldiers, under Lieutenant White. Beale wanted to test his road in winter. He 
was pleased to find that even the Indians had begun to follow the trail he had 
left. The backward journey was changed so as to leave Sitgreaves to the north. 
Only a little snow was found, the season in the mountains apparently having 
been a mild one. The final paragraph of the report read : 

**A year in the wilderness ended! During this time I have conducted my 
party from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and back again 
to the eastern terminus of the road, through a country for a great part entirely 
unknown and inhabited by hostile Indians, without the loss of a man. I have 
tested the value of the camels, marked a new road to the Pacific and traveled 
4,000 miles without an accident.'' 

Beale was sent out again in the fall of 1858, from Fort Smith, Ark., appar- 
ently with instructions to prepare a wagon road, rather than mere exploration 
of a region now appreciated as available for transportation uses. April 15, 
1859, he arrived at LeRoux Springs and at the Colorado May 5, doing much 
work on the road selected and making a number of changes from the route 
traversed before. He worked back by the same route, starting from the Colo- 
rado June 29, 1859, reaching Albuquerque just a month later, making the return 
journey at about the rate of speed of the average emigrant train and subsisting 
his horses and mules only upon the grass of the country. 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 123 

The only trouble with Indians was in the Mojave country. The redskins 
stole a mule and killed another. Beale, simulating fear, hastily moved his camp 
after the Indian attack, but left a number of his men concealed in the rocks. 
In the morning, the Indians, in glee over driving the white men away, came 
down to the dead mule and to see what damage they had done ; whereupon, in 
the language of Beale, * * Our party fell upon them and killed four, returning to 
camp before it was ready to start in the morning, bringing bows, arrows and 
scalps as vouchers. It was a good practical joke — a merrie jest of ye white man 
and ye Indian. '* This episode whetted the sporting appetite of the party. 
May 1, Beale led toward the Colorado a foot party of thirty-five of his men, with 
three camels for a baggage train. The distance of twenty-five miles to the river 
was covered in six hours and then the road builders started out to whip the 
whole Mojave nation. It was with real disappointment that the white warriors 
soon thereafter ran into men of their own color, who told them that Colonel 
Hoffman had made a peace treaty with the Mojaves and that Major Armstrong 
was close at hand with a force of soldiery. 

Beale was one of the most distinguished men of his time. When a midship- 
man, he was sent, a member of a party of forty, to meet General Kearny's 
advancing column and later, with Kit Carson, made his way barefooted, through 
two hostile Mexican lines, to seek reinforcements from Commodore Stockton. 
If these reinforcements had not arrived, Kearny undoubtedly would have met 
serious disaster. Beale, for his bravery, in February, 1847, was sent back with 
Carson as escort, bearer of dispatches to Washington. When he rejoined the 
Pacific fleet again he was honored, in August, 1848, by designation, on the part 
of the navy, as bearer to the national capital of the news of finding gold at 
Sutter's Fort, taking his message and $3,000 worth of gold nuggets across 
Mexico. An army officer had been sent on a similar mission, but was distanced 
by Beale. Beale 's warm advocacy of camels may have been influenced by the 
fact that it was he who presented the subject to Jefferson Davis. When the 
last of the camels in California were sold by the War Department, the animals 
were bought by Beale, then Surveyor General of California and Nevada, and 
were sent to a ranche he had acquired near the Tejon Pass, whence he later 
drove to Los Angeles behind a tandem camel team. In 1876 he was appointed 
Minister to Austria and his life was ended in honor and wealth. Though he 
early resigned from the service, his father and grandfather had been officers in 
the navy, the latter having been the famous Commodore Truxton, who com- 
manded the frigate Constellation. Today that name is borne by Truxton Canon, 
down which the Santa Fe railroad leaves the middle plateau region of northern 
Arizona, 

The Beale lands in California, comprising 276,000 acres, still known as the 
Tejon Ranchos, in 1912 were bought by Los Angeles capitalists, including Gen. 
Harrison Gray Otis, Gen. M. H. Sherman, Harry Chandler, Stoddard Jess, R. P. 
Sherman and 0. F. Brant. Though Beale considered his holdings in the light 
of a veritable principality, it is doubtful if he ever dreamed their ultimate value. 
His camel road is an automobile highway that passes from San Francisco through 
the rancho to Los Angeles, orange groves, vineyards and cultivated fields cover 
thousands of acres and beneath lies what experts have declared the largest lake 
of oil in the State. 



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CHAPTER IX 
SOUTHWESTERN FILIBUSTERS 

Attempts of Pondray and Raousset de Boulbon to Establish French Colomes near the 
Border — Walker*s Expedition — Crabh*s Great Plans and Their Disastrous Termi" 
nation — Crant Otay^s Dash. 

In the turbulent times that followed the Mexican War, with Mexico the prey 
of contending political factions and with the law left in the hands of local leaders 
of bandits, northern Sonora was the field chosen by several sets of filibusters of 
various aims. Of these the first and most romantic was Count Gaston Baoulx de 
Baousset-Boulbon, scion of an aristocratic French family, who in 1851 was picking 
up a precarious living around the wharves of San Francisco. In that same year 
there had been made, under Charles de Pondray, a futile attempt to establish a 
French colony at Cocospera, Sonora. The lea(jler died, possibly assassinated, and 
the colony of 150 members went to pieces. Boulbon, a veritable soldier of fortune, 
with experience already in Algiers, managed to get to the City of Mexico with 
letters of introduction from the French Consul at San Francisco. His enthusiasm 
won the support of Jecker, Torre & Co., then financial agents of the Mexican 
government, and Boulbon returned to San Francisco with a contract wherein he 
bound himself to land at Guaymas 500 well-equipped and well-armed French 
immigrants, particularly for the protection against Indians of the Restauradora 
Mining Company, a Franco-Mexican corporation, but in reality for the establish- 
ment of a French buffer against possible American encroachments from the north. 
The French crown alreadj^ was active in its plans for the ultimate annexation of 
Mexico, and Boulbon possibly was an agent. June 1, 1852, the adventurer 
landed in Guaymas with 260 men, mainly compatriots, and soon thereafter set 
out for the silver fields of Arizonac. 

In the promised land to the northward there must have remained some of the 
original immigrants, for in the Bartlett diary, under date of January 2, 1852, is 
found this entry: '*Soon after leaving Hermosillo, we met a party of 150 
Frenchmen, who were emigrating from California and destined, as I afterward 
learned, for Cocospera, with the design of establishing a colony there, as well as 
working some mines. They were a rather hard-looking and determined set of 
men, with long beards and sunburnt faces. Each one carried a rifle, besides which 
many had pistols." A number of recruits are said to have gone from Tucson. 

RAOUSSET-BOXTLBON IN SONOBA 

Boulbon found the north country rich and pleasant, but, in letters home, was 
far from complimentary concerning the population and settlement, writing of, 
'* Ruins of houses, ruins of churches, ruins of towns, and, above all, ruins of 

124 



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Samuol Hughes 



Pete Kitchen 





John B. Allen W. S. Oury 

SOUTHERN ARIZONA PIONEERS 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE . 125 

crouching men and of weeping women." Probably comprehending the plans for 
establishment of a new Gallic principality, Governor Blanco and the Sonoran 
government generally proved far from helpful. It would seem that the French 
brought few utensils, other than warlike, for the development of the new land, its 
farms and mines. Beset by Apaches on the one hand and by Mexican intrigue 
on the other, the Count at last, in October, concluded to appeal to a judgment 
at arms, marching, from Saric or Tubutama, on Hermosillo, by way of Arispe, 
with a force of 253 men, including forty-two horsemen and a large proportion of 
veteran soldiers. With a loss of forty-two killed and wounded, he stormed the 
fortifications of Hermosillo, defeating Blanco, who had at least 1,000 men. But 
the victory availed naught, for the Coubt fell sick of dysentery and the remaining 
adventurers were glad to accept safe conduct from Guaymas, after surrendering 
their arms and receiving an indemnity of $11,000. 

Raousset-Boulbon, permitted to leave Guaymas, after recuperation in San, 
Francisco again was heard from the following year in the City of Mexico, where 
he sought compensation for the broken contract. President Santa Ana gave him 
fair promises and even a written '* treaty, '* in which the Frenchman was to receive 
340,000 francs for the garrisoning of Arizona with 500 soldiers. A fortnight later 
the contract was annulled and the Count, in its stead, was offered a commission 
as Colonel in the Mexican army. This was refused with scorn and the adventurer, 
seeking sympathy among anti-administration Mexicans, barely saved his life by 
hurried flight from the capital. 

Though Raousset-Boulbon had been declared an outlaw by the Mexican gov- 
ernment, an authorized expedition of 300 French sailed from San Francisco April 
2, 1854, on the ship Challenger, under command of Lebourgeois Desmarais, to 
take up the same work from which the former party had been driven, though the 
greater part of Arizona lately had been ceded to the United States. The Count, 
held under a charge of filibustering, managed to escape May 24 on the ten-ton 
schooner Belle, taking 200 more rifles. He consumed thirty-five days in reaching 
Guaymas, first landing on a nearby point and sending two of his men into the city 
to prepare the main body for his coming. His scouts were thrown into prison 
by Governor Yanes, who had succeeded Blanco, but the 300, as expected, rallied 
around the Count's banner. On July 8 there was a pitched battle on the streets 
of the seaport. Victory was with the Mexicans, who outnumbered the French 
eight to one. A number of the defeated seized the Belle and put to sea, to be 
lost on the voyage. A majority of the captives were sent into the interior, later 
to be released on French intervention. The Count, condemned as a traitor and 
rebel, was shot August 12, facing his executioners with fortitude and disdain, a 
true nobleman of France to the last. He was aged only 36. 

Another filibustering scheme was that of Jos. C. Morehead, Quartermaster 
General of the California militia, who in 1851 had led about 100 men to the 
protection of the Colorado River ferry at the mouth of the Gila. The experience 
gained on this trip, whereon he taxed or turned back all Mexican travelers, 
incited an attempt in 1852 to invade Sonora. Three parties were started, to 
different points on the Lower California or Sonora coast, but each was met by 
such a show of Mexican military strength that the Californians meekly and at 
once assumed the role of mining prospectors. 



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126 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

WALKER'S '*BEPUBLIO OF SONORA" 

There was a filibustering expedition into Sonora in 1853, led by William 
Walker, of later renown in Nicaragua. Senator Gwin of California and a number 
of the federal oflSeials at San Francisco were well mixed in the plot, according 
to Gen. E. A. Hitchcock, then in command of the coast military department. 
Even at that time, Gwin was grooming Crabb for his later expedition. Gwin 
continued his activities till after 1863, when he had evolved an elaborate plan 
for colonizing northern Sonora with Southerners. This plan had been approved 
by Emperor Louis Napoleon and by Maximilian, then Emperor of Mexico, and 
upon Gwin had been conferred the title of *'Duke of Sonora." The "Duke'' 
entered Mexico himself, bearing a letter from Maximilian to Marshal Bazaine, 
but about that time the Mexican monarchy fell with the withdrawal of French 
troops and with it fell the *' Dukedom of Sonora." 

In October, 1853, favored by complaisant port officials, Walker had outfitted 
the brig Arrow, on which were quarters for several hundred men and a large store 
of arms and ammunition. It was well known that Walker had proclaimed the 
** Republic of Sonora," with a full set of officials, he retaining the governorship. 
The Arrow was seized by General Hitchcock, despite protests from the civil 
authorities. On the night of October 16 Walker slipped out of the harbor on 
the schooner Caroline, with fifty-six men, about a quarter of the number the 
Arrow was to have carried. La Paz, on the coast of Lower California, was seized 
November 3, but headquarters later were established at San Vicente, not far from 
the international line. There joined several hundred recruits. With about 100 
men. Walker started on a march across the head of the peninsula, but landed in 
Sonora, on the eastern side of the Colorado River, with only thirty-five compan- 
ions, the others deserting or falling out from fatigue. So the scheme of invasion 
and of a new inland empire had to be given up and the expedition made its way 
back to the Pacific, caching 100 kegs of powder on the Colorado. May 8, 1854, 
the remaining members marched across the border at Tia Juana, fighting till the 
last moment, and delivered their arms to the American authorities. The leader 
was held and was tried in a United States court for violation of the neutrality 
laws, receiving acquittal. 

The inception of this Walker expedition was in Auburn, Cal., early in 1852, 
and Frederic Emery and a companion were sent to Sonora to spy out the land. 
They failed, for the Mexican authorities preferred the colonization scheme of 
Boulbon. Emery the next year in San Franciso laid the plan before Walker, 
who, in June, in company with Henry P. Watkins, landed in Guaymas, to seek a 
grant of land from the Mexican authorities, meeting with no encouragement from 
Governor Gandara. 

Hardly to be dignified as a filibustering expedition was a raid into Sonora in 
1853 by a considerable force of Americans, led by one Bell. Little record of this 
is available, but it is told that Bell hanged a priest at Caborca, committed outrages 
of various sort in that and neighboring pueblos and finally departed with much 
loot, including altar vessels from the churches and with the priests* vestments 
used as saddle blankets. 

French influences again- appeared in Sonora (on French maps known as 
Nueve Navarre) in 1857, when the Mexican government contracted with the firm • 
of J. B. Jecker & Co., Antonio Escandon and Manuel Payn of the City of Mexico 



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STANmX STAGE STATION. EAST OF YUMA, 1872 
The woman is Mrs. King Woolsey 




Photo by ProfeMor B. H. Forbes 



TUBAC, 1915, LOOKING NORTH 
Extreme right, old Tully-Ochoa store: Extreme left, old Pie Allen store 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 127 

for a survey of the State of Sonora. The compensation was to be one-third of the 
area surveyed, in public lands, and privilege of purchase of the balance of the 
unappropriated domain. The work was turned over to J. B. G. Idiam and asso- 
ciates of San Francisco, who employed as chief engineer Capt. Chas. P. Stone, 
afterward General. When the survey was nearly complete, in 1859, after the 
syndicate had expended $250,000, the government repudiated the contract and 
Stone and his parties were expelled from the country. 

CBABB'8 EXPEDITION AND ITS FATE 

There might have been a material change in the boundary line of Mexico had 
success attended the ill-fated expedition of Henry A, Crabb in 1857. Crabb, by 
marriage into the Ainsa family of Sonora, had gained relationship with Ignacio 
Pesquiera, a claimant upon the governorship of Sonora, with whom it would 
appear he entered into an agreement to bring down 1,000 Americans, to fight 
against the forces of Governor Gandara and to receive in return a broad strip of 
territory along the Arizona line. Crabb, it is believed, then proposed to annex 
this strip to the United States. The expedition was organized in San Francisco, 
but more than half its membership was recruited in Tuolumne County. San 
Pedro was reached by water January 24. Wagon equipment was secured at 
El Monte, near Los Angeles, and Yuma was reached about a month later. At 
Fort Yuma the commanding officer was First Lieut. Sylvester Mowry, Third 
U, S. Artillery, who took occasion to report on the expedition to the Adjutant 
General of the Army. Mowry stated that the party was under military discipline 
and that its ** Chief of Artillery'* was T. D. Johns, a graduate of West Point and 
former lieutenant in the United States Army, that reinforcements were expected 
from Texas under Major Lane and that 1,500 more men were to be landed with 
cannon at a point on the Gulf of California, all with collusion on the part of high 
government officials in Sonora. The membership included: *' General," Henry 
A. Crabb, ex-State Senator and California political leader; Adjutant General, 
Col. R. N. Woods, former legislator, member of the Fillmore national executive 
committee and Fillmore elector from California ; Commissary General, Col. W. H. 
McCoun, an ex-legidator; Surgeon General, Dr. T. J. Oxley, an ex-legislator; 
Brigadier-General, J. D. Cosby, State Senator from Siskiyou County, and Captain 
McKinney, formerly in Colonel Doniphan's command and an ex-legislator. 
Mowry wrote there were about 150 in the party, but only eighty-eight men appear 
to have crossed into Sonora. The southward journey was from what later was 
known as Filibuster Camp, on the Gila, east of Yuma, through Sonoita, which 
was reached March 25 and whereat twenty men were left, under command of 
McKinney. 

It is evident that Crabb expected support when he entered Sonora. Instead 
he found that Pesquiera already had established himself in authority and had 
repudiated his agreement. Still the over-confident Americans ptished on, after 
Crabb had sent to the Prefect at Altar a letter in which he stated: ''I am well 
aware that you have given orders to poison the wells and that you are ready to 
employ the vilest and most cowardly weapons," and reiterated the wish of the 
Americans to find ''most happy firesides with and among you." Pesquiera 
answered himself, with a bombastic proclamation to his people, whom he sum- 
moned to fly, *'to chastise with all the fury that can scarcely be contained in a 



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128 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

heart swelling with resentment against coercion, the savage filibuster who has 
dared, in an unhappy hour, to tread our nation's soil and to arouse, insensate, 
our wrath. Let it die like a wild beast/' 

Of the sixty-eight there was a single survivor, Chas. E. Evans, a 15-year-old 
lad, whose deposition later was taken by the American Vice Consul at Mazatlan. 
He told that the party, on April 1, while carelessly marching, was ambushed by 
the Mexicans half a mile from Caborca. The Americans forced their way to the 
town, where a row of adobe houses was seized as a fort, the Mexicans gaining 
a superior position in a nearby church, on which Crabb and fifteen men made an 
unsuccessful attack, taking with them a barrel of powder, with which it was 
hoped to blow up the structure. The Americans were besieged for six days. 
There were many wounded and five men had been killed in the sortie. Finally 
the roof of the improvised fort was set on fire and the remaining powder was 
expended in an effort to blow up the flaming part of the house. Then surrender 
was considered.. 

The Mexicans promised a fair trial and that the Americans should be con- 
sidered prisoners of war, while the wounded were to be given the care of a skillful 
surgeon. So Crabb and the remainder of his force walked out, one by one, and 
were seized and bound. At sunrise next morning all save Evans were shot and 
the bodies were stripped and left where hogs had access to them. Crabb had 
separate execution. A hundred balls were fired into his body and his head was 
cut off, preserved in an oUa of mescal and sent to the City of Mexico, to demon- 
strate Pesquiera's patriotism. There was reference to Crabb 's burial somewhere 
of a war fund of $10,000, but that would appear to have been fiction. Dead 
men's teeth were knocked out to secure the gold fillings. 

Four wounded men, left on the American side of the line, at Sonoita, in the 
house of a trader, E. E. Dunbar, were murdered by a Mexican party, as well as 
sixteen of the twenty who had been left behind near the border, attacked as they 
were escorting a wagon southward. Altogether the death list of Americans 
totalled ninety-three. 

OBANT OUBT'S ATTEMPT AT BESOXJE 

Woods and Charles Tozer, two of the leading oflScers, had left the main 
expedition at Yuma and had proceeded to Tucson, there, and along the Santa 
Cruz, to recruit an additional force, with the offer of 160 acres of land to each 
armed emigrant. Twenty-six were enrolled, including the two recruiting oflBcers. 
As Captain was elected Granville H. Oury, the same who later was sent to repre- 
sent Arizona in the Confederate Congress and who, still later, served as a federal 
congressman. The sergeant was John G. Capron, later a famous cross-country 
mail carrier. Capron, a resident of San Diego a few years ago, then wrote that 
he was the solitary living survivor of this party. Avoiding all settlements, Oury 
marched his men almost into Caborca before he appreciated the plight of the main 
expedition. Then he was met by a Mexican officer who stated that Crabb had 
surrendered and that he and his men would be sent out of the country. Oury 
was advised to march into the town and to lay down his arras. The Arizonans, 
better versed in Mexican warfare than were the Californians, refused and soon 
were besieged in a ravine, losing all their horses by gunfire before nightfall. In 
the dark and through sheltering dense woods, the Arizona men made their way 



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Granville H. Ourv 





Estevan Ochoa Charles T. Haydcn 

SOUTHERN ARIZONA PIONEERS 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 129 

northward to Pitaquito, near which, on the plains, they were charged by a detach- 
ment of about ^ty Mexican lancers. The Americans were much the better armed, 
so drove the Mexicans back and managed thereafter to keep them at long rifle 
range. Yet four of the invaders were killed, by name Chambers, Thomas, Woods 
and Hughes, the last named shot down by ambushed Mexicans at the very border 
line. A number were wounded, including Capron and Forbes. 

The return was a sad one. Footsore, weary, almost naked, the men secured 
food only in the small villages they dared visit and for water often had to depend 
upon the sap of the bisnaga cactus. Oury went on ahead and sent back a mule 
load of provisions. Soon thereafter the Oury ranch was reached and there the 
men spent several days resting, sleeping and eating and in picking the cactus 
thorns from their bodies. Tozer and a few went on to Tucson, while Capron went 
back to Calabasas, where he had a contract for supplying hay to four troops of 
United States dragoons, there in camp under Major Steen. There he found a 
Good Samaritan in Chas. Trumbull Hayden, who had started a store a mile below 
the post. 

In the San Diego Herald in May appeared an interesting account of Oury 's 
experiences, giving him great credit for skill and expressing the opinion that 
if he had been with Crabb from the beginning a different result would have been 
known. The early-day newspaper writer, on evidence furnished by a late arrival 
from Arizona, declared, **A11 was bad management, want of experience and a 
clear rushing upon a deadly fate. The influence of this affair upon Americans 
is very bad. Our prestige is entirely destroyed ; the Mexicans are loud in their 
boasts; our dreaded invincibility is gone, and nothing but a great victory will 
restore it. Even the Indians now say we are of no account and they will kill 
small parties when they meet them. Heretofore Americans have had much 
greater security than any other people. It remains to be seen how this horrible 
news will be received in California ; whether the thirsty sands of Sonora and the 
Gadsden Purchase have drank the lifeblood of men whom California has been 
proud to honor with the judicial ermine and the robes of the senator in vain, or 
whether she will give an earnest demonstration that, indeed, *the blood of the 
martyrs is the seed of the church.' " 

BOBDEB PBOTEST AND LAMENTATION 

There was a strong protest by the American Minister to Mexico, John Forsyth, 
who called the bloody work simply murderous and who defended Crabb as an 
immigrant and prospective settler. Chas. B. Smith, American vice-consul at 
Mazatlan, furnished the best ofiScial reports. He told how a party of Americans 
* 'headed by Mr.. Hewes (Hughes), twenty -six in number, were attacked by about 
300 Mexicans, but fought their way to the line, losing only four men, one of 
which was Hewes himself, whose heart and hands and ears were brought into 
Altar on a spear." Evidently this was the Tozer-Oury party. But nothing 
seemed to come of the American protests, possibly because the State Department 
in the end found itself unable to defend the motives of Crabb and his backers in 
their so-called ** Arizona Colonization Company." 

Poston, always a prolific source of letters, in the fall of 1857 recorded that 
''The guerilla warfare on the frontier continues with increased aggravation. 
Americans are afraid to venture into Sonora for supplies and Mexicans are afraid 



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130 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

to venture across the line. Americans who had nothing to do with the filibuster- 
ing expedition have been treated badly in Sonora and driven out of the country, 
and Mexicans coming into the Purchase with supplies and animals have been 
robbed and plundered by the returning filibusters. The Americans in the Ter- 
ritory are by no means harmonious on these subjects — some in favor of filibuster- 
ing and others opposed to it. It results that we are in a state of anarchy, and there 
is no government, no protection to life, property or business ; no law and no self- 
respect or morality among the people. We are living in a perfect state of nature, 
without the restraining influence of civil or military law or the amelioration of 
society. There have not been many conflicts or murders, because every man goes 
armed to the teeth and a difiSculty is always fatal, on one side or the other. God 
send that we had been left alone with the Apaches. We should have been a 
thousand times better oflf in every respect." 



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Residences, in the mission style 
University of Arizona 



Mission San Xavier 

Scene on a residence street 

Interior of ^lission San Xavier 

SCENES IX AND NE.VR THE CITY OF TUCSON 



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CHAPTER X 
THE PRE-TERRITORIAL PERIOD 

Old Tucson, a Border Metropolis — Its Foundation and Name — Yuma and the River 
Camps — Politics, tphen Arizona Extended from Texas to the Colorado — Con- 
federate Acthit}f. 

Practically all history of European or American occupation of the present 
land of Arizona starts in its southeastern section, wherein Tucson, an enduring 
outpost of civilization, still attaches the romance of the past to the fringe of her 
activities as a modem metropK>lis. The speech of Spain most noticeably lingers 
within her gates and pride loyally is felt in the perpetuation of the Moorish and 
Spanish types of arcl\itecture. The comparative newness of white settlement 
can be appreciated when it is considered that Tucson is the only Arizona town 
that dates back of the Civil War. She has known government under three 
nations and was the westernmost post garrisoned by the Confederates. She 
stood firm as the guard post between the Apaches of the hills and peaceful 
Indians of the valleys and sheltered the friars of old in their efforts to establish 
the faith of the Cross. Almost wholly modem she seems to-day, when super- 
ficially viewed, but below the bustle of business the student finds a most attract- 
ive sub-stratum of sentiment, that has served to perpetuate memories of the 
romantic past, to the times when Spanish cavaliers drew sword for the glory of 
their king and for the extension of their faith. 

There are some, filled with local pride and eager for local assumption of 
the honors that attach to age, who have sought to show that Tucson is one of 
the oldest cities in the United States, if not the oldest. On similar basis even 
greater antiquity might attach to a village planted on the site of Casa Grande. 
The local claim appears to be based largely upon a statement in Hodge's ** Ari- 
zona as It Is" of its settlement about 1560, which would make it much older 
than Santa Fe, New Mexico, or Saint Augustine, Florida. 

TUCSON'S BIBTH AND BAPTISM 

Tucson in reality was founded just about the same time as San Francisco, 
in 1775 or 1776, just as the revolutionary heroes were settling down to the hard 
task of creating the United States. On this basis, the Fourth of July should 
have added significance in what its residents are pleased to call *'The Ancient 
and Honorable Pueblo.'' It is not as old by more than twenty years as Tubac, 
from which an early military commandant, Juan Bautista de Anza, went 
straightway to similar office in the foundation of the Presidio of San Francisco. 

Tucson was a Spanish presidio, garrisoned by about fifty soldiers from 
Tubac. Its first few adobe huts were placed on the banks of the Santa Cruz, 

131 



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132 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

near the shade of a cotton wood grove and not far from a Papago (or Sobaipuri) 
raneheria, a visita of the mission of San Xavier. This rancheria in the annals 
of the Church had had the dignity of a name at least as far back as 1698, when 
Padre Kino wrote ,of passing a short distance below San Xavier through San 
Cosme de Tucson and San Agustin de Oyaut. San Agustin he put on his map 
in 1702. It was a short distance down the river from the site of Tucson. Along 
the water courses of southern Arizona, the reverend travelers were prone to 
dignify each Indian village with a name with some saintly prefix, founded on 
hope of the future, rather than upon any missionary successes of the day. In 
the lapse of years, of the many saintly appellations that were scattered north 
of San Xavier, there remains only one, for Saint Augustine to this day is rev- 
erenced as the patron saint of Tucson. In a few of these villages were built 
adobe churches with mud or grass roofs. 

The word to-day has a general pronunciation of **Too-sahn,'' this changed 
by Mexicans and by some of the pioneer Americans to * * Took-sone. " This has 
no connection with Spanish, but comes down from the desert Papago or Sobai- 
puri, who were found nearby on the Santa Cruz by the first Spanish explorers. 
General acceptance has been given in considering the origin of the word itself 
to a theory that it meant *'dark or brown spring" and even the spring itself 
has been shown, near the Elysian grove of today, where many a ** dark-brown 
taste" since has been acquired. It is true that in the Papago language **styuk- 
son" means dark or brown spring, but Dr. ^I. P. Freeman of Tucson, the citj^'s 
most careful historical student, dissents. Prom Papago sources he has learned 
that just across the valley at the foot of Sentinel Peak was an Indian pueblito 
known as * * Styook-zone, " interpreted as meaning **the village at the foot of 
the black hill." Inasmuch as the Indians consulted seem to agree on this expla- 
nation, it is probably to be preferred. 

In the Rudo Ensayo, with date attached of 1762, San Xavier is noted as the 
northernmost mission among the Pimas, with the addition, **at a distance of 
three leagues north lies the post of Tucson, with sufficient people and con- 
veniences to found another mission." In spite of all this, the formal occupation 
of the present town as a presidio does not appear to have been recorded officially 
prior to 1776, when the garrison at Tubac was transferred thither. Padre Pont 
about 1775 found the pueblo Tuquison more populous than that of San Xavier 
del Bac. 

Bishop Salpointe has found authority for the statement that in 1772 Padre 
Garces gathered the population in a pueblo of adobe, with a church, a mission 
house and a protective wall, about half a mile from the present city site, and 
called it the Pueblito del Tucson. Later the old church on the river was known 
as **La Escuela Pura." 

EVER IN FEAB OF THE APACHE 

One of the very earliest records of old Tucson is contained in a letter or 
report, dated at San Agustin de Tucson, November 24, 1777, addressed by 
Manuel Barragua, Prancisco Castro and Antonio Romero to Senor Capitan Don 
Pedro Allande y Savedra. Despite the efforts of those who tell that the Apaches 
were driven into warfare by the malign influence of the whites, it would appear 
that the Indians were about as pernicious in those days as they were 100 years 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 133 

later. The letter was written particularly to secure an additional force of troops 
for the protection of the fields and herds and the captain is beseeched ''that you 
will pity our misfortunes and listen to our petitions that you may remove the 
continual misfortunes that we have suffered by a continual expectation of our 
total destruction. '' Reference was made to a former expression of desire on the 
part of the inhabitants to break up their homes and to an order received from 
the captain ''imposing heavy penalties upon us if we should sell or remove our 
goods." Matters had come to a head, however, within a month before the writing 
of the letter. The Apaches had finished the entire herds of horses and cattle 
which had been guarded well. At the same time, "with boldness they had 
destroyed the fields and carried away as much com as they were able." The 
letter tells, "since the fort was removed to Tucson these towns and missions 
(along the Santa Cruz) have experienced such disaster that they have been 
obliged to bum the town of Calabazas, a calamity never before experienced." 
The Apaches had remained in the vicinity continually, watching from the hills 
and the settlers momentarily expected to be destroyed, as their property had 
been. There is a narration that near Tubac and Tumacacori were fields of com 
and wheat and recommendation was made that the scant irrigation supply of the 
Santa Cruz be bestowed in alternate weeks to the fields of either settlement, as 
had been done by the former captain, Don Juan de Anza. Of wheat and com 
there had been raised the previous year about six hundred fanegas. ^ 

The letter recited that in the vicinity of Aribac, seven leagues distant, were 
rich mines of silver and that three leagues beyond, in the valley of Babacomari, 
there were fine gold placers that had been examined by Don Jos6 Torro. Three 
visits were made by Don Jose at great risk, and by remaining there over three 
days each trip, he had brought away gold valued at about two hundred dollars. 

The presidio or pueblo had a checkered career, garrisoned by Spanish, Mex- 
ican and Opata Indian soldiery, but with a population that varied according to 
the activity of the mining industries and likewise the activity of the Apaches. 
The Indians attacked it continually, drove off the herds and often killed the 
rancheros while at work. As early as 1825 the town had been well fortified 
with an adobe wall, which had circular comer salients, permitting cross-fire on 
any antagonists. That this was necessary was shown by the fact that a number 
of Apache attacks had been made upon the farms in the vicinity and even on the 
town itself, which the Indians had hoped to take by surprise. Within the wall, 
and in places backed up on it, were the houses occupied by the troops of the 
presidio and by the small Spanish-speaMng population. 

The pueblo had a serious experience with Apaches in January, 1851, and its 
people seem to have impressed the Indians with a large respect for their prowess, 
for the redskins sued for peace, through a Mexican captive, Acuna, the same 
who later led an expedition from Sonora after silver mines into the mountains 
beyond the Gila. A treaty was agreed upon and the Indians departed, leaving 
Acuna behind. 

There is a record of occasional visitation of the "vomito amarillo." possibly 
cholera or a form of yellow fever, though the modern disease of that designation 
rarely is found far from the hot and damp southern coasts. Smallpox was 
known commonly. 



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134 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

OOMPUMENTS OF EARLY VISITORS 

Bartlett in 1852 found a population of only about three hundred, miserably 
confined to narrow limits and barely gaining sustenance, existing only through 
the protection of the troops. The houses were all of adobe and the majority of 
them in a state of ruin. * * No attention seems to be given to repair ; but as soon 
as a dwelling becomes uninhabitable it is deserted, the miserable tenants creeping 
into some other hovel where they may eke out their existence." 

Tucson was evacuated by Commandant Garcia, March 10, 1856, following 
the proclamation of the Gadsden Purchase, and for a while had a garrison of 
the First Dragoons. American enterprise already was on the ground, for, eleven 
days before the evacuation, Solomon Warner arrived from Fort Yuma with 
thirteen mules loaded with merchandise, secured on a commission basis from 
Hooper & Hinton of Fort Yuma. Mark Aldridge was the first United States 
postmaster, he succeeded by Dr. C. H. Lord. 

Poston described Tucson in 1856 as having a population of about four hun- 
dred Mexicans and thirty Americans, with two American stores, a flour mill and 
''some other business places," probably saloons. The houses were of adobe, 
generally damp and imhealthy. The vote at the preceding election was sixty- 
six. According to Poston, for a year previous to his visit the American popula- 
tion had been engaged principally in waiting for the American troops, though 
he called it *Hhe most orderly, quiet, civil community that I have ever seen." 
It was evident that Poston was not deeply impressed, for he declared it could 
never be a place of importance. Mail coach transportation was had with the 
outside world in 1858. Soon thereafter the locality began to be celebrated 
through the columns of the Arizonian, which had been moved from Tubac, and 
which made its bow in Tucson about that time. The editor printed his valedic- 
tory and an attack on President Lincoln in the Arizonian of March 9, 1861. 

B. H. Woods in 1857 wrote of 500 people resident and 2,000 acres cultivated. 
He found much **chill8-and-fever.'' 

Pumpelly in 1860 considered the town's most important feature two large 
meteoric iron masses, that had been used by a blacksmith as anvils. OnS, 160 
pounds in weight, was taken to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The" 
other, of 632 pounds weight, was sent by General Carleton to San Francisco. 
The first is said to have been brought in 1735 ( ?) from Sierra de la Madera by 
Juan Bautista de Anza. 

Cremony told that about 1860 Arizona and New Mexico were cursed by the 
presence of two or three hundred of the most infamous scoundrels it is possible 
to conceive. Innocent and unoffending men were shot down or bowie-knifed 
merely for the pleasure of witnessing their death agonies. Men walked the 
streets and public squares with double-barreled shot guns, and hunted each 
other as sportsmen hunt for game. In the graveyard at Tucson there were 
forty-seven graves of white men in 1860 and of that number only two had died 
natural deaths, all of the rest having been murdered in broils and barroom 
quarrels. 

The picture drawn by J. Ross Browne of Tucson in the early days of '64 
was hardly attractive, even though it was of the principal town of the new 
Territory, the center of trade for Sonora and the largest settlement on the 
highroad from the Rio Grande to Fort Yuma. The town itself Browne called 



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Main Street, Phoenix, in 1879 
Cliff Dwellings on Beaver Creek 



Main Street, Florence, in 1878 
Eskiu il je-he, Apache Scout 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 135 

*4he most wonderful scatteration of human habitations ever beheld by the eye 
of a jaded and dust-covered traveler expecting to enjoy all the luxuries of 
civilization which an ardent imagination might lead him to expect in the metropo- 
lis of Arizona — a city of mud boxes, dingy and dilapidated, cracked and baked 
into a composite of dust and filth; littered about with broken corrals, sheds, 
bake-ovens, carcasses of dead animals and broken pottery; barren of verdure, 
parched, naked, and grimly desolate in the glare of the southern sun. Adobe 
walls without whitewash inside or out, hard earth floors, baked and dried Mex- 
icans, sore-backed burros, coyote dogs, and terra-cotta children; soldiers, team- 
sters and honest miners lounging about the mescal shops, soaked with the fiery 
poison; a noisy band of Sonoranian buffoons, dressed in theatrical costume, 
cutting their antics in the public places to the most diabolical din of fiddles and 
guitars ever heard ; a long train of Government wagons preparing to start for 
Fort Yuma or the Rio Grande — ^these are what the traveler sees, and a great 
many things more, but in vain he looks for a hotel or lodging house. The best 
accommodations he can possibly expect are the dried mud walls of some unoccu- 
pied outhouse, with a mud floor for his bed, his own food to eat and his own 
cook to prepare it; and lucky is he to possess such luxuries as these." 

About that time, on the testimony of 6. V. Angula, lard sold for $2.50 a 
pound, muslin for $1 a yard, com for $12.50 a hundred pounds and com whiskey 
for 50 cents a drink. It should be understood that the common currency even 
as late as 1880 was Mexican silver, of debased value. The Mexican doUar in 
Arizona generally was known as a ^'dobie," its size and weight thus compared 
with an adobe brick. 

It should be understood that even after the establishment of Prescott, the 
greater part of the population of present Arizona was centered in Tucson, the 
balance mainly being in a fringe of mining camps along the Colorado. There 
was a period when the principal income of Tucson was derived from handling 
supplies for troops engaged in chasing the Apaches — rather an impermanent 
and unsatisfactory income at the best. 

Even before the coming of the railroad Tucson enjoyed a large export trade 
with Sonora. As late as 1878 Hinton ingenuously accounted for this, stating 
that goods delivered at Guaymas must pay customs duties, but this same mer- 
chandise can be easily taken across the line without observation on mountain 
trains, when made up into little bales of from 100 to 150 pounds each adaptable 
to pack mules. Thus Tucson has a monopoly of the dry-goods trade of Sonora." 

SETTLEMENT ON THE SANTA 0B17Z 

South of Tucson, up the rich Santa Cruz Valley, was a fairly continuous 
line of settlement, along Pete Kitchen's famous road to Sonora — ** Tucson, 
Tubac, Tumacacori and Tohell.'' Beside the three terrestrial localities listed 
was the mission of San Xavier, the rancho settlement of Calabazas, where the 
first American custom house was established, and the presidio of Santa Cruz, 
near the border. Of these the most important was Tubac. The word *' Tubac,'' 
by Fred Hodge is said to mean *' adobe house," also ** ruined house,/' ''ruined," 
etc., the word occurring in San Xavier del Bac, Quitobac, etc. The presidio 
appears to have been started about 1752, as no earlier reference has been found 
concerning it. It undoubtedly followed the Indian uprising of November 20, 



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136 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

1751, and was placed at a visita of the mission of Guehabi. The place later was 
temporarily abandoned in favor of Tumacacori. De Anza was in command after 
1764 for about ten years. Bartlett, who visited it in 1852, then called it **a 
God-forsaken place that contains a few dilapitated buildings and an old church 
with a miserable population. ... It was abandoned a year before our 
arrival, has since been repopulated and might have comprised at the time of 
our visit a hundred souls." A few years thereafter the old presidio had a 
mixed population of Americans, Mexicans and Indians, deriving their livelihood 
from the working of nearby mines. It was in this period that at Tubac was 
established the first newspaper of Arizona. 

The Americans came to Tubac in 1856, when Poston made it his headquar- 
ters and when it was the center of operations of the Arizona Mining Company, 
which had brought in an enormous amount of machinery and equipment before 
the necessary abandonment of the country in 1861. For the preceding three 
years Tubac was the most important settlement in Arizona, for good houses had 
been built, farming had been started, and the place was a center of industry and 
trade. In 1864, when Poston returned with Browne, already it was a city of 
ruins. 

After the leaving of the American troops, only about twenty-five people 
remained at Tubac. These soon were besieged by a force of Apaches estimated 
at 200. A message was sent to Tucson asking for help. Promptly there came to 
the rescue a party of twenty-five Americans led by Grant Oury, who struck the 
Apaches from the rear and drove them away. This reinforcement came in good 
time, for danger menaced from another source. A party of seventy-five Mex- 
ican bandits, hearing of the abandonment of Tubac, came up from Sonora for 
purposes of plunder. Finding the garrison too strong, the ^lexicans fell back 
to Tumacacori, where they murdered an old American resident, looted the village 
and returned southward. 

Browne declared the Santa Cruz Valley one of the most beautiful he had 
ever seen, yet noted on the road between San Xavier and Tubac, a distance of 
almost forty miles, almost that number of graves of white men lately murdered * 
by Apaches. There were fields with torn-down fences or houses burned or 
racked to pieces by violence; everywhere ruin, grim and ghastly with associa- 
tions of sudden death. Day and night, the common subject of conversation was 
murder, and wherever the beauty of the scene attracted, a stone-covered grave 
marked the foreground. 

The first settlement at Calabazas (squashes) was some time prior to 1760, 
though it is probable that the fertile valley at that point supported at first a 
Papago village that became a visita of Guebabi, under the name of San Cayetano 
de Calabazas. Note has been made before of its desertion in 1777. Later 
it was headquarters for the great rancho of the Gandara family, and was noted 
for its four-acre corral. N(^ales (walnuts), farther to the southward, also was 
a cattle ranch. Bartlett, who visited Calabazas in July, 1852, found only the 
ruins of a large rancho, nothing more than a name, and observed that all over 
the Southwest he had found on the maps a host of names, ** including half the 
saints on the calendar, all the apostles and the Holy Lady of Guadalupe into 
the bargain," and that '*the stranger would imagine the country thickly set- 
tled, whereas there might not be a village, rancho or even a single inhabitant.'* 



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STREET IN OLD TUCSON, SHOWING FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE ON LEFT 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 137 

Loroux, his guide, told that it had been a thriving establishment twenty years 
before, when he had visited it, but the irrigation supply had fallen off. After 
the Gadsden Purchase, Calabazas was for a while the site of a custom house, 
though, in the absence of a sufficient force of line riders, most of the goods that 
crcwsed the line in either direction were smuggled. 

THE OILA VALLEY'S HI8T0BI0 HIGHWAY 

It should be understood that by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, 
the United States gained territory in the Southwest only as far southward as 
the Gila River. The Gadsden Purchase, for $10,000,000, in 1853, brought the 
international line down to its present location, though not far enough south to 
secure a seaport, which had been one of the original objects of the negotiations. . 
The whole transaction had been a rather costly one, in money amounting to 
about $170,000,000, as figured in 1904 by Cyrus Townsend Brady, this without 
reference to the thousands of men killed or wounded or to the continuing pen- 
sion expense, all founded on a war believed by a large proportion of Ameri- 
cans to have been an unjust one. 

From the time of the Mexican War till the outbreak of the Civil War, the 
history of Arizona was concentrated mainly along the transcontinental road that 
passed through Tucson and westward down the Gila Valley. To the southward 
some of the old Spanish mines were reworked, while, later, prospectors, at 
the risk of their lives, penetrated Apacheria. Military posts were established at 
Buchanan on the Sonoita, at Breckenridge on the lower San Pedro, at Yuma, 
opposite the mouth of the Gila, at Mojave, at the Colorado River crossing of the 
northern Beale road, and at Defiance on the Navajo reservation. There were 
surveys for wagon roads and railroads, rather hard-driven by national admin- 
istrations of southern bias, and there were a couple of boundary surveys that 
added much to the geographic knowledge of the times. For several years there 
was a passing of hordes of Americans, bound for California, as well as of Mexi- 
cans, though the latter usually took the more direct, though more dangerous, 
Tinajas Altas trail. 

Emory's vision of navigation of the Gila never became a reality, though a 
number of attempts were made by military expeditions and pioneers to float 
a part of their chattels down the stream when mule transportation had been 
almost exhausted. Lieut. C. J. Coutts, the founder of Camp Calhoun near 
Yuma in September, 1849, told that there arrived in November of that year a 
flatboat on which had floated from the Pima villages a family, that of a Mr. 
Howard, together with two friends, a doctor and a clergyman. Added interest 
is given the story by the detail that upon the voyage a son was bom into the 
Howard family and was given the name of * * Gila. ' * This in the story is assumed 
to have been the first white child of American parentage bom within the pres- 
ent boundaries of Arizona. The Howard flatboat was bought by Coutts for 
use as a ferry. 

OBX7ESOME MEM0BIE8 OF A FEBBY 

The first of the California gold-seekers made their way across the Colorado 
either by fording or on rafts, assisted or impeded by the Indians. Early in 
1849, however, a long-felt want was filled by the establishment of a regular ferry 

Vol. I— 10 

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138 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

about a mile below the mouth of the Gila, at a point on the west bank that became 
known as Fort Defiance, which is not to be confused with the real fort of that 
name. This settlement appears to have been a veritable bandit lair, wherein the 
traveler was robbed by excessive tolls, card sharping or by the simpler methods 
of the highway, that might include murder. While there is a record of a ferry- 
man named Craig, the first appears to have been a Doctor Lincoln (or Langdon), 
who had been backed by J. P. Brodie, a wealthy Scottish merchant of Hermosillo. 
Lincoln later was joined by John Glanton (or Gallantin), a desperado Indian 
scalp hunter, who, with $8,000 offered for his own scalp by the Mexican govern- 
ment, had started for the more salubrious clime of California. In April, 1850, 
the gang was defied by a party led by General Anderson, who, rather than pay 
extortionate ferriage fees, built a boat, used it and then presented it to the 
Indians, who, assisted by a discharged soldier, started an opposition ferry at 
Algodones, down the river. Glanton sought restraint of trade by killing his 
white competitor and breaking up the boat. Then he left for San Diego, to 
deposit $8,000, that had been accumulated by him. When he returned, according 
to a tribal story that seems authentic, he was met by the redskins in apparent 
amity and, with his men, was invited to a feast, around four fires, of poles. At a 
signal each of the 100 dancing Indians caught up from the fires a blazing brand 
and fell upon a guest. Glanton is said to have been killed at the first onslaught, 
but the remaining Americans fought with desperation, killing many of the 
Indians. But, in the end, the whites, a dozen in number, all went under, save 
three, who escaped in a boat. It has been told that one of these was Charlie 
Brown, who later kept a large gambling saloon in Tucson. 

This ** massacre" caused much excitement in Southern California and, under 
authority from the Governor of California, a volunteer force of militia, more than 
100 strong, was sent under Quartermaster General Jos. C. Morehead to the Colo- 
rado river, which was reached in the fall. In the meantime another ferry, oper- 
ated by L. J. F. lager and Ben Hartshorne, was started July 11, 1850, at Pilot 
Knob, a few miles down stream from the Gila's mouth. The ferrymen had made 
peace with the Indians, had built three boats, an adobe house and a fort, garri- 
soned by ten men, and were doing a rushing business with the emigrants. When 
the Morehead force came, trouble came also. There was fight between the Cali- 
fomians and the Yuma, in which the honors first went to the redskins, but the 
Americans came back to the fray and drove the Indians from the locality. This 
included destruction of an Indian ferry business down the river, where Glanton 's 
boats were being used. The militia proceeded also to disarm all passing Mexi- 
cans. Travelers, according to Bartlett, who passed in 1852, had secured more 
than $15,000 from the Indians since the Glanton killing, the looted money spent 
for clothing and trinkets. 

The following year Morehead began a filibustering expedition against Sonora, 
but none of his schemes had really serious ending. 

A small guard of regulars followed the militia, but was withdrawn later and 
in November, 1851, the ferrymen were driven oflf by the Yumas, who wanted a 
monopoly of the ferry business. There was a fight, in which lager received three 
arrow wounds. In 1852 Fort Yuma was established and with the coming of the 
soldiers returned the ferrymen. The history of the fort is told elsewhere in this 
work. It should be appreciated that till 1854 Colorado City, opposite the fort. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 139 

and the eastern bank of the river south of the Gila were in Mexican territory, 
though the Mexican arm of authority rarely reached .that far. The **city '' seems 
to have disappeared in the Gila flood of 1862, after which the name of Arizona 
City was preferred. 

HOW P08T0N <<BAI8ED THE WIND" 

Colorado City, according to Rafael Pumpelly, had a curious origin. In July, 
1854, Poston and a number of mining engineers were journeying from the Arizona 
mines to California, where capital was to be solicited. When the Americans 
reached the Colorado, they were almost without money and found that the ferry- 
man, L. J. F. laeger, would demand $25 for their passage. Poston, a man of 
infinite wit, looked around for some way out of his difficulty. He saw at once 
that the location was ideal for a townsite. So he set his engineers at work and 
within a few hours they had surveyed the ground, set a number of stakes and 
evolved a formidable-looking map. The ferryman crossed the river to find out 
the meaning of all the stir. He was shown the map on which was located the 
landing for a steam ferry and became deeply interested. As a result, Poston 
traded him a good comer lot for ferriage across the river. The names of some 
of the founders of Colorado City still endure on certificates of stock, for Poston 
actually incorporated his townsite company in California in the hope of raising 
a little needed money. Included within the incorporation were George A. John- 
son, A. H. Wilcox, George F. Cooper, L. J. F. laeger, Hermann Ehrenberg, Chas. 
D. Poston, Jack Hinton and Col. James McPherson. 

EXPHRIENOES ALONG THE BIO COLORADO 

The southern bank at the time was considered within California, though that 
State's claim ran back only a few hundred yards from the river at any point. 
The claim never was popular, however, and on one occasion a San Diego County 
tax collector was thrown into jail for attempting to enforce the payment of a 
tax levy. 

In early days, the mouth of the Gila was the center of warfare between Indian 
tribes. They seemed, on the whole, to have behaved rather decently toward the 
Americans, considering the character of some of the immigrants that had drifted 
into the region. In 1855 there was a bloody war between the Yumas and the 
Cocopahs, the latter said to have been backed by Mexicans. The Cocopahs at 
first were victorious, but the Yumas called to their aid about two hundred and 
fifty Indians, from farther up the river, mainly Mojaves and Chemehuevis and 
effectually disposed of their adversaries a few months later. The Cocopahs had 
been warned, however, and while their villages were destroyed, they lost only 
four warriors. 

There was a lynching in Arizona City about 1859. A man named Dow, said 
to have been a relative of Neal Dow, the early prohibition advocate, had a con- 
tract to cut wood for the steamers on the Colorado below Yuma. He and a Ger- 
man boy in his employ were killed by a Mexican wood-chopper, who then started 
southward with Dow's boat, loaded with supplies, with the expectation of joining 
a filibustering party at San Filipe, ninety miles southward. The boat was recog- 
nized, however, by Captain Sun, chief of the Cocopahs, who ordered his people 
to seize the Mexican. On the way up the river they discovered the body of the 



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140 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

German boy. When, with their prisoner and evidence, they reached the settle- 
ment there was scant mercy and the Mexican was quickly hanged. 

In the last days of 1863, when J. Ross Browne reached Fort Yuma, that post 
was under command of Colonel Bennett. He found the locality beautiful even in 
its desolation, but he gave publicity to the slanders that since have rested upon 
Yuma's fair fame — ^how the thermometer dried up in summer and how there was 
no juice left in anything living or dead ; how officers and soldiers walked about 
creaking; mules could only bray at night; snakes found a difficulty in bending 
their bodies and horned frogs died of apoplexy ; chickens came out of the shell 
ready cooked ; bacon was eaten*with a spoon and butter had to stand an hour in 
the sun before the flies became dry enough for use. 

At that time Arizona City was the distributing point for silver mining camps 
up the river. There were gold diggings at La Paz and silver and lead were being 
mined around Castle Dome. The season was a dry one, however, and miners 
were coming out, bound for civilization, bronzed, battered, ragged and hungry. 

To facilitate the shipment of freight to Arizona military posts, a quarter- 
master's depot was established by Capt. W. B. Hooper in 1864 on the Arizona 
side. This depot was destroyed by fire three years later, but the rebuilt struc- 
tures still are in use, occupied by the United States Reclamation Service. Till the 
passing of the railroad, in 1878, Yuma's principal industry was in the forwarding 
of freight to Colorado river or interior points and in the feeding of the emigrant 
or the freighter. 

Some business there was due to mining excitements, particularly that of Gila 
City in 1858 and that near La Paz four years later. One of the merchants at La 
Paz was John G. Campbell, who floated into the camp on a raft from El Dorado 
Canon. La Paz still was a considerable place in 1864 and was made the seat of 
government for the new county of Yuma, but, later most of its population and 
business went to Ehrenberg and the county seat was changed to Arizona City, 
the present Yuma. 

Ehrenberg, first known as Mineral City, was established early in 1870 at a 
good river crossing, six miles above La Paz, by Michael Goldwater and named 
after Hermann Ehrenberg. Ehrenberg had been in the Texan war for inde- 
pendence, had had broad experience in the West, had served with Fremont in 
California and was in Tubac in 1856. He was killed at Palm Springs on the Colo- 
rado desert in California in June, 1866. The crime was charged to Indians, but 
may have been that of a white man named Smith. The town became one of the 
most important in Arizona, the crossing point for most of the freight and passen- 
gers of northern Arizona, but died with the coming of the railroad to Yuma. The 
other steamer landings of the Colorado, dating before 1864 now are merely names. 

OBQANIZINa THE QADSDEN PUBOHASE 

The Gadsden Purchase was added to the area of New Mexico by the terms of 
a congressional act of August 4, 1854. The succeeding New Mexico Legislature 
on January 18, 1855, added the district of Dona Ana County. The Editor has 
found an old map of New Mexico, on which the counties are shown as mere bands, 
drawn from east to west, some of them from Texas to California. In this Rio 
Arriba County was the northernmost strip. Next was Santa Ana, taking in Port 
Defiance and the Grand Canon region. Then came Bernalillo, which included 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 141 

Fort Mojave. The Needles section, only a few miles below, was in Valencia and 
then Socorro County took in everything southward to the Gila, below which lay 
the County of Arizona. There was very little government outside of the military 
posts, every man apparently being a law unto himself. Chas. D. Poston seems 
to have assumed the office of Recorder at Tubac and there were petty peace offi- 
cers at Tucson and a couple of other points. There was little use in arresting a 
malefactor, however, for the county seat was at Mesilla and the journey thence 
was too arduous and too expensive for the transportation of witnesses. It is 
told that a few criminals were dispatched thither, but there is no record avail- 
able of their punishment thereafter. 

These conditions early developed a demand for a separate political existence. 
The slavery agitation also had something to do with the case, for a large pro- 
portion of the leading citizens of Tucson and Tubac were of southern birth and 
sympathies. In Tucson, August 29, 1856, was held a convention at which demand 
was made for the organization of a separate Territory. This convention was 
headed by Mayor M. Aldrich of Tucson. Other members noted were Granville 
H. Oury (who had been elected a member of the New Mexico Legislature), Henry 
Ehrenberg, who presumably came from Colorado City ; James Douglas of Sopori, 
Jos4 M. Martinez of San Xavier, G. K. Terry, who was secretary, W. N. Bonner, 
N. P. Cook, Ignacio Ortiz and J. D. L. Pack. Nathan P. Cook later was elected 
Delegate, to present the cause in Congress, wherein he appeared before the House 
Committee on Territories in January, 1857, bearing a memorial with 260 names, 
but claiming a white population of 10,000, which would appear to have been about 
5,000 in excess of the actual figures, including Mexicans. The committee recog- 
nized the fact that some sort of government was necessary and recommended a 
bill for the organization of a judicial district, covering the Gadsden purchase, and 
for the appointment of a Surveyor-General, with a degree of authority in the 
adjustment of titles. A bill to this effect was passed by the Senate but not made 
a law. In the same year the President recommended a separate government for 
Arizona. 

In the congressional session that began in December, 1857, Senator Gwin 
of California was the author of a bill for the organization of the Territory of 
Arizona, to embrace the land south of the Gila and including Dona Ana County 
in New Mexico, with an extension eastward to Texas. With the exception of the 
country east of the Rio Grande, this embraced the district which generally had 
been known theretofore as Arizona. The people of Tucson were enthusiastic over 
this bill and in September, in the fullness of their hope, chose Sylvester Mowry 
as their Delegate to Congress and sent him to Washington. But he was not 
admitted to the councils of the nation, for the bill failed of passage though favor- 
ably reported. Mowry was re-elected to his honorary position thereafter and 
spent the better part of several years lobbying in behalf of Arizona, securing the 
introduction of bills in December, 1858, and in January, 1859. He secured the 
co-operation of the people of southern New Mexico and appeared before a con- 
vention held in Mesilla June 19, 1859, which approved his acts and renominated 
him. A part of this convention went forthwith to Tucson, where within a fort- 
night was held a joint convention of the two sections, presided over by John 
Walker. There would appear to have been a decided effort to get out the vote 



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142 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

of the next election in September, for thereat no less than 2,164 ballots were 
recorded as cast. 

NO I.AW WEST OF THE PECOS 

Mowry was a man of much original thought and of energy and seemed to 
have had no hesitation in spending his money freely in forwarding his ends. 
When he was chosen honorary delegate to Congress, in 1857, he issued, at his own 
cost, several pamphlets, and made many speeches in the east, all in support of 
the idea that Arizona should be created a separate Territory. In this it should 
be understood that the Arizona of that day constituted the southern half of the 
two southwestern sub-divisions, its eastern boundary either the Rio Grande or a 
line a bit to the eastward of El Paso, with Mesilla on the Rio Grande and Tucson 
the only settlements of any importance. In effect, Arizona was little more than 
the Gadsden Purchase. Mowry warmly combated the idea that its population was 
made up mainly of the worst of humanity. As an instance of the decency of the 
people, he copied a letter from Poston in which mention was made of the resti- 
tution to citizens of Mexico of property than had been stolen by Americans, from 
whom the loot in turn was taken by citizens of Tucson. The robbers were arrested 
by the volunteer peace forces and were turned over for punishment to Major 
Steen of the Dragoons. There was a bit of evidence to the contrary, however. A 
letter of the period told, **We are living without the protection of law or the 
ameliorations of society. New Mexico affords us no protection. We have not even 
received an order for an election. Every one goes armed to the teeth and a diffi- 
culty is sure to prove fatal. In this state of affairs it is impossible to hold an 
election.*' 

There must have been even more bitterness in southern New Mexico than in 
Arizona proper, for at the Mesilla meeting there was complaint that there had 
been no court in that locality for three years and there was a declaration to the 
effect that the south would take no part in New Mexican elections till justice had 
been done in this respect. 

EFFORTS TO SECUBE A GOVEBNMENT 

In 1859 Congress was petitioned by the people of southern New Mexico, in- 
cluding Tucson and the settlements of the Mesilla Valley, to form a new Terri- 
tory to be called Arizona. This action met with no Congressional response. 

The Ninth New Mexican Legislature, by an act approved February 1, I860, 
created the County of Arizona out of the Gadsden Purchase, with its county 
seat at Tubac. In 1862 the succeeding Legislature added the eastern part of 
the county to Dona Ana County and changed the county seat to Tucson, for 
little had been left of Tubac by that time. 

Somewhat of importance was a constitutional convention of thirty-one dele- 
gates, held in Tucson early in April, 1860, Jas. A. Lucas was President and 
Granville H. Oury and T. M. Turner were secretaries. The list of places rep- 
resented is of particular interest, embracing Mesilla, Santa Rita del Cobre, Las 
Cruces, Dona Ana, La Mesa, Santo Tomas, Picacho, Amoles, Tucson, Arivaca, 
Tubac, Sonoita, Gila City and Calabazas. The new Territory of Arizona was 
to include all of New Mexico south of latitude 33 deg. 40 min. and was to have 
four counties about evenly divided on north and south lines. These counties 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 143 

were : Dona Ana, east of the Rio Grande ; Mesilla, from the Rio Grande west to 
the Chiricahua Mountains j Ewell (after Capt. B. S. Ewell, who was seated in the 
convention as a guest of honor) to a line crossing the ** Little Desert," wher- 
ever that might have been ; and Castle Dome, which included the country west 
to the Colorado River. A Governor was elected. Dr. L. S. Owings of Mesilla. 

This last convention seems to have been appreciated as an effort to estab- 
lish some sort of de facto administration till such time as Congress should act. 
Having no power of enforcement of its decrees, its recommendations went for 
naught. It is interesting to note, however, that the *' Governor*' nominated a 
full set of officials including: Secretary of State, J. A. Lucas; Controller, J. H. 
Wells; Treasurer, M. Aldrich; Marshal, Sam G. Bean; Chief Justice, G. H. 
Oury ; Associate Justices, Edward McGowan and S. W. Cozzens (author of **The 
Marvellous Country''); Major (Jeneral ( ! ), W. C. Wordsworth; Adjutant- 
General, Palatine Robinson. 

In 1860, Senator Green of Missouri failed to get consideration for a bill 
to provide temporary government for **the Territory of Arizuma." Sen. Jef- 
ferson Davis had a similar bill. A fall election was held, at which "Ned" 
McGowan, of unhappy Califomian memory, was chosen to succeed Mowry in 
the latter 's unpaid and thankless job. 

All through the story of the day ran a subordinate, half-concealed thread 
of secession, still existent even after the entry of federal troops and the driving 
out of the Texas column. If Mowry were in the plot, his activities soon were 
pent up in Yuma. Oury had nominal election in 1861 to represent Arizona in 
the Confederate Congress, but at first secured no official recognition from that 
body, though he made his laborious way through to Richmond. It is evident 
that his election had been sub rosa. It was even charged that the national gov- 
ernment abandoned itd Arizona posts on the theory that it would be poor mili- 
tary policy to protect the property of rebels against even such a common foe as 
the Apache. There was correspondence through Tucson between the Confed- 
erate authorities and Governor Pesquiera of Sonora, who appeared **open to 
argument," but whose own position was too precarious for the admission of 
foreign complications. Whatever doubts there may have been concerning the 
loyalty of Arizona were resolved by the coming of the California Column. 

A TEBBITOBY OBOANIZSD AT LAST 

Again, in 1862, a bill for the organization of a territorial government for 
Arizona came up in Congress, but without the complication of slavery, Which 
in the text of the measure expressly was prohibited. The bill gave Arizona its 
present eastern boundary, a change probably due to the activities of Delegate 
John H. Watts of New Mexico. There was much debate over the matter in 
Congress, the opposition, very logically, showing that the proposed subdivision 
had within its 100,000 square miles a large prospect of official expense that 
could hardly be borne by a population, exclusive of Indians, but inclusive of 
Mexicans, of only 6,500. The bill passed the House May 8, by a narrow margin. 
Its final consideration in the Senate was delayed till the following February and 
on the 12th of that month it was passed by a vote of 25 to 12, after there had 
been eliminated a paragraph that made Tucson the seat of government. Th^ 
act became a law by the signature of President Lincoln February 24. 



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144 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Much of the credit (if credit be the proper word) for the passage of the 
bill belonged to Chas. D. Poston, who about that time received his purely hon- 
orary brevet of ** Colonel." He rarely was anything but frank and in an oft- 
quoted paragraph of his reminiscences told just how the lobby parceled out the 
offices in the n6w Territory. He told how a number of **lame ducks*' had to be 
provided for, a task undertaken over an oyster supper in Washington. A con- 
siderable number of statesmen, who had only a hazy idea of the location of 
Arizona, offered themselves as political missionaries for service in the savage 
land. The ** slate'' finally was completed and every available office had been 
filled when Poston suddenly appreciated the fact that his own name did not 
appear upon the list and exclaimed, ''Qentlemen, what is to become of met" 
There was only a brief pause, for around the table were politicians of rare 
resources. The prospective Governor Gurley answered, **0h, well make you 
Indian Agent." And so it came to pass, and all was done in order as had been 
planned. 

BBOOONIZED BY THE 0ONFEDEE140T 

Arizona also had had Confederate acceptance, for on February 14, 1862, 
President Jefferson Davis had signed a bill, passed at Richmond January 18, 
organizing the Territory of Arizona, though, upon the original southern lines, 
touching Texas. In his message to Congress, the President stated he had ap- 
pointed officers for the new Territory, but no list is available. Arizona, though 
considered a part of the Confederacy, was one of the localities specifically ex- 
cepted from the operation of the alien-enemy law. As federal troops already 
were spreading over the Southwest, the law here would have been difficult of 
enforcement. Oury, who for some time had been lobbying around Richmond, 
was admitted finally as Delegate to the Confederate Congress from Arizona, 
to date from January, but, his mission accomplished and there being no way to 
communicate with his constituents or directly serve them, he appears to have 
resigned in March and to have been succeeded by M. H. Mc Willie, apparently 
not an Arizonan. Oury, a typical southern fire-eater, found more congenial 
employment forthwith in the military arm. 

Prom the Confederate Congress Oury made his way straight back to Mesilla 
in May, and then proceeded to organize and equip a battalion of Arizona and 
California men for service on the side of the Confederacy. This organization 
was known as the First Arizona and was attached to (Jeneral Sibley's com- 
mand. Even the records of the Oury family have little concerning the service 
of this Arizona command, though it is known that it escorted (General J. E. 
Johnston to Louisiana. Thereafter, Colonel Oury was in Louisiana for a time, 
returning and serving on the Rio Grande as Provost Marshal, with headquarters 
at Brownsville. After the surrender of General Lee, Colonel Oury, with twelve 
other Confederate officials fled into Mexico, escorting General Shelby and Judge 
Terry, crossing the Rio Grande in June, 1865. Mrs. Oury accompanied the 
party. The Mexican trip consumed about six months, when Oury, preferring the 
United States even under Yankee control, went back to Tucson, which was his 
home for a while, though he thereafter lived in Phoenix and in Florence. 



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CHAPTER XI 
WITH THE STARS AND STRIPES 

The Regular Army in Arizona and Its Leaders — Souihipesiem Miliiary Posts — Aban- 
donment at the Outbreak of the Civil War — Forts and Camps, Past and Present. 

While there was a disposition in pioneer days to belittle the service of the 
regular army in its campaigns against the Apache, sober thought in later days 
cannot fail to give large credit to the regulars who garrisoned the little, yet 
undermanned, posts of the Southwest. As a rule, a regiment of cavalry and one 
of infantry were all that could be allotted to Arizona, for the entire army of 
those days numbered only 25,000 officers and men and there had to be provision 
for the sea-coast forts, as well as for fighting Sioux, Nez Perces and Modocs. 
Let it be remembered that when Crook and Miles were given adequate forces 
they promptly quelled large uprisings and that almost all other service was, 
in a way, that of police, under the worst of conditions. 

Driving these soldiers was a sense of stem duty, joined with the high tra- 
ditions of their service and the kinship of white men and the resentment that 
was felt over atrocities such as have been chronicled elsewhere. In no sen^e 
were the regiments western ones and their service usually was so severe that 
they had to be transferred after a year or so to posts nearer the centers of 
civilization. 

Those were the days before the khaki and big hat. Equipped by an un- 
thinking government with frogged blue blouses and with narrow caps that left 
their ears to be sunburned, with high riding boots, sometimes laden with clank- 
ing sabers, often followed by recruits only lately from the cities, the officers led 
the way through the canons and up the cliffs and through the cactus of the 
deserts, into the snows of the mountains and in the scorching heat of the south- 
em alkali plains, contemptuous alike of fatigue and death. There even is an 
army legend that a ** shave-tail" lieutenant led a saber charge against Apaches 
and thus won his maiden battle. 

Yet it should be told that service in the Southwest ever was welcomed by 
the American officer, for there he found things to do that were soldierly and 
that were far removed from the petty restrictions of drill and the close-order 
discipline of the eastern posts. In Arizona was laid the foundation of the mili- 
tary tactics of to-day, taught by the Apaches. The Indians of the Northwest 
fought in the open and, whenever their number justified, in some sort of forma- 
tion. The Apache, on the contrary, took shelter where he could find it, and 
utilized a rock the size of his fist behind which to fall if no larger rock were 
at hand. The Apache blended with the landscape, save for his foolish, colored 
turban and, while not lacking in individual courage when necessity arose, still 

145 



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146 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

preferred to ambush his enemy and to protect himself to as great an extent as 
possible. These tactics soon were adopted by the American soldier, who fol- 
lowed the lead of the Indian scouts of his command and who soon learned to 
worm* his way up a hillside, in comparative safety, in battle formations unknown 
to his drill books. From this experience years later was evolved the American 
skirmish drill, in the army called ** extended order," though fiercely fought by 
the old-school advocates, who preferred the shock and close-order methods that 
had prevailed from the time of the Macedonian phalanx down through the days 
of Frederick the Great. 

POSTS THAT WERE FOBTS IN NAME ONIiY 

The military posts of the American frontier were crude and rough beyond 
description, usually a mere cluster of adobe buildings set around an open space, 
in compliment termed a parade ground, in its center a flag pole bearing the 
Stars and Stripes. It is probable that often the soldier of that day turned 
toward the Flag to renew a sense of devotion that had been severely tried in a 
land where even God himself seemed very far away and the power of the Nation 
merely a memory of days agone. There were long days of waiting till the call 
of ** boots and saddles'' was a profound relief from approaching stagnation. 
Of amusements there were few and it is not unnatural that many of the pioneer 
oflScers and men turned toward the sutler's store too often in an effort to stimu- 
late a conviviality that had lagged amid the desolate surroundings. 

It is probable that the wives of the older generation of oflScers usually look 
back almost with horror to their Arizona experiences. Penned up in small mud 
houses, destitute of all conveniences, with a society limited to only a few of their 
own kind, with the ever-present fear that the call of *' boots and saddles" some 
day would leave them desolate, it must be said that the part the women played 
was in itself no less heroic than that of their husbands. Something of this is 
told by Mrs. Summerhayes in ** Vanished Arizona." 

In a work such as this history should be preserved the list made by Bourke, 
himself too modest to include his own name, of the oflScers to whom large credit 
is due for the eflPective work of the early '70s. Of these frontier heroes the 
gallant Captain writes: 

The old settlers in both Northern and Southern Arizona still speak in terms of cordial 
appreciation of the services of officers like Hall, Taylor, Burns, Almy, Thomas, Rockwell, 
Price, Parkhurst, Michler, Adam, Woodson, Hamilton, Babcock, Schuyler and Watts, all 
of the Fifth Cavalry; Ross, Reilley, Sherwood, Theller and Major Miles of the Twenty-first 
Infantry; Garvey, Bomus, Carr, Grant, Bernard, Brodie, Vail, Wessendorf, McGregor, Hein,' 
Winters, Harris, Sanford and others of the First Cavalry; Randall, Manning, Rice and others 
of the Twenty- third Infantry; Gerald Russell, Morton, Crawford, Gushing, Cradlebaugh of 
the Third Cavalry; Burne of the Twelfth Infantry, and many others who, during this cam- 
paign (of 1872) or immediately preceding it, had rendered themselves conspicuous by most 
efficient service. The army of the United States has no reason to be ashamed of the men 
who wore its uniform during the dark and troubled period of Arizona's history; they were 
grand men; they had their faults as many other people have, but they never flinched from* 
danger or privation. 

There was one class of officers who were entitled to all the praise they received and much 
more besides, and that class was the surgeons, who never flagged in their attentions to sick 
and wounded, whether soldier or officer, American, Mexican, or Apache captive, by night or 
by day. Among these the names of Stirling, Porter, Matthews, Girard, O'Brien, Warren E. 



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REPRESENTING THE NATION'S 
POWER 



OLD FORT LOWELL, SEVEN MILES EAST 
OF TUCSON, ABANDONED IN 1889 



WHIPPLE BARRACKS ABOUT 1890. CROOKS HEADQUARTERS ON RIGHT 

SUTLER'S STORE, FORT McDOWELL A MILITARY BIVOUAC IN ARIZONA 

IN 1867 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 147 

Day, Steiger, Charles Smart, and Calvin Dewitt will naturally present themselves to the 
mind of anyone familiar with the work then going on, and with them shonld be associated 
those of the guides, both red and white, to whose fi^^tj, courage and skill, we owed so 
much. 

The names of Mason McCoy, Edward Clark, Archie Macintosh, A. Spears, C. E. Cooley, 
Joe Felmer, Al Seiber, Dan O'Leary, Lew Elliott, Antonio Besias, Jose Do Leon, Maria Jilda 
Grijalba, Victor Buiz, Manuel Duran, Frank Cahill, Willard Bice, Oscar Hutton, Bob 
Whitney, John B. Townsend, Tom Moore, Jim O'Neal, Jack Long, Hank 'n Yank (Hewitt 
and Bartlett), Frank Monach, Harry Hawes, Charlie Hopkins and many other SQouts, guides 
and packers of that onerous, dangerous, and crushing campaign, should be inscribed on the 
brightest page in the annals of Arizona and locked up in her archives that future generations 
might do them honor. The great value of the services rendered by the Apache scouts 
Alchisay, Jim, Elsatsoon, Machol, Blanquet, Chiquito, Kelsay, Kasoha, Nantaje and Nan- 
nasaddi was fittingly acknowledged by General Crook in the orders issued at the time of 
the surrender of the Apaches, which took place soon after. 

HASD-BIDINO TBOOPEB8 OF OLD 

The frontiersman who loudly expressed the belief that the United States 
army was only for ornament, generally was mistaken. There were times when 
the operations of the army were held down and circumscribed by a fool coterie 
of **peace-at-any-price" people in Washington and there have been commanding 
officers who wanted to hold funeral services over every Indian accidentally 
killed, but the officers as a whole were filled with the keenest sense of patriotism 
and a rare devotion to duty, however unappreciative were the people they were 
defending. An excellent example of this devotion is gleaned from the briefest 
sort of record of a trip made by Second Lieut. Horace Randall of the First 
Dragoons, who, on thirty minutes' notice, with twenty men, struck out of a fron- 
tier post after Apaches, who were tracked 300 miles over mountains and plains, 
through snow and alkali dust, with a record of riding in a single day over eighty 
miles. Their rations finished, they ate the flesh of the sore-backed horses that 
gave out on the march. For three days and nights the command was without 
water. The record of results was both soldierly and brief, as follows: **I 
caught the Indians, fought them, killed several and recaptured the stolen stock." 

A similar experience in February, 1860, was that of Lieut-Col. Andrew 
Porter of the mounted rifles, who left Fort Craig in February, 1860, with twen- 
ty-five men, pursuing a band of Navajos. On the second day he marched ninety 
miles in eighteen hours, the last eighteen miles at a hard run, in which he killed 
and wounded sixteen Indians and captured their stock. 

Twice in the history of Indian warfare in the Southwest, medical officers 
have issued forth in command of troops, and in each case the medical man was 
rewarded by a medal of honor. 

The first instance was in Februar>% 1861, when Assistant Surgeon B. J. D. 
Irwin, U. S. A., then stationed at Fort Buchanan, led twelve mounted infantry- 
men and a citizen guide to the relief of a beleaguered infantrj^ company penned 
up by Chiricahua Indians at Apache Pass. On the second day of the 100-mile 
journey, Irwin struck a large raiding party of Indians from which seventy 
head of cattle and horses were captured. On entering the pass was found the 
remains of an emigrant train, with the dead bodies of eight persons tied to the 
wheels of five wagons, partly consumed by fire. The Indians had captured the 
infantry pack train and the assistance brought by Irwin was of the largest value. 



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148 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Two troops of cavalry later came from Fort Breckenridge and the Indians were 
chased away and followed into the hills, where the camp of their leader, Cochise, 
was destroyed. Irwin in after years, about 1886, returned to Arizona as chief 
surgeon of the Department, about the same time that Assistant Surgeon Leon- 
ard Wood was earning the coveted decoration for similar field service against 
the same Apache tribe. 

SOUTHWESTEBN ABMY OOllMANDEBS 

At one time or another nearly all the cavalry regiments of the army have had 
service, in the Southwest, as well as most of the infantry commands. As one officer 
of regulars assured the writer in 1898, the American army in Arizona learned 
how to fight. So it is as well that the experience was scattered amongst the 
soldiery of the nation. 

For the greater part of the Civil War period. Gen. J. H. Carleton was in com- 
mand of military operations in New Mexico and Arizona, mainly heading Cali- 
fornia, New Mexico and Colorado volunteers, some of them of rather doubtful 
efficiency. In 1865 Arizona was transferred into the Military Department of 
California, under Gen. Irwin McDowell, who sent into the Territory as District 
Commander Brig.-G^n. John S. Mason. Mason was succeeded in the summer of 
1866 by Lieut.-Col. H. D. Wallen of the Fourteenth Infantry, the memory of 
these officers being perpetuated in the naming of small military posts. Con- 
temporary with Wallen was Col. Chas. S. Lovell, Fourteenth Infantry. In 1867 
Col. J. I. Gregg, Eighth Cavalry and Col. T. L. Crittenden, Thirty-second In- 
fantry, commanded. Then in rapid order followed Lieut.-Col. T. C. Devin, 
Eighth Cavalry, and Lieut.-Col. Frank Wheaton, Twenty-first Infantry. Gen. 
E. 0. C. Ord of the Pacific Division visited Arizona in 1869. His name for a 
while was borne by the present Fort Apache and still is carried by one of the 
peaks of the Mazatzal Mountains. The Department of Arizona, embracing also 
Southern California, was created in 1870, with headquarters at Whipple Bar- 
racks. In the summer of 1870 command of the Department was assumed by Gen. 
George Stoneman, who at the time was Colonel of the Twenty-first Infantry. It 
was during his term that the Old Camp Grant massacre occurred. He was a 
vigorous officer and kept much in the field. Especially notable were operations in 
the vicinity of Picket Post, above which he built the famous Stoneman grade, 
to better reach the heights of the Pinal Mountains, wherefrom to strike the 
hostiles. 

The greatest work against the Indians was done by Gen. Gteorge Crook, who 
came to Arizona in 1871 as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twenty-third Infantry, but 
who before his departure in 75 had been directly promoted to be a Brigadier- 
General in acknowledgment of his services. Crook was succeeded in March, 1875, 
by Col. A. V. Kautz, Colonel of the Eighth Infantry. It is probable that Kautz 
had more political trouble in Arizona than any of the other commanders, though 
it was popular at almost any time to charge the regular officers and soldiery with 
inefficiency. Governor Safford tried to have Kautz removed, but without success. 
It would appear as though the General simply was not a good politician. Gen. 
Orlando B. Willcox, after whom the town of Willcox was named, succeeded to the 
command in 1877 and remained until 1882. During the term of his command the 
Indian troubles seem to have been confined largely to southeastern Arizona and 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 149 

his administration on the whole seemed to have struck a relatively peaceful 
period. The Qeronimo troubles came on, however, and, fresh from victorious 
work against the Sioux, General Crook was brought back to Arizona for four 
years. It cannot be said that Crook's second service in Arizona was attended 
with anywhere near the same degree of success or credit as at first. Indeed, it is 
claimed that, overconfident of his power to soothe the savage breast, he permitted 
himself to be practically captured by Geronimo in the 1883 campaign. However 
vigorously the General had campaigned against the Apaches, he has been quoted 
as much of an apologist for the Indian as having been kept in savagery through ill 
treatment by the whites, the General failing to appreciate the fact that the Apache 
always had lived by pillage and robbery in which murder was only an incident. 
General Crook's departure from Arizona was hastened, in March, 1886, by 
his lack of success in holding Geronimo, after the wily old scoundrel had been run 
down in Sonora, and after Captain Crawford of his command, a highly-esteemed 
oflScer, had been killed by mistake by co-operating Mexican troops. Then com- 
mencing in 1886, came the administration of Gen. Nelson A. Miles, who, with the 
assistance of a quarter of the United States army, finished up the work that 
Crook had started and succeeded in shipping east the principal Apache assassins. 
Following this campaign General Miles and his staff for a while rested, gruests 
of the citizens of Albuquerque, and not long thereafter headquarters of the 
Department were moved to Los Angeles. Since that time Arizona has been suc- 
cessively attached to military headquarters at San Francisco and Denver. 

DEFIANCE, THE FIRST ARIZONA POST 

The first permanent occupation of the present land of Arizona by the mili- 
tary authority of the United States was at Fort Defiance, near the eastern edge 
of the present Navajo reservation. This post was established in 1849 by Colonel 
Washington, military governor of New Mexico, as a basis for operations against 
the Navajo, who had been stealing cattle and sheep from the Indians and white 
settlers of the Rio Grande valley, and soon after an expedition was led by the 
Colonel into Canon de Chelly. Major Backus was placed in command of the new 
post with a force of three companies. The Indians, fully appreciating the menace 
of the fort, vainly tried to prevent its construction. April 30, 1860, they boldly 
attacked the fortification at night, to be beaten off with heavy loss. The useful- 
ness of the post declined after the establishment of Fort Wingate in 1862. 

POSTS WITHIN THE GADSDEN PURCHASE 

A Mexican garrison still remained at Tucson after the Gadsden purchase, in 
the latter part of 1855 being noted that at that post was a force of twenty-six 
men commanded by Capt. Hilario Garcia. It is known that this force remained 
until about the time of the coming, in 1856, of a" squadron of four troops of 
the First United States Dragoons. It is assumed that this force was commanded 
by Major Enoch Steen, who was senior officer in 1857, in charge of Fort Buchanan, 
then established on the Sonoita. This post was commanded in 1858 by Capt. E. H. 
Fitzgerald, First Dragoons, in 1859 by Capt. I. V. D. Reeve, Eighth Infantry, 
and in 1860 by Capt. R. S. Ewell, First Dragoons, later a Lieutenant-General of 
the Confederacy. For a very short time before the Civil War abandonment, 



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150 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

CoL William Hoffman, Eighth Infantry, is recorded as having been in command 
of the Arizona forces, with headquarters at Buchanan. 

Camp Buchanan, located not very far from the present Patagonia, at the 
beginning of the Civil War was garrisoned by a company of infantry, Lieutenant 
Moore in command, and a troop of dragoons, commanded by Lieut. R. S. C. Lord. 
For a year or more, supplies had been pouring into this post until the quarter- 
master is understood to have had responsibility for more than $1,000,000 worth of 
military equipment and provisions. These were dispatched by the Secretary of 
War in pursuance of the definite policy known during Buchanan's administration 
of transferring as much as possible of military munitions to southern posts, where 
they might be seized and put to the use of the Confederacy that was to be. Port 
Buchanan, honored by the name of the President himself, was made the depot 
of stores to be used by a Confederate column that was to march from Texas to 
seize the silver mines of Arizona and the gold fields of California. 

A number of old-timers rather indignantly consider that the march of the 
Federal troops from Buchanan was a symptom of cowardice, but there is evidence 
that, in June, 1861, the commanding oflScer was ordered by Major Lynde of Santa 
Fe to abandon the post at once. It is not improbable that the two companies of 
well-drilled regulars would have been more than sufficient to defend the post 
against the irregular column that was marching into Arizona, but orders had to 
be obeyed. However, little of value was left behind. Several field pieces were 
spiked and were buried in a secret spot, while all equipment and provisions that 
could not be taken were wrecked or heaped in piles and burned in the same 
fires that destroyed the buildings and post. So there were only ruins left behind 
and whatever stores that might have proved of value to the invaders first were 
gleaned by the eager hands of the Mexicans who swarmed over from Sonora. The 
Federal troops marched to Fort Craig on the Rio Grande, where they were incor- 
porated with the troops opposing the Confederate forces. On the advance of 
General Carleton's command, the post was ordered regarrisoned by Lieut-Col. 
Jas. A. West, sent out from Tucson. The occupation was of only a few days, 
the buildings left having been found uninhabitable and the garrisons given both 
Buchanan and Breckenridge were withdrawn, to be returned after the New Mex- 
ican campaign. In 1868 Camp Crittenden was established on the Sonoita, iu 
turn to be abandoned in January, 1873, its property transferred to the new post 
at Mount Graham. 

Before the outbreak of the Civil War one of the posts within Arizona was 
Camp Breckenridge, near the junction of the San Pedro and Aravaipa Creek, 
established in 1859. It was abandoned with the outbreak of the war while Cap- 
tain **Baldy" Ewell was absent from its command in the East, on leave. It was 
re-established, garrisoned by California volunteer cavalry, under Lieut.-Col. E. E. 
Eyre, in 1862. Then it was rechristened Camp Stanford, after the Governor of 
California, but later was named Camp Grant. It was not an attractive post by 
any means. There was much malaria, probably caused by drinking stagnant 
water from the river where there were many lagoons, caused by a succession of 
beaver dams. When immediate necessity for the post had passed, on the transfer 
of the Apaches to another reserve in the fall of 1872, Maj. Wm. B. Royall of the 
Fifth Cavalry was ordered to find a new location. He selected a beautiful spot 
at the foot of the Pinaleiio Mountains. Major Royall's selection was approved, 



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PICNIC PARTY NEAR FORT McDOWELL, 1877 

Sagiiaro in photo believed to have been largest in Arizona. 
In the party are Mr. and Mrs. J. Y. T. Smith, Captains Corliss and 
Sunimeihayes and their wives, and Lieutenants Dravo and Cun- 
ningham. 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 151 

a reserve was created of 42,842 acres, and the camp was moved to its new location 
in January, 1873. Troops finally were moved from the newer post in 1895. 

About the last time that Fort Grant was brought into the public eye in a mili- 
tary way was in May, 1908, when to its command was detailed Col. Wm. F. 
Stewart of the Artillery Corps. His *' command" at the post consisted of a 
solitary caretaker and a cook. The oflScer practically had been exiled as ** tem- 
peramentally unfit," the action taken under the direction of President Roosevelt 
himself, after Colonel Stewart, at the expiration of forty years of army service, 
had refused to apply for retirement His stay was short. The site was so at- 
tractive and the location, at the upper end of the Sulphur Springs Valley, so 
salubrious and the buildings and farming advantages of such seemingly high 
value that a request for its cession to the State was made in 1912 by Governor 
Hunt of Arizona. The request was granted and, by legislative authority soon 
thereafter, the State Industrial School was moved to Grant. The choice was not 
exactly a happy one, as the numerous old buildings proved unsatisfactory for the 
purposes to which they were put and the distance from transportation has not 
resulted in economy to the State. 

FOBT YUMA, OUTPOST OF OIYILIZATION 

Though Fort Yuma lies in California, it has always been considered appur- 
tenant to Arizona. Therefore it may be said that the first military occupation of 
the southern part of the Territory started in the garrisoning of that point soon 
after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Camp Calhoun on the lower Colorado was 
established by Lieut. C. J. Coutts, First United States Dragoons, in September, 
1849. Coutts had served as commander of an escort on the Whipple survey. 
Soon thereafter the ferry was started. November 27, 1850, Capt. S. P. Heintzel- 
man of the Second Infantry, arrived from San Diego with three companies and 
changed the name to Camp Independence. 

Into the vicinity early in 1850 was sent Lieut. G. H. Derby of the Topo- 
graphical Engineers, who mapped the locality and whose report on the Gulf of 
California and the Colorado River later was published as a congressional docu- 
ment. Derby best was known under his pen name of **John Phoenix." While 
stationed at San Diego, he convulsed a good part of the Union and incurred the 
enmity of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis by printing some suggestions he had 
gravely sent to the War Department. He proposed arming the officers with shep- 
herds' crooks instead of sabers, while each soldier was to have a ring bolt a short 
distance below the back of his belt. Cowards who sought to run away were to be 
brought back by means of the hook, while cavalrymen were to be held in their 
saddles by a snap hook, fitting the ring bolt, all being neatly illustrated by draw- 
ings attached. Davis' order for a court-martial for Derby had t(f be revoked, 
for it brought more ridicule upon the War Department than did the publication 
of the offending matter. 

In March, 1851, Heintzelman and his command returned from brief absence 
and Camp Yuma was established on the site of the old Spanish mission of La 
Purisima Concepcion, on a hill on the western bank. Captain Heintzelman told 
of finding the rough stone foundation of the adobe houses that had been built 
by Padre Garcfe and of digging up copper pots. In June, 1851, except a small 
guard under Lieut. T. W. Sweeney, the troops at Camp Yuma were sent to Santa 



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152 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Isabel, called by Coues a ** shiftless Indian village with a roofless church/' In 
December the troops had trouble with the Indians, with scurvy and almost with 
starvation and the post was abandoned for a time. Heintzelman, promoted to be 
Major, returned February 29, 1852, with two companies of infantry and two 
troops of dragoons and re-established the fort. The supplies that had been aban- 
doned had been looted by the Indians, who were troublesome for some time there- 
after. In October, 1852, much of the fort was destroyed by fire. In September, 
1852, Major Heintzelman ascended the Colorado River in boats, and a small 
expedition was contemplated to take a steamboat up as far as possible, in the 
belief that the Colorado might be the means of supplying the Mormon territory, 
saving much arduous land transportation. 

When the Boundary Survey was at Yuma, two companies of soldiers were 
housed in buildings of upright poles, plastered with mud and covered with a 
thatching of arrowrv^eed, but more luxurious quarters were being provided by the 
building of adobe dwellings. In April, 1862, Port Yuma was the assembly point 
of the California Column and temporary headquarters of Col. Jas. H. Carleton, 
who later in order complimented Lieut.-Col. E. A. Riggs, First California In- 
fantry, for good service as commander of the post. After the war it rarely had a 
garrison of over a company. For a while there was a sub-post, known as Camp 
Colorado on the Mojave reservation, up the Colorado, and another in 1864, known 
as Camp Lincoln, at La Paz. Fort Yuma practically had been abandoned at the 
time of the arrival of the Southern Pacific. The reservation was turned over 
to the Interior Department by executive order of January 9, 1884, and the 
ground occupied by the old fort became a part of the Yuma Indian reservation. 
It is now occupied by an Indian school. 

PORT MOJAVE AND ITS LOST TBEASUBE 

Fort Mojave was established in 1858, its site selected by Whipple, with a 
garrison of three companies, after the peculiarly atrocious murder of a party 
of immigrants. It was left on the outbreak of the Rebellion in April, 1861, its 
garrison transferred to Los Angeles, a southern hot bed. It was regarrisoned in 
May, 1863, by two companies of California volunteers. The post was near the 
Beale Crossing, a few miles below Hard3rville, the head of navigation on the 
Colorado, and was considered valuable as protection against possible hostility on 
the part of the !Mojaves and Hualpais. 

Concerning the abandonment of Fort Mojave at the beginning of the Civil 
War, Peter R. Brady of Florence in later years told an interesting story. He 
said that there was a good post library which he, then a government employee, 
wished to preserve. So under the commissary building he dug a deep hole and 
there buried the books, first wrapping them in tarpaulins. Looking around for 
other valuables, he found a couple of barrels of whiskey and several cases of fine 
wines, and enlarged the hole to accommodate these. Then he covered them all 
deeply with earth and proceeded to set fire to the commissary building, not leav- 
ing till he saw a coating of ashes over the spot secreting the cache effectually 
against the hands of inquisitive Indians. Brady never returned to the spot. To 
the day of his death he believed that the whiskey and the books, both of them of 
large value, still were where he left them. Mojave was considered the hottest 
post in the United States and the most uncomfortable. 



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OFFICERS^ QUARTERS, CAMP McDOWEUL 



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QUARTERMASTER BUILDING AT EHRENBERG IN 1872 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 153 

TUCSON AND FOBT LOWELL 

Port Lowell, on the Billito, seven miles from Tucson and named for Gen. 
C. R. Lowell, was the successor of a military camp of the same name on the 
eastern edge of the village of Tucson, established May 20, 1862, by a detachment 
of California Volunteers, under Lieutenant-Colonel West, immediately after 
the Confederate abandonment of the place. 

Browne, writing in 1864, told that at Tucson was a military garrison of 
two companies, which ** confined itself to its legitimate business of getting drunk 
or doing nothing.'* According to Captain Bourke, who was there stationed in 
1869, Lowell had few attractions and was' of huts, with **ramadas'' of cotton- 
wood boughs built for protection against the too-ardent sun. The newer Lowell, 
established JVIarch 19, 1873, was a popular and fairly comfortable post, its 
buildings mainly of adobe. 

On the way, at the Pima villages, had been established a small post named 
Port Barrett, after the first Union officer killed in the Arizona campaign. Port 
Barrett was in reality an earthwork thrown up around a trading post. 

FOBT Mcdowell and camp beno 

Prom Port Barrett, Lieut.-Col. Clarence E. Bennett of the Pirst California 
Cavalry made an exploration northward to find a practicable wagon road to 
the Rio Salado. It was told there were some hardships on the trip, though it 
was over a fairly level and easy country and that after striking the river a rest 
of several days was taken till the expedition started again, to halt on the bank 
of the Rio Verde, in what was called Campo Verde, on the site of the later Port 
McDowell. Prom this base, an expedition, of several companies of volunteers, 
one company of Maricopa Indians and one of Pima Indians, about 200 indi- 
nduals, was started over the mountains into Tonto Basin. The route was over 
mountains northeast of Campo Verde, probably along the line of the later Reno 
road. A number of Indian rancherias were found and broken up. A stay of 
several days was made at the mouth of Tonto Creek, the site of the present Roose- 
velt dam. The guide of the party, Pauline Weaver, had trapped beaver in that 
locality, but even he became confused for a while. Prom the upper Salt River 
the rugged mountains were passed over into the valley of the Gila, down which 
the hungry, ragged and shoeless troops marched, to find relative comfort again 
at Maricopa Wells. The permanent post at McDowell was established in Sep- 
tember, 1865, with a garrison of five companies of California Volunteers com- 
manded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bennett. 

Soon after the establishment of McDowell, a military road was built at great 
expenditure of money and labor over the Mazatzal Mountains into Tonto Basin, 
where, at the foot of Reno Pass, for several years was maintained the sub-post 
of Camp Reno, restraining the activities of the Tonto Apaches, especially Del 
Shay's band, till about 1870. 

McDowell was one of the most important of the early posts, in that it com- 
manded a number of the more important trails that served as thoroughfares 
between the Apache tribes of central Arizona. It was commanded for a number 
of years by Capt. Adna R. Chaffee of the Sixth Cavalry. One of Chaffee's lieu- 
tenants was E. E. Dravo, who only lately was retired from the army with the 
rank of colonel in the Commissary Corps. Chaffee had served in the Sixth much 



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154 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

of the time since 1863, when he enlisted in it as a private soldier. He was 
promoted out of it when he was sent to the Ninth as Major in 1880. There- 
after his rise was rapid and he was General in the Cuban campaign. He re- 
tired from the army with the rank of Lieutenant-General and died in Los Angeles 
early in 1915. 

While Chaflfee was in command of tl^e post he started trouble that needed 
attention from him intermittently till the time of his death. On the northern 
edge of the reservation, according to his survey marks, in 1878 was established 
the residence of Patrick White, a discharged soldier of the Eighth Infantry. In 
the summer of 1880 Captain Chaffee notified White to leave the reservation. 
Thereafter, in the absence of the owner, a detachment of soldiers set White's 
belongings beyond the reservation line and burned the dwelling. For years 
thereafter Paddy White 's wife and widow became known in Washington as the 
''Woman of the Black Bag,'' prosecuting her claim against the Government 
for reparation in a large sum. She finally proved that the survey line accepted 
by Chaffee was wrong and that her home really was north of the reservation. 
The claim has been made smaller by time and in a late Congress there was 
shown disposition to settle on the basis of the actual loss incurred at the time. 

After abandonment by the War Department McDowell reservation was 
transferred to the Interior Department for school purposes. The school had to 
be moved to Phoenix on account of poor transportation facilities and then on 
the reserve was permitted the settlement of a large number of Mojave-Apache 
Indians, whom the Government, without much success, is trying to transform 
into farmers. 

BOWIE, GUABDIAK OF APACHE PASS 

Camp Bowie, named after Col. Geo. W. Bowie of the California volunteers, 
was established in August, 1862, in Apache Pass, a few miles from the site of 
the present railway station of the same name. Its location was in the very heart 
of the Apache country, on one of the great trails that had been used by the 
Indians for their forays into Sonora. It naturally became the bloodiest point 
on the overland road that had been broken by the gold hunters of 1849, follow- 
ing in the footprints of the Mormon Battalion. Its first military occupation 
would appear to have been in 1861, when Lieut. G. W. Bascom there had his 
unfortunate encounter with Chief Cochise. The post was established soon after 
the passage of the California Column, when the importance of the location 
had been demonstrated by a fight with the largest body of Indians ever gathered 
together in the Southwest. According to T. T. Hunter who passed late in 1867, 
Fort Bowie was a dreary, lonesome place, even then fuU of gruesome memories, 
despite its brief periods of occupation. Hunter told that a few days before his 
arrival the commanding officer, mounting his horse and driving out for a parley 
with a number of Apaches, by them was lassoed and dragged from his horse 
to death, and that on the day of Hunter's arrival **one of the Indians rode up on 
the Captain's horse and charged around, yelling and hooting and defying the 
soldiers." The post in later years was the center of much activity in operations 
against bands of Apaches escaping from the San Carlos reservation and was 
headquarters for Miles' campaign against the Apaches in 1885. Its importance 
vanished when the leaders of the San Carlos hostiles were transported out of 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 155 

the Southwest and the post finally was abandoned about 1896. The Fort Bowie 
reservation was sold at public auction in June, 1911, and the whole tract of 
2,400 acres was bought from the Government by fifty-nine applicants, mainly 
farmers and stockmen of the locality. 

WHIPPLE, CENTER OF MILITABY OONTBOL 

Whipple Barracks, at first known as Camp or Fort Whipple, was named 
after the noted military explorer of northern Arizona. Its original establish- 
ment was in Little Chino Valley, near Postal's ranch, about twenty miles north 
of the site of Prescott, December 21, 1863, by two confpanies of California vol- 
unteers, commanded by Major Edw. B. Willis, First Infantry,' and Captains 
Hargrave and Benson. There was some scouting of the country for a location 
for a permanent post. Especial consideration was given a point on the upper 
Agua Fria, not far from Bowers ranch, but the present location finally was 
agreed upon and was occupied May 18, 1864, guarding the new capital city of 
Prescott, distant less than a mile. The old Chino valley location for a while 
was maintained as a sub-post, named Fort Clark, in honor of the first Surveyor 
General of the New Mexico and Arizona district, who had looked over the land 
the previous summer, escorted by Capt. Nat Pishon's cavalry troop. 

When Gen. J. F. Busling inspected Whipple in 1867, it was a rude stockade, 
inclosing log quarters and barracks. The district headquarters building, on a 
high point above Granite creek, was reported to have cost $100,000, though 
only a story and a half frame house, while the flagstaff was said to have cost 
$10,000 ( ?). Hay at the post cost $60 a ton, grain $12 a bushel, lumber up to 
$75 a thousand and freight from, San Francisco was at the rate of $250 a ton. 
The post was commanded by Col. John I. Gregg, Eighth Cavalry, who had 
given over his headquarters building for use as a hospital. According to Captain 
Bourke, Whipple Barracks in 1871 **was a remarkable, tumbledown palisade of 
unbarked pine logs hewn from the adjacent slopes ; it was supposed to * command ' 
something, exactly what, I do not remember, as it was so dilapidated that every 
time the wind rose we were afraid that the palisade was doomed. The quarters 
for both officers and men were also log houses, with the exception of one single- 
room shanty on the apex of the hill nearest to town, which served as General 
Crook's 'headquarters,' and, at night, as the place wherein he stretched his 
limbs in slumber. . ." A sentry post was established on the roof of one of the 
buildings, overlooking the valley of Granite Creek. 

For years. Whipple was a social, as well as military center, for it generally 
was headquarters for a regiment, with its band. It also was headquarters of 
the Military Department of Arizona, established April 15, 1870, which com- 
prised Arizona and all of California south of a line drawn eastward from Point 
Concepcion. Attached for a while was the Military District of New Mexico. 
About 1887 the headquarters of the Department of Arizona were moved to Los 
Angeles and still later the Territory was transferred to the jurisdiction of the 
Military Department of the Colorado, with headquarters in Denver. 

Whipple Barracks was rebuilt in 1904 by the addition of a couple of new 
double barracks and other buildings. But these improvements did not suffice in 
holding a garrison at the post. Citizens of Prescott, led by F. M. Murphy, made 
many trips to Washington and did their best, but the policy of the War De- 



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156 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

par:tment was against the maintenance of small and relatively expensive posts. 
Early in 1912 the War Department seemed finally to have made up its mind to 
abandon Whipple Barracks, despite the fact that half a million dollars had been 
spent upon the post and despite its advantages of location and climate. Soon 
thereafter the post was vacated by a battalion of troops, sent to the border and 
has never been regarrisoned. 

FOBTS APACHE AND HUACHUCA 

Fort Apache, one of the two remaining posts in Arizona, lying eighty-five 
miles south of the Santa Fe railroad station of Holbrook, was located in the 
summer of 1869, though not occupied till the following year. The site was 
fixed by the post 's first commander. Major John Green, First Cavalry, who had 
been sent northward from Camp Goodwin with a squadron and some Indian 
guides, on an expedition against the Apaches. It is told that Green could hardly 
be restrained from a general massacre of the tribesmen, who seemed unwontedly 
quiet at the time and with whom were found Charlie Banta and C. E. Cooley, 
both noted scouts. This post is delightfully situated and has always been 
popular with army men, despite its remoteness. In days of Indian warfare it 
occupied a commanding position, betwixt the Apaches and Navajos and had an 
additional importance after the consolidation of many mountain tribes within 
the San Carlos reservation. It first was known as Camp Ord, honoring the 
departmental commander, but later successively was named MogoUon, Thomas 
and Apache. 

Camp Wallen, established in 1874, twenty miles from Crittenden, on Baba- 
comari Creek, was succeeded a couple of years later by a camp on the northern 
slopes of the Huachuca Mountains. After there had passed any necessity for 
guarding the settlers from Indian attacks, Fort Huachuca assumed a degree of 
international importance on the outbreak of long-continued Mexican wars. For 
a number of years past it has had the dignity of headquarters for a regiment of 
cavalry and there are plans for making it one of the larger posts of the Nation, 
with a garrison of at least a brigade. The post is particularly favored by the 
fact that available is an unlimited expanse of maneuvering ground, as well as 
transportation over two railroad systems. 

CAMELS AND SUB-POSTS OF INDIAN TIMES 

Arizona is dotted with the ruins of many military posts, some of them only 
known in army chronicles and in the memories of a few pioneers. An important 
post in the early days was Camp Thomas, established about 1875, on the Gila 
River, its ruins near the present railroad station of Geronimo. It lay at the 
southeastern extremity of the Apache reservation at San Carlos, not far from 
old Camp Goodwin, a post of Civil War days, and maintained a sub-post at San 
Carlos itself. It proved valuable in blocking a number of raids that were 
started by the Apaches over their old trail toward the Chiricahua Mountains and 
Mexico. 

Camp Rigg was on the San Carlos River and for a while there was a Camp 
Pinal, early in the 70s, on the headwaters of Mineral Creek, 115 miles from 
Tucson. It is noted as abandoned in 1871. It was in the same locality as Gen- 



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FORT APACHE 




FORT HUACHUCA 
Largest post in the southwest 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 157 

eral Stoneman's Picket Post, near Picket Post Butte, where the town of Pinal 
later was established, around the mill of the Silver King mine. 

Near Calabazas, in the Santa Cruz Valley, just north of the Mexican line, 
was Fort Mason, which had a garrison of California volunteers during the 
Civil War, with a sub-poet at Tubac. 

At one time there was a Camp Lewis on Fossil Creek, on the trail that led 
from the Verde Valley over towards San Carlos. Camp Hualpais, established 
in 1869 as Camp ToUgate, was on Walnut Creek on the Fort Mojave road, forty 
miles northwest of Prescott, Camp Rawlins was a sub-post, about the western 
edge of Williamson Valley, with Camp Willow Grove and Camp Beal Springs 
on the same road. Hualpais at one time was a very important post, from which 
operations were continued against western Indians. 

Fort Verde was established under the name of Camp Lincoln early in 1864 
by Arizona volunteers sent from Whipple Barracks, following serious Apache 
depredations within the Verde Valley. The post was manned by regular troops 
in 1866, and, five years later, was moved to a better site near the mouth of Beaver 
Creek. The Fort Verde reservation was sold by the Government to settlers in 
1900. 

Following several temporary camps of California volunteers, in 1866 was es- 
tablished Camp McPherson on Date Creek, where the hybrid Mojave-Apaches 
had been murdering travelers on the roads to Prescott. This later was known 
as Camp Date Creek and was the concentration point for rationed Indian bands. 
One of the early camps was near Skull Valley. 

Col. Kit Carson is said to have established a Camp Supply on the Little 
Colorado River, about a mile from the present town of Holbrook, during his 
Navajo campaigns, though probably only under canvas, and there was a Camp 
Sunset in the same locality. 

In the early eighties one of the most important military stations was Camp 
Rucker, in the canon of that name, in the southeastern Chiricahuas, not far 
from the Mexican line. It was named after Lieutenant Rucker, drowned in 
mountain stream, while unsuccessfully trying to rescue Lieutenant Henely, who 
had been caught in a cloudburst. 



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CHAPTER XII 
ARIZONA IN THE CIVIL WAR 

Confederate Invasion of the Southwest — Hunter's Capture of Tucson — Picacho Pass 
Fight — Carletons California Column — Mowry^*s Arrest — Apache Pass — Nei» 
Mexican Military Administration, 

It is probable that the greatest force in the early development of Arizona was 
the accession to her population due to the operations of the Civil War. About 
1860 there were few Americans within the present limits of Arizona, though 
it should be understood that Arizona at that time was considered as including 
rather the southern part of the present State area, extended easterly to the Rio 
Grande. The Americans of the period were gathered in a few mining camps, 
most of them along the Colorado River and south of Tucson, further settle- 
ment blocked in a general way by the deviltry of the Indians. There were troops 
at Camps Defiance, Buchanan, Breckenridge and Mojave, as well as at Fort 
Yuma, which in this publication must be considered as an Arizona factor. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, these troops were withdrawn and most of the 
remaining American civilians had to go with them and abandon all property. 
Almost at once there was a gathering of Federal troops in New Mexico under 
Gen. E. R. S. Canby, to offer opposition to the western march of the Confed- 
erates. For this same purpose, as well as for the protection of California, there 
was also a mustering of volunteers on the western coast, where before the end of 
the war the State of California furnished the Union armies two regiments of 
cavalry and eight full regiments of infantry, beside several battalions of more 
or less irregular sort. All regular troops on the coast, save four batteries of 
artillery and seven companies of the Ninth Infantry, on orders from the War 
Department, were dispatched east via Panama by Gen. E. V. Sumner, who then 
commanded the Pacific Department. Their places were taken by the volunteers. 
About the same time a military movement was started toward the southeast. 

Strong efforts were being made to throw California into the Confederacy and 
in the south, where the sentiment was especially strong, a welcome was being pre- 
pared for the invasion from Texas. 

General Sumner was badly handicapped through the fact that Washington 
was in communication with him. One fool order received, in August, 1861, was 
to lead an expedition into Texas by way of Mazatlan (on the central west coast 
of Mexico) , his force to be two batteries and practically four regiments of volun- 
teers. Probably horror-stricken over such an absolutely idiotic scheme, that 
would involve taking soldiery and cannon through a trackless wilderness for 
1,500 miles, the General succeeded in having the orders changed that the land- 
ing point might be Guaymas, Sonora. He was also advised that the necessary 

158 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 159 

permission for the movement had been given by the Mexican authorities, who 
were having troubles of their own in the way of foreign invasion about that 
time and who, incidentally, were promptly informed by the Confederate agent 
at Mexico, Pickett, that if Federal troops were permitted within Mexico, the 
Confederacy would at once seize the Mexican states along the Texas border. Even 
after General Sumner was taken to more distinguished service in the east, his 
successor, Geo. G. Wright, on the evidence of American citizens resident in 
Sonora, rather urged the occupation of Sonora for the protection of its inhab- 
itants against outside aggression and, incidentally, in order to better meet the 
march of Col. John R. Baylor's regiment, the western vanguard of Gen. H. H. 
Sibley's army. There seemed a general understanding that Baylor was to march 
to Fort Buchanan, there to refit with stores that there had been gathered for the 
purpose, by order of President Buchanan's Secretary of War, and then on to 
Calabazas to establish headquarters. The taking of Tucson would be only an 
incidental matter. Then was expected the seizure of the rich agricultural val- 
leys and mines of Sonora. But in this case, as is not unusual in war, the shadow 
proved to have been very much larger than the substance that followed. 

The southern district of California was under the command of Col. Jas. H. 
Carleton, First California Cavalry, who had been transferred from Captain of 
the First Dragoons in the regular service. Major Rigg of his command was 
ordered to Fort Yuma and on the way arrested Showalter, described as "a notori- 
ous secessionist" and a party of seventeen. This party was taken to Fort Yuma 
and held. General Wright ordered that no persons should be permitted to cross 
the Colorado without his si>ecial permit and that all persons approaching the 
frontier of the State should be arrested and held in confinement, unless satis- 
factory evidence be produced of their fidelity to the Union. In the same order he 
said: ''I will not permit our Government and institutions to be assailed by word 
or deed without promptly suppressing it by the strong arm of power." Colonel 
Carleton from Camp Latham, near Los Angeles, ordered seven companies to go 
up the Colorado to reoccupy Fort Navajo (Mojave?) and re-establish the ferry 
and to clear away hostile Indians, especially Navajos, on the route between 
Albuquerque and Los Angeles. 

The expedition gathered at Yuma to march eastward and recapture Arizona 
and southern New Mexico early became known as the California Column. The 
regulars of the post had been ordered to New San Diego on their way to the east- 
em battlefields. At first Colonel Carleton had in his command his own regi- 
ment and the First California Cavalry squadron of five troops, as well as one 
company of the Fifth California Volunteers, which was sent with subsistence and 
other stores around by water to Tuma in January, 1862. Orders at that time 
were given to fortify the post. 

CONFEDERATE SUOOESSES— LYNDE'S DI8OBA0E 

Forts Buchanan and Breckenridge each had garrisons of two companies, 
which, after the destruction and abandonment of the posts, in the summer of '61, 
combined to march eastward along the main road. Exaggerated reports were 
received of the strength of the advancing Confederate column, for on the way to 
Fort Fillmore the highway was left and the command struck over the moun- 
tains, finally arriving in safety at Fort Craig. This "safety first'' movement, 



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160 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

possibly under orders, necessitated resort to pack mule transportation, the wagons 
and heavy stores being left behind, wrecked or burned. 

The capture of Fort Fillmore, July 27, was a disgraceful one, involving the 
surrender of about 500 well-equipped regular troops to 250 almost undisciplined 
and poorly armed Texans, commanded by Baylor. Major Isaac Lynde of the Fed- 
eral force in disgrace was dropped from the army rolls, but was restored in 
1866, for retirement, on a showing that he had been a victim to a disloyal 
plot hatched by some of his oflScers. A number of the ranking oflBcers of the 
military department already had deserted their posts. It is told that whiskey 
had been issued without stint to the Federal soldiery at Fillmore. Despite 
all efforts, only individual officers joined the Confederacy and it is told there 
was defection of only one enlisted man. The deserters were led by the ranking 
officers of the department, Colonels W. W. Loring and Geo. B. Crittenden. 

The Confederates, in July, 1861, had reached Mesilla, where Colonel Baylor, 
August 1, issued a proclamation organizing the Territory of Arizona, making the 
boundary line between that Territory and New Mexico the 34th parallel of north 
latitude, with MesiUa as the seat of government, and creating himself Governor, 
his power to be enforced by his own regiment of Texas Mounted Rifles. Soon 
thereafter Gen. H. H. Sibley reached Mesilla and issued a proclamation in which 
he welcomed the people of the two Territories into the Confederate Union. He 
marched up the Rio Grande and was successful in his first engagement with the 
Union forces, which were commanded by General Canby, who had gathered at 
Port Craig all the troops from the southern Arizona posts and had enlisted sev- 
eral organizations of volunteers. There was an all-day battle on February 21, 
1862, terminating in the disgraceful retreat of the Union forces, which, under 
cover of darkness, drew back into the shelter of the earthworks of Fort Craig, 
with an admitted loss of 3 officers and 65 men killed, 157 wounded and 35 pris- 
oners. The Confederates, who were inferior in number, lost 40 killed and 200 
wounded. Sibley then moved on past Fort Craig, capturing Albuquerque and 
Santa Fe. 

NEW MEXICO OLEABED OF SOUTHEBN FOBOES 

A month later a force of 1,342 under Col. J. P. Slough, commanding the First 
Colorado Volunteers, moved from Fort Union to join Canby, to whose 900 regu- 
lars had been added two regiments of New Mexican volunteers, commanded by 
Colonels Ceran De Vrain and J. Francisco Chaves. In the former's command 
the famous Kit Carson was Lieutenant-Colonel. The sentiment of the people, 
who seemed to fear the Texans, generally was loyal, though no official support 
was secured by the military authorities till Buchanan's territorial officials had 
been displaced by President Lincoln. 

March 20, Canby 's advance of mixed cavalry and infantry under Major Chiv- 
ington met the enemy in Apache Canon, fifteen miles east of Santa Fe, and had 
to fall back, though Chivington's loss of 5 killed and 14 wounded was only about 
20 per cent of that of his opponents. The next day Colonel Slough united his 
force and oflPered battle to a reinforced Confederate command of about the same 
strength. A bit of strategy was shown in sending Major Chivington around the 
flank of the enemy unobserved, to destroy the Confederate camp and the enemy *s 
train of eighty wagons, besides scattering the camp guard of 200 men. In the 
evening the Confederates retreated toward Santa F6, defeated and demoralized, 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 161 

with a loss of 36 killed and 60 wounded, though leaving only 17 prisoners. The 
Union loss was 29 killed, 42 wounded and 15 prisoners. This engagement was 
known variously as the ** Battle of Apache Canon," and the ** Battle of Qlorieta." 
General Sibley, having lost his baggage and, hearing of the advance of the Cali- 
fornia Column, being menaced from two directions, started a retreat from Santa 
Fe, April 8, across country into Texas, which was reached with only about 1,500 
men of the 3,700 who composed his original command. 

On the whole, General Canby had rather unhappy experience with the New 
Mexican militia, which he sought*only to use for partisan warfare. February 22, 
1862, he wrote that he had ''disembarrassed'' himself of the militia by sending it 
away. On the same day Socorro was surrendered by Col. Nicolas Pino of the 
militia, after that officer had found himself deserted by a large part of his com- 
mand. Many of the militiamen turned to a bandit life in the hills. 

All was not harmony within the Confederate forces. General Sibley and 
Colonel Baylor were at outs, the latter calling his superior officer **an infamous 
coward and a disgrace to the Confederate army,*' accusing him of having 
''doubled himself up in an ambulance during the battle of Val Verde and hoisting 
a hospital flag upon it for his protection." This charge followed action of Sibley 
in forwarding to Richmond with his protest an order issued by Baylor and unique 
in southwestern military annals. Without reference to the bloodthirsty spirit of 
treachery indicated, the order is notable as recognizing such an organization as 
the "Arizona Guards," with headquarters at Mesilla. Organization of this com- 
mand was by specific authority from the Confederate War Department, April 14, 
1862, the recruits to be mustered for three years or the war. It was assumed in 
the order that a brigade of troops thus would be formed. Colonel Chivington, 
commanding in the lower Rio Grande valley, in a report to General Canby, June 
11, 1862, made reference to the Arizona Guards, an organization he stated had 
been raised by the Confederates for the protection of the settlements against the 
Indians and to have been more than half Union and Northern men, pressed into 
the Confederate service. 

BAYLOB AND THE <<ABIZONA aUABDS" 

HEADQUABTERS SECOND REGIMENT, TEXAS M. R. 

Mesilla, March 20, 1862. 
Captain Helm, Commanding Arizona Guards: 

Sir: I learn from Lieutenant Colonel Jackson that the Indians have been at your post 
for the purpose of making a treaty. The Congress of the Confederate States has passed a 
law declaring extermination of all hostile Indians. You will therefore use all possible means 
to persuade the Apaches or any other tribes, to come in, for making peace; and, when you 
get them together, kill all the grown Indians and take the children prisoners, and sell them 
to defray the expenses of killing the Indians. 

Buy whiskey and such other goods as may be necessary for the Indians, and I will order 
vouchers given to cover the amount expended. 

Leave nothing undone to assure success and have a sufficient number of men around 
to allow no Indians to escape. Say nothing about your orders till the time arrives and be 
cautious how you let the Mexicans know it. If you can't trust them, send to Captain Aycock 
at this place and he will send you thirty men from his company. Better use the Mexicans, 
if they can be trusted, as bringing troops from here might excite suspicion with the Indians. 

To your judgment I entrust this important matter, and look for success against these 
cursed pests who have already murdered over one hundred men in this Territory. 

John R. Baylor, 

Col. commanding 2d Reg. T. M. R. 



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162 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

That the Guards were not inactive was shown by an €W5tion near Pinos Altos 
in September, 1881, a detachment under Captain Martin driving Apaches from 
an attack upon the camp. Near the same point the Guards saved a wagon train, 
when a massacre was imminent. From the dates given, it is evident that the 
organization was active before officially recognized in Richmond. It is assumed 
that it was largely composed of Spanish-speaking residents of the border 
settlements. 

Baylor, who also was charged with poisoning food left behind for Indian 
consumption, left the Confederate army to become a member of the Confederate 
Congress from Texas. Late in 1864 he addressed President Jefferson Davis, pre- 
senting a plan to lead a strong force through New Mexico and Arizona to Cali- 
fornia. Beyond the political advantage that would be gained, Baylor laid stress 
upon the advantage that would be gained by the Confederacy in possessing and 
working the silver and gold mines of the conquered localities. But even Davis 
appreciated that the plan had been broached a trifle too late. 

CONFEDERATE INVASION OF ARIZONA 

The Confederates sent a scouting column westward, comprising one company 
of mounted rifles, about 100 men, under command of Capt. S. Hunter. Without 
incident on the way, it reached Tucson, February 28, 1862, the Captain reporting 
that his arrival was hailed by a majority of the population, within which the 
southerners were on the point of leaving, to look for safety among their southern 
brethren on the Rio Grande. Soon was the departure of a political agent, who, 
on March 3, started southward with an escort of twenty men under Lieutenant 
Tevis. The emissary was Colonel Reilly, sent with a letter from General Sibley 
to Governor Pesquiera of Sonora. Reilly returned reporting that he had made 
a favorable treaty, though he really had little success other than arranging for 
the purchase of supplies for gold, the Mexicans refusing to consider Confederate 
currency. A copy of Sibley's letter found its way to General Wright, at San 
Francisco, leading that officer to address a strong note to Pesquiera warning the 
Governor that he must not permit rebel forces to pass the frontier. Carleton, 
from Fort Yuma, also addressed Pesquiera against any dealings with the enemy. 

The same date Hunter started with the rest of his command for the Pima 
villages, where he confiscated 1,500 sacks of wheat and a miscellaneous lot of 
property and arrested the Indian trader, A. M. White. The wheat was given 
back to the Indians, from whom it had been bought by White. While at the 
Pima villages awaiting the arrival of a train of fifty wagons, reported to have 
been sent for the grain from Yuma, the Confederate pickets discovered the 
approach of a detachment of the First California Cavalry, consisting of Cap- 
tain McCleave and nine men, who were surprised and captured without firing a 
gun. The Captain and Trader White were sent in charge of Lieutenant Swilling 
to the Rio Grande. McCleave was exchanged later for two lieutenants and re- 
turned to duty with his old regiment. After his capture he proposed to Cap- 
tain Hunter that he should be allowed to fight Hunter's whole company with 
his nine men, but Hunter declined. Hunter, a vigorous oflScer, sent westward a 
raiding party that destroyed hay and supplies which had been provided at six 
stations on the overland road and which got within fifty miles of the Colorado, 
the Confederacy's westernmost mark. 



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UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA SCHOOL OF MINES 
As it appeared March 26, 1889 




CONGRESS STREET BEFORE THE REMOVAL OF THE "WED(JE' 
Gambling wide open 




GOVERNOR'S RESIDENCE WHEN CAPITOL WAS IN TUCSON 

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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 163 

Following McCleave's scouting party was a stronger force, started from 
Fort Yuma early in April, under Captain Wm. P. Calloway, comprising Callo- 
way's company of the First California Infantry, and a part of Co. K, tc^ether 
with two small howitzers, with orders to proceed as far as Tucson. The com- 
mand passed the Pima villages and on April 15, 1862, came in touch with Hunt- 
er's retreating force. Lieut. James Barrett, with a detachment of cavalry, made 
a wide detour and struck the enemy on the flank at Picacho Pass and fought 
whatever action there was. Barrett and two of his men were killed and three 
were wounded. Two of the Confederates were wounded and three were made 
prisoners. The dead were buried where they fell, within a short distance of the 
line later taken through the pass by the Southern Pacific. Calloway overruled 
protests and insisted on retreating, though his force was superior to that of 
Hunter, which he could have chased into Texas. He fell back as far as Stan- 
wix, where was met the advance of the California Column, under Lieutenant- 
Colonel West. This consisted of ten companies of the First California Infan- 
try, five troops of the First California Cavalry under Lieut.-Col. E. E. Eyre, 
and a battery of four brass field pieces under First Lieut. John B. Shinn, Third 
United States Artillery. 

At the Pima villages was established a post named Fort Barrett, in honor of 
the officer killed at Picacho and a trading post was established to secure sup- 
plies from the Indians. At this trading post one of the soldier clerks was Lieut. 
A. J. Doran, afterward one of the most distinguished citizens of Arizona. In 
later years, Doran (who had become Major in the National Guard) delighted 
to tell of his experiences in trading manta with the Indians for wheat and how 
he used small whittled sticks as trade tokens. 

A column under Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre was sent to garrison Fort Brecken- 
ridge on the San Pedro and West moved on to Tucson, which was reached 
April 20. Hunter already had started back to the Rio Grande, accompanied by 
a number of the more pronounced southern sympathizers. Near Dragoon 
Spring he was attacked by a large force of Apaches, four men being killed and 
thirty-five mules and twenty horses lost. 

OABLETON GLEANS UP TUCSON 

Carleton thereafter moved his headquarters to Tucson. On the way thereto 
he took occasion to commend the Pimas and Maricopas as the finest Indians he 
had ever seen and advised that they be given 100 muskets for defense against 
the Apaches. This was done. On June 11, possibly copying after Baylor, Carle- 
ton made formal proclamation of martial law within the Territory of Arizona 
and of himself as Governor, with Acting Assistant Adjutant-General Benjamin 
Clark Cutler as Secretary of State. He levied an occupation tax upon all mer- 
chants in Tucson and taxed gambling tables and bar-rooms $100 a month each, 
the money received to be used for the benefit of the sick and wounded soldiers. 
One of the first actions was the establishment of law and order in order that, as 
he said, "so that when a man does have his throat cut, his house robbed or his 
field ravaged, he may at least have the consolation of knowing that there is 
some law that will reach him that does the injury." One of the first actions was 
sending to Fort Yuma, for confinement, nine men described as ** cutthroats, 
gamblers and loafers, who have infested this town to the fear of all good citizens. 



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164 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Nearly every one, I believe, has either killed his man or been engaged in helping 
to kill him. " He requested that these outlaws be imprisoned till the end of the 
war. 

ABBEST OF STLVESTEB MOWBY 

Especially notable was the arrest of Sylvester Mowry, upon information 
furnished by T. Seheuner, metallurgist of the Mowry silver mines, who charged 
that Mowry had sold percussion caps to Hunter, had erected a cannon and had 
offered to bet $100 that he would be Governor of the Territory in less than 
six months and that he, with his twenty southerners, could whip a hundred 
northern troops. No less than eighty-five men were sent, under command 
of Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre, to take Mowry, who was tried in Tucson by a 
court-martial headed by Lieutenant-Colonel West. There was rendered a 
decision that Mowry had been in treasonable correspondence with well-known 
secessionists and that there were suflScient grounds to restrain him of his lib- 
erty and to bring him before a military commission. 

The prisoner was taken to Fort Yuma for confinement. The order of 
arrest was very indefinite and so Mowry was entered on the books of the post 
as "arrested for aiding and abetting the enemy." Inquiry made of Mowry 
himself brought no further information, he claiming to be absolutely innocent 
of the commission of anything of a treasonable nature. The oflScers at Fort 
Yuma found him a delightful companion. In return he was treated with all 
consideration, often being taken out to ride and being well supplied from the 
contents of several barrels of choice Bourbon, which had been confiscated by 
the army in Kentucky. A recorder of the day states that this latter attention 
was particularly pleasing to the prisoner. After a number of months of nomi- 
nal imprisonment, his case was investigated by General Wright, commanding 
the Pacific Department, and he was released, November 4, as apparently the 
principal thing against him was that he had resigned from the army to go 
into the mining business. But it is told that he and Carleton had been at outs 
in the regular service. 

August 24, 1863, IVIowty was arrested by order of General Carleton and 
was ordered out of the Southwest on the ground that he was a dangerous par- 
tisan of the Confederates. IMowry had only lately returned to Arizona to visit 
the mines in which he was interested. His expulsion met with protest from 
the Arizona Territorial Legislature that convened a few months later and by 
formal resolution General Carleton was requested to revoke his order. In 
1868 Mowry collected about $40,000 damages from the Government and soon 
thereafter left for London, where he died. 

FEDEBAL ADVANCE ON NEW MEXICO 

Carleton assumed the rank of Brigadier-General in June and was suc- 
ceeded as Colonel by West. He had been in communication by courier with 
General Canby, to whom he promptly started reinforcements. On June 21 
Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre left Tucson with 140 cavalrymen and camped suc- 
cessively at the Cienega, near the present Pantano station, at Dragoon Springs, 
and Apache Pass. At this point about 100 Indians were in sight, many of 
them mounted and all armed with firearms. The chief came forward and made 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 165 

a ** peace talk" and was given tobacco and something to eat. A few hours later 
three of the soldiers were reported missing and within an hour their bodies 
were found stripped. Two of them had been scalped. The men had wandered 
away from the main command in defiance of orders. There was pursuit of the 
Indians, but without success. The redskins returned at night and fired six or 
eight shots into the camp, wounded Surgeon Kittridge in the head and killed 
one horse. The abandoned Fort Thorn, on the Rio Grande, was reached July 
5 and the national colors again were hoisted over a military post for the 
first time in southern New Mexico since the occupation of the country by the 
Confederates. 

Carleton, on July 20, started Colonel West toward the Rio Grande with 
five companies of infantry and at intervals of two days dispatched Shinn's 
battery with two companies of infantry and, again, under Lieutenant-Colonel 
Rigg> i^^^ additional companies. Co. D of the First Cavalry was Sent from 
Tubac and Captain Cremony's company of the Second Cavalry was specially 
designated as advance guard. The Apache Pass experiences of the vanguard 
have been told already in this volume. 

Carleton left Tucson himself on July 23 and from the San Pedro led the 
main column to Las Cruces. Owing to the hostile attitude of the Chiricahua 
Indians, he found it necessary to establish a post in Apache Pass, which he 
called Fort Bowie and which he garrisoned with 100 men of the Fifth Infantry 
and thirteen of the First Cavalry. The trouble with the Indians at the pas- 
sage of the pass he referred to with distinct brevity: **Fort Bowie commands 
the water in that pass. Around this water the Indians had been in the habit 
of lying in ambush and shooting the troops and travelers as they came to drink. 
In this way they had killed three of Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre's command and 
in attempting to keep Captain Roberts' command. First Infantry, away from 
the spring, a fight ensued in which Captain Roberts lost two men killed and 
two wounded. Captain Roberts reports that the Indians lost ten killed. In 
this affair the men of Captain Roberts' company are reported as behaving with 
great gallantry." Two miles beyond Apache Pass were found the remains 
of nine white men who had been traveling from the Pinos Altos mines to Cali- 
fornia. They had been murdered and one had been burned at the stake. It 
was found that a large number of men, women and children were in starving 
condition at the Pinos Altos mines and Colonel West was directed to furnish 
them with subsistence stores. 

At Franklin, opposite El Paso, a surgeon and twenty-five sick Confed- 
erate soldiers were captured and at El Paso were found twelve wagon loads 
of captured Federal supplies that had been left behind in the flight of the 
Confederates. 

Carleton marched 100 miles farther down the Rio Grande into Texas, hoist- 
ing the flag again over Forts Quitman and Davis. Captain Shirland went 
240 miles farther without meeting Confederates, but with an incidental fight 
with Indians. In September, 1862, Carleton succeeded Canby in command 
of the Department of New Mexico. Some of his last orders are full of appre- 
ciation of the services of his officers, particularly of West, Rigg and Eyre. 



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166 - ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

ARIZONA STATIONS OF THE OAIJFOBNIA COLUMN 

Most of the First Cavalry was discharged in New Mexico, only a provi- 
sional squadron returning to San Francisco for muster-out. From New Mexico 
occasional companies of the regiment were sent back into Arizona for special 
work. Capt. E. C. Ledyard had Co. A at Whipple from August, 1865, to 
February, 1866. Capt. L. F. Sambum was with Co. B at. Tucson the last three 
months of 1862. Capt. Nat J. Pishon had Co. D in northern Arizona in the 
summer of 1863 and at Whipple in IVIay and June of 1864. Capt. C. R. Well- 
man led Co. E from June to November 1862, in operations around Canada 
del Oro, at Revanton and Tucson from June to November, 1862, and along 
the Gila River in the following spring. From January to ^larch, 1864, Co. G, 
Capt. S. A. Gorham, had station at Tucson. Co. 1, Capt. W. B. Kennedy in 
command, was around Tucson, Revanton and Tubae from May to July, 1864, 
was at Camp Goodwin August, 1864, to October, 1865, and at McDowell No- 
vember, 1865, to April, 1866. Co. L, Capt. John L. Merriam, was at Revanton 
and Tubac April, 1864, to May, 1865, at Bowie from April of that year to 
January of the succeeding year, returning to Bowie after spending February 
at McDowell. 

The First Infantry was mustered in August, 1861, at Oakland, Cal., at 
Camp Downey, named after the Governor of California, and was commanded in 
sequence by Colonels Jas. II. Carleton, Jos. R. West and Edw. A. Rigg. It 
was later moved to Camp Latham, between Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Its 
headquarters were in Yuma in May, 1862, and in Tucson in June and thence 
were moved eastward. The troops were dispatched from Yuma eastward in 
sections in order to better conserve the water supply on the road. Most of 
the companies had a month's stay at Yuma and a week at Fort Barrett and 
had something of a halt in Tucson. Co. C, commanded by Capt. J. P. Har- 
grave, later a distinguished Arizonan, was at Wingate from July to October, 
1863, and marched thence to Whipple. In August of 1864, at Whipple, a part 
of this company was mustered out. Co. D, Capt. Wm. A. Thompson, was at 
Camp Goodwin two months during the summer of 1864. Co. F, Capt. Henry 
S. Benson, had the honor of reaching Fort Whipple in December, 1863, com- 
ing in Major Willis's command from Fort Craig on the Rio Grande. May 
of the following year was spent at Camp Clark, a sub-post. After the muster 
of June 30 at Whipple, the company was returned to New Mexico for muster 
out at Los Pinos. Co. H, Capt. Dan. Haskell, garrisoned Wingate in July, 
1863, and Goodwin and other Gila and San Pedro Valley points in June and 
July of 1864. 

In this regiment were a large number of men who later had high standing 
within Arizona. Sidney R. DeLong, who died in 1914 at Tucson, a president 
of the Pioneer Association, was a first sergeant of Co. C and a second lieutenant 
of Co. B and was mustered out as a first lieutenant. Jas. D. Monihon, who 
had some fame at the time as a non-commissioned officer in charge of the 
provost detail at Prescott, later became Mayor of Phoenix. 

The Fifth California Infantry, commanded in Arizona by Col. Geo. W. 
Bowie, was organized at Sacramento in October, 1861, under a seco^ call. 
One company was sent to Yuma by water as early as January, 1862. Co. A, 
Capt. Jos. Smith, was at Yuma in February, 1862, served in New Mexico and 



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AEI20NA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 167 

returned to Arizona, at Goodwin in the sunmier of 1864. Co. C, Capt. John 
S. Thayer, was at Goodwin from May to December in 1864. Co. D, Capt. 
William Ffrench, was in Tucson from May, 1863, to November, 1864. At the 
same station was Co. E, Capt. Silas P. Ford, from July to November, 1862, 
the command then going to the San Pedro and to Bowie and thence to Good- 
win from May to November, 1864. Co. F, Capt. Jas. H. Whitlock, was at 
Tucson from October, 1862, till April, 1863. Co. G, Capt. Hugh L. Hinds, was 
at Tucson from April to August, 1863, and at Bowie from September, 1862, 
till June, 1863. Co. H, Capt. Thos. P. Chapman, was at Yuma from May, 

1862, till January, 1863, and at Tucson from February till May of the latter 
year. Co. I was at Tucson from April, 1863, till March, 1864. During that 
time Capt. Jos. Tuttle resigned and was succeeded by Capt. Geo. A. Burkett. 
Co. K, Capt. Thos. T. Tidball, was at Tucson in April, 1863, and at Bowie 
from May, 1863, to September, 1864. The Regimental Adjutant, Jas. A. 
Zabriskie, later was a distinguished Tucson lawyer. Clark B. Stocking, later 
a noted Government scout, was a soldier in the regiment. The early service 
record of this regiment is incomplete. 

Of the Fourth California Infantry, organized in Sacramento in the winter 
of 1861-62, six companies under Col. Jas. F. Curtiss had service in Arizona. 
Co. F, under Capt. Allen W. CuUum, was at Fort Lincoln (La Paz) in the 
summer of 1864 and then was at Yuma under Capt. Matthew Sherman until 
November. Co. G, Capt. Alfred S. Grant, was at La Paz in September, 1865, 
and appears to have been mustered out in Yuma, March, 1866. Co. H, Capt. 
John M. Cass, had station at Yuma from March, 1863, to February, 1864. Co. 
I, Capt. Charles Atchison, was at Fort Mojave from May, 1863, to March, 
1865. Co. K, Capt. Patrick Munday, had station at Fort Yuma from March, 

1863, tiU April, 1864. 

The Seventh California Infantry, organized in San Francisco in January, 
1865, commanded by Col. Chas. W. Lewis, was in Arizona only about a year. 
It had headqi^arters at Tubac from March to June, 1865, and then at Fort 
Mason near Calabazas till returned to California for muster-out at San Fran- 
cisco, Co. A, Capt. Jas. P. Olmstead, spent the summer of 1865 at Yuma and 
then was at McDowell till March, 1866. Co. B, Capt. Alexander Gibson, was 
at Tucson from May, 1865, till April, 1866, the date of muster-out. Co. C, 
Capt. W. S. Cooledge, was at Mojave from March, 1865, till April, 1866. Co. 
D, Capt. M. H. Calderwood, was at Tubac from April till September, 1865, 
and then at Mason till March, 1866. Captain Calderwood in later days kept 
a station on the Agua Fria, about twenty-five miles from Phoenix, and served 
in the Legislature, in which he was speaker of the Assembly. Co. E, Capt. 
Hiram A. Messenger, was at Tubac from April to September, 1865, and at 
Mason until May, 1866. July 22, Captain Messenger and fifteen of his men, ^ 
while scouting from Tubac, were attacked by several hundred Indians, who 
were driven off with heavy loss after killing two soldiers. Co. F, Capt. John 
W. Owen, was at Yuma from June till September, 1865, and then at McDowell 
till the end of the enlistment term. Co. C, Capt. Thos. J. Heninger, was at 
Tubacj^from May till September, 1865, and then at Mason. Co. H, Capt. John 
W. Smith, was at Yuma from May, 1865, till returned to San Francisco. Co. 
I, Capt. Geo. D. Kendall, had station at Whipple from May, 1865, till February, 



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168 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

1866. Co. K, Capt. Jas. H. Shepard, was at Yuma from March till August, 

1865, and at McDowell tiU March, 1866. 

An interesting order of Lt. Col. Bennett's, issued at McDowell March 6, 

1866, was addressed to Capt. John W. Owen, commanding Co. F. In the order 
is told that the company on the morrow will take its departure from the post 
to return to civil life, that Companies A, F and K had been at McDowell since 
the previous August and that: **This command was the pioneer force in this sec- 
tion of the Territory of Arizona, performing the duties devolving upon it, scout- 
ing after Apaches, building Fort McDowell, escorts, etc., with energy and ability. 
For this exemplary performance of duty, endurance of hardships, and priva- 
tions, cheerfully and without complaint, the oflB<3ers and men of this battalion 
are entitled to great credit. While under my command their performance of 
duty has been most satisfactory. They have justly merited the reputation of 
good and faithful soldiers." Captain Owen died in Phcenix, where the local 
post of the Grand Army of the Republic bears his name. 

Nine companies of the Second Infantry came to Arizona, commanded in 
sequence by Colonels F. J. Lippitt and Thos. F. Wright, the latter a son of 
General Wright. These companies were transferred by steamer from northern 
California to Yuma in August and September of 1865. A month later the regi- 
ment was camped at various points along the Gila and San Pedro Rivers, there 
remaining till the succeeding spring, when it was returned to San Francisco for 
muster-out. Noted upon the rolls are the names of Wm. F. Swasey and First 
Lieut. Wm. F. R. Schindler, both of whom had acted as regimental quarter- 
master. Swasey was an early resident of Globe, while Schindler entered the 
Government service at Prescott after the war. A daughter of Schindler 's mar- 
ried Capt. Wm. 0. O'Neill. 

Only one troop of the Second California Cavalry had real service in Arizona. 
Co. B, Capt. John C. Cremony, had a distinguished part in the advance of 
the California Column across southern Arizona in 1862, accompanying Colonel 
Carleton on his advance. Co. M under Capt. Geo. F. Price, later was escort 
for a survey that came from the north down the Rio Virgen into the Mojave 
region. 

NATIVE OAVALBT FBOM OALIFOBNIA 

A novel organization that saw service in Arizona was the First Battalion 
of Native Cavalry, organized through the recommendation of General Wright 
among Califomians in the Los Angeles district, where the extraordinary horse- 
manship of the natives had been remarked by army officers. The command 
first was offered to Don Andres Pico of Los Angeles, who then was Brigadier- 
General in the California militia. In the end, liowever, there was resort to the 
services of the veteran Capt. John C. Cremony of the Second California Cav- 
alry, who was made major. There would appear to have been no particular 
rush in the recruiting and the battalion was not mustered in till the summer of 
1864. Its records were most incomplete and its service appears to have been 
rather ragged, for it is told that from one company there were more than fifty 
desertions and from another eighty. While it is probable that orders were 
eriven in English, the language of the command was Spanish. The captains of 
the four troops were Jose Ramon Pico, Ernest Legross, Antonio Maria de la 



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MARfAXO (J. SAMAXIKCiO 



J. S. MAXSFKLD 




CAPTAIX JOHX I)K WITT BIRGESS 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 169 

Guerra and Jos^ Antonio Sanchez, the last named succeeded by Edward Bale 
and later by Thos. A. Young, who died at Port Mason. This last troop was 
recruited from around Santa Barbara. As soon as the battalion was recruited 
to strength, it was dispatched to southern Arizona, with headquarters at Mason, 
near Calabazas, from about August, 1865, to January, 1866, a sub-post being 
maintained at Tubac. The command was mustered out at Drum Barracks in 
March, 1866. 

OSEMONY'S ABIZONA EXPEBIEKOES 

In 1868, Captain Cremony issued a book concerning his Southwestern experi- 
ences, entitled **Life Among the Apaches,*' mainly devoted to that interesting 
tribe. The work is full of personal comment and is an extremely interesting 
publication. Cremony had served during the Mexican War and had acquired a 
fluent command of Spanish. He had not been a frontiersman, by any means, but 
was a Boston newspaper man. He ha5 been interpreter for the Bartlett Boundary 
Commission in 1850 and had had some rare experiences around the Santa Rita 
copper mines and thence westward to California. Lieutenant Whipple and party 
had been met on this western journey at the Pima villages, where Cremony ac- 
quired fame as a great medicine man through the fact that he caused an eclipse 
of the moon to appear, a phenomenon repeated at a visit years thereafter, when 
the almanac again favored him. On the Gila his party reinterred the remains of 
the murdered Oatman family. At the crossing of the Colorado there was an 
encounter with the Yuma Indians, who had just massacred the Gallantin band. 
Cremony and his band managed to escape from the Indians by means of holding 
several chiefs as hostages and on the California desert met Major Heintzleman, 
with 300 soldiers, on his way to chastise the Indians for their various crimes. 
Cremony went back into Arizona within a couple of months as guide for a party 
of ten prospectors, which was broken up by an Apache assault on the Gila near 
Antelope Peak, he barely escaping with his life after being seized by a huge 
knife-armed savage. 

OABLETOK TUENS ON THE APACHES 

General Carleton's troubles were far from ended when he had been seated as 
administrador of New Mexican aflfairs. From his letters, it is evident that he was 
a man of keen relish for detail, constantly commending or reproving his subor- 
dinates and writing a myriad of orders in which every circumstance possible in 
an impending trip seemed to have been thought out in advance. His work cov- 
ered much of civic administration and it is evident he became deeply attached to 
the land, which he repeatedly declared one of marvelous natural wealth, that 
would be developed in time. His principal worry concerned the Navajo and 
Apache Indians. The former he finally subdued, as elsewhere told, but the latter 
constantly were troublesome. He finally made up his mind that the only way 
to settle the Apache question was by annihilation of the tribe and gave orders : 
** There is to be no council held with the Indians, nor any talks; the men are to be 
slain whenever and wherever they can be found." He had had early contact 
with the tribesmen at Apache Pass. There, according to A. J. Doran, for four- 
teen miles on either side, the bones of slain oxen, horses and mules and the wreck- 
age of wagons were so thick that one could almost travel the distance without 



Vol. T— 1 2 



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170 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

setting foot upon the ground by walking upon these remains. Also, there was a 
long succession of graves, where succeeding and more fortunate emigrants had 
buried the mutilated bodies of their predecessors. 

So, from chasing out the Confederates, the California column turned to the 
far more difficult task of running down the Apache. The forts of Arizona and 
many new posts were garrisoned by the volunteers till after the Civil War, when 
the regular army again became available. There was good fighting all along the 
line, for the Apaches had to be driven back after their virtual occupation of all 
Arizona, save the land of the Pimas. There were Indian fights without number 
and hardship and danger were the daily portion of the citizen soldiery for about 
four years. Though some of these encounters were of keenest interest, only the 
briefest of mention can be made of a few that are considered typical. 

The Apache campaign of 1863 began auspicuously in March with the cap- 
ture of a large rancheria by Major McCleave, who was pursuing a band of horse- 
thieves from Fort West and who in the attack on the village killed twenty-five 
redskins. In May, 1864, came a report from Chas. T. Hayden, merchant, that his 
wagon train had been attacked near the Chihuahua line and that the Indians had 
been defeated with a loss of eleven killed, including the noted Copinggan. In 
the same month Captain Tidball, with twenty-five of his men and some citizens 
killed fifty Indians in Aravaipa canon and with the loss of only one man. The 
party had marched five days without lighting a fire, maintaining silence, hiding 
by day and traveling by night over a country thitherto untrodden by white man. 
Tidball, who was in command at Bowie, was commended in orders by General 
Carleton, who added: '*Mr. C. T. Hayden seems to have done well in helping 
punish these savages, who delight in roasting their victims.'' 

The soldiery had no hesitation over invading Mexico, where the French 
authority had not reached the line in its support of Maximilian. Capt. R. H. 
Orton of the First California Cavalry made a number of expeditions across the 
line, in pursuit of Indians and outlaws and breaking up Confederate recruiting 
stations. On one occasion he saved from massacre the people of the Mexican 
town of Janos, which was under siege by the Apaches. In June, 1863, Captain 
Tuttle from Tucson, with twenty soldiers and a spy party of Mexicans and Indi- 
ans, chased a company of Secessionists through a portion of Sonora and western 
Arizona and along the borders of Sonora, running the party down at Altar, 
Sonora, effectually breaking it up, arresting a number of the members and 
preventing the balance from proceeding to join the rebel army in Texas, as had 
been planned. 

April 7 of the same year Captain Whitlock of the Fifth California Infantry, 
with fifty-six men, attacked 250 Indians ''near Mount Gray or Sierra Bonita, in 
south-central Arizona,*' and routed the redskins, of whom twenty-one were left 
dead on the ground. The next month Lieut. H. H. Stevens, with fifty-four men, 
was ambushed in Doubtful Caiion, near Steen's Peak, by 100 Indians, who were 
driven away with loss of two killed and twenty wounded. One soldier was killed. 
About the same time, the command of Lieut. Col. N. H. Davis, U. S. A., mainly 
comprising Tidball's company, destroyed several rancherias and killed forty In- 
dians. The same senior officer the following year, in the Mescal Mountains, killed 
forty-nine Indians and received a brevet as Colonel. In May, 1864, Captain Har- 
rover defeated 200 Apaches, who disputed his passage through Apache Pass. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 171 

Apaches attacked a sub-post near Buchanan, where were stationed a corporal 
and five soldiers. The Indians finally set fire to the building and the soldiers, 
as the roof fell, fought their way out and to the main post. A column of Cali- 
fornia volunteers under Major Blakely had a fight with Apaches at the wheat 
fields on Pinal Creek, north of the present site of Globe, drove the Indians away 
and destroyed their crops of corn and wheat. July 22, 1865, Captain Messenger 
of the Fifth California Infantry, with thirty men, left Tubac and nine days later 
fbught oflf more than 100 Indians in the Huachuca Mountains. 

These engagements are listed as merely illustrative of the work that was 
done. The California commands within Arizona seemed to remain in garrison 
only long enough to refit and recoup and then would take to the hills again, hunt- 
ing down the Indians, a pursuit taken up with zest by almost every soldier, how- 
ever hard the experience. 



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CHAPTER XIII 
EARLY INDIAN TROUBLES 

The Apache Character — Mangas Coloradas and ftis End — Hojp Cochise started on the 
War Path — Border Desolation — Oatman Massacre — Captivit}^ and Rescue of OUve 
Oaiman. 

When the Spaniards came, they found in Northern Sonora a gentle and 
peaceable Indian population that, save in the extreme north, accepted Christianity 
to some degree. Most of these Indians were Pimas and so the country is divided, 
for purposes of proper location, into Pimeria Baja and Pimeria Alta. Almost 
between the two divisions was Papagueria, the country of the Papago. Pimeria 
Alta ceased rather abruptly at the Gila River, save for a narrow fringe near the 
villages of the Pimas Gilenos. North of this the region, mountainous and rough, 
was set aside on the early maps as Apacheria. In reality Apacheria came south- 
ward into the Santa Catalina and Rincon mountains, almost on the outskirts of 
Tucson and swung still farther southward, including the western spurs of 
the Sierra Madre, east of the Santa Cruz river, into northern Sonora and Chihua- 
hua. This region the traveler penetrated^ at his peril and from these mountains 
the settlements could expect almost continual forays directed against the cattle 
and other meager possessions of the early settlers, or of the valley-dwelling 
Indians. Every such raid was marked by bloodshed and usually by cruel torture, 
if time permitted. 

Apacheria, in the language of Chas. T. Council, was a *' rock-bound, desert- 
skirted land of natural resources, the* home of wandering clans of brutal war- 
riors, the retreat of marauding plunderers and murderous brigands, a country 
shunned and feared by the adventurous explorer, a blank on the map of the civ- 
ilized country.'' Council, now chief of the southwestern division of the Immi- 
gration Service, for many years lived among the Apaches in Governmental em- 
ploy, at one time as chief of scouts at San Carlos. Thus he gained a rare insight 
into the Indian character, as well as a thorough knowledge of the land they had 
infested. He endorses the estimate of Captain Cremony, **that to be a prominent 
Apache is to be a prominent scoundrel. They are far from cowardly, but they 
are exceedingly prudent. In no case will they incur the risk of losing life, unless 
the plunder be most enticing and their numbers overpowering, and even then 
they will track a small party for days, waiting an opportunity to establish a 
secure ambush or effect a surprise. ' ' 

It is simply impossible within the limits of a publication such as this to men- 
tion by name the Americans who are known to have been murdered by the Indian 
wolves of the hills. Before the Civil War the greatest loss was along the over- 
land road, where emigrants were slaughtered as they slowly toiled westward, 

172 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 173 

filled with hope in promised wealth and comfort in the land of gold. Even hun- 
dreds of such murders were committed, for all the way from the Rio Grande to 
the Colorado there was real safety only at Tucson and in the brief passage through 
the Pima country. Then came the Civil War and a somewhat bettered condition, 
after about 3,000 California volunteers were sent into the Indian country. Yet it 
is told that in the ten years up to 1873 no less than 600 people were murdered by 
Indians in the country north of the Gila. One list of 400 such victims was for- 
warded from Prescott to the government at Washington with a prayer for pro- 
tection and for vengeance. 

There was a sickening uniformity about every crime. Never was one of the 
deeds done in manly fashion. Nearly every shot was from ambush. Almost uni- 
formly there was torture of unspeakable sort and if women captured were not 
killed with indignity, they were carried away as slaves. Through it all there 
was resentment on the frontier over the attitude of the general government. Only 
on two occasions were enough troops sent to Arizona and generally instructions 
to the soldiers were strong that battle and bloodshed must be avoided and that 
gentle means must be used to bring back the poor Indian into the fold, where 
Christianity might have a chance to work for his betterment as he filled his belly 
with Government rations. There was the same old story told in Sunday-school 
books of a noble red man, deprived by the grasping whites of the land that was 
his by heritage, and keen sympathy was expressed elsewhere than in Arizona 
over the woes of the poor Apache who was being driven from the hills he so dearly 
loved. The crimes of the Indians were excused and palliated, as only natural in 
an undisciplined nature that needed kindness for its reformation. It is probable 
that the stories of the Indian atrocities were treated as inventions that could not 
possibly be true and there was even suggestion that if the white man didn't like 
what he got in the Indian country, he had better leave the country to the Indians 
who owned it. 

Oft-repeated statements that the Apaches were the friends of the Americans 
when first the latter came can be answered very easily : The Indians knowing that 
the United States had been at war with Mexico, welcomed the first American 
expeditions, seeing in them helpers in raids into Mexico, where much rich plunder 
could be had in the towns the Apaches had been unable to take. There was a 
change in sentiment when it was found that the Americans were not robbers, like 
themselves. 

THE GREAT WAB CHIEF, MANGAS OOLOBADAS 

It should be understood that the Apaches never in their history had any one 
recognized ruler or principal chief. Possibly the greatest degree of consolidation 
of their interests was brought about under the notorious Mangas Coloradas, who 
for nearly fifty years, till his death in February, 1863, undoubtedly was con- 
sidered by tribesmen and whites as the undisputed Apache leader throughout 
eastern Apacheria. He had married daughters by his Mexican wife to chiefs of 
the Navajos, Mescaleros and Coyoteros and thus had acquired influence and sup- 
port among these neighboring tribes. According to Cremony : 

He exercised influence never equalled by any savage of our time, when we take into 
consideration the fact that the Apaches acknowledge no chief and obey no orders from 
any source. The life of Mangas Coloradas, if it could be ascertained, would be a tissue of 



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174 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

the most extensive and inflicting revelations, the most atrocious cruelties, the most vin- 
dictive vengeance and widespread injuries ever perpetrated by an American Indian. The 
northern portions of Chihuahua and Sonora, large tracts of Durango, the whole of Arizona, 
and a very considerable part of New Mexico, were laid waste, ravished and destroyed by 
this man and his followers. He made the Apache nation the most powerful in the Southwest. 
A strip of country twice as large as all California was rendered almost houseless, unpro- 
ductive, iminhabitable, by his active and uncompromising hostility. Large and flourishing 
towns were depopulated and ruined. Vast ranches, such as that of Babacdmari and San 
Bernardino, once teeming with wealth and immense herds of cattle, horses and mules, were 
turned into waste places, and restored to their pristine solitudes. The name of Mangas 
Coloradas was the tocsin of terror and dismay throughout a vast region of country, whose 
inhabitants existed by his sufferance under penalty of supplying him with the requisite arms 
and ammunition for his many and terrible raids. He combined many attributes of real 
greatness with the ferocity and brutality of the bloodiest savage. The names of his victims, 
by actual slaughter or captivity, would amount to thousands, and the relation of his deeds, 
throughout a long and mercUess life, would put to shame the records of any other villain. 
The most immediate advisers and counselors of Mangas Coloradas were El Chico, Ponce, 
Delgadito, Pedro Azul, Cuchillo Negro, and Collitto AmariUo, and all were prominent Apaches. 
They were one by one sent to their long accounts by the rifles of California soldiers and 
Arizona citizens, but not without great loss of life by these Indians, the recital of which 
would make the blood curdle. 

On the American side of the line the destruction was in nowise comparable. 
Most of the sacrifices had been the result of foolhardiness and too great self- 
reliance, yet on the northern side the traveler would encounter many fine farms 
abandoned, their buildings in ruins, and the products of industry gone. Com- 
munication between any two places more than a mile apart was dangerous, and 
horses and cattle could not be trusted to graze 300 yards from Tucson's town 
walls. Mexican women and children would be carried oflE during the day, in 
plain sight of their townspeople. Part of this was due, according to Cremony, to 
the official stupidity which invariably disconcerted and paralyzed the efficiency of 
any concerted action within the power of the limited military force within 
Arizona. 

OOPPEB BOMINa AND SOALP HUNTING 

The first copper mining known in the Southwest undoubtedly was done by 
Indians of the Mimbres Valley. These Santa Rita mines, nine miles from the 
modern Silver City, later were worked by the Mexicans and nW are part of the 
holdings of an American company, yielding enormous profit from low-grade 
workings. The best history of the Mexican operations, though carrying a rather 
legendary flavor, is given by Captain Cremony, who went to Santa Rita in 1850. 
His tale follows: 

The copper mines of Santa Bita are located immediately at the foot of a huge anc^ 
prominent mountain, named Ben Moore. These extensive mines had been abandoned for the 
space of eighty years, but were uncommonly rich and remunerative. They were formerly 
owned by a wealthy Mexican company, who sent the ore to Chihuahua where a government 
mint existed, and had the ore refined and struck into the copper coinage of the country. 
Although the distance was over 300 miles, and every pound of ore had to be transported on 
pack mules, yet it proved a paying business, and mining was vigorously prosecuted for a 
space of some twenty years. Huge masses of ore yielding from 60 to 90 per cent of pure 
copper are still visible about the mine and frequently considerable pieces of pure copper 
are met with by the visitor. The reason for its sudden and long abandonment was asked 
and the following story related: 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 175 

During the period that the Mexicans carried on operations at the mines, the Apaches 
appeared very friendly, receiving frequent visits and visiting the houses of the miners 
without question. But every now and then the Mexicans lost a few mules, or had a man 
or two killed, and their suspicions were aroused against the Apaches, who stoutly denied 
all knowledge of these acts and put on an air of offended pride. This state of affairs 
continued to grow worse and worse until an Englishman named Johnson undertook to ''settle 
matters," and to that end received cart blanche from his Mexican employers. Johnson 
ordered a fiesta, or feast, prepared and invited all the copper mine Apaches to partake. The 
invitation was joyfully accepted and between 900 and 1,000, including men, women and 
children, assembled to do justice to the hospitality of their entertainers. They were caused 
to sit grouped together as much as possible while their host had prepared a six-pounder gun, 
loaded to the muzzle with slugs, musket balls, nails and pieces of glass, within one hundred 
yards of their main body. This cannon was concealed under a pile of pack saddles and other 
rubbish but trained in the spot to be occupied by the Apaches. The time arrived. The 
feast was ready. The gun was loaded and primed. Johnson stood ready with a lighted 
cigar to give the parting salute and, while all were eating as Apaches only can eat, the ter- 
rible storm of death was sped into their ranks, killing, wounding and maiming several 
hundred. This fearful volley was followed up by a charge on the part of the Mexicans who 
showed no pity to the wounded until nearly 400 victims had been sacrificed at this feast 
of death. The survivors fled in dismay and for several months the miners fancied that they 
had forever got rid of the much-hated Apaches. It was an ill-grounded hope, as the sequel 
proved. 

The copper mines were entirely dependent upon Chihuahua for all supplies and large 
conductas, or trains with guards, were employed in the business of bringing in such supplies 
and taking away the ore. So regular had been the arrival and departure of these trains that 
no efforts were made to retain provisions enough on hand in the event of a failure to arrive. 
Besides, no molestation of any kind had been experienced since Johnson's experiment. At 
length three or four days passed beyond the proper time for the conducta's arrival; provision 
was becoming exceedingly scarce; ammunition had been expended freely; no thought for the 
morrow had taken possession of their minds, and everything went on in the haphazard way 
of the thoughtless Mexicans. No attempt was made to send a party in quest of the lost train, 
nor was any economy exercised. Two or three days more passed and they were on the verge 
of starvation. The surrounding forests of heavy pines still furnished bear and turkeys and 
other game in abundance but their ammunition was becoming exceedingly scarce. In this 
dilemma some of the miners climbed Ben Moore, which gave a distinct view of the extensive 
plain reaching to and beyond the Mimbres River, but no sign of the conducta was visible. 
It was then ordered that a well-armed party should set out and discover its fate, but those 
who were to be left behind resolved to go also as they would otherwise be forced to remain 
without means of defense or provisions. On a given day every man, woman and child residing 
in the copper mines took their departure; but they never reached their place of destination. 
The relentless Apaches had foreseen all these troubles and taken measures accordingly. The 
party left, but their bones, with the exception of only four or five, lie bleaching upon the 
wide expanse between the copper mines of Santa Rita and the Town of Chihuahua. Such is the 
narrative given me by an intelligent Mexican whom I afterwards met in Sonora. From that 
time for more than eighty years the Apache had remained the unmolested master of this, 
his great stronghold. 

Harassed insufferably by Apache incursions, the Mexican governments of 
Sonora and Chihuahua and the wealthy haciendados, about 1845, offered a general 
reward of from $30 to $100 for every scalp brought in. This offer resulted in the 
formation of a number of bands of mercenaries, some of them led by Americans 
of the desperado stripe. One such leader was John Glanton, or Gallantin, who, 
finding that chasing the fleet-footed Apache in his native fastenesses was a job 
that brought little profit, turned to the slaughtering of friendly Indians, such 
as the Yaquis, Opatas, Papagos and Pimas, whose scalps for a while were re- 
ceived without question by the Mexican authorities and paid for at the current 



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176 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

bounty rates. Finally there was suspicion, for the scalps were coming from dis- 
tricts other than those in which Apache raids were being made, and Glanton and 
his cutthroats were caught in the very act of killing and stealping a number of 
Mexicans. As this put an end to his nefarious business, he fled to New Mexico, 
where he stole or bought several thousand head of sheep, with which he started 
for California in 1849. He and his fellow bandits died a few months later at 
the hands of the Yuma Indians, whom they had abused. 

OAPTUBE AND DEATH OF MANGAS OOLOBADAS 

Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves), usually known to the old Arizonan as 
'*Mangus Colorow,'' was chief of the Mimbres, or Pinos Altos tribe of Apaches. 
He is understood to have had a Mexican mother. He was notable both for sta- 
ture and for ability, holding what appeared to have been more than nominal 
leadership over his tribe, by right of personal strength. In 1837 he was the 
leader in the massacre that avenged the Johnson killing. Mangas had another 
grievance against the whites in that he had been bound and whipped by Pinos 
Altos gold miners in retaliation for thefts of horses by his tribe. 

The capture of Mangas Coloradas has generally been credited without 
reservation to the California Volunteers and his death at the hands of the 
soldiery thereafter has been officially recorded to the effect that he was killed 
while trying to escape. This account is borne out only in non-essential features 
by the tale of an eye witness, D. E. Conner of the Walker party. In a letter 
lately received by the Editor, he asks that history be put straight on this inter- 
esting, and possibly material, point. 

At Fort McLean (its site fifteen miles southwest of Silver City, N. M.) the 
Walker expedition picked up a stray Mexican, who claimed to have escaped 
from the Apaches. From him it was learned that Mangas was in camp with 
500 Indians on the west side of the cordilleras, just below a gap in which was 
located Pinos Altos, later found to be a camp of renegade Mexicans in league 
with the Apaches. It would be as well to copy Mr. Conner's narrative of what 
happened thereafter: 

While we had a good camp for our sixty mules, Captain Walker conceived the idea of 
capturing Mangas to hold as a hostage, thus enabling us to take a short route across the 
mountains in Central Arizona. It happened that the day before the date fixed for the attempt, 
in February, 1863, Capt. E. D. Shirland, with about a half -company of California volunteers, 
came trailing into camp, stating that he was the advance guard for a larger force of several 
companies not far behind, under command of Gen. J. K. West. Captain Walker immediately 
broached the programme for the next day and Captain Shirland promptly accepted an invi- 
tation to take part. 

Accordingly the next morning before daylight, to avoid detection and the report of our 
movements by means of signal smokes, half of each force was on the road toward the Indian 
camp, arriving quite early in the gap. At Pinos Altos, just before the summit was reached, 
John W. Swilling was put in command by Captain Walker, who remained in the camp and 
who had the soldiers conceal themselves in the chaparral and in the old shacks, hiding every 
uniform. Swilling and his party of citizens stalked across the treeless gap at the summit. 
All was silent; not a human being was ^een. Suddenly Swilling issued a war whoop that 
might have made an Apache ashamed of himself. There was only a short delay when Mangas, 
a tremendously big man, with over a dozen Indians for bodyguard following, was seen in the 
distance walking on an old mountain trail toward us, evidently observing us intently. A 
precipice broke down the mountain between the two parties and the trail bent up to cross 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 177 

it at a shallow place, probably 150 yards from us. Jack left us and walked to meet Mangas, 
who with his bodyguard slowly but decisively crossed the ravine. Swilling, though six feet 
tall, looked like a boy beside Mangas. 

They both could speak broken Spanish. We could not hear what was said, but Swilling 
looked back at us. We interpreted the look to mean that he wanted to be covered. When 
our squad suddenly leveUed our guns upon the party, for the first time Mangas showed appre- 
ciation of his serious position. Swilling went up to him and laid his hand on the chief's 
shoulder and finally convinced him that resistance meant the destruction of the whole party. 
They came walking toward us, bodyguard and all. When Swilling told Mangas that his 
bodyguard wasn't wanted, he stopped with some gutturals and finally instructed them in 
Spanish, ''Tell my people to look for me when they see me.'* When we passed back over 
the summit the soldiers came out of their concealment, disgusting Mangas beyond measure. 

Knowing that he had numerous warriors nearby and that we had fifteen miles to go, 
we hastened down the mountain to the Walker camp, where we arrived at 3 o'clock without 
firing a shot. In ou* absence General West had arrived with two companies of soldiers. 
He demanded that Mangas be sent to his personal quarters, which was done. Of course I 
don't know what took place there, but Mangas came away in the custody of two soldiers. 

The prisoner stood about the camp the rest of the evening. He had prominent blood- 
shot eyes and disdained to notice anyone and was a head and shoulders above any paleface 
present. He wore a cheap checked shirt with ordinary blue overalls cut off at the knees 
and a white straight-brim sombrero with a square crown like a quart cup and much too 
small for him. The hat was tied to his tremendous head by a string under his chin. He 
had a head of hair that reached his waist. His nose was aquiline and was his one delicate 
feature, both in size and form. His receding forehead was in keeping with his receding jaws 
and chin. His wide mouth resembled a slit cut in a melon, expressionless and brutal. This, 
as I remember, is a correct description of Mangas. 

Night came and I was on guard for Walker, to be relieved at midnight. At the end of 
our established beat we had a fire, to which the two soldiers brought Mangas, for the night 
was cold. The Indian lay upon the ground by the fire with one blanket. My beat led me out 
150 yards into the darkness. About 9 o'clock I noticed the soldiers were doing something 
to Mangas, but quit when I returned to the fire and stopped to get warm. Watching them 
from my beat in the outer darkness, I discovered that they were heating their bayonets and 
burning Mangas' feet and legs. This they continued to do until I warned George Lount to 
take my p^ce on guard till midnight. I took another turn on my beat, while George was 
wrapping up and upon returning this last time, Mangas arose upon his left elbow, angrily 
protesting that he was no child to be played with. Thereupon the two soldiers, without 
removing their bayonets from their Minie muskets, each quickly fired upon the chief, following 
with two shots each from their navy six-shooters. Mangas fell back into the same position 
on his left side that he had occupied and never moved. 

An officer came, glanced at the dead body and returned to his blankets. I went to my 
blankets, leaving Lount on guard, and in twenty minutes all was still again. The next morn- 
ing I took some trinkets from the body, including a little oak block about 4 inches in length 
by 2% inches wide and three-fourths of an inch thick, with a hole burned through one end for 
a sinew loop large enough to admit the hand. Deeply burned in one side only were hiero- 
glyphics. A little soldier giving his name as John T. Wright, came to the dead body and 
scalped it with an Arkansaw toothpick (bowie knife), borrowed from Bill Lallier. Then 
Cook and four other soldiers came and lifted Mangas, blanket and all, into an old ditch and 
covered the body about one and one-half feet with earth. A few nights thereafter, Capt. 
D. B. Sturgeon, the military surgeon, exhumed the body and secured Mangas' tremendous 
skull. That ended the first chapter. (The skull eventually was secured by Prof. O. S. 
Fowler, the phrenologist.) 

Some years thereafter bne Governor Arney brought charges of brutality against Gen- 
eral West concerning this Mangas affair. I have the general's defense in a clipping from 
the Washington Republican. In his letter of defense. General West states that he had placed 
seven soldiers, including a non-commissioned officer, over Mangas, to be sure he could not 
escape; that Mangas was captured by his command red-handed in a fight with the soldiers 
and was killed at midnight while he Was rushing upon his guard to escape. 



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178 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

STOCKING'S ACCOUNT OF THE MANGAS KILLING 

The memory of two old-timers rarely seems to run in a common path. This 
is well exemplified in the story of the killing of Mangas Coloradas told by 
Clark B. Stocking, who was a member of a company of California volunteers. 
The location was given by Stocking as Apache Tejo, where there was an adobe 
house, into which the chief was put under two guards. Stocking tells that, the 
night before, Mangas had been told by Colonel West that he had murdered his 
last white victim. The old chief replied that for the last five years he had 
kept his young men from killing the whites. The Colonel replied that the Indian 
had best look down the canon, where there were the white bones of over 500 
men, women and children. The officer then, according to Stocking, addressed 
the guards, James Collyer and George Mead, in this wise: **Men, that old mur- 
derer has got away from every soldier command and has left a trail of blood for 
500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning, 
do you understand? I want him dead.*' About 10 o'clock one of the guards 
went around in the rear of the adobe and threw a large rock against the wall. 
This caused the old chief to make a sudden start, when he was shot dead by the 
guard, who promptly reported that the Indian had been killed while trying to 
escape. To assure the death of the chieftain, a sergeant rushed in, pistol in 
hand and shot him through the head. According to Stocking, his company, 
in the month of January, 1863, was ordered up to Pinos Altos to subdue Mangas, 
with whom was supposed to be a force of more than 3,000 Apaches. At Apache 
Tejo they found Walker, who with a few prospectors was looking up the coun- 
try, **but they were citizens and were waiting for the soldiers to clear the way." 
According to this tale, Mangas was induced to come into camp by Captain 
Sheldon, who went out to Pinos Altos with a force of twenty men. Stocking 
believes the killing was justified, though there was no honor in it, **for Mangas 
had killed many a woman and child besides torturing men by throwing them 
into a bunch of chollas. He got what he deserved and no one in our command 
pitied him or cried about it.'' 

According to Captain Cremony, Mangas Coloradas had been lurking around 
the Santa Rita mines for some time, trying to pick up stragglers from about 200 
well-armed and wary miners, who finally, knowing the falseness of his profes- 
sions of friendship, had tied him to a tree and lashed him soundly. About that 
time he sent for reinforcements to Cochise of the Chiricahuas, but in turn was 
summoned to come and help exterminate the advancing soldiery at Apache Pass, 
this accounting for the large force of Indians that gathered to dispute the passage 
of the Americans. On the way fourteen miners from Santa Rita were ambushed 
and massacred. Mangas came back from the fight with a bullet wound in his 
chest, shot by John Teal, and sought Mexican surgical help in the Chihuahua town 
of Janos. When ho returned to the Santa Rita country his lease of life was 
short. It is claimed that a few days before Mangas Coloradas was taken, his 
band had captured a soldier of the California Column, had tied him to a cactus 
and burned him to death with slow fire. Possibly this may be the reason why the 
soldier guard was so unsympathetic. It is also told that in any event General 
West would have hanged the old chieftain on the morrow. The true date of the 
chief's death was Januaiy 18. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 179 

MEXIOAK CAPTIVES 

UntU a comparatively late date, the harvest ground of the Apaches had been 
Mexico and most of the depredations within Arizona were simply along the route 
of marauding bands headed from central Arizona into the Sierra Madres, bound 
for Mexico, there to pillage and destroy to their hearts' content. Long before the 
coming of the wy te man, there was an aboriginal high road that led from the Gila 
through Aravaipa Canon up the San Pedro, used by the Indians in their raids to 
the southward. Return was made loaded down with loot, with horses, mules and 
cattle, and sometimes with captive women and children. There can be no doubt 
that a large strain of Mexican blood became incorporated in several of the Apache 
tribes, for even hundreds of Mexican women were brought northward, after their 
relatives had been slain and left buried in the ruins of their haciendas. The 
favorite wife of Mangas Coloradas was a Mexican, who bore him several stal- 
wart sons. 

One of these captives was Inez Gonzales of Santa Cruz on the upper San 
Pedro river, who was captured by Pinaleno Apaches in September, 1850, after her 
uncle and the larger part of a military escort had been killed. In the following 
June the girl was found by Boundary Commissioner John R. Bartlett with a 
party of New Mexicans, who had purchased her from the Indians. The girl had 
been held in slavery, but, according to her own story, had not been harshly 
treated. A short time later the Americans had deep pleasure in returning her 
directly into the arms of her family. She told that with the Pinalenos were at 
least twelve Mexican female captives besides a number of males, who were 
assumed to have been taken while children. 

Cuchillo Negro is said to have captured Lieutenant Porfirio Diaz and ten 
Mexican soldiers during the first Boundary Survey. The Mexicans were disarmed 
and released, this leniency understood to have been due to the befriending of 
Indians by Diaz at some time before. If this story be true, large influence upon 
the fate of the Mexican republic was exercised by a single unknowing Coyotero 
Apache. 

One of the historic characters within the Apache campaigns was Mickey Free, 
the noted scout who died on the Port Apache reservation in 1913, aged 77. 
According to Connell, Mickey was about as worthless a biped as could be imag- 
ined, ugly, dirty, unreliable and dishonest, although for a while he served as first 
sei^ant of a company of Indian scouts. But his history was assuredly one of 
romance. His father was a Pinal Apache. His mother was Jesus Salvador, a 
Mexican servant of Inez Gonzales. The servant was retained by the tribe when 
Inez was sold to the traders. In 1855 with her child, the woman escaped to the 
Pimas, who helped her to regain the Mexican settlements. In 1860, while on the 
ranch of John Ward, near Fort Buchanan, the mother lost her son to another 
party of Apache raiders, a band of Coyoteros who had penetrated the Chiricahua 
country looking for Mexican plunder. The boy was reared on the Gila River 
in the band of Chief Pedro and seemed to have few of the slender virtues of even 
his Indian foster parents, 

THE OOOHISE OUTBBEAE 

Really insignificant as was Mickey Free, he was the unwitting cause of the 
awful twelve-year warfare of Chief Cochise. About the time of the establishment 



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180 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

of the stage route across Arizona, the Chiricahuas, probably content with the 
facilities of plunder across the line, were living in a state of relative amity with 
the Americans. The raid upon the Ward ranch rather naturally was charged to 
the Chiricahuas, they being the nearest Indians. Cochise and his band were 
known to be in camp near the Apache Pass stage station, so to them Colonel 
Morrison, in October, 1860, from Port Buchanan dispatched a platoon of the 
Seventh Infantry, under command of Second Lieut. Geo. N. Bascom, who had 
graduated less than two years before from West Point and who very evidently 
was entirely unacquainted with the methods of doing business with Indians. 
Camps of three separate tribes of Apaches were found near the pass. Six of 
the chiefs were brought before Bascom, who demanded of Cochise return of the 
child and also of cattle that had been taken. Cochise truthfully denied com- 
plicity in the affair, but said he would do what he could to find the boy. Bascom 
charged him with lying and put him under guard in a tent, with two of his 
relatives. The chief escaped at night by cutting through the back of the tent, 
though wounded in the knee by a bayonet thrust. 

In the meantime Cochise had captured two Americans named Jordan and 
Lyons, whom he offered to exchange for his relatives. This exchange Bascom 
refused. A little later Wallace, the station keeper, feeling secure in the friendly 
feeling of the Indians toward himself, went over to the Chiricahua camp to 
mediate, but himself was seized and held as an additional hostage. The three 
white prisoners were brought by the Indians to a point where they could hail 
the soldiers in the camp and thence pleaded pitifully for the exchange, stating 
that they had already been put under torture by the Indians, who had assumed 
war paint, and who were preparing for a campaign of slaughter. Bascom still 
refused, despite the entreaties of his sergeant, Reuben F. Bernard, who later 
was court-martialed for disobedience of orders, but was exonerated. Lyons broke 
away from the Indians and dashed for the station. He leaped for the top of the 
adobe wall, only to be killed as he climbed by the soldiers within, who mistook 
him for an Apache. Then followed horrible things, Wallace in the sight of the 
troops being tortured and dragged behind a horse over the stony ground. Two 
other Americans, who were later captured, the next day were found hanging, 
dead after torture, by the side of the trail which was taken by the lieutenant on 
his retreat to Fort Buchanan. Then the foolish officer left what he considered 
salutary evidence of his prow^ess, hanging his prisoners upon a single tree. Bas- 
com seems to have escaped more than immediate censure for his recklessness, for 
he became a first lieutenant in the following year, and a captain in October, 1861. 
He was killed February 21, 1862, at the battle of Val Verde, N. M. 

In later years Cochise told Miles Wood that before this he had killed only 
Mexicans. Thereafter he made war upon Americans as well. 

THE BATTLE OF APAOHE PASS 

Of one thing there is certainty, that Cochise had ability to gather together 
more fighting men than any other Arizona chieftain who lived in historic times. 
At the fight of Apache Pass, in June, 1862, he had about 500 warriors. He had 
arranged an offensive treaty with Mangas Coloradas. The latter had called for 
help, wishing to dislodge the Americans from the Pinos Altos country. Receiv- 
ing no answer, he took 200 of his own warriors westward to join Cochise and thus 



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MICKEY FREE 
Halfbreed cause of Cochise outbreak 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATUE 181 

came in time to participate in the attack upon the California volunteers with 
what was the most formidable body of Indians ever gathered together in the 
Southwest. 

The fight at Apache Pass was really quite a serious affair and would have been 
deadly indeed to the white men had the Apaches closed in upon them. It would 
appear that Captain Roberts of the advance guard of the California volunteers 
had entered Apache Pass without properly scouting the country in advance and 
the first fire upon him was from a range of less than eighty yards, from warriors 
well armed with rifle and pistol, and almost invisible behind boulders. Roberts' 
command was thrown back to the mouth of the pass and there was reformed. The 
advance again was taken up, scouts and skirmishers were thrown out in orderly 
fashion and any spots that looked like an ambush were shelled with the two little 
howitzers of the command. It was absolutely necessary to reach the springs in 
the pass, for the men had marched about forty miles across arid hills and plains 
and already were suffering from thirst. Thus was reached the stone station 
house, 600 yards from the springs, but on nearby hills the Apaches had built 
rock forts that overlooked the springs. The howitzers again were brought into 
action and the Indians driven away from the hilltops long enough for water to 
be secured. Then it was the Apaches told all was going well with them until 
the Americans began ** firing wagons.'* A couple of Roberts' men were killed 
and a few wounded. At the time there was an estimate of only ten Apaches dead, 
but Captain Cremony, whose cavalry command soon afterward came to the 
rescue, later learned that no less than sixty-three wj^rriors were killed by the 
shells and only three by musketry fire. There was a second fight the next day 
in which artillery again proved most effective. Then Cremony charged the 
fleeing Apaches and the battle was over. 

INDIANS, UNOHEOKED, POSSESS THE BOBDEB 

According to Council, Eskiminizin, the San Pedro chieftain, came into the 
public eye as far back as 1850, in connection with the capture of Inez Gonzales on 
the upper San Pedro. He was also leader of a party which, October 6, 1858, 
raided the Paige ranch near Port Buchanan and there captured Mrs. Charles 
Paige and a 7-year-old girl, Mercedes Sias. Mrs. Paige, lagging behind, was 
speared through the body and thrust over a precipice. She still lived, however, 
and, her dress catching on a shrub on the hillside, regained consciousness a few 
hours later and dragged herself a day and a night and again a day through the 
hills and cactus, to the Canoa ranch on the Santa Cruz. A pathetic feature is 
that her husband and a party of avengers had followed the trail to the very cliff 
over which she had been thrown. She heard them, but was unable to cry out, 
and there they left iier, though at one time only a few feet away. Paige later 
was killed by Indians. Mrs. Paige afterward married W. P. Scott of Tucson and 
lived long and happily in that city. The young girl who had been captured with 
her was retaken by Capt. R. S. Ewell of Port Buchanan, though only by diplo- 
macy and by a gift to the Indians of cloth. She also later became a resident of 
Tucson, the wife of Chas. A. Shibell, one of the city's most distinguished residents. 

Captain Ewell (**Baldy") was an energetic and able oSicer who did his duty 
as he saw it. He was called sharply to account in 1857 for an action in Dragoon 
Pass in which he happened to kill a large number of women and children, as well 



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182 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

as a not inconsiderable number of bucks. Ewell defended himself by demanding, 
* * How the devil can a soldier stop in the midst of a battle to summon a jury of 
matrons to determine whether the Indian pouring bullets into the soldiers is a 
woman or notf " 

The operations of Cochise probably would have been checked in an early 
stage had not the Civil War intervened. In July, 1861, the military posts of 
southern Arizona were abandoned and without doubt the Indians saw only per- 
sonal victory in the departure of the troops, not understanding the greater 
causes. All the outlying settlements were plundered and destroyed and death 
was the portion of the few Americans and Mexicans who failed to flee at once to 
Tucson or to the settlements of Sonora. Little farms on the Sonoita, on the San 
Pedro and on the upper Santa Cruz especially suffered and a long list has been 
preserved of victims to the ferocity of the redskins. 

In the month of the abandonment Tubac was besieged by the Chiricahuas, who 
were defied successfully by about a score of white men. On the way to Tubac the 
Indians had slain Superintendent Stark of the Santa Rita Mining Company, who 
was ambushed near a ranch, which was not attacked. A couple of months later 
H. C. Grosvenor, who had succeeded to Stark's position, reached the Santa Rita 
mines in safety, in company with Prof. Raphael Pumpelly. Grosvenor, anxious 
about a following wagon train, walked back up the road and was killed by Apaches 
who had just plundered the wagons after killing the teamsters. They had let 
the two white men ride by, that they might secure the greater plunder that 
followed. 

An example given in 1861 of the hardihood and bravery that necessarily 
marked the early American settlers concerns Bill Rhodes, who had returned to 
his ranch in the Santa Cruz Valley to find the Apaches had murdered all his 
people. Pursued, he flung himself from his jaded horse into a willow thicket, 
which soon was surrounded by at least thirty blood-stained and yelling red 
demons. He kept them at bay for three hours, though armed with only a revolver, 
while into the thicket was poured almost a continuous stream of musket shots 
and arrows. One bullet struck him in the left arm and nearly disabled him 
through loss of blood. Finally the Indians made an organized rush, when the 
white man had left only two cartridges. He killed the first Indian that ap- 
proached and menaced the others with his almost empty weapon. They called 
to him in Spanish, telling him that he was a brave man and that they would 
spare his life if he would come out. With full knowledge of the Apache char- 
acter, he refused, declaring he would kill the last Indian before he would allow 
himself to be taken out. The ''bluflf" proved effective, for the Indians left him 
master of the field. It is more than likely he would have used the last bullet to 
save himself from torture. 

The Wrightson brothers, who are best known through the establishment of 
the first paper of Tubac, now have their name perpetuated in Mount Wrightson, 
one of the high peaks of southern Arizona. The brothers were civil engineers 
and men of large ability. The younger, with John Wire, was killed a few miles 
from Tubac at a religious fiesta in a row with Mexicans. The elder was killed 
by Apaches years afterward in the Sonoita Valley, in company with a man named 
Hopkins, as they were surveying the boundary lines of the newly established 
Baca Float grant. 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 183 

MASSACRE OF THE OATMAN FAMILT 

One of the most notorious features of the Indian warfare was the murder of 
the Oatman family, at what ever since has been known as Oatman Flat, on the 
Gila River, not far from A^a Caliente. Royse Oatman and family were a part 
of an expedition organized in Independence, Mo:, in August, 1850, with an 
expectation of settling about the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers, from 
which reports had come of a fertile soil and of good prospects for the amassing 
of wealth. The journey into the Southwest was made without particular incident, 
through Tucson, to the Pima villages, which were reached February 16, 1851. 
The food supply was getting low and the Indians themselves had little. Much 
against the protests of the rest of the party, the elder Oatman concluded to push 
on to Fort Yuma. He had heard froia travelers that no Apaches had been seen 
along the road for months. About half the distance to Fort Yuma had been 
passed in slow travel, for the two wagons were hauled by oxen and cows, when 
danger closed in. A dozen Tonto- Apaches, masquerading as Pimas, came to the 
wagons and demanded food. This they were given from a slender stock, but 
within a very few minutes the generosity of the white hosts was rewarded with 
death. The father and mother were clubbed. An infant child was transfixed 
with a spear. The son, Lorenzo, then about 15 years old, was clubbed and thrown 
over a rocky point, with the assumption that he had been killed, and the two 
daughters, Olive Oatman, aged about 16, and Mary Ann, aged 7, were taken 
captive. Lorenzo regained consciousness and managed to reach the Pima villages, 
from which a party set out, only to bury the dead. 

The two girls were hurried off toward the northeast, finally to reach an 
Indian village in north-central Arizona, there to become the abject slaves of 
the entire population. The small children were encouraged to torture the 
prisoners, even thrusting burning twigs against the bare flesh of the white 
captives. The girls learned the language of their captors and had become 
almost reconciled to their fate when, in March, 1852, they were traded to a 
visiting band of Mojaves and then started on a journey of several hundred 
miles across the mountains and deserts till the Colorado River was reached at 
a point not far from the mouth of Bill Williams Fork. There conditions were 
found possibly a bit better than among the Tontos, though food was scarce in 
that tribe, for the braves refused to work, and sustenance mainly was secured 
by the gathering of roots and seeds by the abused squaws and captives. This 
treatment was more than the younger girl could stand and, finally, she died 
and was buried near the Colorado. 

When Lorenzo Oatman passed Fort Yuma on his way to California, after 
the massacre, this story deeply interested a carpenter at the post, named 
Grinnell, who, five years later, heard a story told by a Yuma Indian friend, 
called Francisco, that the Mojaves were holding as slaves two white women. 
Grinnell retold the story to Lt. Col. Martin Burke, commandant at the post, 
who provided provisions and horses for Francisco, that he might visit the 
Mojaves and, if possible, purchase the liberty of the captives. It was told that 
a Yuma party theretofore had gambled with the Mojaves and, winning, had 
taken two ponies in preference to the women. 

Francisco proved trustworthy and at the end of two months returned with 
Olive and the second slave, who proved to be, not the second Oatman girl, but 



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184 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

a Mexican. Olive reached the fort in April, 1856, and, before she was pre- 
sented to the commanding oflBcer, was supplied with proper clothing by the 
kindly wife of an c^cer. Through disuse, she had almost forgotten the Eng- 
lish language, and it was many days before there could be lifted the load of 
depression that had lain upon her spirits for the years past. She had been 
disfigured by tattooing on the face, and only by lifting her hair at first could 
it be shown that she really was a white woman, for in all respects she had been 
treated as had the women of the tribes with which she had been prisoner. 

Lorenzo, then at Los Angeles, was advised of the rescue of his sister and, 
supplied with funds by generous pioneers, was soon by her side, each mar- 
veling at the escape of the other. Both went to relatives in the Rogue River 
Valley, Oregon, and, in 1858, according to Stratton, the best historian of the 
affair, returned east by way of New York. 



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CHAPTER XIV 
APACHES IN NORTHERN ARIZONA 

Raids on Early Mining Camps — lVoolse\;l's Pinole Treaty — Woes of the Verde 
Valley Settlers — John Tovmsend — Hostile Mojaves and Hualpais — The Arizona 
Volunteers, 

The pioneers who settled Preseott and its vicinity ever had to be on their 
guard against the Yavapai Apaches, who infested the region. These Indians 
were a bad lot, wild and treacherous, ever lurking around the trails, ranches 
and small mining camps, awaiting an opportunity to steal stock or to kill and 
plunder unwary travelers. It is not expected in this chapter to cover every 
Indian raid or murder of the early times. Some will have mention elsewhere. 
Some day an ** old-timer" such as Charlie Qenung or Charlie Banta will teU 
the story of the conquest of the northern hills in all the detail the subject 
should have. 

The first encounter with Indians recorded in the vicinity of Preseott 
occurred in Weaver Gulch, in December, 1863. An Indian had tried to snatch 
a gun from an American, but other Americans were near at hand and the 
offending redskin and a companion both were killed. About three months 
later, three miners were killed in Hassayampa Canon by Tonto Apaches, who, 
near Weaver, also killed five Mexicans within a camp of twelve individuals. 
Near Walnut Grove, Fred. Henry and four other Americans were penned in 
by Apaches and four of them wounded, two dying later of their injuries. 

Burnt Ranch, near Preseott, got its name in 1864, when it was owned by 
Sam Miller, who, with his men, fought off a party of Apaches. Later the ranch 
had to be left, to secure supplies ffom Preseott, and the Indians closed in and 
burned the cabin. 

KINO WOOLSEY'S PINOLE TBEATY 

A. H. Peeples had many graphic reminiscences of affrays had with the red 
devils. Hardly a week passed without an, encounter between the miners and 
the Indians. One affair was especially notable at the time. Mr. Peeples, who 
was living in what is now Peeples' Valley, a short distance above Antelope, 
having lost twenty-nine head of horses and mules, stolen from him in the winter 
of 1863-4, organized a i>arty of seventeen men to pursue the Indian thieves. 
King Woolsey was selected as captain, a place to which he was well fitted by 
long experience in the savage warfare of the Southwest. The trail of the stolen 
horses led down the Hassayamjm, through the Cave Creek country to about 
the site of Fort McDowell, on the Verde. The men were all on foot, having 
only enough stock to pack their provisions and blankets. 

Vol.1 —13 

185 



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186 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

When the Verde was reached, all were tired and provisions were low, so, 
leaving the rest of the party to recruit, Peeples and several jothers took the 
pack horses and crossed the Salt River and Gila Valleys to Maricopa Wells. 
Here old Juan Chivari, the Maricopa Chief, was found, and expressed a wish 
to aid in the expedition. The offer was gladly welcomed, and when the return 
to the Verde camp was made there was added to the party a reinforcement 
of Maricopa and Pima braves, the leader being the Chief himself, and an addi- 
tional white volunteer. 

The trail was then taken up afresh, leading around the base of Superstition 
Mountain and through by the way of Devil's Canon to a point nine miles west 
of where Globe now stands. Here at daylight the party came upon the Apaches 
at some natural tanks in the bottom of a mountain valley. The hills seemed 
to swarm with Indians. A member of the pursuing party was a young Apache, 
who had been captured by Mr. Peeples, and who had learned many of the ways 
of the white man. This Apache boy was sent out to parley with the Apaches 
and soon returned to camp with a large number of Indians who said they 
wished to have a ** peace talk.'' Blankets were spread upon the ground and 
upon them all squatted. The Indian boy was true to his friends, however, and 
warned them that the Apaches were only waiting their opportunity to kill the 
whole party. 

A movement of treachery was soon discovered and the fight began in bloody 
earnest. The whites and Maricopas were overmatched by far in number, but 
had an advantage in that only a few of the Apaches had guns, the others being 
armed with bow^and-arrow and spear. The fight was long continued and 
fierce, but had at length to be given up, as the Apaches were being heavily 
reinforced. A running fight was kept up and all succeeded in escaping except 
Allan, the man who had joined at Maricopa Wells. He was thrust through 
the heart with a spear. The Apache boy and the Maricopas fought like fiends, 
bringing away twenty-four Apache scalps, though there is no telling how many 
were killed in all. Juan Chivari took charge of the retreat, keeping up the 
march all night, and, by resorting to a number of Indian stratagems, such as 
building camp fires and then pushing on, managed to avoid the pursuers. 
Allan's body was brought away and buried on the bank of Salt River. 

The locality where the fight took place is known to this day as ** Bloody 
Tanks," and, though formerly a gathering place for Apaches, where feasts 
were held on the flesh of horses and cattle taken on their raids, now is said to 
be shunned by them. The modem city of Miami lies nearby. 

Though Peeples denied the story, in early days there was belief that 
Woolsey had spread a feast of pinole, which first had been mixed with strych- 
nine, and that forty Indians thus were killed by poison. Hence the affair 
generally was called the ** Pinole Treaty." 

One of the members of the Woolsey party was Elias S. Junior, a pioneer 
both of northern and southern Arizona, and generally known as ** Black Jack." 
It is told that Junior had a blood feud with all Indians and that in Nevada 
he had participated in the wiping out of several bands of Pah Ute Indians. 

The official report of the famous fight at Bloody Tanks, that of the ''Pinole 
Treaty," follows: ''On January 24, 1864, a party of thirty Americans and 
fourteen Maricopa and Pima Indians, under Col. King S. Woolsey, aid to the 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 187 

Governor of Arizona, attacked a band of Gila Apaches sixty or seventy miles 
northeast of the Pima villages and killed nineteen of them and wounded others. 
Mr. Cyrus Lennon of Woolsey's party was killed by a wounded Indian.'* 

On August 11 Woolsey again distinguished himself by killing fourteen Indi- 
ans in an assault upon an Indian rancheria. With him at the time was a small 
detachment of California volunteers from Whipple. In the same month Woolsey 
reported that, while on a scout near the Rio Prieto, one of his men, W. J. 
Beauchamp, was ambushed and killed by the Indians. 

Major Willis, commanding at Fort Whipple, in January reported that the 
Indians had run off eleven head of government cattle from Walker's mines. In 
March the same oflScer, with forty soldiers and fourteen citizens, killed five 
Indians near the San Francisco River (the Verde). In June a detachment of 
Major Willis' command attacked a party of Apaches near the Salinas (Salt) 
River and killed four of them. Five Indians were killed by Captain Benson's 
command, which left Whipple in June on a scout. 

In March, according to the official record, **The Apache Indians attacked 
Mr. Goodhue and four other persons between the Hasiampa and Granite Creek. 
Goodhue was kilkd. The men with him succeeded in driving the Indians oflf. 
The Indians also attacked a train near Weaver, Arizona, and mortally wounded 
a Mr. Rykman and a Mexican. Another of the party was slightly wounded. 
The Indians took all the stock and plundered the wagons." 

Back of the Henrietta mine, in the Big Bug district, is the ruin of a stone 
cabin that in 1865 for a day was held by a half-dozen pioneer miners against 
the assaults of nearly 100 Apaches. The Indians had only one gun, but showered 
arrows from behind rocks. Within the cabin were T. W. Boggs, John Raible, 
John Masterson, Tom Goodwin, Bill Gavin and. Chris Scott. Relief came, led by 
John Marion, later the distinguished editor of the Prescott Courier, who heard 
the shooting and ran back to Walker to give the alarm. 

VEBDE SETTLEMENT UNDEB DIFFI0ULTIE8 

A clear narration of the trials of the early settlers has been given by Dr. J. 
M. Swetnam, one of the pioneers of the Verde Valley. In the summer of 1865, 
the Verde farmers reaped their first crops and sold their produce at Fort 
Whipple. But there were drawbacks, even at the high prices received, for it 
was estimated that during the season Indians had carried away barley and com 
well worth $2,000 and had driven off horses and cattle worth $6,000. The 
Indians were a serious question from the very start, cutting the dams and laying 
waste the fields at night. In May, three head of oxen were stolen by an Indian 
party of about ten. In twenty minutes, Swetnam, Melvin, Ralston, Osbom and 
Morse were on the trail afoot. Ruff joined them soon after, mounted. After six 
hours of fast trailing, the cattle were found, left exhausted by the Indians, who 
had tried to kill them, for a number of arrows were sticking in each. On June 
23, about sixty Apaches raided the settlement, running off nineteen head of 
cattle, though bravely pursued by ten of the settlers. In July was another raid 
in which Remstein was severely wounded and narrowly escaped death. Ralston, 
James, Boblette and Swetnam volunteered to fight the raiders, whose number 
was estimated at seventy-five, and who were searching Remstein 's abandoned 
camp, slaughtering oxen and setting fire to the camp and to stacks of unthrcshed 



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188 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

barley. The white men kUled a half dozen of the savages and actually succeeded 
in driving the whole band away. 

In August, Swetnam and Polk James, while guarding a com field at night, 
saw an Indian and fired. The object fell and Swetnam ran forward and placed 
his foot upon what he thought was a prostrate body, but it proved to be a blanket 
full of roasting ears, with sixteen buckshot embedded in the corn, which had 
saved the life of the Indian thief. Swetnam and his companion were in the 
midst of the Indians, yet escaped. Three weeks later more than 100 Indians 
raided the com field at night. 

The appeals of the settlers finally bore fruit, in September, in a detail of 
seventeen soldiers, who, on coming into the valley, were attacked by the Apaches. 
The commissary wagon was captured and burned, several troopers were wounded 
and two mules killed. According to Swetnam, * * It was a notorious fact through 
the country that Indians would not hesitate to attack a party of troopers double 
the number of a party of settlers or miners that would be left unmolested ; the 
reason being that the soldier had little heart in the fight and up to the days of 
General Crook were poorly commanded, while the settler^vand miners were 
fighting for their homes, their honor and life itself." 

In October, with the soldiers nearby, the Apaches made another attack, and 
drove away all save seven, the last of fifty-eight head of cattle that had been 
brought to the valley eight months before. The lieutenant in command being 
suddenly taken ill, a sergeant started in pursuit with nine soldiers and eight 
settlers. Two of the settlers, Culbertson and Sanford, pursuing a course to one 
side, detected the existence of a concealed band of Indians, lying in ambush for 
the sergeant and his party, who thus were saved from impending death. When 
the savages saw that their plot was in vain, scores of them appeared in the open 
and drove back their pursuers. Sanford, surrounded by redskins, was bravely 
succored by Culbertson. Both were wounded, Culbertson badly, but both man- 
aged to held their ground until assistance arrived. 

James, the sturdy young fellow who battled with Swetnam against the 
Apaches, by the latter is believed to have been none other than the redoubtable 
Prank James, the Missouri outlaw. Jesse James, the more notorious of the two 
brothers, is said to have also been in Arizona about 1886, taking refuge for the 
winter with Dave Poole, one of Quantrell's lieutenants, under whom he had 
served in the Civil War. 

FIOHTINO THE BEBSKINS NEAB PSE800TT 

December 15, 1864, Capt. Allen L. Anderson, Fifth U. S. Infantry, with a 
8^all party attacked an Indian rancheria near the Weaver mines and killed 
three Apaches. On the same day, Capt. John Thompson, First New Mexico 
Volunteer Cavalry, scouting from Whipple, where he had station, with twelve 
enlisted men attacked another Apache camp and killed eleven. 

South of Kirkland Valley is Bell's Canon, now penetrated by a branch of the 
Santa Fe railroad. Within this canon, in 1866, Colorado River Indians mur- 
dered, in customary hideous fashion, Poston 's successor in the office of Commis- 
sioner of Indian Affairs, G. W. Leihy, and his clerk, W. H. Evarts. Feeling 
secure in the friendship of the Indians, they were on their way from La Paz 
to Prescott unattended. The canon itself had been named after a prospector. 



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Photo by Bate, Prescott 

POINT OF ROCKS, NEAR PRESCOTT. 



NOTORIOUS APACHE RENDEZVOUS 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 189 

Bell, who, with a companion, Sage, there was killed by Indians in 1864. The 
list of the murdered in the Bradshaw hills and in the country generally west of 
the Verde would stretch out almost indefinitely were it to be set forth here. 

The road between Prescott and the Verde Valley was full of danger at almost 
any time in the early days of the posts. A midway station, fortified by stone- 
walled corrals, was Bowers' ranch on the upper Agua Pria, located by King S. 
Woolsey and later purchased by the Bowers brothers, who were among the first 
stockmen of northern Arizona. This ranch often was attacked, but usually was 
well enough garrisoned to stand oflf the redskins. From it Woolsey led in a 
number of successful punitive expeditions, usually after Apaches who had stolen 
horses or cattle. One of the trips led as far as the Apache Wheatfields, a few 
miles north of the present Globe, in the Pinal Creek Valley, where the Indian 
crops were destroyed. 

Ben H. Weaver in 1866, with five neighbors, had a notable fight in Chino 
Valley, running off two-score Apaches. 

In April, 1867, Inspector General Rusling, happening to be at Whipple, 
joined Colonel Gregg in pursuit of Indians who had stolen cattle within three 
miles of Prescott. Though the cavalry command covered seventy-five miles in 
twenty-four hours, nothing could be accomplished. Gregg kept at his task, how- 
ever, and broke up many Indian encampments. 

Nor were the pioneer women lacking in pluck. In 1867, Mrs. Lewis A. 
Stevens withstood an Indian attack on her Point-of-Rocks home during the 
absence of her husband, wounding one of the Apaches. The same spirit was 
shown by Mrs. Sam Miller about the same time, when Indians tried to take the 
Miller home, in the suburbs ©f Prescott. Her rifle shots were heard by her 
husband, who was on his way from town, and he soon was by the side of the 
courageous woman. 

H. T. Lambertson of Walnut Grove, ambushed and badly wounded, killed 
three Indians with bullets from his repeating rifle and then made his way to 
safety. 

The following year. Major Alexander made a number of raids out of 
AFcDowell, usually accompanied by Maricopa and Pima Indians, keeping the 
mountain Indians moving and breaking up their rancherias. 

A record is at hand of some of the Indian murders of central Arizona during 
1869 and 1870. In the spring of the former year Jas. G. Sheldon was killed 
near Camp Willow Grove, Juan Llepes near Camp Whipple, three men on the 
Verde road and J. J. Gibson at Ash Creek, a few months later two men being 
ambushed on the Williamson Valley road. In the following year mention espe- 
cially was made of the assassination of Horace Greely in his cabin on the Hassa- 
yampa and of the killing of a mail escort comprising a soldier and a civilian. 
The raids extended down into the Salt River Valjey, where John H. Fitzgerald 
and Joseph Tye lost team mules and oxen to Apaches almost on the Phoenix 
town site, while Nasario Ortiz had a similar unhappy experience with Apaches 
on the Adamsville-McDowell road. On one of the raids into Salt River Valley 
a northern band of marauders encountered and murdered Colonel Jacob Snively, 
who was prospecting near the White Picacho, east of Vulture about twenty 
miles. Following the Civil War, in which he had been a Texas partisan, Snively 
came to Arizona and participated in opening up a couple of mining districts in 



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190 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

southwestern Arizona. His body was dug up by" Jack Swilling and reinterred 
at Gillette, on the Agua Fria. His Apache slayer was killed near Wickenburg 
a few years later by Colonel Sanford. 

HOW BABTH ESCAPED THE APACHES 

One of the most memorable experiences in the adventurous life of Sol Barth 
occurred in November, 1868. Barth, Magdalena Calderon, George Clinton, 
Francisco Tafolla, Jesus and Roman Sanchez, and a Mexican named Mazon, who 
had been an Apache captive, had been trading on the Cibicu with the White 
Mountain Indians, of which tribe Pedro was chief. The white men thence were 
called over, possibly enticed, to trade with a band of Apaches headed by Cochise. 
This band had but lately come from the south and was hostile. Barth and his 
party were led about forty miles to a point near the present Fort Apache, by 
a treacherous Mexican, who eflfectively delivered them into the hands of their 
enemies. The Indians had been making tizwin and all were drunk. The traders, 
approaching by a narrow trail, were seized singly by the Indians and stripped 
of everything, including clothing. Barth was last, and found his companions 
standing, naked and waiting for death, within a circle of Indians, who were 
threatening them with clubs that had been charred and hardened by fire. 
Barth 's arms and clothing went the same way as had his companion's belongings. 
Juana Marta, a Mexican captive of the band, then appeared in the role of 
Pocahontas. It appeared that she cited some tribal law concerning the taking 
of captives on the lands of a friendly tribe, and so the case had to be appealed 
to Pedro, chief of the White Mountains. He was not long in coming and there 
was only a short confab after he arrived. He was a decent sort of Indian and 
well disposed toward the white men, but the best he could do was to save their 
lives, without any reference to the loot. The conference concluded, the white 
men were dismissed with a mere wave of the hand. 

It happened that none of them had been robbed of their shoes, a fortunate 
circumstance, inasmuch as it took four days of travel to reach the nearest point 
of safety, the Zuni village in northwestern New Mexico. During that time the 
monV hare skins were scorched by the sun of the days, while they huddled, 
nearly frozen, around fires at nights, for winter was coming on. Barth tells 
that he stood the trip rather better than the others and kept in the lead. The 
journey was made on a very light diet, consisting almost entirely of tuna fruit 
and an all-too-scanty share of the carcass of a small dog that had followed them 
from the Indian camp. On the last day, Barth was well ahead, and, at a point 
fifteen miles out from Zuiii, met an Indian who divided with him a few tortillas. 
Barth happened to be well acquainted with the Indian, but the recognition was 
not mutual, for the fugitive by that time had little resemblance to the well-fed 
and cheerful freighter who for years had made Zuni a stopping place. Refreshed 
by the tortillas, Barth then made rapid time into the village, from which he sent 
runners out with assistance and food. All recovered from their hardships, 
though Barth suffered a severe attack of '* chills and fever.*' 

JOHN T0WK8EKD, APACHE KTTJiKB 

A remarkable expedition was that led in June, 1871, by the noted scout, John 
Townsend, the moving cause the theft of 137 head of stock from the Bowers 



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Captain Boyd 



S. C. Miller 





('. B. Gonung N. L. Griffin 

XORTIIKRX ARIZONA PIOXKKRS 



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ARIZpNA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 191 

ranch, where a herder also had been killed. The citizens, recruited in Prescott, 
numbered only a dozen, but soon were joined by a detachment of soldiers from 
Fort Verde, led by Lieutenant Morton, who cheerfully followed Townsend's 
lead, though at first ungraciously received by the civilians. The thieves soon 
were overtaken, easy prey, for they were gorged with horseflesh, and the 
encounter became a veritable slaughter. Pursuit of the remnant of the band 
was kept up into Tonto Basin. Return, by way of the deserted Camp Reno 
and Fort McDowell, was accomplished within eleven days from the date of 
departure, with a record of fifty-six Indians killed and recovery of most of the 
stolen stock. The people of Prescott joyously tendered the heroes a banquet, 
where wine was more abundant than food, and presented Townsend a valuable 
rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Lieutenant Morton was given a pair of 
gold-mounted Colt's revolvers and Charlie Genung, a member of the party, also 
received a new rifle from an appreciative friend. 

Townsend had a ranch on the middle Agua Fria, his only neighbor T. W. 
Boggs, an equally famous pioneer, who lived a mile or so away. Both had little 
farms in the valley, but the latter also had mining claims in the foothills of the 
Bradshaw Mountains. Boggs lived on the Agua Fria to an old age, made com- 
fortable by the sale of his mines. Townsend, a Texan, was supposed to have been 
a half-blood Cherokee. He was tall, with coal-black hair, black eyes and swarthy 
skin and had all the shrewdness and hill craft of the Apache. At the time of 
the new moon, when Apache hunting parties usually started, Townsend would 
leave his home and make a stealthy and wide circuit in the mountains to cut the 
trail of the possible Apache raiders. If he did find a trail he would secrete 
himself at night in the rocks above his cabin and wait in ambush for the expected 
raid. This ruse succeeded not once but several times and in all he is said to have 
sent no less than sixty-five Apaches to the happy hunting grounds. 

Fifteen scalps were taken by him single-handed, while he was accompanying 
as scout one of General Crook's commands, sent out from Whipple. When he 
displayed the scalps to testify to the truth of his modest tale, Crook is said to 
have discharged him at once from the service. The scout's parents had been 
killed by the Comanches and his only object in life was extermination of Indians. 
With all his cunning in Indian warfare, he finally met death at the hands of 
his foes, ambushed on a peak near Antelope Station, where his body later was 
found by a party that followed back the trail of his famous grey horse, which 
had remained with the body several days and then had galloped to the nearest 
ranch. The body was found unmutilated, with rocks carefully piled over it. 
The Indians had honored a great warrior. 

NORTHWESTERN INDIAN TROUBLE 

As early as 1557, soon after Beale's first survey, parties of emigrants tried 
to push through to California by the new route. Many such parties were lost 
on the way. The Apache occasionally was met west of the Little Colorado, but 
the worst danger lay in the passage through the Hualpai and Mojave country. 

B. Silliman, a mining explorer who visited northwestern Arizona in the 
summer of 1864, wrote of seeing, on the Beale road, a day's journey east of the 
Colorado, the sad evidences of one of the typical early western emigrant trage- 
dies. In what he called Massacre Valley, a large party of Texan and Arkansas 



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192 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

emigrants had been ambushed by Mojave, Hualpai and Pah Ute Indians. Silli- 
man told, ** We found the melancholy evidence of this catastrophe scattered along 
the line of Beale's road for several miles, over seventy persons, with their teams 
and baggage wagons, having been destroyed. The bleaching bones of the oxen, 
half -burned remnants of baggage wagons with cooking utensils and household 
furniture scattered around or lying where they fell, attest the savage ferocity 
of these treacherous tribes.*' 

In the journal of Beale's second expedition is a thrilling tale, albeit second- 
hand, of a fine fight with the Mojaves, in April, 1859. The tale was told by 
S. A. Bishop and Ali Hadji, the latter one of Beale's camel drivers in his prior 
expedition. The two met Beale near Bill Williams Mountain, riding dromedaries, 
with which they had made a rapid trip from the Colorado. Beale had sent word 
to Fort Yuma that he would need provisions when he arrived at the river. 
Lieut.-Col. Wm. Hoffman, with a small force, started for the river crossing, only 
to be driven back by the Indians. Bishop, fearing that the military would not get 
back to the river in time to save Beale from disaster, had gathered a force of 
forty frontiersmen and had made a rapid march to the crossing. There he was 
met by a force of Mojaves estimated at 1,000 warriors, who, according to the 
narrative, were ** flushed with their successes over the emigrants and rendered 
confident by their skirmish with the troops. They immediately attacked him, 
but did not calculate on the character of the men he had or the deadly eflBciency 
of the frontier rifles in the hands of frontier men. He killed two out of every 
three aimed at and, in a brilliant battle, completely routed them. He then 
crossed the river and remained in their village for a number of days, defying 
them ; then, so completely was the spirit of this formidable tribe broken that he 
divided his party, sending back twenty, leaving a strong garrison of six at the 
river, and with the remainder came on to meet me. On the second day after 
leaving the river, he was again attacked by 200 choice warriors, anxious to wipe 
out the disgrace of their late defeat. These, with his small party, many of whom 
were beardless boys, but frontiersmen, he routed, killing four at the first fire. 
As he approached the river, four men of the mail party, which had been making 
fruitless efforts for nearly a year to get a mail over the road, joined him, but on 
seeing the number of the Indians, their hearts failed them and two turned back." 

Wm. E. Goodyear, a pioneer guide and surveyor, has left a story of a running 
fight with the Mojaves in January, 1859, on the passage down the Colorado, of 
fifty dragoons, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffman, bound for Fort 
Yuma. With the party was Joe Walker. Goodyear told of assault by 1,500 
Indians, who were repulsed easily, by reason of the soldiers' superiority in arms, 
leaving sixty dead on the ground after an engagement of two hours. 

WOBK OF THE BECBX7IT EIGHTH CAVAUEtT 

A bit of northwestern Arizona history lately was given by Lieut.-Gen. Samuel 
M, B. Young, who, a Civil War Brevet Brigadier-General in April, 1865, became 
a Second Lieutenant in the Twelfth Infantry the following year and soon was a 
Captain in the newly organized Eighth Cavalry. In 1866 he went to Fort 
Mojave, to relieve the California volunteers at that post. The General stated 
that the Mojaves had given little trouble after a massacre in the late '50s, when 
they slaughtered the members of an emigrant party of seven wagons on the Beale 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 193 

trail. Much more troublesome were the Mojave- Apaches and Hualpais, and there 
had to be a gusLvd of soldiers to convoy the mail through from Port Mojave to 
Prescott, with stone stations established every forty miles. In 1868 Young 
visited the Phoenix country to secure Tom Hodge, a noted gunman of that period, 
to be his guide in an expedition against the Mojave- Apaches of the Santa Maria 
country, for Hodge was declared the only white man who knew that region thor- 
oughly. Hodge was a quarrelsome individual and soon thereafter killed another 
guide and fled into Mexico, where he himself met death. The tribe had particu- 
larly oflPended in creeping up to a cavalry picket line and killing the sentry. Led 
by Hodge, Young trailed the Indians through the canons to a village, where there 
was an encounter in which a large number of Indians were killed. This was a 
wonderful trip, wherein Young led his troopers, most of them recruit California 
miners, for eleven days, averaging twenty-five miles travel a day, fighting all the 
way. With fourteen men, he attacked 100 Indians, killing 16 of them, while his 
lieutenant was engaging another large band elsewhere in the hills. Young came 
back with an arrow wound. .The Eighth Horse was a rough sort of regiment, 
organized on the Coast, and had 41 per cent of desertions in 1867. 

SLAYINa OF OHIEr WAUBA-TUICA. 

There is a tale of 1868, also, how the commanding oflScer of Fort Mojave, out 
after a marauding band of Mojaves, with a force of only twenty-five men, found 
himself surrounded by 200 of the redskins, how he finally ran out of ammunition 
and then prepared to charge the Indian position with the bayonet. The Mojave 
chief from his shelter of arrowweed shouted that the soldiers now were defense- 
less, for they had stopped up their guns, and the tribesmen swarmed out into 
the open. This was the soldiers* opportunity and the Indians for the first time 
disastrously learned the danger of a close encounter with desperate infantrymen. 
The troops marched home with only a relatively small casualty record, while it 
is told that at least one-third of the Indians were left upon the field. 

About that time eight Mojaves were sent to Fort Yuma, to be held as hostages 
for the tribe's future good behavior. After some months of irksome confinement, 
Chief Cariook deliberately sacrificed his own life that his fellow hostages might 
try to escape. 

While the Hualpais belonged to the unreliable Yuman family and therefore 
had to be watched continually, there was a state of comparative peace with the 
tribe in the latter part of 1865, when Bill Hardy, on behalf of the whites in 
general, made a treaty with Chief Wauba-Yuma, giving the Indian a paper to 
that effect. Hardy was deeply concerned, for at the time he was doing a great 
part of the freighting between the river and the Prescott country and was profit- 
ing largely thereby. His plans all were upset and war again was precipitated 
in April, 1866, by none other than Sam Miller, thereafter one of the leading resi- 
dents of the Prescott locality, first settler in the adjoining valley that still 
bears his name. Miller, a freighter, on an inward trip learned of the burning 
of the wayside cabin of Edward Clower at The Willows and of the death within 
of its owner, presumably first murdered by Hualpais. So, when Wauba-Yuma, 
presenting his paper treaty, came to the freighter's camp near Beale Springs and, 
backed by the presence of a number of his braves, demanded provisions, Miller 
answered with a bullet. The chief dropped dead and the Indians, after a brief 



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194 ARIZONA— THE YOXJNGEST STATE 

action, disappeared, to later ravage the road as they had in days past. It is worth 
mention that in Miller's convoy at the time were George Banghart and his family, 
the same Banghart who later owned the Little Chino ranch near which the 
territorial capitol first was dropped. Daughters who thus were rudely intro- 
duced to the customs of the country married A. G. Oliver, post trader at Whipple, 
Edw. W. Wells, later federal judge, John Marion, the pioneer editor, and 
N. O. Murphy, who became Governor of the Territory. 

THE ARIZONA V0LUKTEEB8 

Arizona's contribution to the Federal forces during the Civil War was cred- 
ited to New Mexico, save for one organization. New Mexico, including Arizona, 
gaVe 6,561 men to the Federal cause. Of these, 277 men died in the service. 

Soon after the assumption of oflSce by Governor Goodwin, on February 20, 
1864, he called the attention of the War Department to the advisability of raising 
a regiment of Arizona troops, familiar with the locality and the work, to fight 
the Apaches. This authorization was granted by the War Department April 16, 
for a regiment to serve three years, or for the war, the officers to be appointed by 
the Governor. An attempt was made to raise six companies and even this number 
was cut to four. 

Most of the papers covering the enlistment and service of the organization are 
in the office of Adjutant-General Harris, in Phoenix. There are letters from 
C. T. Hayden, and others, recommending Frederick A. Ronstadt as Colonel, on 
the basis of experience in a similar position in the army of Pesquiera, in Sonora, 
and others recommending Henry A. Bigelow of Wickenburg. 

Co. A, of which Robert Postle, of Prescott, was to have been captain, was 
recruited to the strength of only thirty-five men, mainly Mexicans enlisted from 
the placer fields at Weaver. The commanding oflBcer for the greater part of the 
time was Second Lieut. Primitivo Cervantes, of Wickenburg. He, with his men, 
were sworn in at Whipple, October 7, 1865. The commanding oflBcer of the pla- 
toon for the last five months, till muster-out of the company, October 15, 1866, 
was First Lieut. Wm. H. Ford. 

Co. B, .of ninety-four men, had an enlisted strength wholly of Maricopa 
Indians, gathered at Maricopa Wells September 2, 1865, and mustered out at 
Sacaton July 31, 1866. Thomas Ewing was First Lieutenant, and Charles Reidt, 
Second Lieutenant. The latter appeared to have been in command most of the 
service period. 

Co. C 's enlisted men were Pima Indians, including Chief Antonio Azul, who 
ranked as First Sergeant. The first Captain named was none other than the 
noted California writer, J. Ross Browne, who had only lately finished a trip 
through southern Arizona. He was mustered in as Captain in San Francisco, 
December 21, 1865, and credited to ** Prescott, Socorro County, Arizona." This 
would appear to be as far as he got on a military career. A Captain Coster was 
then appointed and, on his discharge, First Lieut. John D. Walker was promoted 
to be Captain. Walker had lived among the Pimas for years and spoke the lan- 
guage fluently. Second Lieutenant of the organization was Wm. A. Hancock, 
transferred September 4 from a sergeantcy in the Seventh California Volunteer 
Infantry, at Yuma. 



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APACHE SOOUTS AT SAN CARLOS 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 195 

Co. E was organized by Capt. Hiram H. Washburn, at Tubac and Fort Mason, 
in the Santa Cruz Valley, with John M. Van Mehr (who never served) as First 
Lieutenant and Manuel Oallegos as Second Lieutenant. This company had a full 
strength of ninety-four men, nearly all of them of Mexican or native birth. 

Co. F was recruited in the same neighborhood by Lieut. Oscar Hutton, who 
had to dismiss fifty-three of his recruits, leaving him a platoon of only thirty-five 
men. 

The Indian companies operated in their own neighborhood or out of Camp 
McDowell. On March 27, 1866, Walker led his own company and forty of the 
Maricopa company, with 250 volunteer Indians, in all making a formidable f oi*ce, 
against the Apaches in the eastern hills. There was at least one big fight, in 
which twenty-five of the hostiles were killed and sixteen taken prisoners. The 
re(;ord of Co. C contains the names of three men killed in a fight with the Apaches 
near McDowell. 

By far the best record of the service of the Arizona volunteers has been left 
by Captain Washburn, evidently a conscientious and hard-working officer. He 
started gathering the company he was to command as early as June, 1865. 
About half were ill from fever, no clothing was provided and the men had to 
build their own adobe shelters. Fever was so general at Mason that often as few 
as seven men to the company answered the roll call. Corporal Rodriguez and 
squad killed an Indian and captured another near (he San Antonio mine. The 
prisoner was taken to a point where lay the skeleton of a murdered Mexican and 
there executed with all solemnity. 

At Fort Mason, Washburn wrote Governor Goodwin a suggestion that Cochise 
and 400 of his Apaches could be destroyed at Fronteras, where they were to come 
for a spree during September. The Mexicans had been compelled to assent to the 
visit, their fear modified by the expectation of much profit in the sale of goods 
and mescal during the period of truce. Yet they had sent word to the American 
side, suggesting that an attack be made when the Indians had reached a somnolent 
stage of intoxication. 

December 5, under orders, the command started for Prescott, with twenty- 
seven still sick; two, who died on the way, had been refused admittance to the post 
hospital at Tucson. Whipple was reached on the 29th, after harsh experience 
in the snows of the divide above Skull Valley. At Whipple, in the midst of 
fearful weather, no quarters were available and there was much suffering. 

SHOELESS AND HUNaBT SOLDIERY 

Ordered to Camp Lincoln January 4, 1866, the post soon thereafter was turned 
over to Washburn, with an addition of the men of Co. A. February 13, 1866, 
Gallegos and forty-five men of E assaulted an Indian fortress in mountain 
caves, near the Natural Bridge, and drove the Indians from all save the highest 
positions, killing thirty-two and capturing much plunder, including buckskin, 
highly valued, for the soldiers had worn out their shoes and had had to resort to 
home-made moccasins. The country was strange to all the men — no guides had 
been furnished. Lincoln had to be put on half rations and the garrison threatened 
to desert in a body. Washburn had to spend half his time hustling'supplies from 
Whipple and never had enough. One good draft of pro\nsions, including five 
beeves, was captured by Indians in June on the Verde road, at ** Grief Hill," but 



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196 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

enough was saved to keep the camp from starvation. Raids were made on the 
Indians whenever food could be had for a trip. 

August 3, matters came to a standstill. Half of the men struck. They had 
been in service their year of enlistment, without a cent of pay, half starved and 
unclothed, and Washburn reported that he could not blame them. By the end 
of the month Lincoln had been reduced to a garrison of five men, Washburn the 
only oflScer. September 13, three of the ^ve were discharged and the settlers had 
to be called upon to help guard the government property. September 29 the 
post was regarrisoned by a company of the Fourteenth Infantry under Captain 
Downie. November 5 the last enlisted strength had been discharged and Wash- 
bum and Gallegos had called for muster out 

Washburn sadly acknowledged that he had little to show for his sixteen 
months of hardship and toil. He blamed the failure wholly upon his inability to 
get even a proper amount of subsistence for his men. But he claimed that at 
least one thing had been proved: **That the native troops are far superior to 
any of the others for field service in this Territory, and until this shall be taken 
as the basis of operations no immediate good results can occur. Three hundred 
native troops, well oflBcered, at an expense of less than $800 to the man per year, 
will in less than two years rid the Territory of its greatest bane and obstacle in 
the way of progress." In his letters to higher authority he urged that the men 
be allowed all the spoils they found in their campaigns, as something that would 
spur on any one of Spanish lineage. They were promised on enlistment all the 
stock and plunder they would take. 

Lieutenant Hutton and his men had much the same hard experience, with 
headquarters at Cainp Date Creek. In February, 1866, the command took station 
in Skull Valley, and on the 24th of that month lost two men, killed by Apaches, 
while on road guard. In August the Lieutenant with fourteen men and twelve 
citizens killed twenty-three Indians, with a loss of one man killed and one 
wounded. Seventy Apaches had attacked a wagon train and were surprised on 
their retreat. 

Skull Valley had been a bloody field of Indian depredation long before the 
coming of the volunteers. According to General Thomas, the name came from 
the massacre within the valley of a party of emigra^ts, who were trying to reach 
the Colorado by the Bill Williams Riv-er route. All were killed, together with 
many of their oxen. The bodies of the men and cattle were left upon the ground 
and the next party of white men over the route found the bones and skulls 
bleaching on the ground. 

Following the muster out of the Arizona volunteers, the Legislature in 
November expressed warmest gratitude and highest praise to the officers and 
men of the battalion for the valuable and efiicient service they had rendered in 
hunting and destroying the implacable Apache during the past year, it being 
stated: **They have inflicted greater punishment upon the Apache than any 
other troops in the Territory, besides ofttimes pursuing him barefoot and upon 
half rations to his fastnesses, cheerfully enduring the hardships encountered on 
mountain and desert.'' Regret was expressed that **the financial condition of 
our young Territory will not permit of our offering a more substantial reward and 
expression of our obligations fo them." 

Some of the Indians, a few nearing 100 years of age, have been trying of late 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 197 

yeaxs to secure pemsdons from the national government. They have been refused, 
on the ground their service was not against the Confederates and ** because they 
are Indians.'' Some of these Indians were sincere mourners at the funeral of 
their Lieutenant Hancock, when he died in Phoenix, after years of honorable civic 
service. 



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CHAPTER XV 
INDIAN BORDER DEPREDATIONS 

Protests of the Governor and Legislature — Eskiminzin — The Work of Cochise in South- 
Tifestem Arizona — Death of Lieutenant Cushing — Loot of the Hughes Ranch — 
Depredation Claims. 

At the first representative session after organization of the Territory', Congress 
was petitioned to provide for placing on a reservation along the Colorado River 
about 10,000 Indians belonging to the Yavapai, Hualpai, Navajo and Yuma 
tribes, reported as often reduced to a starving condition, in which, by necessity, 
they made raids upon the property of the whites. It was suggested that a canal 
could be constructed at small expense to conduct irrigation water from the Colo- 
rado to the Indian lands. 

The menace of the Apaches was early expressed in a memorial passed by the 
First Arizona Legislature, in which was asked an appropriation of $250,000 to 
be used in arming and sustaining companies of rangers. It was reported that 
**the depredations of hostile Apaches are now the only barrier to a speedy settle- 
ment of this Territory, the working of mines of unequaled value, the occupancy of 
farming and pastoral lands of excellent quality, and the development of all the 
resources of the Territory depend upon the subjugation of the barbarous foe so 
long a terror of the settler within our borders. It were vain to solicit capital or 
immigration until the power of the Apache is broken. Recent campaigns against 
him, waged by civil and military expeditions, have been attended with consid- 
erable success ; but enough has not been done, and your memorialists respectfully 
request the aid of the government in prosecuting a war until the Apache shall 
be forced, as the Navajo has been, to go upon a reservation." 

The Indian situation was considered so bad in 1867 that the Legislature 
petitioned Congress asking that the Governor of the Territory be authorized to 
raise a regiment of volunteer troops. The statement contained in the memorial 
showed the serious state of affairs. It told of settlers compelled to abandon 
their improvements, their farms and mining operations, seeking security in the 
various towns and military camps with fearful damage, with almost every day 
the sad tidings of the death of citizens, killed by Indians ; with scarcely a road 
or footpath safe to travel ; with security not even found in the villages or near 
the military camps. It was declared that the Indian foes had become terribly 
in earnest, seemingly determined to drive the whites from the Territory. Within 
a few months hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of live stock had been 
stolen. United States troops were few and, however willing, were declared totally 
insufficient to protect or raid. In the extremity of the situation it was declared 
that, ** unless we have speedy assistance, we will be compelled to abandon the 

198 



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ESKIMDCZIN NACHIS CfflHUAHUA 

RETURN FROM AN INDIAN CHASE 

CHIEF NANA GERONIMO 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 199 

property we still have and leave the Territory/' The memorial recited a belief 
that a regiment of Arizona troops would be more eflBcient than any other that 
could be employed in the service, ** through their acquaintance with the count rj/ 
with the haunts and habits of the Indians and their earnest desire to rid the 
country of the comlnon foe." 

FJtKTMTNZIN, INDIAN PHIL080PHEB 

For many years, on a rancheria in the lower San Pedro Valley, lived olie 
of the most notable Apaches of the Southwest, Eskiminzin, mentioned by Colyer, 
referred to by the pioneers as **Skimmy." He was a precious old scoundrel, who 
later maintained what might have been called a ** fence,'' through which was 
marketed the spoil of marauding bands, who in return received arms and ammu- 
nition. But the old chief in his later days always claimed to be peaceful. He 
had somewhat more than local renown, owing to one of the early-day stories. He 
was in Tucson buying a rifle or two, a transaction that seemed to be viewed with 
favor by the dealer, who, however, in jocular mood, felt moved to query, ** Going 
to kill soldiers with these, Skimmy?" The answer was prompt, *'Naw; no use 
gun to kill soldiers — ^kill 'em with club." Eskiminzin was at Old Camp Grant 
at the time of the massacre, in April, 1871, but escaped. About that time he 
had boasted that he had killed, a couple of years before, a man named McEenzie 
who had a ranch in the San Pedro Valley and who had shown much charity and 
good will toward the Indian and his followers. Eskiminzin and some of his 
bucks stopped at the McKenzie house for a meal, which was given them. Then, 
after eating, McKenzie and his two ranch hands were murdered oflEhand. Eskim- 
inzin rather took high credit to himself for this. He said, ** Anyone can kill his 
enemy, but it takes a brave man to kill his friend." For some one of his crimes 
in 1874 he served a short jail sentence. 

The old chief was afforded an opportunity to go East and see how many of 
the white men there really were, so that the futility of trying to kill all of them 
might be impressed upon him. He gained some idea of the world outside and it 
is told that two of his sons were named respectively Bismarck and Washington. 
At one time he had $5,000 on deposit in Tucson. On a visit to that city he saw 
some zinc trunks that attracted him, so he bought one for each of his seven wives. 

Though Eskiminzin for years was considered a fixture in the San Pedro 
Valley, living for much of the time within a very short distance of old Fort 
Grant, it must be told that he was one of the most villainous of all Apaches and 
that to him must be laid the loss of even scores of white lives, almost every death 
accompanied with torture. As early as 1867 his band killed a man named Valen- 
tine north of Tucson and in September a post trader named Irwin was murdered 
within sight of Old Camp Grant. The latter 's partner, Israel, was so active in 
tr>'ing to chase down the assassins that the Indians marked him particularly for 
their vengeance. May 28, 1870, he was coming from Tucson with a stock of 
goods in company with a party that included a man named Kennedy. About five 
miles beyond Canon del Oro, Eskiminzin lay in wait and at the first fire wounded 
Kennedy and Israel. The former mounted a mule and rode to Grant, which was 
distant about twenty-five miles, but fell from the animal, which continued on into 
the fort, its bloody flanks serving as notice that troops were needed on the road. 
Kennedy was found by Lieut. John G. Bourke with an arrow still within his 



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200 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

body and died the next day. Israel was found tied to the wheels of his wagon, 
where he had been burned alive, his feet apparently first charred oflf and his body 
showing marks of fearful torture. The rest of the party had succeeded in getting 
back into the hiUs in a position where a successful defense was made. A few days 
later the same band killed Henry Long and Samuel Brown on the San Pedro 
River near Tres Alamos. These were only a few of the many murders of the 
band which included, according to F. H. Goodwin, an old resident of the San 
Pedro Valley, that of a major of the United States army and several soldiers at 
Round Valley on the Gila River. 

A mining exploration party, bound for the neighborhood of Apache Pass, 
sent out by Lent & Harpending of San Francisco, was ambushed by Indians in 
the summer of 1870 east of Maricopa Wells. Few of the party were injured in 
the aflfray, but the others, unhorsed and with torn clothing, made a sad spectacle 
as they staggered into Grant. 

THE GAME OF HUKTINa CO0HI8E 

The depredations of Cochise and his Chiricahua Indians lasted about twelve 
years, practically unchecked. Whatever the cause, the warfare was of the bloodiest 
sort, with torture, murder and rapine scattered widely over southeastern Arizona. 
Possibly it is to the discredit of the soldiery of the white race in general that 
when he submitted it was on terms dictated by the Indians and only after Cochise 
had become old and his blood lust had been glutted. 

Cochise and his immediate band found their richest plunder down in Mexico, 
and in the country north of the line were not especially active about this time. 
In July, 1871, a herd of cattle was driven away within rifle shot of Fort Bowie, 
whence most of the garrison had gone. Captain Jerry Russell and his troop, of 
the Third Cavalry, were ambushed by Cochise within ** Cochise Stronghold,'' in 
the Dragoon Mountains, with the loss of Guide Bob Whitney. There was the 
usual amount of deviltry on the Sonoita, where a large party of Mexicans were 
** wiped out*' and where Lieutenant Steward and Corporal Black were murdered 
from ambush. But all of this was a state of comparative relaxation on the bor- 
der, where Cochise was reputed to have killed 100 by his own hand. 

DEATH OF LIEUTENANT CUSHINa 

One of the few disasters known to the army in its Apache campaigns was the 
killing of Lieut. Howard B. Cushing of the Third Cavalry, in the fall of 1871. 
He was an officer of rare ability and spirit, a brother of the naval lieutenant who 
blew up the Confederate ironclad Albemarle. He was given a roving command 
with about half a troop and with two horses to the man. His first exploit was 
an attack upon a band of Tonto Apaches which had ambushed a wagon train on 
the Camp Grant road. Cushing, riding at night, found the murderers in camp 
celebrating with whiskey they had secured from the train. In the attack every 
one of the ninety-six warriors was killed. Only a few of the soldiers were 
wounded and none killed. According to Tom Hughes, within six months Cushing 
had attacked and killed 325 hostile Apaches. One of Lieutenant Cushing 's most 
daring raids ended on the slopes of the Pinal Mountains, not far from the present 
town of Globe. Operating in true Apache fashion, he took his dismounted troop- 
ers by night to a point overlooking the rancheria of a band of the Indians who 



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Heniy Wiekenburg Hezekiah Brooks 

NORTHERN ARIZONA PIONEERS 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 201 

had killed Kennedy and Israel in Canon del Oro and had attacked a large party 
of Mexicans in the same locality. At daylight Cushing struck, killing nearly all 
the men in camp and taking captive the women and children, who were herded 
back to the Camp Grant reservation. 

His special detail was hunting down Chief Cochise. The last expedition was 
from Camp Crittenden, assisted by two good Mexican trailers and accompanied 
by a San Francisco mining engineer named Simpson. The scouts found Indians 
in a canon of the Whetstone Mountains, about twenty miles east of Crittenden. 
As the Apaches evidently were in large force, Simpson counseled return to 
Crittenden for more troops. Cushing is said to have replied: **I have been 
hunting Cochise and his cutthroats. I have found them and I will never let up 
until I have taken his camp and have killed the whole outfit." Cushing dis- 
mounted, leaving about a third of his force behind with the horses and pack 
train and started up the canon with the Indians firing at him from both ridges, 
within 200 yards. Simpson fell dead with shots through his body and head and 
later Cushing was shot in the mouth and then in the heart, while his trumpeter 
and two soldiers were killed. Further encumbered by a half-dozen wounded, 
Sergeant Wallace, left in command, retreated to the horses and, leaving the pack 
train and dead behind, rode hard to Crittenden with at least 200 Indians follow- 
ing. At Crittenden there was only a small troop of cavalry, probably forty-five 
men, so the killing could not be avenged at that time. 

RIFLES ON THE FABMEB'S PLOW BEAM 

Tom Hughes, that best of historians of the Apache troubles of the lower 
Arizona valleys, in later years furnished many interesting and valuable details 
concerning the difficulties encountered in bringing civilization into the Southwest. 
In 1869 his hired hands plowed the fields, each man with a rifle in a holster before 
him and a pistol strapped to his waist, while cattle and horses were not per- 
mitted to graze beyond a rifle shot from the fortified house or near any possible 
ambush. 

Hughes tells of Pennington, the noted Indian fighter, whose name now is 
borne by a street in Tucson. With his two sons Pennington came past the Hughes 
ranch in April, 1869, and announced his intention of taking up a ranch on the 
Sonoita, a few miles below. He was warned that he would be killed before a 
month passed, but replied, *'If you can farm and look out for the Apaches, I 
guess I can.'' Inside of a week he and his sons were dead, shot down at their 
plows while planting com. 

According to Hughes, during the period from 1867 to 1876 no less than 
twenty-two men were killed by Apaches on the Hughes ranch in the Sonoita 
Valley near Camp Crittenden. In March, 1870, the Apaches killed two men and 
seized the ranch. Hughes crept back after night to find the Indians at the ranch 
house and did what he could to diminish their loot by liberating from their pens 
about 100 head of hogs. 

In April, 1872, L. C. Hughes, Attorney-General of Arizona, visited his broth- 
ers' ranch on a hunting expedition in company with Capt T. M. K. Smith and 
J. S. Vosburg. Soon after they had left Monkey Springs Canon, returning, the 
Apaches killed two herders and all the work oxen in the same caiion, where it 



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202 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

was apparent the Indians had let the white men go by simply in order to make 
sure of getting the cattle, which they knew were to be driven in later for grazing. 

On another trip out from Tucson Attorney General L. C. Hughes, Samuel 
Hughes, the Adjutant-General of Arizona, Hiram S. Stevens, who served as 
Delegate to Congress, and two others passed through Davidson's Canon. They 
knew their danger and each man had his rifle and pistol ready. The mules they 
were driving became wild with fright at the narrowest point of the canon, where 
there is little doubt that the Apaches let the party pass, seeing that it was well 
prepared for a fight. Incidentally, it should be told that mules undoubtedly have 
saved the lives of many white men, for they could scent an Indian unfailingly 
and seemed to appreciate that the scent meant danger. Possibly this appreciation 
of danger was due to the fact that to an Apache mule meat was the greatest 
delicacy that could be offered on his bill of fare. 

In May, 1872, the Hughes ranch was well planted with about 250 acres of 
com and 125 acres of potatoes, wheat and barley. The crop was considered of 
particular value by the commanding officer at Camp Crittenden, who had added 
as a guard five soldiers of the Twenty-second Infantry to the fourteen men ordi- 
narily on the ranch. One evening as the cattle herd was following the returning 
farm crew, Cochise and scores of his band broke into the valley with yells, killed 
three herders and drove $4,000 worth of horses and cattle into the nearby hills. 
Hughes tells that the loss was even the greater from the fact that he had borrowed 
money with which to buy the stock, which replaced other animals stolen in previ- 
ous months. 

In the latter part of September, 1872, at the mouth of the Sonoita, near 
Calabazas, a party of twenty-two Mexicans en route from Mexico to Tucson, with 
a pack train loaded with mescal and panoche, was annihilated by an Apache 
band, which tossed the bodies into a pile, heaped brush around and then set 
the brush afire. The charred remains later were buried by Pete Kitchen. 

Maj. Samuel K. Sumner, Fifth Cavalry, for two months thereafter served as 
a guard for the lower Sonoita country, but he had been gone only a short time 
when the Apaches reappeared in greater force than ever. Hughes' partner, 
returning from Camp Crittenden, looked down upon the Hughes ranch to see 
Apaches in every direction. Wild with the thought that his wife and children 
were at the ranch house, he dashed back to the camp where Lieutenant Hall 
immediately sallied forth with twenty-five soldiers. The Apaches, seeing the 
troops, retreated into the rocks to the side of the valley, from which the small 
force of soldiery could not dislodge them. The wife and children were found 
safe within the adobe house, but three farm hands had been killed while weeding 
com. The woman had been in the cornfield, but she managed to get to the house 
and barricade the heavy doors. Within was a sick farm hand, who wanted to 
get out and try to escape in the brush, but the plucky little woman threatened 
him with death at her own hands and made him take a rifle and help her repel the 
attack that immediately was made by the Apaches. For two hours these two, 
a sick man and a woman, held at bay over 100 Apaches. 

PEBILS OF THE BOAD 

One of the worst crimes known in the deadly Davidson Canon (thirty-five 
miles southeast of Tucson) was the Curly Bill massacre, in August, 1870. Curly 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 203 

Bill, whose real name seems to have been William Venerable, had three twelve- 
mule freight teams, hauling lumber from a mill owned by E. N. Fish and 
A. Lazard of Tucson and situated in the northeastern Santa Rita Mountains. 
The lumber brought $250 a thousand in Tucson and the freight charge from the 
mill to the town was $50 a thousand. Samuel Hughes was interested in the mill 
and was the selling agent in Tucson. Curly Bill's last trip was out of Tucson 
loaded with merchandise for the Hughes and Lazard store at Camp Crittenden. 
The teams had nearly passed the canon when more than fifty Apaches, concealed 
behind rocks, opened fire, killing the team owner and his five employees. The 
dead mules and abandoned wagons were seen two days later by the mail rider, 
Corporal Black, who himself was killed two years later. Two troops of the First 
Cavalry from Crittenden, accompanied by Thomas Hughes and H. S. Stevens, 
went to the scene and found the bodies, which had been left in the **wash'' and 
had been taken downstream and buried in sand by a small cloudburst. The 
Apache party was a very large one and made a stand against its pursuers in 
Rincon Canon, delivering so hot a fire that the attack had to be abandoned after 
seven soldiers had been wounded. 

Hughes had stocked his ranch with horses and cattle repeatedly, only to have 
every animal swept away by the Apache raids. His last aflfair, April 17, 1877, 
began by the theft of twenty-five fine work horses and seven head of cattle. With 
four of his men, Hughes took the trail with the impression he was following only 
a small party. The trail led into a valley covered with tall sacaton, out of which 
arose about 100 Apaches, who opened a fierce fusillade upon the pursuers. They 
turned, only to find a score of mounted Apaches behind them. There seemed 
hope only in one direction and this was to charge through the grass, and this 
they did. When the grass was passed only Hughes remained alive, though at 
one time surrounded by Apaches, one of whom had hold of the bridle of the 
American's spirited horse. Hughes tells that the saddest part of it all was meet- 
ing on his return to the ranch the wives and children of the four murdered men. 
The bodies were taken up next day by Maj. Wm. A. Raflferty, who went to the 
scene with three troops of the Sixth Cavalry. Hughes understood that Geronimo 
was one of the leaders in this outrage. 

Second Lieut. Reid T. Steward, only about a year out of West Point, was 
killed August 27, 1872, in Davidson's Canon, not far from Camp Crittenden. 
He had left the post in command of a sergeant and ten men, escorting two army 
wagons, bound for Tucson. Disregarding the warnings of the post commander, 
Capt. W. P. Hill, Steward took Corporal Black in a buggy and drove ahead. 
The escort coming into the canon soon thereafter, found Steward's body in the 
road, the head mashed with rocks. On a hillside in full view of the road they 
saw Corporal Black tied to a dry tree being burned and tortured by the Apaches. 
The soldiers charged the Indians but were driven back, for the redskins were 
ten to one. The troops of the Fifth Cavalry were hurried to the spot and found 
Black's body, showing at least 100 wounds where firebrands had been stuck in his 
flesh before he died. He was an experienced man who had carried the mail for 
three years and had made 400 trips, but he always passed through that canon at 
night time. He was overruled by the young lieutenant when he suggested that 
there be delay till after nightfall. 

About the same time six men who had been working on a ranch were ambushed 



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204 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

at the same place. Five were killed. The sixth, knowing the Indian superstition, 
pretended to be demented and so successfully played the farce that the Indians, 
after stripping him of his clothing, let him go, for almost any of the southwestern 
Indians believe that a lunatic is under the direct protection of the gods. 

A LEGISLATUBE PLEADS FOB HELP 

In 1871 the Legislature again memorialized Congress for protection, stating 
that soon the constant decimation **will sweep from the country all traces of civil- 
ization except deserted fields and broken walls.*' It was suggested that the 
departure of the industrious ancients from the valleys they had tilled undoubt- 
edly was due to the ravages of the implacable Apache and that **our people only 
await a similar fate." The people of Arizona were recorded as attached to their 
Territory, finding in its genial climate, pastoral, agricultural and mineral 
resources all the elements necessary to make it a populous and desirable country 
in which to live, enduring their hardships with fortitude; **and though hundreds 
have fallen beneath the scalping knife and tomahawk or suffered torture at the 
burning stake, the survivors fill the broken ranks and continue the contest." It 
was alleged, apparently in all truth, that the Apaches never had been worse than 
in that period, and yet the government had just withdrawn a large part of the 
soldiery. Governor Safford added testimony that he considered no road safe, save 
along the Colorado River, that *'the Apache Indians depend principally for their 
support upon theft and robbery and do not desire, nor will they accept, any 
terms of peace until they are thoroughly subjugated by military power." 

In oflScial records are found many instances of Apache cruelty, from which 
a few are selected, of irregular dates: 

October 9, 1869, a mail coach was attacked near Dragoon Springs and the 
driver. Col. John F. Stone and an escort of four soldiers of the Twenty-first 
Infantry all were murdered. A similar crime was committed in October, 1870, 
when Charlie Shibell on the Rio Grande road to Tucson found a wrecked mail 
coach and the mutilated and scalped bodies of John Collins, William Burns and 
two soldiers. Seven men were murdered within a year at the San Pedro settle- 
ment of Tres Alamos, which had to be abandoned. There was continual report 
of mail coaches and mail riders attacked and of looted freight teams, where the 
drivers too often were not given a chance to save their lives by flight The 
Cienega stage station, east of Tucson, had to be abandoned after the Apaches had 
killed a number of men near by. 

The fertile and well-cultivated Santa Cruz Valley was being devastated by 
Apaches, despite the proximity of the friendly Papagos. Seven men were mur- 
dered within the first half of 1870 at points north of the line, including one of 
Pete Kitchen *s herders, Kitchen thus losing twelve head of oxen. Solomon 
Warner, Tucson's first American merchant, was crippled for life in an Apache 
attack January 29, 1870, while he was traveling in an ambulance. In November 
of that year it was considered something of a joke that the Apaches stole tents 
from the rear of the officers' quarters at Camp Crittenden. 

A break in the monotony of bloodshed and torture was the tale of how Santa 
Cruz Castaneda, wagon master for TuUy & Ochoa, stood oflP the Apaches on the 
Camp Grant road, in May, 1869. He and his fourteen men fought a large band 
of Apaches the whole day, from the shelter of the parked nine wagons of the train. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 205 

The wagon master had a small cannon, the first such weapon ever known to have 
been used in Arizona warfare by civilians. With this and his rifles he kept the 
Indians away till near nightfall, when the ammunition gave out. Then there 
opportunely arrived a small detachment of troops from Grant. But the best 
that could be 'done was to beat a swift retreat, leaving the wagons behind and 
the bodies of three teamsters who had fallen. In December of the next year the 
same wagon boss lost to the Indians another train, near Camp Goodwin, with the 
loss of one man killed and several wounded. 

Camp Bowie was a beleaguered fortress most of the time, according to Capt. 
R. P. Bernard, First Cavalry. The government herds were stolen near the post, 
a man was shot as he stepped from his doorsill, wagon trains were attacked 
within rifle shot of the camp and mail riders and stage passengers killed within 
a few miles. 

It was charged at the time that the Indian bands that did this deviltry all 
were from a government reservation and that they were armed with guns and 
furnished with ammunition through military sources. On this basis damages 
later were sought from the United States government. In 1910 pending before 
the Board of Claims in Washington were Apache depredation accounts amount- 
ing to at least $1,000,000, most of them presented by residents of Tucson. 



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CHAPTER XVI 
RETALIATION AND CONCILIATION 

Camp Grant Massacre — Vincent Colyer, Attorney for the Apaches — General Hoi»ard*s 
Effective Service — Cochise Surrenders — His Death — Indians Herded upon Reserva- 
tions. 

In 1870 several bands of Apaches were herded together near Old Camp Grant 
at the junction of the San Pedro and Aravaipa Creek. They appear to have 
had only scant supervision and soon were raiding the settlements to the south- 
ward, murdering ranchers and travelers along the San Pedro and Santa Cruz 
Rivers and extending their outrages into the very suburbs of Tucson. Public 
meetings were held at Tucson and protests were sent to the military authorities 
and to the agent at Camp Grant, Royal E. Whitman, a lieutenant of the Third 
Cavalry. Whitman denied that he had lost a single Indian and had his records 
to prove that every last one of them at all times had been drawing rations. 
Seeing that no help could be secured from the agent, a committee was appointed, 
including W. S. Oury, Sidney R. DeLong and several others, to visit G^n. George 
Stoneman, at that time in command of the military department. He was in 
camp on the Gila near Florence. The committee got scant comfort from the 
General, who in sorrow told them that he had only a few men and could by no 
means cover the entire Territory. Receiving only a suggestion that Tucson 
might protect itself, the committee returned. At a meeting held a few days 
thereafter the citizens agreed that the recommendation would be accepted and 
that they would protect themselves to the best of their ability and in any manner 
they saw fit. Already there had been organized a military company, of which 
Oury, a valiant leader of the past, had been elected captain. It embraced eighty- 
two Americans and an indeterminate number of Mexicans. 

Only a short time after the consultation with Stoneman, twenty-five Apaches, 
early in 1871, raided the settlement at San Xavier, murdering a mail carrier 
and driving off cattle and horses. A party from Tucson joined another from 
San Xavier and overtook the Indian rear guard, killing one Indian and recov- 
ering a quantity of horses and cattle. On the return to Tucson, Oury had a long 
conference with one of the pursuers, Jesus M. Elias, a prominent Spanish- 
speaking citizen, who furnished absolutely satisfactory evidence that the raiders 
had been Camp Grant Indians. The Indian killed was positively identified as 
from Camp Grant, where he had often been seen. Elias referred to the inef- 
fective manner in which Tucson had carried on its Indian campaigns theretofore 
and to the repeated beatings of the war drums that at last had been treated as 
was the cry of *'wolf." He said: "You are well aware that there are wealthy 
men in this community whose interest it is to have the Indians at Camp Grant 

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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 207 

left undisturbed and who would at the first intimation of an intent to inquire 
seriously into their operations appeal to the military and frustrate all our plans 
and hopea" 

It was Elias who laid out a plan of campaign, as ehronieled'by Oury : 

You and I wiU go first to San Xavier, see Francisco, the head of the Papagos there, 
have him send runners to the various Papago viUnges notifying them that on the 28th day 
of April we want them to be at San Xavier early in the morning, with aU the force they can 
muster for a campaign against our common enemy, the Apache, Francisco to be prepared to 
give them a good breakfast on their arrival and send a messenger to me at once; this matter 
being satisfactorily arranged we return to Tucson. I will see aU the Mexicans who may desire 
to participate in the campaign and have them all ready to move on the day fixed, April 28th, 
news of the arrival of the Papagos at San Xavier having first been received. All who are 
to be active participants in the campaign shaU leave town quietly and singly to avoid giving 
alarm, and rendezvous on the Billito, where the Papagos will be advised to meet us, and 
where, as per arrangement, the arms, anmiunition and provisions wiU be delivered and dis- 
tributed. AU hands having arrived at the rendezvous, the command shall be fully organized 
by the election of a commander, whom aU should be pledged to obey implicitly. When thus 
organized the command shaU march up the Billito until the trail of the Indians who have 
committed the recent depredation at San Xavier shaU be struck, which wiU be followed wher- 
ever it may lead and all Indians found on it killed if possible. Here, then, you have the 
whole plan of the Camp Grant campaign, as proposed by Mr. Elias and concurred in by 
myself. , 

For its successful fulfillment we both went to work with aU our hearts — he with his 
countrymen (the Mexicans), I with mine (the Americans), and both together with our 
auxUiaries, the Papagos. Early on the morning of April 28, 1871, we received the welcome 
news of the arrival of the Papagos at San Xavier, and that after a short rest and feed they 
would march to the general rendezvous on the Rillito. Soon after Mr. Elias informed me 
that the Mexican contingent was quietly and singly leaving town for the same destination, 
and soon after, having given proper directions to the extremely smaU contingent of my own 
countrymen, I silently and alone took up the line of march to the common rendezvous. By 
3 P. M. aU the command had arrived; also that which was stiU more essential to the success- 
ful issue of the campaign, to- wit: the wagon with the arms, ammunition and rations, thanks 
to our old companion, the adjutant-general of the territory, whose name it might not be 
discreet to give in this connection, but is weU known to almost every member of the Society 
of Arizona Pioneers. As soon as I was convinced that no further increase was to be expected, 
I proceeded to take account of stock, with the foUowing result: Papagos, 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 
different members of the party upon the motley appearance of the troop, and your narrator 
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 the show-up is exceedingly thin'' — ^which, in face of the fact that so many Ameri- 
cans had so solenmly pledged themselves to be ready at any moment for the campaign, and 
only six showed up, was, to say the least, rather humiliating. However, everything was 
taken pleasantly. 

Jesus M. Elias was elected commander of the expedition, and at 4 P. M. the command 
was in the saddle ready for the march. Just here it appeared to me that we had neglecteil 
a very important precautionary measure, and I penciled the following note to H. S. Stevens, 
Esq., Tucson: "Send a party to Gafiada del Oro, on the main road from Tucson to Camp 
Grant, with orders to stop any and aU persons going toward Camp Grant, until 7 o'clock 
A. M. of April 30, 1871.'' 

This note I gave to the teamster, who had not yet left our camp, who delivered it 
promptly, and it was promptly attended to by Mr. Stevens. But for this caution our cam- 
paign would have resulted in complete failure, from the fact that the absence of so many 
people from so smaU a population as Tucson then contained, was noted by a person of large 
influence in the community, and at whose earnest demand the military commander sent an 



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208 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

express of two soldiers, with dispatches to Gamp Grant, who were quietly detained at Canada 
del Oro, and did not reach that post until it was too late to harm us. After writing and dis- 
patching the ^ote above referred to, the order ' ' Forward ! ' ' was given, and the command 
moved gaily and confidently on its mission. About 6.30 P. M. the trail was struck which we 
proposed to follow, and the march continued through the Cebadilla Pass to the point where 
the San Xavier party had killed the Indian referred to, when the order to camp was ^ven, 
as it was about midnight, the moon going down and the trail could not well be followed in 
the dark. 

Just at daybreak of the morning of the 29th we marched into the San Pedro bottom, 
where our commander determined to remain until nightfall, lest our command should be dis- 
covered by roving Indians and the 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 wer^, 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 guesswork 
about their position, and 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 miscalculation, and instead of its being about sixteen miles, as estimated, it was nearly 
thirty, so that after a continuous march through the whole night it was near daybreak before 
we reached the Aravaipa Cafion, so that when we did reach it, there was no time left to make 
the proposed reconnoissance, 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 
the Aravaipa Cafion, somewhere above the post, but the exact distance nobody knew. We 
were in a critical condition. We were in sight of the post, day was approaching, and it was 
plain that in a very short time we would be discovered either by the Indians or the people 
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 command in two wings, the one to comprise the 
Papagos, 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 Papagos had all the time been afraid of military interference 
with us. I had assured them that no such thing would occur, and vouched for it. It hap- 
pened 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, got behind the troop. 
The Papagos, 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 wave of my hand — ^without a word 
spoken — the Papagos bounded forward like deer, and the skirmish began — and a better- 
executed one I never witnessed, even from veteran soldiers. There was not a break in either 
line from beginning to the end of the affair, which covered a distance of four miles before 
the Indians were struck. They were completely surprised, and sleeping in absolute security 
in their wickiups, with only a buck and squaw as lookout on the 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 Papagos attacked them in their wickiups with clubs and guns, and all 
who escaped then took to the bluffs and were attacked by the other wing, which occupied a 
position above them. The attack was so swift and fierce that within a half -hour the whole 
work was ended — and not an adult Indian left to tell the tale. Some twenty-eight or thirty 
small papooses were spared and brought to Tucson as captives. Not a single man of our 
command was seriously hurt to mar the full measure of our triumph, and at 8 o'clock on 
the bright morning of April 30, 1871, our tired troops were resting and breakfasting on the 
San Pedro a few miles above the post, in the full satisfaction of a work well done. 

Here I might lay down my pen and rest, but believing that in order to fully vindicate 



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ARIZONA— THE YOXJNGEST STATE 209 

those who were actors in this drama, and those who were aiders and abettors, I crave your 
indulgence while I give 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 of 1871, tfiese Indians had held 
a carnival of murder and plunder in all our settlements, until our people were 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, his wife, Sanders, and an innumer- 
able host, slept the sleep that knows no waking. On the Sonoita, the gallant Penningtons, 
Jackson Carroll, Botherwell, and others, slain, and Osborpe, our secretary, seriously wounded, 
without a chance of defense. In the vicinity of Tucson, mail drivers and riders, and almost 
all whom temerity or necessity caused to leave the protection of our adobe walls, piteously 
slaughtered, makes the array truly appalling. Add to this the fact that the remaining settlers 
on the San Pedro, not knowing who the next victims might be, had at last resolved to abandon 
their crops in the fields and fiy with their wives and little ones to Tucson for safety, and 
the picture of misery is complete up to that memorable and glorious morning of April 30, 
1871, when swift punishment was dealt out to these red-handed butchers, and they were 
wiped from the face of the earth. . 

Behold now the happy results immediately following that episode! The farmers of 
San Pedro return with their wives and babes to gather their abandoned crops. On the 
Sonoita, Santa Cruz and all other settlements of Southern Arizona, new life springs up, con- 
fidence 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. 

In view of all these facts, I call on aU Arizonans to answer on their conscience : Can you 
call the killing of the Apaches at Camp Grant on the morning of the 30th of April, 1871, a 
massacre f 

PROOF OF THE INDIANS' GUILT ' 

Oury's story is unduly modest on one point, according to another narrator 
of the period, Theodore Jones, a clerk for E. N. Pish & Co. of Tucson. According 
to Jones, Oury really was the leader of the party. Jones' story differs somewhat 
in detail from that of Oury, giving a more extensive account of the circumstances 
that finally roused the settlers to take personal action against the redskins. The 
crowning Indian atrocity was the murder of Lester B. Wooster and wife at their 
little home on the Santa Cruz River above Tubac. Wooster had been a clerk 
for E. N. Fish & Co. and by the firm had been backed in his agricultural experi- 
m-ent. The news of the Wooster killing was brought to Tucson by one of 
Wooster 's farm hands. Jones, Bill Morgan and a squad of eleven soldiers 
started at once for the ranch. There, Jones wrote, a sad sight met their eyes. 

Poor Wooster and his wife were lying out in front of what was their home, just a few 
feet from the front door, both in pools of blood and evidently dead some hours when we 
arrived. The Indians had laid waste the entire place. The furniture was broken into thou- 
sands of pieces and was scattered everywhere. They had ripped the flour sacks open, letting 
the flour run out on the floor of the shack, which was a one-story 'dobe affair. The Mexican 
who brought the news of the murder to Tucson had been plowing out in the field with another 
Mexican when the attack took place, which happened in the morning shortly after sunrise. 
When the Indians first appeared the Mexicans had cut the traces from the plows and had 
ridden the horses off, thereby making their escape. 

If there had been any doubt before the massacre of the guilt of the Apaches of Wooster 's 
death it was dispelled when some of the party found the watch case of Wooster, with the 
works taken out, strung around the neck of one of the squaws, while the works, along with 
a pair of sleeve buttons, a gift of the writer to Wooster, were hung on a string around the 
neck of one of the little papooses with which to amuse himself. It was the finding of these 
articles in the possession of the Indians that made the massacre such a thorough one. On 
sight of this watch there was no holding the friends of Wooster. 



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210 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE ' 

On the homeward journey were encountered and killed a couple of Apaches 
who had a couple of mules and a pony belonging to Leopoldo Carillo, a Mexican 
who lived on the outskirts of Tucson. A messenger from Colonel Dunn, who had 
started for Grant, was met on the return, his mule broken down and the soldier 
sitting resignedly on the side of the road. 

AN INSIDE VIEW OF OLD CAMP GRANT 

The story of the citizens of Tucson naturally shows only one phase and the 
disinterested reader naturally asks for review of the case from another angle. 
Providing this, the Editor considers himself very fortunate in securing a report 
of the situation at Old Camp Grant at the time of the massacre, written by 
^liles L. Wood, who there lived at the time and who still is a resident, in honored 
old age, of Bonita, in the upper Sulphur Springs Valley, a short distance from 
the Camp Grant of later days. The story of the bloody episode best is told by 
Mr. Wood himself in a letter lately written to the Editor. Given simply and 
clearly, it follows : 

In October, 1869, the Third Cavalry from old Camp Grant in a scrap with the Indians 
(Pinaleno Apaches) captured two young squaws and brought them to the post. They were 
locked up at night and turned loose in the daytime but not allowed to get out of sight. This 
went on until the summer of 1870. The commanding oflScer, Capt. Frank Stan wood, wanted 
them run out of camp, but the quartermaster, Lieut. Boyal E. Whitman, objected. A Mexi- 
can employed in the pack train had been captured when a small boy in Sonora by the Apaches 
and had lived many years among them. Lieutenant Whitman used this man as interpreter 
and talked many hours with the squaws. Finally, in the summer or fall of 1870, one of 
the squaws was sent out to the mountains, with instructions to bring in some of the bucks for 
a talk. The squaw returned with one buck, Es-kini-en-zin (usually called Eskiminzin), chief 
of the Pinalefio Apaches. He stayed two days, was well fed, had a long pow-wow with 
Lieutenant Whitman and left. Es-kini-en-zin returned the next day with ^'^^ others. A treaty 
was made and they were filled up with plenty to eat and given presents. From that time the 
Indians came in, a few at a time, until nearly two thousand were there under the military 
authorities. I was running the beef contract at that time and, as each Indian aged from one 
day up drew 1% pounds of beef daily and there were four companies of soldiers to supply, 
it took an average of 250 head of cattle per month to be killed and cut up by me. 

The Indians were under the impression that they had made the treaty with Camp Grant 
and no one else outside, so when they got their rations, every five days, they could go out 
and rob and kill ranchers and capture wagon trains and then hurry back to the protection of 
Camp Grant, as was promised them. Chief Es-kini-en-zin came in at one time with a bullet 
hole through the fleshy part of his leg. He showed the wound to me and said that he had a 
party of Indians and that they saw six canvas-covered wagons coming through the Cienega, 
near where Pantano is now. They lay in wait, expecting to make a big haul, as there was 
no escort along. They killed the driver of the lead wagon and then found the wagons were 
loaded with a company of infantry going to Camp Bowie. The soldiers rolled out of the 
wagons and killed thirteen before the Indians could get away. Es-kini-en-zin got the hole 
through his leg there. 

This kept up until the beginning of 1871. In March, I believe, Captain Stanwood was 
in Tucson. While there he found out that there was a movement on foot to punish the 
Indians. He rode to Camp Grant and ordered out all the cavalry stationed there on a scout 
and led them himself, leaving only twenty infantry soldiers in the camp to watch over 2,000 
Indians. 

The Indians had their rancheria on the Aravaipa, about 1% miles from the post. The 
party from Tucson came by the Cafion del Oro, crossed the San Pedro three miles above 
Camp Grant and attacked the Indians at the break of day, on the side next to the post. As 
the Indians were prevented from running to the post for protection, they ran for the moun- 
tains, followed for several miles by the Papago Indians, who killed all they could catch. I 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 211 

do not know how many were killed. I counted 138 around the rancheria. The Papagos also 
carried away a number of small children with them when they returned to Tucson. Nearly 
all that I saw dead were women and children. I also saw the bodies of a number of old 
bucks. Es-kini-en-zin lost four wives and five children, but as he had nine wives he had 
enough left. 

The next day Lieutenant Whitman put up a pole on the hay stack with a white bed sheet 
attached, to try and get the Indians to come back. They commenced to come in and in a 
few days were back again (except those killed). The lieutenant explained to them that the 
people of Tucson came as a surprise, that he would have protected them if he had known 
and asked the Indians to keep a lookout from a high peak so as not to be caught again. 
This the Apaches did. 

Less than a month after this, the Indians reported a large party coming. All the Indians 
gathered near the post and a detachment of soldiers was sent out to stop the invaders in 
the canon facing the post, on the south toward Tucson. Charlie Brown, proprietor of the- 
famous old Congress Hall in Tucson, was the leader of the bunch. He was allowed to come 
into Camp Grant. There he told Captain Nelson, Twenty-first Infantry, who was then com- 
manding officer, that his party must come to the river to get water. Captain Nelson refused 
but ordered out a large tank wagon, with eight mules, to haul a load of water out to the 
men, about 2% miles up the canon. Brown said he would go back and find out what the 
men said and return and report. He came back in the evening and said his party had con- 
cluded to return to Tucson. He complained that Captain Nelson had placed a cannon on the 
point of the hill, facing the canon and said that if the men had the sand he would lead them 
in and take **your little old post." 

The Indians were still sulky. A few days later I saw a bunch of Indians coming to my 
place painted and armed. I lived below the hill, out of sight of the camp. I felt they meant 
mischief. I got my man. We got in the back of the room facing the door, laid our cartridges 
on the floor and with gims in our hands waited for them. They looked in and then left, 
went down the river, where a man named McKenzie had a small patch of com and killed 
him. A lot of them left then but soon came back. 

Several months after this, I moved my slaughtering outfit up the river to where the main 
body of the Indians lived, so as to be handy to issue beef to them. I hauled a load every 
morning to Camp Grant for the troops. One morning an Indian, a petty chief called Chuntz 
(who later murdered Lieutenant Almy), came to my camp (I had nothing but a brush shed, 
open all around), as I was saddling up my horse to go to look for another horse that had 
strayed. He said he knew where the horse was and tried to get on my horse behind me. I 
gave him a hard push and he fell on his back and I rode away. 

A pack train of forty mules owned by Hank and Yank (Hank Hewett and Yank Bart- 
lett) was used to transport supplies on the different scouting parties. This day Hank came 
to me and said he had a boy 13 years old, named Hughes, out on a visit. The pack 
train had to go up the Aravaipa forty miles, with supplies for a detachment of cavalry 
stationed where Dunlap ^s ranch now is. The boy was not able to stand the trip and he asked 
me to look after him until he came back. The next morning Chuntz and two other Indians 
came into my camp and sat down before the fire. I paid no attention to them. I told a man 
named Wright to go and repair the brush corral and told the boy to cut some meat for 
dinner and that I would be back in half an hour. I was not gone more than that time. 
When I returned, I found that the Indians had killed the boy with an axe and thrown him 
on my bed. Wright saw the killing from the corral and hid himself in the brush. I sent him 
to Camp Grant to report and he came back with a company of cavalry. The officer in com- 
mand said he would surely catch the Indians that had killed the boy. The soldiers were 
gone three days and came back and reported that they had lost the trail, but I saw the 
Indians the next day after the soldiers went out. 

When Vincent Collier and Gen. O. O. Howard came to investigate the *' massacre '' by 
the Tucson people, all the Apaches were gathered under the Cottonwood trees in the river 
bottom, also a delegation from Tucson, with Sam Hughes as leader. None of the crowd that 
did the killing were there, as the Indians might have known some of them. At the big talk 
I remember Vincent Collier telling the Indians how wrong it was to rob the white men and 
that God was looking and would be angry and he asked, * * Why do you rob the white man f ' ' 



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212 ' ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Old Captain Chiquito, chief of the Aravaipas, said^v^'It seems to me that God gave every- 
thing to the white man and nothing to the Indian and so you must expect the Indian to help 
himself to what he needed." About January, 1872, the Indians were moved to San Carlos. 

Naturally, this resort to Indian methods on the part of the whites was 
viewed in the East with horror and President Grant threatened to place the 
Territory under martial law if something were not done by the civil authorities. 
So Oury and ninety-eight others were arrested by the federal authorities and 
charged with murder. The case, tried by Judge Titus, was one of considerable 
profit to the young District Attorney, who by law was given a fee of $25 for 
each indictment, but practically nothing, of course, could be done with the 
matter in a community such as Tucson, wherein all the sympathy was with the 
raiders. Acquittal was announced by the jury after twenty minutes' consulta- 
tion. Among other Americans who **may" have been with the party, have been 
named Sidney R. DeLong, Chaa P. Etchells and D. A. Bennett. 

AN EABLT APOSTLE OF PEACE 

Generals Mason, and Stoneman had led in the idea that it was cheaper and 
more effective toward lasting peace to feed the Indians than to fight them and 
that some substitute must be provided the hillmen for the chase and pillage 
by which their tribes from time immemorial had maintained existence. With 
this policy, however, began a ** carpetbag'' era, with crooked Indian agents 
stealing the supplies that had been issued for Indian benefit and with large 
mercantile firms conniving. It is not to be denied that a time of vigorous war- 
fare against the mountain Indians was a time of prosperity for the army con- 
tractor, generally a man of considerable capital, who could secure undue profit 
by nominal observance of the strict rules of the army supply divisions. There 
were several periods in the history of Arizona when the mining industry had a 
close second in that which concerned the furnishing of supplies to troops in the 
field and to Indian reservations. 

It now seems apparent that one of two things should have been done to the 
hostile Indians at the very inception of trouble after the American occupation. 
They should have been killed generally as criminals, or, better and more eco- 
nomical in the end, they should have been transported to another locality, such 
as Indian Territory, there to be cared for and guarded and instructed in the 
arts of the husbandman till they had^ attained an approach to civilization. It 
was futile to expect them to change their habits and instincts while leaving them 
in the land they knew so well, where no opportunity offered for any beneficial 
industry. 

In 1871, there appeared to be a general impression **back East" that the 
white people of Arizona were trying to exterminate the Indians in order to 
acquire their lands. It was appreciated in the War and Interior Departments 
that official action should be taken toward segregating the Indians. So one of 
the first results of the Fort Grant massacre was the sending to Arizona of two 
''peace commissioners." The first of these was Vincent Colyer, a prominent 
member of the Church of Friends. He bore credentials directing all military 
officers and Indian authorities to give assistance in provisions, transportation 
and military protection. At the time, Colyer was a member and secret€try of the 
Board of Indian Commissioners, within the division of the Secretary of the 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 213 

Interior. His detail to the work of conciliation in the Southwest was at the 
direct order of the President, whom he saw at Long Branch, New Jersey, July 
13. He was given the fullest of powers, even above the military, with an espe- 
cial view toward gathering the Indians upon reservations where rations could 
be issued and where they might have defined rights against the whites. 

Colyer, representing not only the Quakers, but the whole religious element 
that sought the spiritual regeneration of Poor Lo, was a prejudiced observer, 
whose only experience with Arizona Indians theretofore had been a visit to 
the Moquis in 1869. His report reflected his attitude of mind, for throughout 
he praised the Apaches as long-suflfering under the cruelties of the whites and 
of Indians generally recognized in the Southwest as peaceful. He repeated the 
old legend that the Apaches had been friendly with the Americans till driven 
to war. He denounced as reprehensible Crook's plan of employing Apaches to 
fight Apaches and succeeded for a time in securing a reversal of this practice. 
He told of experiences in the heart of the Apache country, where he had a guard 
of only fifteen men and where, though Indians surrounded them continually, 
**not an animal was disturbed nor an article stolen.'' He referred to vitupera- 
tion and abuse by the press of Arizona and California, whom he seemed to think 
represented an ungodly and unregenerate people, rather inferior to the Indians 
themselves, and repeated the list of alleged white aggressions, including the old 
Johnson story, the killing of Mangas Coloradas, the capture of Cochise and 
King Woolsey's Pinole Treaty, but put small stress upon the tales which he 
must have heard of the murder and torture of thousands of beings of his own 
color. 

The Commissioner entered Arizona from the northeast, after having briefly 
investigated Indian. affairs in New Mexico. From Camp Apache southward, he 
expressed pleasure at the general attitude of good will expressed by the Indians 
whom he met on the way to Camp Grant, which he reached September 13, 1871. 
There he found fresh tribulation awaiting the poor Indian in the promised 
advent of a couple of hundted armed white citizens from Tucson (the Brown 
party), already within twelve miles of the reservation and expected on the 
morrow. At the same time, he was informed that Governor Safford and a party 
of 300 citizens (the Miner expedition), who had recently passed through the 
reservation, were expected on the return homeward the next day, where it was 
indicated that the two parties proposed to join and exterminate the last vestiges 
of the Aravaipa Apaches. Capt. William Nelson sent Lieutenant Whitman to 
meet the party from Tucson and informed its leaders that he was prepared to 
enforce his order forbidding approach within ten miles of the post and would 
open fire upon them with his cannon on their appearance at the mouth of the 
canon opposite the post. According to Colyer, * ' They left with the declaration 
that they could use a white flag as well as we* and that if that would bring the 
Indians they would bring them in and put them on a reservation where it would 
not cost much to feed them." Nothing more was said of the promised raid of 
(Governor Safford 's party. Colyer visited the scene of the massacre, where he 
found some of the bones uncovered by rains and where he was joined by 
Eskiminzin, whose gentle nature had been overpowered by emotion and who was 
found wiping tears from his eyes. The Commissioner, on th^ evidence of Lieu- 
tenant Whitman, took early opportunity of denying that any Indians had left 



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214 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

the reservation on raiding parties, as alleged by the citizens. One of the wit- 
nesses in his investigation was none other than ^liles L. Wood, whose opinions 
concerning the Indians appear to have been suppressed in the transcript of his 
testimony. 

DEFENSE OF THE GENTLE APACHE 

Colyer wrote that his impression thdt his peace policy toward the Indian 
was unpopular, gained from reading the newspapers in Tucson and Prescott, 
was in error, ss he later was told that *' these papers only reflect the opinions 
of the traders, army contractors, barroom and gambling saloon proprietors of 
these two towns, who prospered during the war; that the hardy frontiersman, 
the miner and poor laboring man of the border pray for peace, and I believe it." 

The (Commissioner was at Port McDowell September 23, there welcomed by 
Maj. N. A. M. Dudley, who sent out runners to make smokes and to bring in the 
Tontos. 

Leaving word that a peace talk should be held with the Tontos, Colyer pro- 
ceeded to Camp Verde, where he met the Mojave Apaches, and made arrange- 
ments for the distribution of additional Indian supplies. At Verde, as usual, 
he found the white men all in the wrong, in that they were occupying land that 
the Indians claimed. The Indians there also were eager for food and raiment 
and later came in to the number of 580. At Whipple, through General Crook, 
arrangements were made for a temporary reservation for the Hualpais around 
Beal Springs, and for a temporary reservation for the Date Creek Indians and 
their feeding at Camp Date Creek until the spring. He was invited to address 
a public meeting at Prescott, where he was assured by several gentlemen that 
he would be protected with rifles and revolvers. This oflfer was declined with 
thanks, after he had read to one of the committer of invitation. Editor Merriam 
(undoubtedly John Marion), extracts from his editorials wherein Colyer was 
called ''a cold-blooded scoundrel and red-handed assassin'' and advice was given 
to the populace, **in justice to our murdered dead to dump the old devil into 
the shaft of some mine and pile rocks upon him until he is dead." On the way 
out of the Territory, he found an instance in Kirkland Valley of the killing of 
a peaceful Indian by a white man who wanted the Indian's rifle and of the 
shooting of a nimiber of peaceful Apache-Mojave Indians of a band of twenty by 
three white settlers. He found a settlement of starving Indians at Cullings' 
Well, on the desert west of Wickenburg, but on the Colorado River noted that 
the Indians of that agency were prospering. 

On the whole, it is possible that Colyer 's work, however prejudiced his opin- 
ions and however erroneous his statement of facts, was for the betterment of the 
Indian situation, as speeding the day when the Apaches could be taken from 
the hills and placed in at least nominal confinement on reservations. 

The reservations selected by Colyer were, at Camp Apache for the Coyoteros, 
at Camp Grant for the Aravaipas and Finals, at McDowell for the Tontos, at 
Camp Verde and Date Creek for the Mojave Apaches, and at Beal Springs for 
the Hualpais. 

Capt. Wm. Nelson's action in warning all armed bodies of citizens from 
approaching within ten miles of Fort Grant was revoked by General Crook as 
unwarrantable, and the Captain was warned thereafter to govern himself by 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 215 

the customs of the military service and not to unnecessarily provoke hostility 
of the citizens toward the military and the Indians under their protection. 

General Sherman, commanding the army, November 9, 1871, published an 
order in which the ranking oflScer at, the post nearest each of the newly-estab- 
lished reservations was made Indian agent. The citizens of Arizona in the same 
order were warned not to invade the reservations except under regular military 
authority. General Schofield, commanding the Pacific Division, thereafter ordered 
the enrollment of all adult male Indians and prohibited trade with them for 
arms, ammunition or whiskey. The cost was defrayed by an appropriation of 
$70,000 that had been made by Congress the previous winter. 

THE ONE-ABMED CHRISTIAN 80IJ>IEB 

President Grant had a most commendable idea that the grace of God might 
have some influence upon the savage breast. Accordingly he distributed the 
management of the several Indian reservations among the several Christian 
denominations and took pious counsel in regard to the disposition and treatment 
of the aborigines. Naturally, under such changed conditions, there was con- 
sideration of Maj.-Gen. 0. 0. Howard, the Christian soldier of the army, valiant 
in faith, his valor in the field of war proven by his empty right sleeve. So 
^ Howard was called in to be placed at the head of a new Bureau of Indian and 
Preedmen Management. One of the tasks placed upon him was settlement of 
the southwestern Indian troubles. In March, 1872, he arrived in Yuma, having 
come by the water route from San Francisco, and proceeded thence into central 
Arizona, assisted by Rev. C. H. Cook, the noted Pima missionary, holding peace 
talks with all the Indian tribes he could. He traveled over most of the Terri- 
tory's area and gathered seven Indians of high tribal standing, from bands of 
the Pima, Papago, and Apache, and took them back to Washington, with the 
idea that a sight of the white man's civilization would paralyze all subsequent 
opposition to the white man 's will. No such result seems to have been reached. 
Upon this trip, in May, the General held an important conference at Old Camp 
Grant, whereat were gathered the Indians of the Eskirainzin band, as well as a 
number of Tucson Mexicans, brought with Apache children they had adopted, 
after the killing of the parents at Camp Grant massacre. These children he 
restored to their tribal relatives and his action was sustained by the President. 
Throughout, General Howard mixed his sympathy with common sense. 

Commissioner Colyer in August, 1871, tried to get into communieation with 
Cochise, who had expressed willingness to make a treaty, but Colyer 's ambassa- 
dor, a New Mexican named Trujillo, returned to Canada Alamosa telling that 
he had met General Crook upon the trail and had been ordered back. Crook 
disdainfully saying that no Indian agents had authority to send parties to 
Arizona and that the messenger and his party, which embraced Chief Loco, 
would be lucky to get back with their lives. 

HOWARD'S PEACE TBEATY WITH OOOHISE 

When General Howard returned to the Southwest in the summer of 1872, 
bringing back his seven Indian chieftains, each with a bible, a bronze medal 
and a uniform, he determined to have an interview with Cochise, the guiding 
force of the murderous bands of Chiricahuas. In his quest good fortune finally 



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216 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

came in an incidental meeting with Capt. Thos. J. Jeffords, known as **Red 
Beard" by the Apaches and by them considered a friend. It was told that 
Jeffords had on one occasion been spared, while his companion passengers in a 
stage coach were slain by ambushing Chiricahnas. There were charges made 
that he had gained his influence with the Indians by trading them arms and 
ammunition. But he was found even eager to promote the cause of peace and 
so, on September 20, 1872, accompanied by Chief Ponce and by a son of Mangas, 
he led the General and his aide, Capt. J. A. Sladen, westward from the Rio 
Grande, on a hunt for * ' Shi-ca-she, " as the chieftain was said to have been 
known among his people. The trail, across the Chiricahua mountains and the 
San Simon desert valley, ended in the Dragoon mountains, at Cochise Strong- 
hold, a rocky fortress, where a dozen might defy an army. A dozen sub-chiefs 
were brought in, from the warpath, by smoke signs and runners, and in the 
meanwhile the soldiers slept calmly in the camp of the most murderous redskins 
ever known on a blood-stained frontier. There was a grand peace talk, whereat 
again was aired the unfortunate Slocum episode, but finally there was agree- 
ment that the Indians should be rationed and be given a reservation in their 
own Chiricahua region. Cochise rejected the suggestion of a reserve on the 
Rio Grande and stated his preference for a home near Apache Pass, where he 
could ** protect the road'* he himself had made a shambles. So headquarters 
were established at Sulphur Springs, with Jeffords as agent, and Howard placed 
a stone on the mesa, telling the redskins the peace would last as long as the stone 
endured. Some one later must have removed the rock. 

THE OHntlCAHUA BE8EBVATI0N 

The Chiricahua reservation officially was established October 13, 1872, and 
soon was tenanted by a thousand Indians, who, in scattered bands, had been 
devastating a district that stretched at least 100 miles parallel to the international 
boundary. 

An entertaining bit of history is that after General Howard had departed, 
Chief Cochise sent runners to the Janos Indians of Chihuahua to the effect that 
peace had been established with the Americans, who had agreed henceforth to 
provide food for the Apache people. The Janos needed no urging, but forthwith 
came in strength to dip into the flesh pots of the Philistines. They were received 
and were put on the ration roll, though it is appreciated that they should be 
considered interlopers. Their advent particularly was important in the fact 
that though the band was led by Juh, a sub-chief was none other than Geronimo, 
who then made his advent in the land that thereafter was to hear so much of 
him. The band thenceforth seemed to have been accepted as a part of the 
Chiricahuas. 

Hunter told a story of the Butterfield Route in 1867, how the keeper of the 
Apache Pass station, a young man only remembered as **John," fought a duel 
with an Apache warrior whom he had kicked out of his cabin for stealing grain. 
The encounter was arranged by none other than Cochise, John being placed in 
his own doorway. The Indian missed the top of the white man's head by half 
an inch, but John's bullet passed through the redskin's heart. Cochise ran 
forward, to shake John by the hand and to tell him he was a brave man. 
Thereafter the incident was a closed one, with no resentment on either side. 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 217 

Jeflfords' assistant was Fred G. Hughes, one of the most notable of Arizona 
pioneers. The reserve, selected by the Indians themselves, was far from satis- 
factory. A major objection was that it offered too easy access to Mexico, into 
which marauding bands continued slipping. 

Also there was much internal trouble. April 6, 1876, one of the leaders, 
Pionsenay, killed two Americans, Rodgers and Spence, who had a wayside grog- 
gery at Sulphur Spring and who had sold the Indians liquor. Pionsenay later 
was surrendered by Agent Clum to the civil authorities at Tucson, but escaped. 
Taza, son of Cochise and his successor in office, later wounded Pionsenay and a 
younger son of Cochise killed Skinya, who was the chief trouble breeder on the 
reservation. Then it was that the Indians, against their protests, were moved 
to the White Mountain reservation. 

Geronimo, with a small number of the Janos, refused to be transferred to 
San Carlos and fled to take refuge with the Ojos Calientes, in New Mexico, with 
Victorio. He and Victorious band were herded to San Carlos in June, 1877. 

Cochise was succeeded by Taza, who died of pneumonia in 1878 while east, 
taken by Agent Clmn to Washington with twenty-three others, that there might 
be exhibited the multitude of white men. He in turn was succeeded by Nachis, 
the second son of Cochise, though the tribe for a while seemed to accept the 
leadership of the newcomer, Juh. Taza is said to have been of decent sort, with 
good command over his tribe. 

DEATH OF 0O0HI8E 

It is probable that affairs on the reservation would have gone more smoothly 
had Cochise lived longer. His death, of malarial fever, occurred June 8, 1874. 
His remains lie in a cave in the rocky hill, still known as ** Cochise Stronghold." 
It is told that no Indian will venture into the locality, for they have a story that 
the spirit of the famous chieftain guards his bones against possible profanation. 
Cochise himself had a strong share of the superstition so common to his tribe. 
As he lay dying, knowing that his end was near, an American in the camp 
casually walked between the chief and the camp fire, something of grave and 
disastrous omen. So, almost with his last breath, the chief sent a request that 
the American pass back by the same route. This was done in all good nature, 
and it is assumed that the curse thereby was taken off. The name given him by 
the whites was only a perversion of his Apache name, which was Chies, an Indian 
word meaning *'wood." The same derivation can be seen in the name of hi& 
son, Nachis or Nachies. 

The only white man who possessed the secret of the burial place of Cochise 
was his ** blood-brother," Jeffords, and it passed with him when he died at, his 
home at Owl's Head, near Tucson, in February, 1914. Jeffords had been one 
of the most noted of Arizona pioneers. After experience as pilot on the Missis 
sippi, he came to the Southwest in 1859 as a military scout, serving with General 
Canby's command in New Mexico during a large part of the Civil War. There- 
after he became an Indian trader and gained a deep insight into Indian customs. 
Throughout he was able to retain the confidence of the Apaches. 



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CHAPTER XVII 
CLOSING IN ON THE APACHE 

The Great Crook Campaign of 1872 — Loring Massacre — Date Creek Conspiracy — 
Fight of the Caves — Del Shay — King's Fight at Sunset Pass — Victorious Death. 

Gen.. George Crook, fresh from successes against the Sioux, came to Arizona 
in June, 1871, to succeed Stoneman, who may have been blamed for not keeping 
the white population better in hand. The month after Crook's arrival he was in 
the saddle, with five troops of cavalry and an odd assortment of Indian scouts, 
on a trip of about 600 miles, that led through Bowie, Apache and Verde, and that 
ended at Whipple Barracks, to which point, from Los Angeles, had been trans- 
ferred departmental headquarters. On this trip he was reached by orders that, 
for the time, prevented him from striking the hostiles, whose country he cut for 
the greater part of the distance. He talked with every Apache he could find or 
capture and spread the word that he had come to do equal and exact justice. On 
one occasion, after his escort had dwindled, as added garrisoning of the posts 
passed, there was a sharp encounter with Apaches in which the General himself 
shot an Indian of an ambushing band. It was admitted that the General was the 
most active member of the party. 

The reason why the brakes at first were put on Crook's activities in the field 
was that an attempt was to be made from Washington to soothe the savage breast 
with other music than that of the rifle. Vincent Colyer was to come and preach 
the gospel of peace. So there was a year of waiting on the part of the military, 
very much to the disgust of the citizenry, which threatened to ** break out" and 
which had to be soothed by Governor Safford. While Colyer 's assurance of 
rations may have held back some of the Indians by him visited, there are records 
for the year of at least two-score of Apache murders. Crook was not idle, how- 
ever, for he prepared for the coming struggle. He visited every post on inspec- 
tions that were not merely formal, for he saw that every soldier, horse and 
mule and every article necessary for hard campaigning in the mountains was in 
shape and ready. 

LOBINO MASaAOKE, NEAB WIOEENBUBa 

Crook soon had additional experiences very near home. Trouble had been 
brewing for some time with the rationed Date Creek Yuma- Apaches and they 
needed a salutary lesson. There had been a number of minor raids. Prospectors 
and freighters had been murdered in the lonely hills and even the outskirts of 
Wickenburg had suffered from the depredations of the desert Ishmaelites. The 
•culmination of the atrocities was what has since been known as the Loring mas- 
sacre of November 4, 1871, on the Ehrenbei^ road, nine miles west of Wickenburg. 

218 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 219 

A full coach load of people had left Wickenburg for California and, in fancied 
security, the firearms had been stowed beneath the seats. Seated with the driver 
was Fred Loring, a young scientist, lately returned from participation in the 
Whipple survey. Within the coach were five men, Salmon, Shoholm, Hammel, 
Adams and Cruger, and a Miss Sheppard. The driver had hardly given the 
alarm as the savages broke from cover at the roadside, before a volley was fired. 
The driver, Loring, Shoholm and Hammel were instantly killed. Salmon, in 
agony, jumped from the stage with a shot through the lower part of his body. 
Adams dropped to the floor, paralyzed with a bullet through his body. Cruger 
was shot twice through the body and once in the right shoulder. Miss Sheppard 
was wounded in the right arm and had two superficial wounds in the shoulder. 
She was seized by Cruger and thrust under a seat, he himself dropping by her 
side. The Indians, assuming that the slaughter was complete, came trooping up 
to the doors of the stage, when Cruger and Miss Sheppard sprang to their feet 
with presented revolvers and yelled. The Indians promptly again retreated to 
cover, when the man and woman jumped out and fled into the desert. They had 
to leave Adams to his fate, after he had muttered that he could not move. The 
fugitives were favored by an apparent exhaustion of the Indians' ammunition. 
Begaining the road, they plodded on westward with four Apaches to the right 
of them and five to the left. Their wounds were bleeding freely and they were 
almost completely exhausted when, after about five miles travel, they encountered 
a mail buckboard. The driver, seeing death for himself ahead, left the couple 
behind an improvised barricade of mail sacks and baggage, while he mounted one 
of his horses and rode for help. About midnight, succor came from Wickenburg, 
a party of twenty men, with a wagon. The bodies of the driver, Loring, Shoholm, 
Hammel and Adams were taken to Wickenburg for burial. Salmon's body not 
found till the next day, where he had been hunted down and murdered in the 
brush, was buried by the roadside. Cruger and Miss Sheppard recovered, but had 
to be taken to Camp Date Creek to secure surgical assistance. The Indians found 
rich plunder. The two survivors each had lost money and jewelry valued at 
$8,000. It is told the cash loot amounted to $12,000. Possibly even more welcome 
to the Apaches were a couple of demijohns full of liquor, and it is not improbable 
that two lives were saved by the fact that most of the Indians left the chase to 
remain by the stage for an orgie. General Crook and his oflBcers did their best 
to ferret down the individual Indians responsible for this outrage, but failed, 
and so a few months thereafter punishment had to be inflicted on practically the 
entire tribe. It may be noted that, despite the testimony of the survivors, Vincent 
Colyer later tried to fix responsibility for this outrage upon ** Mexican bandits.'' 

DATE OBEEK PLOT AGAINST OBOOK 

Among all the Indians of the Southwest at that time, probably the most 
pernicious were the Apache-Yumas and Apache-Mojaves along Date Creek, a 
few miles north of the site of the mining camp of Congress. There had been 
established Camp Date Creek, a decidedly unpopular post among army oflScers. 
Their blood lust whetted by the Loring massacre, the Date Creek Indians next 
planned nothing short of the murder of the commanding general himself. But, 
adroit as the Indians were and skillful in the laying of plots, they still could not 
cope with the **01d Gray Fox," who soon learned through the Hualpais the pro- 



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220 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

gramme that had been laid out for his own assassination. The Indians were to 
wait till he came to the post and then would call upon hiyn for a **talk." After 
small conversation of an agreeable nature had progressed for a while, the Indian 
chief was to light a cigarette, a signal for a designated Indian to shoot the 
General, while the othens were to account for as many whites as possible, in the 
hope of annihilating the entire small garrison. Then the tribe joyously was to 
take to the hills of the Santa Maria and thence spread death and desolation on 
every hand. 

The simple Indians had their chance much sooner than expected. The com- 
manding oflScer of the camp, Capt. Philip Dwyer, Fifth Cavalry, died suddenly 
and, temporarily, had been succeeded by Lieut John G. Bourke. A few days later 
General Crook appeared on a special inspection of the camp, and, willing to force 
the issue, sent cordial word to the Indians that he wished to talk with tiiem. 
The General strolled in careless manner to the meeting place, accompanied by 
Lieutenant Ross, an officer of his staff. No soldiers were present other than 
the two officers. Behind, as though mere casual spectators, were about a dozen 
packers, every one armed with a revolver and knife, every one a veteran of 
Indian warfare. The programme went along as planned by the Indians, who, 
however, were not present in full number owing to the suddenness with which the 
conference had been called. An Indian asked for tobacco and proceeded to roll 
a cigarette. Lieutenant Ross edged toward him. At the first puff of smoke the 
man nearest the chief pulled his rifle from beneath his blanket and fired point 
blank at Crook. But he was no quicker than Ross, who struck up the barrel of the 
weapon, thus saving his superior's life. The packers, no less ready than the 
Indians, jumped like tigers into the fray, each with his eye on some particular 
brave of the inner circle. The chief who had given the signal was seized by 
Hank Hewitt, a giant in strength, whose first idea was to make the Indian cap- 
tive, but his prisoner proved so troublesome that Hewitt, disdaining his weapons, 
cracked the fellow's skull upon a rock and left him, to die later in the guard- 
house. 

Captain Bourke, the eloquent historian of the affair, gives few details of 
what must have been a Homeric struggle, undoubtedly participated in by himself 
and by all the soldiers of the post, hurried to the scene on the run. The Indians, 
though in far greater force, were defeated with heavy loss, and the survivors, 
many of them wounded, made their way back into the hills, headed for the 
rendezvous whereat many of the tribe were in waiting. Crook sent word for 
them to come back to Date Creek at once and surrender, but none came back for 
their rations. The Indians naturally expected that the offensive would be from 
Date Creek, led by Crook himself, but again h^ fooled them. The attack was 
made with all rapidity from an entirely unexpected quarter. Colonel Mason of 
the Fifth Cavalry descending upon them from the north, his advance led by crafty 
Hualpai scouts, who soon located the hostiles at a point known as Muchos 
Canones, where five canons united near the head of the Santa Maria. The hard- 
riding cavalry officers of those days carried with them neither press agents nor 
fountain pens, but it is known that the fight that followed was one of the most 
sanguinary character, and that at least forty of the Indians were killed in a 
pitched battle in the craggy hills wherein the Apaches had been surprised on their 
own ground. The action very much helped Crook in his dealings with the disaf- 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 221 

fected Indian bands in central Arizona. Pacifying the Date Creek Indians was 
the easier in that a number of the leading men had always been in favor of peace. 
A third faction, under Chimehuevi-sal, not content with their neighbors or with 
the whites, started away, 150 in number, headed for Mexico, where they proposed 
to find a new home with the Cocopahs on the lower Colorado. Just why Crook 
opposed the exodus is not clear, but he sent Captain Bums after them with a 
troop of cavalry and had them brought back to their beef and beans on Date 
Creek. 

OLOSING IN ON THE APA0HE8 

Though General Crook has his greatest renown as a pacificator by other than 
militant methods, he also had full comprehension of the fact that at times nothing 
but force could avail in the settlement of troublesome Indian questions. He did 
his best to show the Indians of Arizona the foolishness of trying to whip the 
United States, and then when peaceful measures had failed was pantiierlike in 
showing the jackals of the hills that his demands could be enforced. The treach- 
erous attack at Date Creek was the final straw, and by the War Department the 
General was directed to drive the Indians back on the reservations assigned them, 
and to use the power of the army in securing peace within Arizona. 

It would appear that the Indians were wholly unsuspicious of any impending 
general movement, for the troops were kept within the frontier posts until the 
time for striking had arrived. This was fixed as November 15, 1872, a date 
chosen for reasons of temperature, as the Indians would hardly take refuge 
during the winter months in the high mountains amidst the deep snows. Crook 
himself went into the field, starting on the day set from Fort Whipple and march- 
ing with an escort to Camp Apache, where at once was organized a force of Apache 
scouts. This work was under charge of Lieut. Alex 0. Brodie, First Cavalry, 
then the Post Adjutant, later to win fame as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough 
Biders and as Governor of Arizona. 

Southward from Camp Apache, Crook struck over to Old Camp Grant. There 
the plan of campaign was outlined. Practically the entire force of the Depart- 
ment of Arizona was put in the field. While the reins were retained by General 
Crook, who moved from point to point, a number of practically independent, 
though co-operating, commands were created, to the end that the Indians should 
not be permitted to escape, but should be given the alternative of fighting or 
surrendering, eventually to be penned within a cordon of troops in central Ari- 
zona. The center of operations was Tonto Basin, where the Indians had been 
supreme and where the surrounding mountains ever had proved a safe refuge 
for marauding hostiles. 

The column from Camp Hualpais was under command of Col. J. W. Mason, 
Fifth Cavalry; from Fort Whipple of Maj. Alex McGregor, First Cavalry; 
from McDowell of Capt. James Bums, Fifth Cavalry. Col. C. C. C. Carr, First 
Cavalry, worked southward from Camp Verde. Maj. G. M. Randall, Twenty- 
third Infantry, started from the northeast, from Apache, including in his com- 
mand a large force of Indian scouts led by the famous C. E. Cooley. The 
westernmost force near the main theater of operations was commanded by Maj. 
Geo. S. Price, Fifth Cavalry, from Date Creek. 

Possibly the most notable expedition was that from Old Camp Grant, led by 



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222 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Maj. Wm. H. Brown, Fifth Cavalry, with whom were two troops of the Fifth 
Cavalry and thirty Indian scouts. Major Brown's officers included Capt. Alfred 
B. Taylor and Lieutenants John G. Bourke, Jacob Almy and W. J. Ross. Bourke 
at that time was a young officer of the Third Cavalry on special duty, attached to 
the staff of the Department Commander. This expedition later was joined in the 
Superstition Mountains by Captain Bums and 100 Pima and Maricopa Indian 
scouts. With Bums' troop was First Lieut. Earl B. Thomas, who eventually 
was retired as commanding general of the Department of the Colorado, which 
embraced Arizona. Brown marched his command northward across the western 
point of the Pinal Range into Tonto Basin, the scouts working well in advance 
under the noted Macintosh, Felmer and Becias. A rancheria was destroyed not 
far from Salt River and there was a brush with the enemy at Coon Creek in the 
southeastern Sierra Anchas. Thence the force marched into the Superstitions, 
where the guides said they would find plenty of Indians. 

The Superstition Mountains are cut by Salt River and lie eastward, forty 
miles or more, from Phoenix. Their western face is square-cut and frowning and 
they have an uncanny appearance, rather suggestive of the outlines of a clump of 
ancient Rhine castles. Though the Pimas have a number of legends that center 
in these hills, the name probably came through the fact that the earliest of the 
pioneer whites were told by the valley-dwelling Indians that the eastern hills were 
**bad medicine" and that no stranger escaped after entering their fastnesses. 
The explanation simply was that the mountains were a favorite haunt of the 
Apaches, who, from the crags, marked all strangers, even before they had 
entered the hills, and lay in ambush for the victims where their arrows could 
not fail. 

The destination of the troops was a great cavern fortress^ a short distance to 
the northward of Salt River at the end of the southern slope of the Mazatzal or 
Four Peaks Range. This range had just been crossed by Captain Bums, who 
had surprised an Indian village, killing half a dozen and incidentally making 
prisoner of a bright Indian boy about 7 years of age, son of the chief. The chief 
and a number of his followers succeeded in escaping and in reaching the Salt 
River cavern, there to meet death. 

FIGHT OF THE SALT BIVEB OAVES 

December 27 the squadron camped at the mouth of Cottonwood Creek on 
Salt River, where Major Brown informed his oflScers that the attack on the 
Indians would be made before daylight. One of the leading Indian scouts, 
Natanje, once had had his home in the cave and knew the locality well. He 
assured the Major that he could lead the command there, though the journey 
must be made at night, as the Apaches were in such position that in daylight not 
one of the attackers could escape alive. All soldiers deemed incapable of making 
a severe march were ordered to remain at the camp, which was carefully fortified 
in the event of an attack by the hostiles. The march into the rugged hills was 
started before 8 o'clock. An advance party of twelve men under Lieutenant 
Ross unexpectedly found a band of Indians dancing around fires in a caiion in 
front of the cave. Only one thing was to be done, and that was the firing of 
a volley that laid low a half-dozen redskins and sent the others skurrying up the 
cliflfs. Bourke was only a few minutes behind with about forty more men, who 



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WHERE WAS FOUGHT THE "FIGHT OF THE CAVES" 
Photo taken forty years after 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 223 

were soon in a strong position behind boulders commanding the entrance of the 
cave. 

The Apaches' hiding place was a natural fortress, with a single opening upon 
the lip of an abysmal gorge, which was almost part of the great Salt River 
canon. The only approach was a narrow trail where one man might have held 
back a host. Though the cavern was of no great depth, within it about 150 
Apaches had found fairly comfortable, though contracted quarters as well as 
room for quantities of provisions. On a rock ledge in front, where they had 
fallen from the lip of a cliff 500 feet above, were a number of large boulders, that 
afforded a natural breastwork for the defenders. Prom the canon slope to the 
floor of the cave was a smooth rock wall, not less than ten feet in height at any 
point. The troopers and scouts from every position of advantage along the gorge 
opened fire, but at first with little result. To a summons to surrender was 
returned only jeering defiance. One Apache, probably sent out to summon rein- 
forcements, could not deprive himself of the pleasure of a yell of derision as he 
mounted the last rocks to the canon lip above. But for this he might have 
escaped, but his body, sharply silhouetted against the sky, was a fair mark and 
he dropped to his death with a crack of a rifle in the hands of Trooper Cahill. 
Another Indian slipped through the first line of troops, not knowing there was 
a reserve. Jumping on a boulder, he started a war song before he discovered 
that at least twenty carbines were trained upon him. The next moment he died. 

Shortly before daylight it was discovered that a sloping granite slab over- 
hung the entrance of the cave, and a moment later a perfect hail of 50-caliber 
bullets was being deflected back of the boulder bulwark into the cave. The 
resultant execution was terrible, as the tumbling pellets of lead tore through 
almost every part of the cavern. Major Brown again ordered ** cease firing," 
but to his repeated demand for surrender the Apaches yelled back that they 
would fight where they were till they died. 

The Indians, beside firearms, were provided with many arrows and lances, 
which were thrown high up in the air in the hope of striking and inflicting 
damage, but there were few casualties in the attacking force. One Pima Indian 
was killed, while exposing himself in disregard of orders. There was one counter 
attack when ten of the warriors ran out on the rampart armed with rifles, while 
an equal number slipped through the rocks to the right as a flanking party, 
covered by the fire of their comrades. But nearly all the flankers were killed 
and the rest driven back into the cave. 

The end came soon after the arrival on the scene of Burns and his command, 
sent during the night to follow a trail of Apache tracks in the vicinity. Bums 
returned over the hill back of the caves, and, peering over the crest, appreciated 
the situation fully. In a few moments down the cliff dropped an avalanche of 
boulders, striking on the ledge in front of the cave and splintering into thou- 
sands of pieces. According to Captain Bourke, **the destruction was sickening; 
the air was filled with the bounding, plunging fragments of stone; no human 
voice could be heard in such a cyclone of wrath; the volumne of dust was so 
dense that no eye could pierce it." Under the boulders died the virtual leader 
of the band, an old medicine man, clad in the feathered panoply of his oflBce. 
Yet with all the carnage it was noon before the cavalrymen could rush the rocky 
fortress. Within was a chamel house, men, women and children killed by 



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224 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

bullets or by the falling rocks. The Apache-Mojave Indians tell that within the 
cave died seventy-six of their people. Eighteen captives were taken, women 
and children, most of them wounded, saved by hiding behind or under flat rocks 
on the floor of the cave. Only one of the warriors found was conscious and he, 
an old man, died within a few minutes after he had seen a flood of foes pour 
into the aboriginal fortress. 

What happened thereafter is not pleasant telling, and no stress has been laid 
upon it by any of the soldiers present. It is understood that there was some 
difBculty in restraining the Maricopas and Pimas from killing the wounded that 
were left, possibly thirty-five in number, but, after all, that procedure might 
have been the more merciful in the end, for Major Brown had to leave at once, 
for there were other Indian camps in the Tonto Basin section that had to be 
reached forthwith if the plans of the **01d Gray Pox'* were to be carried out 
in their fullness. There was a hurried heaping up of everything in the way of 
provisions, guns, ammunition, bows and arrows, lances, war clubs, baskets, etc., 
that might be valuable to hostile Indians, and these were destroyed by fire, save 
only as much as the Indian scouts wished to pack off. The dead Pima was given 
decent burial on the spot, but the Apaches, dead and living, were left in the 
cave. There was no way by which the wounded could be helped, and there were 
no medical stores with the party. One Indian escaped. Wounded in the leg, 
he had lain down behind a slab of rock near the wall and there was covered 
beneath a pile of the slain. He waited until the soldiers left and then, with 
lances for crutches, he made his way up Tonto Creek in time to turn back a large 
band of Apaches who otherwise would have run into Major Brown 's force. This 
band, however, later was annihilAted on the summit of Turret Butte, where they 
were surprised by the command of Major Randall. 

Many years thereafter there was excitement in Phoenix over the report of a 
cowboy, Jeff Adams, later sheriff of Maricopa County, that in a cavern in the 
most inaccessible part of the Salt River canon there had been found the bones 
of seventy-five persons, for the fight of the Salt River cavern had been forgotten 
locally. The bones are there yet, strewn over the rocky cavern floor, for the 
Apache acknowledges that the spot holds **bad medicine." 

The boy captured in the Mazatzals by Captain Bums and orphaned a few 
hours later in the caves, was adopted by the troop, and rechristened Mike Bums. 
Within a few years brave Captain Bums died. Then Mike became a charge 
upon Wesley Merritt, then a dashing officer of cavalry, who sent him to common 
schools in New York and Pennsylvania. Thereafter he graduated from an 
Indian school and retumed to Arizona. He is now a resident of Mayer, where 
he is rated as a rancher of intelligence and of reasonable industry. 

Back in the cave, under the protecting body of his dead mother, was 
found a lusty little Indian babe, only a year old. The child was picked up by a 
Pima squaw and taken back to her wattled teepee on the Gila River. A few 
years later, in the old town of Adamsville, the boy was purchased by an eastem 
visitor from the squaw, who appears to have been a good foster mother. He 
was taken east and educated, finally graduating from medical college under the 
name of Carlos Montezuma. He is now a practicing physician in Chicago, 
occasionally called by the Govemment to assist in work looking toward the bet- 
terment of the Indians in general. A few years ago he revisited for the first 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 225 

time the old home of his family, finding relatives near McDowell and also near 
San Carlos, and experiencing little difficulty, with the aid of an interpreter, in 
re- establishing family ties. Instances of advances among the Indians snch as 
these are by no means isolated ones, and they serve to encourage the Govern- 
ment in efforts toward the betterment of the mental and moral attributes of the 
Nation's red wards. 

OBOOK OFFIOIAIaLY THANKED 

According to army records, in the nine years immediately following the 
Civil War 1,500 Apaches were killed in Arizona by American troops and it is 
believed that something like that average had been kept up for many years 
before. Yet the Indians seemed undaunted and even cheerfully kept up a war- 
fare that could have but one ending. 

Within the army the broadest of credit always has been given the work of 
General Crook, l^jor Eben Smith of the Twelfth Cavalry in 1902 wrote: 

Crook grasped the question with a broader view and deeper thought than any man before 
or since. His methods were simple. A djak of Borneo would not be more inflexible in his 
punishment, no Prince of Peace could have more patiently examined all their complaints 
or treated them more honestlj and squarely. Unconscious of danger, unmindful of treachery, 
never misled by deceit, not disturbed by failure, the strongest of them found their wills 
bend to his. He discovered the possibilities of Indians as soldiers and scouts against their 
own people and he was never betrayed. A few months after the first campaign 2,500 hostiles 
acknowledged themselves beaten and went to work on their reservations to make a living for 
themselves and he had them raising good crops of grain in a short time. It was a wonderful 
sight, for they were warriors from immemorial tradition and very well satisfied with them- 
selves in that line. As well might we expect to see a brace of tigers hitched to a bull cart 
as one of these fellows hoeing com, but the experiment was working perfectly when the 
Indians were returned to the Indian Department. 

General Crook was given the thanks of the people of Arizona by the Seventh 
Legislative Assembly in 1873. Oflfieially, credit was given him for the gallant 
and eiBcient manner in which the war against the Apaches was being prosecuted, 
permitting, for the first time since the organization of the territorial govern- 
ment, enjoyment of comparative immunity from the attacks of the savage foes. 
It was therefore resolved, ^'That we cordially endorse and approve the course of 
General Crook toward the Apaches ; that we believe him to be eminently quali- 
fied to command the Department of Arizona during the existence of the savage 
warfare and that, if not again interfered with, he will bring our Indian war to 
an early and successful termination and secure a lasting peace with the Apaches. " 

The '''pacification" of the Date Creek Apaches did not finish, however, the 
Indian troubles in west-central Arizona. In May, 1873, a lai^e number of Apache- 
Mojaves went on the warpath down the Hassayampa, below Wickenburg. They 
robbed the ranches, stole or killed all the cattle and horses and incidentally mur- 
dered a few people in peculiarly atrocious manner. The first was Guy Swain, 
who, in unintended mercy, received a bullet in his heart as he drove his mules 
up the Hassayampa canon. A few hours later the Indians captured George 
Taylor, the 18-year-old son of the superintendent of Smith's mill, who had gone 
to attend to work on the mill flume. Ed Lambley at the river, five miles from the 
mill, urged the lad to spend the night, but he explained that, ''Mother will be 
anxious if I do not get back before dark. She will think of Indians and every- 



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226 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

thing under the sun. " The next morning the two bodies were found. That of the 
boy showed that death had come on after fiendish tortures had been inflicted. 
He had been rolled in cactus, for the body was covered with thorns from head 
to foot. The eyelids and ears were cut away and there were dreadful mutilations 
all over the body. Apparently the end had been in the course of target practice, 
for there was a row of twelve arrows in a straight line down the center of the 
body. These tortures usually were the pleasant pastime of the squaws, the bucks 
furnishing an interested and applauding audience. 

QUICK VENGEANCE INFLICTED 

The Indians, about 125 in number, loaded with plunder, struck eastward at 
once across the Verde below their own reservation over into the upper Tonto 
Basin, where they considered themselves safe from pursuit. Couriers had been 
dispatched at once to Date Creek and other posts and the soldiers started on the 
trail within three days with columns from Camp Verde, Date Creek and Mc- 
Dowell, of the First and Fifth Cavalry and Twenty-third Infantry. Randall, 
with his infantrymen, crept upon the Indians at their stronghold on the summit 
of Turret Butte. The soldiers crawled up the face of ihe mountain and by mid- 
night were posted in a cordon around the Indian camp fires. At daylight a few 
volleys were fired and then there was a charge. 

Again there is lack of detail in the record. It is only satisfactorily noted that 
the band practically was annihilated. Some of the fiends who had tortured 
young Taylor, in terror sprang to their deaths down the precipice and among 
the slain were scores of females of the tribe, who never again would thrust fire- 
brands into the flesh of a quivering white victim. If for nothing else, the mem- 
ory of the soldiers should be blessed in Arizona for the work that was done in 
the days of Crook on the Santa Maria, in the Salt River caves, at Turret Butte 
and later in the final big fight at the Big Dry Wash. 

This final campaign left the Apaches well whipped and thoroughly appre- 
ciative of the fact, even eager to surrender to avoid further hardship and loss 
of life. Three hundred Mojave-Apaches under Chalepan surrendered at Fort 
Grant, April 6. Altogether about 2,300 Apaches **came in.'' 

Tamaspies' band of Hualpais surrendered to Captain McGregor in the Santa 
Maria Mountains in June. In July, still another large band surrendered to 
Captain Burns. The Hualpais had been ordered moved to a reservation on the 
Colorado River, but the hot climate proved unendurable and most of the tribe 
fled into the mountains. 

A very large share of the credit for the good work belongs to the Fifth Cav- 
alry, a regiment shifted to Arizona from San Francisco just in time to partici- 
pate. General Sherman, commanding the army, soon thereafter announced his 
belief that the regiment's service in Arizona ** was unequalled by that of any other 
cavalry regiment during the War of the Rebellion." 

DEL SHAT AND HIS TONTOS 

One of the most notable of the historic Tonto- Apache chiefs was Del-shay, 
whose name is borne by a valley in the northern Sierra Ancha Mountains. Ac- 
cording to Banta, his name was De-che-ye. Banta had rather an interesting 
experience with the chief when the white man, in 1869, was making a lonely 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 227 

and very dangerous ride from Wingate to McDowell, a bearer of military dis- 
patches, convoyed from point to point by Apaches, who made smokes on the hills 
to indicate the coming of a peaceful stranger. But Del-shay was little above the 
generality of his kind and he and his band were the especial cause for the estab- 
lishment of Camp Reno, on the western edge of Tonto Basin. 

Some evidence concerning Del-shay is found in the report of Commissioner 
Vincent Colyer, who, in September, 1871, wrote: **I am informed that Del-shay, 
the able chief of the Tontos, has been in McDowell several times during the past 
few years and that on two occasions has been dealt with very treacherously ; at 
one time shot in the back and at another time attempted to be poisoned by a 
post doctor. '* 

Del-shay reported October 31 to Capt. W. McC. Netterville of the Twenty- 
first Infantry, at a camp in Sunflower valley on the western slope of the Mazatzal 
Mountains. The chief was hungry and cold, and, after being mollified by much 
of the white man's food, expressed a desire for peace, and offered to *'put a rock 
down to show that when it melts the treaty is to be broken. ' ' He said he was not 
afraid of the white man or the Mexican, but of the Pimas and Maricopas, **who 
steal into my camp at night and kill my women and children with clubs.*' A 
few days later, Del-shay, with eighty warriors, came into McDowell, where his 
men were clothed and fed, and where the chief demanded more blankets and more 
provisions than the Government allowance as the price of getting off the war- 
path. The Indians built fires and began cooking beef for their evening meal, 
when they suddenly sprang to their arms and vanished into the darkhess, con- 
sidered very strange in that they did not wait for their food. According to 
Colyer, the sudden exodus was upon receiving news that *'a party of Pimas and 
Maricopas, hearing that the warriors were all at Camp McDowell, had gone up to 
Reno and killed thirty-two defenseless women and children of the Tontos. ' ' 

Following a long series of isolated outrages, Del-shay and his band were 
captured by Captain Randall in their Sierra Ancha stronghold, April 22, 1873, 
and herded upon a reservation. There has been found a tale to the effect that in 
1874 Del-shay defied Lieutenant Schuyler on the Verde reservation ; that Schuyler 
tried to shoot the savage, but found his rifle had been unloaded by a treacherous 
interpreter ; that the Indian thereupon escaped, with a reward of $50 offered for 
him by Schuyler; and tHat in July a young Mojave (Apache) killed the old 
chief and brought in the scalp. 

KING'S ESCAPE AT SUNSET PASS 

Charles King, broadly known as a writer of fiction, in 1874 was a first lieu- 
tenant of the Fifth Cavalry. In October of that year, with twenty-five men from 
Troops A and K of the regiment and some Yuma-Apache scouts, he was dis- 
patched from Camp Verde to recapture some stolen cattle and if possible to pun- 
ish the Indians, who were Tontos. Though the scouts proved undependable, the 
stolen cattle were recaptured and dispatched westward under a small guard, while 
King pushed on, following the trial. At evening he reached Sunset Pass in the 
MogoUons, where plain signs were found of the Tontos, though the Yuma- Apaches 
scouts declared to the contrary. Early on the following morning Lieutenant King 
took a sergeant and a dozen scouts and started to climb a mountain side south of 
the pass. The scouts came most unwillingly and when at last, near the crest of the 



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228 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

hill, a sudden volley was poured in from ambush on the advancing party, the 
Yumas broke and ran and the Lieutenant and Sergeant Taylor were left alone, 
the former badly wounded by a smashing bullet that went through his arm just 
below the shoulder. Lieutenant Eaton, who had been left below with most of the 
soldiers, heard the firing and charged promptly to the rescue, but for a few min- 
utes the sergeant alone bravely held off the advancing redskins and saved the 
lives of his commander and himself. Then came a deed about as gallant. A 
courier bore word of the affray to Camp Verde, eighty miles distant and in forty- 
eight hours, through the snow, Dr. J. A. Day, the post surgeon, made the perilous 
ride through the Apache-infested wilderness and reached the oflBcer, made splints 
out of a cigar box and returned with his patient to the post. On account of the 
wound, King had to be retired, but not till eight years thereafter. Within that 
period he took part in a Sioux campaign and ixi one against the Nez Perces and he 
was able to take the field again in the war with Spain, when, as a brigadier-gen- 
eral of volunteers he participated in several of the actions about Manila early in 
1899. 

VEBDE APAOHES TAKEN TO SAN OABLOS 

In 1875 the agency at Camp Verde was abandoned and the Indians were 
driven upon the White Mountain reservation, where they better could be watched 
and where they were supplied with rations for years thereafter. This order 
was said to have been absolutely at variance with an agreement made by Crook 
with that particular band. The army had started the Indians in the ways of 
peace and the tribe already had become half-supporting, under the instruction 
of Lieutenant Schuyler. Dr. J. A. Day, who was surgeon at Fort Verde, states 
a belief that a pool of $20,000 had been subscribed at Tucson to move the 
northern Apaches southward, merely in order that Tucson merchants might 
profit by the trade thus directed. The Indians became rebellious and threatened 
the life of Brevet General Dudley, the oflBcer who had been appointed special 
commissioner to oversee the removal. 

About 800 Indians were herded up and started southward under charge of 
Lieut. 6. 0. Eaton and a Fifth Cavalry detail. The oflBcer had much trouble 
en route. Forty Apaches broke away at Fossil Creek and struck northward into 
the Hell Canon country. A number of Indian scouts were sent after them, 
accompanied by Al. Sieber and Dan O'Leary. They brought back only one cap- 
tive and reported the balance were *4n the hills." It was generally understood 
that this was a typically frontier method of stating that all the rest were killed. 
At any event, the thirty-nine gave no trouble to the settlers thereafter. Indeed 
that was the last Apache trouble ever known in north-central Arizona. 

OLXJM'S EXPERIENCES AT SAN OABLOS 

When General Crook was relieved by Gen. A. V. Kautz in 1875, all the 
Apaches had been herded upon the San Carlos, Chiricahua and Mimbres reser- 
vations. In June, 1876, the Chiricahua reservation was abandoned and 325 of 
its Indians taken to San Carlos. Jeflford's position ended with the abandon- 
ment of the reservation. John P. Clum, agent at San Carlos, superintended 
the removal of the Indians, and was assisted by the entire Sixth Cavalry and 
three companies of Indian scouts, the military arm commanded in person by 



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JOHN V. CLl'M, AGENT AT SAN CARU)S, WITH 
APACHE ESCX)RT, 1874 

CHARLES T. CONNELL AL SIEBER. GREATEST OF ALL SOUTH- 

WESTERN SCOUTS 

ALCHISAY AND PRINCH»AL WARRIORS, WHITE 
MOUNTAIN APACHES 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 229 

General Kautz. Taza and the original Chiricahua band, including sixty-six 
warriors, readily assented to removal. The Mexican ( Janos) contingent, under 
Juh and Geronimo, absconded, leaving about 125 Indians still loose along the 
border. 

Glum was a man of determined character and of large ability, later shown 
also as a newspaper man in the boom days of Tombstone. Made agent at San 
Carlos in 1874, his first experience was not a reassuring one. A short time 
before, the sub-chief Chuntz, heretofore referred to by Miles Wood, trans- 
ferred over from Camp Grant, had been making war medicine and had led a re- 
volt in which had been killed Lieutenant Jacob Almy, who had been acting as 
quartermaster, as well as three agency employees and thirteen others. Agency 
Indians were promptly on the trail, spurred by an oflfer of reward if they 
brought Chuntz back with them. The next day after Clum came the scouts 
returned, to proudly roll from a gunny sack upon the floor at his feet the head 
of the outlaw leader. Then Clum disarmed all Indians save his scouts. 

Clum*8 job was an unenviable one, one in which he was long continued after 
he had offered his resignation. He had more trouble with the military than 
with his charges, though the latter, swelled by accretions from the abandoned 
reserves, soon numbered 4,500. Yet there were some interesting details of ad- 
ministration, including the killing by Indian police of a very prominent chief, 
Disalin, and, in March, 1876, the killing by the same efficient force, led by 
Clay Beauford, of sixteen renegades. In September, 1877, the Chiricahua band 
fled into the hills, but surrendered soon after. 

VIOTOBIO'S BAIDS ALOKa THE BOBDEB 

The noted Apache chief Victorio first became known as a lieutenant under 
the celebrated Mangas Coloradas. In the summer of 1877 the Mimbres, includ- 
ing Victorio, Loco and Nana (pronounced Na-nay), were added to the San 
Carlos contingent, but made only a brief stay. They were rounded up once 
more and some of them returned, but Victorio had vowed to remain on the 
upper Gila. 

Victorio and his band in February, 1878, surrendered at Ojo Caliente and 
were taken to the Mescalero agency, but a short time later escaped into Mexico. 
The following spring, however, the chief again appeared in southern New 
Mexico, having recruited his strength to about 400 redskins. Military opera- 
tions against this band continued no less than four years. In this first raid 
seventy settlers were murdered. 

In February, 1879, Victorio and twenty-two Warm Spring Apaches, who 
had escaped while being taken to the San Carlos reservation, surrendered to a 
detachment of the Ninth Cavalry at Ojo, New Mexico. April 15, however, the 
band escaped, followed by two troops of the Ninth Cavalry and a company of 
Indian scouts. In the years following he left a bloody trail, though few of his 
operations were in Arizona. Especially he had to do with the Mexicans, who 
had failed to kiU him while he was in their power, but had confined him in jail 
in Chihuahua. He announced that some day he would seize the town with the 
particular purpose of braining the judge who had sentenced him. 

In May, 1879, about a score of Victorio 's band killed four Mexican herders 
near Clifton and captured eighty mules. After seizing two squaws at the San 



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230 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Carlos sub-agency, they returned to the Mimbres country, with an incidental 
loss of a couple of bucks in a fight with the settlers on the San Francisco River 
and of four more in an affair on the Mimbres with the command of Captain 
Beyer of the Ninth Cavalry. The following day Captain Dawson and Captain 
Beyer, with four troops of the Ninth Cavalry, fought Victorio and about 140 
Apaches at the head of the Animas River in New Mexico and were defeated, 
with a loss of eight men killed. Most of the band escaped into Mexico, to return 
in September reinforced by a large number of Mescaleros and Chiricahuas, 
Near Ojo Caliente eight men were killed and a number of horses were captured. 
In the same month near Hillsboro, in a fight between a party of citizens and 100 
attacking Apaches, the hostiles killed ten of the whites. 

Another bold deed was the ambush in Tierra Blancas Canon, of a column 
of troops under Captain Dawson, on September 18, 1879. Five soldiers were 
killed and it is possible that the entire command would have been wiped out had 
not timely assistance been given by Captain Beyer, who had with him as guide 
the famous Joe Yankie. The Indians were driven southward by Major Morrow, 
who refused terms and sent wofd, * * Fight, you red devils. '' Major Morrow clung 
to Victorio 's heels, but was not overly successful, being compelled to retire from 
a point fifty miles below the border for lack of provisions, water and am- 
munition. 

HOW VIOTOBIO WENT TO CHIHUAHUA 

Early in 1880 Victorious band again struck into New Mexico, again to en- 
counter the untiring Major Morrow, who whipped him soundly in the San 
Mateo Mountains, January 20 and again on February 3. In May he passed 
through the Eagle Creek country and near San Carlos attacked George's band 
of Coyotero Apaches, in order to satisfy a personal grudge and in the course 
of an unsuccessful attempt to take his own wife and children from the reserva- 
tion. There is little doubt that this raid was most disastrous to him, as it aligned 
against him a large part of the Apache nation. On the way back he had a couple 
of actions with Captain Kramer and Capt. H. A. Parker, the latter a chief of 
sccuts with 100 Indians from San Carlos. 

Then there started a determined effort on the part of both the United States 
and Mexico to end Victorious career. In the summer of 1880, 2,000 soldiers and 
200 Indian scouts were watching the border and to the south General Terrazzas 
kept the Indians busy with the aid of 300 Mexican troops and 500 volunteers, 
placing a bounty of $1,000 on the chieftain's head. September 9 Victorio evaded 
his foes and made a raid northward, nearly to Silver City, and followed with 
another in October about as far as Fort Cummings. But this was the last known 
of Victorio on American soil. With 100 warriors and 400 women and children 
he was penned in by the forces of Terrazzas about twenty miles east of Chihuahua 
and there was killed October 16, not in battle but hiding among the squaws. He 
had failed to make good his boast, for it was only his head, carried on a lance, 
that entered Chihuahua, received with loud acclamation as an evidence of the 
end of the bloodiest period that had ever been known in northern Mexico. 

NANA'S ACTIVITIES AND SX7BBENDEB 

In July, 1881, the notorious chief Nana, with fifteen warriors from the old 
Victorio band, reentered southwestern New Mexico and with a number of Mes- 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 231 

caleros killed a large number of white settlers. Nana was followed by Lieu- 
tenant Guilfoyle of the Ninth Cavalry, a gallant officer, who in 1915 commanded 
the same regiment, assigned to duty as a border patrol between Douglas and 
Nogales. Other troops soon joined in the pursuit till about two regiments, 
under the general command of Col. E. Hatch of the Ninth Cavalry, were in the 
field and the Indians, then seventy in number, finally had to take refuge in 
Mexico. This was the last raid of Nana north of the line till the old savage 
finally surrendered to Crook in 1883, thereafter remaining in peace near his 
wickiup in the White Mountain reservation. There is a story that the Mexican 
Colonel Garcia in July, 1882, furnished mescal to Nana's band and, while the 
braves lay stupefied, lessened the number of bad Indians by thirty. 



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CHAPTER XVIII 
RAIDS FROM THE RESERVATIONS 

Outbreak of Scouts at Cibicu — Middlcton Ranch Attacked — Ceronimo Escapes — 
Murders of Sterling, Colvig and Knox — Fight of the Big Drjf Wash — Agencjf 
Conditions. 

In the latter part of 1880, while the census of the reservation was being taken, 
there were mutterings of trouble among the Coyoteroe on Cibicu Creek and east- 
ward to San Carlos, most of it caused by a single medicine man, Nock-e-da-klin-ny, 
who, in ghost dances, was urging the Indians to war, with a promise that he 
would return to them in the flesh their old chief, Diablo, under whom and favored 
by the gods they would sweep the region free of the white man and repossess 
the land as of yore. Council, the census taker, warned Agent J. C. Tiffany and 
apprehensive army oflBcers likewise reported to headquarters the dangerous state 
of affairs in the northern reservation, but for months nothing was done and the 
false prophet was permitted to pursue his campaign unmolested. In addition, 
there was internal dissension between the bands of Alchisay and Pedro, opposed 
to Sanchez, who was the legal successor of Diablo, who had been killed by 
Alchisay. The trouble had been over gambling and the possession of a squaw. 
Pedro had been badly wounded in the knee and Alchisay shot through the body. 
Pedro's band took refuge in a volcanic crater near Cooley's ranch, fifty miles 
north of Fort Apache. There the chief was pluckily visited by Council and Ed. 
Hurley, a soldier-interpreter sent in ambassadorial capacity to secure the return 
of the band to the protection of the fort. Council did not have to go. He went 
only as a favor to Major Cochrane, the commander of Fort Apache. The Indians 
were found in an almost hysterical condition, with Pedro in serious shape, at- 
tended only by a howling medicine man. Connell to this day is a direct-spoken 
sort of individual, emphatic in manner and truthful by habit. He succeeded the 
next day in getting the Indians started toward the post with the wounded chief- 
tain in an army wagon. At Apache the Indians were extended protection and 
furnished with food and clothing, returning a typically Indian expression of 
gratitude a few months later in the attempted murder of their benefactors. 

Connell and friendly Indians made true report of the threatening conditions 
to Agent J. C. Tiffany at San Carlos, and he referred the matter, as one of grav- 
ity, to Col. E. A. Carr, Sixth Cavalry (brevet major general), at Fort Apache, 
and to Col. 0. B. Willcox (brevet major general), who was in command of the 
Department at Whipple. Chief of Scouts Albert Sterling was dispatched to 
the Cibicu to investigate and returned reporting conditions very serious indeed. 
But there was official delay for even months thereafter. In August, 1881, Agent 
Tiffany requested Colonel Carr to arrest or kill, or both, this man Nockide- 

232 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 233 

klinny. This message in the same terms was repeated by the Department Com- 
mander. August 29, Colonel Carr marched to the Cibieu with Troops D and 
E, Sixth Cavalry, and Company A of Indian scouts, in all numbering six offi- 
cers, seventy-nine soldiers and twenty-three scouts. Opposed were at least 350 
hysterical Indians, who had gathered around the medicine man as a new Mes- 
siah who would lead in the total extermination of the white men in the South- 
west. 

TBEAOHEBOUS SCOUTS AT OIBlCn 

Colonel Carr appeared, like many army officers before him, rather to have 
underrated the spirit of the Indians. With his all-too-meager force he reached 
the village of the medicine man August 30. He arrested the marplot, who ex- 
pressed willingness to go to Fort Apache and stated that there would be no 
attempt at a rescue. Carr then turned to the task of making camp, when the 
Indian scouts he had brought, absolutely without warning, turned against him 
and opened fire upon the unsuspecting troops. 

At almost the first shot was killed Capt. Edmund C. Hentig, shot in the 
back as he was reaching for a rifle. Four private soldiers were killed and three 
mortally wounded. The other wounded included only two enlisted men. At 
the first rifle crack, the medicine man made a dash to escape, but had hardly 
started when he was shot through the head by Colonel Carr's trumpeter. 

Carr drove the Indians from his front, buried his dead and sped back to 
his undermanned post. He arrived the next day and that he was right in his 
returning haste was shown by the fact that an attack was made upon the fort 
September 1 by the Indians, who already had killed eight men on the road 
to the southward. Though Carr's official account is of the briefest, it is very 
evident that the Indian demonstration against the post was of serious sort 
and that the defense was a gallant one. Four soldiers were killed and several 
were wounded. Lieut. C. G. Gordon, Sixth Cavalry, was wounded severely. 
There was a rather sad commentary on official delay in the last paragraph of 
the report, which told, **I am confident the Indians have been preparing this 
outrage for six months. Cooley says so also.'' After the soldiers had left 
Cibieu, the Indians there dug up the dead for the pleasure of crushing in their 
heads with rocks and of mutilating the remains. 

News of the successful outbreak was sent by runners to all the Apache sub- 
divisions. The aggressive leadership seemed to have been seized by the mutinous 
scouts, who were led by Dandy Jim, Skippy and Dead Shot. The Indians who 
started to surprise Fort Apache were joined on the way by Alchisay and a part 
of Pedro's band, which had forgotten the protection and food that had been 
furnished by the fort only a few weeks before. 

The first reports of the trouble told that Carr was killed. He was a soldier 
of long experience in Indian warfare and of high character and it is not im- 
probable that later he read with deep interest and gratification numerous 
complimentary obituaries that had been printed. 

ATTACK ON THE MIDDLETON BANC« 

From Cibieu a band led by Eskinoyouhay, failing to secure the co-operation 
of Nadaski, on September 2, turned their attention to the white settlers. Seven 



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234 AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Indians drifted in friendly guise up to the Middleton ranch near upper Cherry 
Creek. There had been a rumor of the massacre of Carr's command, but the 
Indians denied knowledge of the aflEair. The Indians had been fed when they 
suddenly opened fire upon the group of Americans, which consisted of the father 
and mother, a grown son and daughter, four little children, Henry Moody and 
George L. Turner, Jr. Moody and Turner were killed at once. Henry Middle- 
ton was shot above the heart and in the shoulder, but not till he had shot one 
of the Indians. The family then barricaded the exits, but the Indians left after 
a desultory fire of about three hours. 

Within the log cabin the two men left made a gallant defense, firing through 
improvised portholes, but were in constant danger, for the Indians' bullets went 
through the logs as if they had been mere boards. When the redskins departed 
with them went all the horses, save one that had been wounded, which served 
to bear William Middleton, the father, over to Pleasant Valley, where it was 
hoped help might be secured. Unwilling to remain, the rest of the family fol- 
lowed on foot, to hide in the rocks on the trail, there found next morning by the 
father and a single man, all the help found available in the valley. The two 
had a brush with the same Indian band, but escaped. At Sombrero Butte the 
survivors were met by a party from Globe, guided by a son, Eugene Middleton, 
and led by Captain Burbridge. The Indian shot by Henry Middleton later 
was identified at San Carlos, but nothing was done with him — ^making only 
one more reason why the average American settler became a bit irritable when 
considering the Indian question and its governmental treatment. 

OHIBIOAHUAS B80APE FROM SAN OABLOS 

Naturally there was horror over the Cibicu aflfair in military circles generally, 
as well as throughout Arizona and into the Apache region were rushed the addi- 
tional troops that should have been sent six months before. After the first out- 
break, their ^supposedly invincible leader dead, the Indians seemed paralyzed 
and did little damage and numbers of the bronco bands began to surrender. 
Nearly all the hostiles or suspected Indians were placed under guard at San 
Carlos or near the sub-agency. Then suddenly and unexpectedly started one 
of the bloodiest epochs in the history of Arizona warfare. Five chiefs had sur- 
rendered to Agent Tiffany for trial, as well as sixty or more braves. Several 
were left at large, however, including George, Bonito, Chatto, Chihuahua and 
G^ronimo. The Indians had drawn rations on September 30 and there is no 
doubt that they were more than willing to go on the warpath. However, it is 
likewise thought that rather peremptory military action taken, looking toward 
the seizure and imprisonment of several of the chiefs still at large, was the im- 
mediate moving cause. Geronimo later told that the Chiricahuas, who were led 
by Juh, left the reserve on the night of September 30, somewhat in sympathy 
with the outbreak of the White Mountain Apaches and because they had heard 
that the soldiers from Camp Thomas were coming to make them prisoners and 
to send them off somewhere. 

The first break was of seventy-four bucks with possibly as many women 
and children. Loco (** Crazy'') refused to go, though in the following April he 
was forced out by Juh and a preponderance of tribal sentiment. The fugitives 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 235 

behaved just as their ancestors had, murdering freighters and ranchers and 
spreading a trail of blood toward Mexico. Bartolo Samaniego, a freighter and 
six employees were killed. One Mexican herder escaped to Cedar Springs, there 
to help Mrs. Moulds and her young son defend the house, till troops came to the 
rescue. Then the Indians left their loot, with calico streamers flaunting from 
their ponies' tails. 

At Fort Grant a party of five men was sent out in charge of a signal sergeant 
to see what was the matter with the telegraph line, which had been cut by the 
Indians. Apaches lay in ambush along the road and killed them all. Then came 
a team with supplies for Cedar Springs, driven by Moulds, and he, too, was 
killed. The troops, pursuing, came up to the Apaches about eight miles west of 
Fort Grant. Then, according to Wood, ' * The Apaches got among some bluffs of 
rock, the soldiers behind some other bluffs, about six hundred yards apart. They 
shot at the smoke of each other's guns from 10 a. ul till 9 p. m., when the cavalry 
came into (Jrant and reported that they were out of ammunition and rested up 
all the next day. The Apaches in the meantime went across the valley and 
spent the whole day rounding up horses belonging to H. C. Hooker on the Sierra 
Bonita ranch. Hooker claimed he lost $20,000 worth of horses. " 

STEBLXNa KTTiTiFiT) AT THE AGENOT 

In the following April, of 1882, Nachis, (Jeronimo, Chatto and Chihuahua, 
with a half -hundred bucks, stole back into the San Carlos country for recruits. 

Apparently not warned by the experience of the previous fall, the military 
authorities had provided no troops for the San Carlos agency, whereat were only 
a few white men to guard government property of large value. The Apache 
rebels, now about 100 in number, expecting to join with Loco's band, which 
was a mile from the main agency, prepared to capture the agency. On the night 
of April 18 they cut the telegraph wire a short distance west of the sub-agency 
and marched away to be at San Carlos in the early morning. The distance 
between the two points was eighteen miles. 

That a massacre was prevented is wholly to be credited to Ed Pierson, the 
sub-agency telegraph operator. At midnight an Indian scout roused him from 
slumber with information of the passage of the hostiles. Pierson, finding the 
wire cut, started out with the friendly scout and located the break, less than a 
mile distant from his post. He made repairs and, returning to his key, sat down, 
for hours to desperately call San Carlos. He knew that ** Stumpy" Hunter, 
the one-legged San Carlos operator, had his bed close to his instrument, but 
Hunter slept on till daylight, when the continued clicking of the instrument 
awakened him. At once he notified Captain Sterling, the Chief of Scouts, who 
recklessly flung himself into the saddle and, accompanied by only one of his 
principal scouts, Sagotal, started for Loco's camp, which was about a mile dis- 
tant from the agency, possibly with an idea of preventing that chief's junction 
with the band from Mexico. But the two forces already had joined and had 
come to an understanding and Sterling was shot down as he rode into the camp. 
Sagotal, much more wary, made a detour and fled to the agency, there to gather 
up fifty Indian scouts. 

The agent and other principal officials being absent, Council assumed com- 
mand of the defense, there being only five white men to reinforce the scouts. 



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236 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

An attempt promptly was made to secure the body of Sterling, which still lay 
where the scout had dropped. In the resulting skirmish Sagotal exposed him- 
self from the shelter of a rock and was shot through the head, but Connell con- 
tinued to fight with the dead body of a friend on either side. Then the hostiles, 
including Locoes band, hurriedly started away, leaving a rear guard of forty 
braves to check the advance of the agency force. There were repeated forma- 
tions for rear-guard defense for a distance of ten miles, when the pursuit had 
to be given up. There was sincere mourning over Sterling's death, for the men 
at the agency had lost a faithful and loved friend and the service had lost a 
most eflficient oflScer, who upheld the high standard that theretofore had been 
maintained in the oflBce of chief of scouts by such men as Al. Sieber, Dan Ming, 
Bowen and Buford. 

At the time, the military pursuit of this band was alleged to have been dis- 
gracefully slow, though the Indians, who were rather heavily encumbered with 
plunder, took every occasion for murder and pillage. At one point, at Gila 
Bonito, eleven Mexicans were murdered. It was found where one child had 
been hanged by the feet above a slow fire and where another had been thrown 
alive into a clump of cactus. Near Morenci, at Gold Gulch, six Americans were 
killed, by name Pinkard, Ball, Slausen, Trescott, Risque and Fink. One of the 
incidents of the southward flight was the killing of Felix Knox. 

FELIX KNOX, A FRONTIEB HEBO 

In Richard Clavering Gunter's melodramatic novel, **Miss Nobody of No- 
where,'* and a good Wild-West sort of novel it is, is the story of an Englishman 
who sacrificed himself when pursued by Apaches that his wife and babes might 
live. This is founded upon absolute fact. The hero of it, however, was Felix 
Knox, a Globe gambler, member of the saloon firm of Knox & McNelly. Knox 
was not a particularly pleasant sort of an individual, in a social way. He was a 
** short-card" man, expert in his vocation. He was lame, one leg paralyzed by 
a neck wound received in a fight with a gambler at old Fort Grant. A soldier 
for many years, he had served in his youth as a drummer boy, and hence was a 
valued metnber of the Globe brass band. Knox had a ranch on the upper Gila, 
with a few hundred head of cattle. In the spring of 1882 he made a visit to the 
ranch. Returning, on his way to Globe, he left York's ranch on the Gila in the 
early morning, in a buckboard, in which also were his wife, of Mexican parentage, 
their two children and a Mexican employe. They had passed a ridge a few miles 
distant from the ranch, when Knox caught sight of the war party. He turned 
at once and lashed the mules on the way back to the river, but the Apaches gained 
and scattering bullets began to fall around, one of them slightly wounding a 
mule. The fugitives were in desperate situation, with the ranch still several 
miles away. 

Knox saw his duty and took it up. He thrust the reins into the hands of the 
other man, kissed his wife and children goodbye and, rifle in hand, dropped 
to the road from the back of the buckboard. The buckboard arrived at the ranch 
with its passengers safe. Cowboys, on hearing the shots, already had saddled 
and soon were tearing away up the road, hoping to find Knox still alive. They 
found him, but dead. The scene was one that could be read without trouble. 
Knox's sacrifice had been effective. He had kept the Indians from riding past 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNG]fcST STATE 237 

him in pursuit of the buckboard, the redskins losing the race because of the 
necessary detour beyond the range of the ex-soldier's rifle. So they massed 
their fire upon the single guardian of the road. His body had been riddled by 
bullets, for he had little shelter from the rain of lead that had come upon him 
from three sides, but in turn, he had at least wounded several of his foes. Around 
were fifty empty cartridge shells from his rifle. 

As a rule, the Apache appreciated a good fighting man. It was so in this 
case. The body had not been mutilated, but, in the brief time before the coming 
of the cowboys, had been laid out decently and in order, and over the face had 
been spread Knox's own handkerchief, its comers weighted down with pebbles. 

The episode has been made the subject of a beautiful poem by Miss Sharlot 
Hall, entitled: *'The Mercy of Nachis,'' from which the following verse is 

taken : 

Knox the Gambler — Felix Knox; 

Trickster, short-card man, if you will; 

Rustler, brand-wrangler — all of that — 

But Knox the roan and the hero still I 

For life at best is a hard-set game; 

The cards come stacked from the dealer 's hand ; 

And a man plays king of his luck just once— 

When he faces death in the last grim stand. 

CHASma HOSTILES INTO MEXICO 

In the end, the military arm, reinforced by the Third Cavalry, Colonel 
Brackett, rushed from the Department of the Platte, and the First Infantry, 
Colonel Shafter, did good work. 

Lieut.-Col. G. A. Forsyth, Fourth Cavalry, cut the path of the hostiles April 
23, 1882, and killed at least seven of them. A part of the band raided the 
country around Galejrdlle, the site of Paradise camp in the Chiricahua Moun- 
tains, but the main body kept on southward chased by Forsyth and Capt. T. C. 
Tupper, Sixth Cavalry. About this time the hostiles did their best to turn the 
Indian scouts from their allegiance, but were unsuccessful and the scouts later 
were rewarded by a gift of a large number of horses that had been taken from 
the fleeing redskins. 

Six men and six scouts, commanded by Lieutenant McDonald, were attacked 
by a band of twenty-four Apaches. Four of the scouts were killed, but one 
made his way through the hostile lines and found a squadron of the Fourth, 
under Forsyth, who galloped hard for sixteen miles and arrived in time to save 
MacDonald and his little force. The Indians, who were in their native fast- 
nesses, resisted desperately and took successive positions on high, rocky points, 
some of them over 1,000 feet in height, but the soldiers pursued until the Indians 
had dispersed in every direction, with a loss of thirteen killed. This same band 
five days later was surprised in the Animas Mountains by Captain Tupper with 
two troops of the Sixth Cavalry and a company of Indian scouts and lost six 
more of their number, as well as their horses. 

Captain Tupper 's force later was absorbed in that of the hard-riding Forsyth. 
Both officers had had orders under no circumstances to enter Mexico, but braved 
a court-martial in their eagerness in the chase. Far down in Mexico near the 
Janos River, Forsyth's command ran into the Sixth Mexican Infantry, corn- 



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238 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

manded by Col. Lorenzo Garcia, who courteously insisted that the Americans 
at once retrace their steps. Forsyth, admitting the illegality of his position, 
still insisted that he must keep on the trail of the Apaches, even at the risk of 
an encounter with the Mexican forces. Then Garcia divulged the not-unimpor- 
tant information that, the day before, he had ambxished the fleeing Indians and 
scattered them, with a loss of seventy-eight Apaches and twenty-one Mexicans 
killed. Then the two oflBcers shook hands in amity, Forsyth lent his surgeon for 
the help of the Mexican wounded, divided his rations with Garcia and returned to 
his station. The Mexicans made no complaint of his action and the expected 
court martial did not materialize. 

THE APACHE FLIGHT OF 18S2 

Captain Sterling's successor at San Carlos, J. L. Colvig, more generally 
known as ' ' Cibicu Charlie, ' ' was a brave and efficient oflSiCer. In the course of 
his duty, in May, 1882, Colvig, accompanied by several Indian scouts, went to 
the sub-agency to arrest one of the outlaw Indians who had been responsible 
for the Cibicu outbreak. There was resistance, in which the outlaw scout and 
two women were killed. Thereafter Colvig was marked for slaughter on the 
Indians' acceptation of **an eye for an eye." 

July 6, 1882, while Colvig and two of his scouts were on their way up the 
San Carlos River to distribute ration tickets, he and his scouts were shot down 
by Apaches, who ambushed them from the brush. The Indians hurried away 
from the scene of the killing, for there was dust coming down the road. The 
dust was from two buggy teams, driven by Chas. T. Council and Trader Rube 
Wood, who were returning from Globe after an Independence Day celebration. 
The Indians waited in the undergrowth for the two Americans to come up, but 
the dust cloud stopped and then turned b€tck. Council and Wood had been 
halted by a friendly Indian, who yelled to them in the Apache tongue, **Go 
back; everybody killed at San Carlos." Council, thinking the man wild, was 
about to pass, when the man threatened him with his revolver and still insisted 
that he go back. With Council was his wife. The two teams were turned and 
were galloped at full speed, with a band of yelling fiends behind and others 
trying to cut off the party at the turns of the road. It was about a seven-mile 
run to Gilson's Well, where there was a house that could be barricaded and 
where there were at the time a number of teamsters, one of whom, Al Rose, gave 
Council a fine horse to ride the twelve miles into Globe to secure assistance. 
Council made the journey in thirty-five minutes, but the horse never was used 
again. Whistles were blown and the church bells were rung and the men of 
Globe gathered at once for war. Couriers were dispatched to outlying ranches 
and Connell went back with twelve well-armed men. Sending the women and 
children into Globe, the posse continued from Gilson's down the canon to a 
point just below where Connell had turned his horses. There it was found that 
a Cottonwood log had been rolled beside the road as a bulwark, behind which 
had lain at least a dozen Indians. Near by lay the body of Colvig and the two 
scouts. These were picked up and taken to San Carlos, where Colvig was buried 
beside his predecessor. 

The Indian who had warned Connell and Wood immediately disappeared 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 239 

to join the tribesmen and possibly escaped detection by the hostiles. For years 
thereafter the two Americans saw that he and his family needed nothing. 

The Indians' outbreak was led by a chief named Nadiski, a Coyotero Indian, 
whose band included a number of Tontos. (Army records mention Nan-ti-a-tish 
and Arshay, Cibicu chiefs.) Nadiski lived on Cherry Creek near the Middleton 
ranch and had refused to go on the warpath with the Cibicus. But he was recog- 
nized as a bad Indian and was taken to San Carlos, where for a while he was 
held in the guard house. All of this made him sulky and when he started back 
for his own hunting grounds he took with him one of the largest bands that ever 
left tJie reservation, possibly embracing 150 bucks and squaws. He had made 
careful preparation, including the cutting of the telegraph line, 300 feet of the 
wire being taken a half mile back in the hills to insure against immediate repair. 

SETTLEBS SAVED BY GLOBE BANOEB8 

The Indians, trooping off from their reservation, like truant children, 
struck northeast of Globe, past the almost-deserted mining camp at McMillen, 
where a young man named Boss was wounded, and into the Cherry Creek Valley. 
Globe had called together and armed a large number of citizens and had estab- 
lished guard posts in the hills around. Always on call was a flexible sort of organ* 
ization, known as the Globe Rangers. A dozen of these Rangers forthwith saddled 
and struck northward, to warn the settlers of the Cherry Creek Valley and Tonto 
Basin. Among the members of the party were Capt. D. B. Lacey, W. F. Mid- 
dleton, Winthrop House, Newt. Clark, Pred Hatch, Lafayette Grime, ** Black 
Biir* Beard and Lindsey Lewis. At the Middleton ranch, fifty miles from Globe, 
were found William Middleton, W. H. Henry, Eugene Middleton and one Knight, 
making a formidable force of frontiersmen. The Indians, on their way killing 
a lonely settler named Gleason, arrived a bit earlier than expected and forth- 
with proceeded to stampede the horses grazing near the cabin. Lacey arid five 
others bravely tried to save the horses, but the half dozen were fortunate in get- 
ting back to the cabin with their lives. 

Eugene and Henry Middleton and Grime had started early to warn the ranch- 
ers further up the valley. They returned during the afternoon and dropped into 
a situation that promised sudden death. Unable to escape northward on their 
tired horses, the trio dashed down a narrow mountain valley, the target of scores 
of rifles. The cabin was reached, with wounded horses, yet with only slight 
injury to one of the three, Eugene Middleton, whose right stirrup was shattered 
by a bullet. 

The Indians, finding no profit in the attack on the Middleton ranch, stopped 
wasting their bullets about nightfall and moved on northward. The next place 
visited was the Sigsby horse ranch, on the headwaters on Tonto Creek, a few miles 
west of Pleasant Valley, reached about ten o'clock the following morning. One 
of the Sigsby brothers and a French employe, Louis Houdon, were found away 
from the house, trying to save their horses, and were killed, but not until at least 
half a dozen of the Indians had been started toward the happy hunting ground, 
as shown by the number of Indian shirts left behind. The men had sold their 
lives dearly. Then came one of the most gallant episodes of Indian warfare. The 
second Sigsby, though '* creased'' across the breast as he was entering the house 
with a supply of water, managed to barricade himself safely and through chinks 



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240 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

in the cabin walls to hold off a continuous attack that lasted until into the night, 
killing at least one Indian who had crawled up in the dusk near the house trying 
to secure the saddle from Houdon's mule, which had returned to the cabin, 
there to be shot 

The Indians kept traveling still northward toward the fastnesses of the Mo- 
goUon Mountains. A small part of the band, over at the edge of Pleasant Val- 
ley, was espied by the young wife of one of the Tewksburys on guard at daylight. 
The young woman distinguished herself by a shot at an Indian who peeped from 
a rock, and felt sure she hit him. 

General Willcox early had been advised of the outbreak and forthwith he 
ordered out troops from Forts Thomas, Apache, McDowell and Whipple, all to 
concentrate on Wild Rye Creek, in northern Tonto Basin. 

CHAFFEE'S FIGHT AT BIO DBY WASH 

At the time, Capt. Adna R. Chaffee was in command of three troops of the 
Sixth at McDowell, near the mouth of the Verde. On receipt of news of the out- 
break he joyously sounded ** Boots and Saddles'* and with half his garrison cut 
through the lofty Mazatzal range on the old Camp Reno road, through Tonto 
Creek Valley and over the upper Sierra Anchas. He arrived at Sigsby 's only a 
few hours after the last Indian had departed and hurried on, leaving the rancher 
to bury his own dead. It was a hard ride at the pace he set and soon the trail 
was lined with worn-out horses. But Chaffee, shrewd campaigner that he was, 
had brought extra mounts. Indian videttes telegraphed ahead by smoke and fire 
and blanket of the coming of the galloping troopers. 

The Indians, with their herds of stolen horses, were trailed by Al. Sieber into 
one of the great canons that indent the awful cliffs of the rim of the MogoUon 
Plateau, near the head of Chevalon's Fork. In the middle o£ this *'Big Dry 
Wash" was a rocky hill, from which Chaffee's dismounted troopers soon drove the 
hostiles, who took refuge amid the rocks on the sides of the gorge. The Indians 
at first outnumbered the cavalry, but there were accessions very soon of troops 
from all directions, perfectly carrying out the General's orders. Close behind 
was Major A. W. Evans, Third Cavalry, who rode hard to the rescue with a 
troop commanded by Lieutenant Converse, but who generously left direction 
of the attack with Chaffee, whom he ranked. Chaffee struck the hostiles about 
3 p. m. July 17. The Indians, well placed behind boulders in the canon walls, 
fought desperately, and a number of redskins, getting out of the gorge, opened 
fire on the rear of the troops. Yet at dark the advantage was with the soldiery, 
for the Indians had been driven from their loot and horses into a position that 
could not long be maintained. 

By next morning no less than twelve troops of cavalry were on the ground 
from four widely separated posts. Indian scouts wormed through the brush to 
find the Indians had fled into the MogoUons, leaving sixteen dead, two of them 
of the Cibicu scout company, and six wounded to be taken prisoner. The fugi- 
tives scattered, favored against trailing by a heavy hail storm. One trooper was 
killed and seven were wounded. Among the wounded also were Lieutenants 
Geo. Ij. Converse and Geo. H. Morgan. Evans and a number of other officers 
received high commendation in orders for their work in this affray. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 241 

BAD AGENCY CONDITIONS 

In the summer of 1882 Indian conditions in Arizona had become bad indeed. 
There was unrest in practically all the tribes. This was not due to the opera- 
tions of the military, but mainly to the system of the Interior Department of 
turning the Indian agencies over to political favorites, under the apparent as- 
sumption that graft was the expected thing. One of the most unpopular of 
these oflBcials, from the standpoint both of the white settlers and of the Indians, 
was Indian Agent Tiffany, of San Carlos, who is said to have relinquished a 
large salary as pastor of an eastern church to accept half the apparent annual 
income, to assist in the ** uplift" of the aboriginal wards of the government. 

During his period of oflSce, while only a few small patches were cultivated 
by the Indians under his jurisdiction, there accumulated at the agency veritable 
parks of farm machinery, including threshers and other expensive equipment 
that the Indians in all probability never could be able to use. It was claimed 
at the time that there were commissions in the purchase of this machinery. It 
was also claimed that certain oflScials around the agency held in their own nanies 
herds of beef cattle in the White Mountains, not only grazing without cost on 
agency lands, but, in origin, stolen from the beef issues that had been made 
for the benefit of the Indians. 

There was another little tale, that later was investigated by the army, that 
told of collusion between agency employees and a contractor who delivered at 
San Carlos several thousand head of high-grade cattle for distribution among 
the Indians, to start them in the industry of cattle raising. The idea was an 
excellent one. The cattle were distributed as planned, much to the pleasure of 
the Indians. Not many months thereafter few of the cattle could be found on 
the reservation. At the agency it was charged that the Indians had killed and 
eaten them. A military investigation indicated, however, that the stock when 
delivered had been coUusively ** hair-branded. '* The ranch of the seller was 
not far from the reservation. When the cattle were turned loose they naturally 
drifted back to their former homes. Within three months there was no sign 
of the government brand, but the original brand stood out clearly. 

TUCSON JUBY'S * 'BOAST" OF TIFFANY 

On the same line, a document which, being oflBcial, can safely be copied, was 
the report of a federal grand jury of Arizona at Tucson in October, 1882. It 
follows : 

The investigations of the grand jury have brought to light a course of procedure at 
the San Carlos Reservation, under the government of Agent Tiffany, which is a disgrace to 
the civilization of the age and a foul blot upon the national escutcheon. While many of the 
details connected with these matters are outside of our jurisdiction, we nevertheless feel it 
our duty, as honest American citizens, to express our utter abhorrence of the conduct of 
Agent Tiffany and that class of reverend peculators who have cursed Arizona as Indian 
officials, and who have caused more misery and loss of life than all other causes combined. 
We feel assured, however, that under the judicious and just management of General Crodk, 
these evils will be abated, and we sincerely trust that he may be permitted to render the 
official existence of such men as Agent Tiffany, in the future, unnecessary. 

The investigations of the grand jury also establish the fact that General Crook has the 
unbounded confidence of all the Indians. The Indian prisoners acknowledged this before 
the grand jury, and they expressed themselves as- perfectly satisfied that he would deal justly 



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242 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

with them all. We have made diligent inquiry into the various charges presented in regard 
to Indian goods and the traffic at San Carlos and elsewhere, and have acquired a vast amoout 
of information which we think will be of benefit. For several years the people of this 
territory have been gradually arriving at the conclusion that the management of the Indian 
reservations in Arizona was a fraud upon the Gk)vemment; that the constantly recurring out- 
breaks of the Indians and their consequent devastations were due to the criminal neglect or 
apathy of the Indian agent at San Carlos; but never until the present investigations of the 
grand jury have laid bare the infamy of Agent Tiffany could a proper idea be formed 
of the fraud and villainy which are constantly practiced in open violation of law and in 
defiance of public justice. Fraud, peculation, conspiracy, larceny, plot and counterplots, 
seem to be the rule of action upon this reservation. The grand jury little thought when they 
began this investigation that they were about to open a Pandora's box of iniquities seldom 
surpassed in the annals of crime. 

With the immense power wielded by the Indian agent almost any crime is possible. There 
seems to be no check upon his conduct. In collusion with the chief clerk and storekeeper, 
rations can be issued ad libitum for which the Qovemment must pay, while the proceeds pass 
into the capacious pockets of the agent. Indians are sent to work on the coal fields, superin- 
tended by white men; all the workmen and superintendents are fed and frequently paid from 
the agency stores, and no return of the same is made. Government tools and wagons are 
used in transporting goods and working the coal mines, in the interest of this close corpora- 
tion and with the same result. All surplus supplies are used in the interest of the agent, 
and no return made thereof. Government contractors, in collusion with Agent Tiffany, get 
receipts for large amounts of supplies never furnished, and the profit is divided mutually, 
and a general spoliation of the United States treasury is thus effected. While 600 Indians 
are off on passes, their rations are counted and turned in to the mutual aid association, 
consisting of Tiffany and his associates. Every Indian child bom receives rations from the 
moment of its advent into this vale of tears, and thus adds its mite to the Tiffany pile. In 
the meantime, the Indians are neglected, half-fed, discontented, and turbulent, until at last, 
with the vigilant eye peculiar to the savage, the Indians observe the manner in which the 
Government, through its agent, complies with its sacred obligations. 

This was the united testimony of the grand jury, corroborated by white witnesses, and 
to these and kindred causes may be attributed the desolation and bloodshed which have 
dotted our plains with the graves of murdered victims. 

The San Carlos Indians drew rations once a week, on the basis of a ticket 
for each individual, whether just bom or too old to walk. Every Friday the 
ration was delivered through a window in the adobe commissary building to 
the heads of the families, who passed in their tickets and received the Nation's 
bounty more or less in bulk. The weekly ration per individual comprised 51^ 
pounds of flour, 4 ounces of beans and 8 ounces of sugar, with four pounds of 
coffee and 1 pound of salt to each 100 rations and, lastly, a small individual cake 
of soap, however unnecessary. Beef was the principal feature of the ration, 
however, the cattle slaughtered by the Indians themselves and distributed more 
or less in common. Also there was an annual issue of blankets, shirts, calico, 
agricultural implements, knives and other goods valued by the tribesmen. 



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CHAPTER XIX 
THE FIRST SONORAN CAMPAIGN 

Surrender of the Ceronimo Band and lis Escape — Murder of the McComas Family — 
Zulick*s Warning Against Violence — Cratpford Killed b}^ Mexicans — Crook 
Redgns. 

Very exceptional indeed it was in the history of Indian administration when 
vengeance really overtook three of the Cibicu murderers. Dandy Jim, Skippy 
and Dead Shot, three of the mutinous scouts, were tried by courtmartial, as 
was proper considering the fact that they had been enlisted in the government 
service, were found guilty and were hanged at Port Grant, March 3, 1882. Two 
others were sent to the Alcatraz prison. There was fear among the military 
that these executions would lead to immediate reprisals on the part of the Apache 
tribes, but nothing of the sort happened. There seemed always the keenest ap- 
prehension among the Indians that the military would turn its Indian captives 
over to the civil authorities, for they would have had prompt justice if taken 
before any jury in southern Arizona. It is probable that the military authori- 
ties would have been more than pleased to lay the burden of prosecution upon 
the several counties, but any such action would have meant the loss of an officer's 
commission at the instance of offended Indian sympathizers bcusk East 

The Cibicu outbreak was the cause of much internal trouble within the 
Department of Arizona. Colonel Carr, rather outspoken in laying the blame 
on other shoulders, was ordered under arrest, but soon after was released by 
President Arthur. While pioneers generally are disposed to give little credit 
to General Willcox, in command at the time, it is probable that like the fiddler 
in the frontier dance hall he should not have been so vigorously damned, for 
**he was doing the best he could." It was a hard thing to be a responsible mili- 
tary commander in the days when savage foes were in front and when, from 
behind, the soldiers' arms were held by mawkish sentimentalists. 

OBOOK BETUBNED TO ABIZONA OOBOiAin} 

When General Crook returned to Arizona in July, 1882, he seemed to have 
in mind some such plan of campaign as had been so successful ten years before. 
He went almost at once to Port Apache, with the idea of gathering up a con- 
siderable force of White Mountain scouts. But it happened that among these 
Indians were many who had been implicated in the Cibicu outbreak, including 
Alchisay, who, however, agreed to assist the General in a campaign against the 
Chiricahuas. At San Carlos was held a big **talk" where Crook met about 
all the prominent Indians, upon whom he placed much more responsibility than 
ever before, demanding of them that they keep the peace of the agency and that 

243 



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244 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

they themselves punish offenders. He re-established the system of metal tags 
and placed Capt. Emmett Crawford, one of the ablest of his officers, in charge 
of a company of scouts at the agency. 

July 19, 1882, led by Dutchy, was a small outbreak from San Carlos of 
four of the old Cibicu outlaws who had been held under guard. They entered 
a camp of six teamsters where, Apache-like, they acknowledged hospitable 
treatment by trying to shoot down their unsuspecting hosts, whose guns they 
had seized. A Safford teamster named Ferrin was killed and Kit Reynolds of 
Globe was wounded, the others escaping. 

Agent Tiffany resigned in the summer of 1882 and was succeeded by P. P. 
Wilcox, who at once appointed a son-in-law sole trader on the reservation and 
who soon was in active opposition to many of the military plans. All of this 
tended toward bad reservation conditions, for the Indians were sharp enough 
to make use for their own benefit of the internal dissensions around the agency. 

It is possible that Crook was right in his assumption that Indian had to 
be fought by Indian, but one very bad feature attended the employment of 
Indian scouts, in that rifles and ammunition soon were possessed by every brave 
upon the reservation. All suggestions of disarmament were met by the argu- 
ment that firearms were needed for hunting purposes. Allowances of cartridges 
were made to the Indian scouts for use in hunting, but generally were saved up 
against a day of possible outbreak in the future. Fifty-caliber Springfield 
cartridges for years passed from hand to hand around the agency in the way 
of currency, with a value of 5 cents each, a cartridge belt often taking the place 
of a purse. At one time it was told in Globe that Mexicans were selling cart- 
ridges to the Indians at 25 cents apiece. Reloading outfits had been secured 
from the paternal government and were in use and every cartridge shell care- 
fully was saved. Two features of Indian warfare always gave advantage to the 
whites; one was that the Apache usually was saving of ammunition and rarely 
shot unless he was at close range and practically sure of his prey, and further, 
rarely expended ammunition in target practice. The other was that, generally 
speaking, the Indian was a poor shot, his keen eyes seeming rarely to take 
full value of the presence of the rear sight. There is suggestion also that this 
poor shooting may have been the result of the natural carelessness of the Indian 
with his weapon, which probably rarely was cleaned and which soon became 
undependable. 

OHATTO AND THE McOOMAS MUBDEBS 

In March, 1883, the infamous Chatto left the Sierra Madres and entered 
Arizona, killing a party of wood choppers in the Huachucas, torturing and kill- 
ing two miners, R. B. M. Dibble and Isaac A. Bateman, at the mining camp of 
Winchester and thence drifting toward the northeast. 

On this raid, in Thompson Canon on the upper Gila, occurred the murder 
of the McComas family, one of the most dreadful of southwestern tragedies. 
iVfcComas was an attorney of distinction in southwestern New Mexico and the 
murder therefore attracted wide attention. The circumstances were especially 
bloody and horrible, even for an Apache ambush, the bodies of McComas and his 
wife being mutilated in unspeakable fashion. Their little boy, Charlie, was 
picked up by the band, which was on its way southward into the Sierra Madre 



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CHATTO, 1883 




CHARLEY W. McCOMAS 
Captured by Chatto's band March 28, 1883 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 245 

Mountains. For several years reports were returned that the boy still was 
living in ]VIexico. The relatives maintained hope for several years and advertised 
throughout the Southwest, offering a reward for the boy's return, hoping that 
the notice, which was illustrated by a portrait of the child, would get into 
Indian hands. 

Years thereafter an Indian scout, who had been a member of the band, told 
that the boy continued to weep fdr his murdered parents, making such a noise 
that the irritated Chatto roughly ordered his death. So the Indian with whom 
the child was riding lifted him by the hair, plunged a knife into his breast and 
threw the body into a convenient arroyo. According to Chas. R. Montgomery, 
the famous Southwestern hunter, Chatto later told that Charlie McComas had 
been killed within a mile from the spot where his father and mother had been 
murdered. Montgomery stated that he afterward verified the tale by going 
to the spot indicated and there finding a few bones, apparently those of a child. 
He gave the details to General Crook, but Chatto then was a confidential scout 
and Crook did not care to punish him. Geronimo later claimed that the McComas 
boy had been killed far down in Mexico, but probably lied. 

OBOOK'S FIBST MEXICAN OAJdPAION 

Few features of Apaohe atrocity ever have excited such horror as did the 
McComas murder, and from New Mexico and Arizona arose a cry for vengeance. 
It was apparent that whatever was done with the Indians in Arizona, there must 
also be extermination of the band of cutthroats south of the line. So General 
Crook went to Hermosillo, where he conferred with Governor Luis Torres. There 
arrangements were made for co-operation between the American and Mexican 
forces. Shortly thereafter Crook organized his first expedition into Mexico. He 
took a small troop of the Sixth Cavalry, with Captain Chaffee in command, Lieut. 
Frank West and a force of 193 Apache scouts, under charge of Captain Crawford. 
As aides-de-camp Crook took Capt. John G. Bourke, Third Cavalry, and Lieut. 
G. T. Febiger, Engineer Corps. Other officers were Lieuts. C. B. Gatewood and 
W. W. Forsythe, Sixth Cavalry, Lieut. Jas. 0. Mackay, Third Cavalry, and Sur- 
geon Andrews. The leading scouts were Al Sieber and Archie Macintosh, while 
Mickey Free, Severiano and Sam Bone were taken as interpreters. It is prob- 
able that the expedition was due to the return to San Carlos of a White Mountain 
Apache, Panayotishn, known to the soldiers as ** Peaches," who had married a 
Chiricahua and who had left San Carlos with the insurrecto band in October, 
1881. *' Peaches" told a story of trouble with Chatto and offered to lead the 
soldiers into the Mexican mountains against the hostiles. Possibly by Crook him- 
self this story was taken with many grains of salt, but it was appreciated that it 
offered an opportunity to at least meet and treat with the Apaches and possibly 
stop their forays. 

The Indian scouts generally were White Mountains or Coyoteroe and in- 
cluded Alchisay. According to Bourke, the expedition was remarkably successful. 
He told that, 200 miles south of the international line, within the unknown re- 
cesses of the Sierra Madres, was ** surprised and captured, after a brief but decis- 
ive fight, the stronghold of the Chiricahuas, who were almost all absent, raiding 
upon the hapless Mexican hamlets exposed to their fury. As fast as the warriors 
and squaws came home they were apprehended and put under charge of the 



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246 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

scouts. This was one of the boldest and most successful strokes ever achieved by 
the United States army ; every man, woman and child of the Chiricahuas was re- 
turned to the San Carlos agency and put to work. ' ' 

Captain Bourke was a gallant officer, a charming gentleman and a most pleas- 
ing narrator of the experiences of his time. Yet in this one respect the accuracy 
of his narration, significantly brief in itself, has been challenged repeatedly, for it 
is believed that, instead of meeting with entire success, the expedition practically 
was a failure and that the Indians who thereafter returned came of their own 
volition. In the language of the frontier it would appear that the Indians " caUed 
Crook's bluff." 

The attack referred to by Bourke was far from a general one. Lieutenant 
Forsyth in his diary records under date of May 15, 1883, **The command had 
marched about six miles when again they were stopped by a scout from Craw- 
ford : 1 :10 p. m. Indian scouts ran upon one buck and ten squaws and killed them 
before I intended to attack the camp, but I must now.'' It is said that this was 
the only fight there was, caused by the agitation of a few young scouts. 

THE liYSTEBIOXJS TREATY WITH OEBONIMO 

The central Indian rancheria was known as the Peach orchard. As Bourke 
has stated, few of the bucks were at home when the Americans dropped in, but 
they were in the hills roundabout, fully aware of the coming of the forces from 
the north and well prepared to receive them, with superior numbers and with the 
advantage of location. There was even doubt of the loyalty of the Apache scouts, 
as was natural, for Alchisay and his band were of proven treacherous character. 
To be depended upon only was the little band of soldiers and the American scouts, 
in all numbering less than sixty. Assuredly Crook had run himself into a perilous 
situation. Also without doubt the hostiles at the time of dispatching ** Peaches" 
on his mission had finally concluded to return to the United States if they could 
by competent authority be assured that vengeance would not be exacted for their 
mtlrders of years past and that they would be protected against the logical de- 
mands of the civil population. The principal feature seems to be that Crook gave 
the Indians the advantage in going into their own camp to treat with them, instead 
of sending for their chiefs to come to a place of his own choosing. 

The principal Indians, called by peace signals, met with Crook and a number 
of his officers in a memorable conference. The leading chief of the several inde- 
pendent bands was Nachis, though the most active of the leaders was Chatto. 
Geronimo, it should be explained, really was a man of little influence with his 
people and had no particular rank as a chief, but he had the **gift of gab" and 
for years had served as the mouthpiece of Juh, who had an impediment in his 
speech and who could hardly talk at all when he became excited. In a way, 
Geronimo had much the same position as Sitting Bull among the Sioux. It should 
be remembered that Geronimo, like Juh, was of the Janos, and Nachis, son of 
Cochise was hereditary chieftain of the Chiricahuas, to which tribe also belonged 
Chatto and Bonito. 

At the conference May 29, in that lonesome valley of the Sierra Madres, 
Geronimo did the talking for the Indians and hence was accepted by Crook then 
and later as the controlling leader of the hostiles, an erroneous estimate that has 
been accepted unto this day. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 247 

An excellent appreciation of Geronimo's character has been given by Connell, 
who has written : **He was the politician of the southern or Janos Apaches. He 
could set forth the wishes of the leaders of the Chiricahuas or any other branch 
of the Apache nation in glowing terms, and in eloquent words portray their 
wrongs — ^their sufferings, and at the same time obtain concessions and terms that 
were advantageous. He was forever wound up with words and wrongs. He was 
vain in the matter of speech. He would rather talk than eat, although he had a 
voracious appetite. In other words, he was spoiled by the recognition of General 
Crook and his sense of importance led him for many years afterwards to pose as 
the real leader of the Apaches. In later years at Fort Sill he was deposed from 4iis 
throne of usurped authority by Asa Duke, a son of Juh, the real leader and chief 
of the tribe to which Geronimo belonged." 

Tom Horn was pushed forward as interpreter by Sieber, whose estimate of 
the situation was shown in his words of warning: **Take a knife, Tom; stand 
while you interpret ; forget that you may not live another minute and think only 
of the talk." Crook told Geronimo of a treaty permitting the American soldiers 
to cross the line and gave him his choice of war or peace. During all the early 
stages of the conference, Sieber was sure that the Americans all would be slain and 
he kept his hand within his shirt where he had a revolver with which he meant 
to blow out Geronimo 's brains at the first move that looked like violence. There 
were hours of weary talk, for Geronimo had the oratorical chance of a lifetime. 
He discoursed with eloquence on the alleged wrongs of his people and diplomati- 
cally doubted the word of the white man. 

ESCAPE OF THE TBJNOIPAIm CHIEFS 

There was a second talk the following day, after the Apaches had argued the 
matter out among themselves. Then the Indians announced their willingness to 
return to San Carlos, with the condition that they were to be fully protected, that 
they were to be allowed to carry their arms and to march as they pleased and that 
they should be maintained in the possession of whatever horses, mules and cattle 
they had on hand, though it assuredly was well known to the American com- 
mander that practically every head of stock had been stolen. The leisurely 
march started for the north, with 383 individuals in the Indian column. Only 250 
of these reached San Carlos. In little bands nearly all the fighting men dropped 
out long before the Gila had been reached, returning to Mexico for further depre- 
dations, unencumbered by their families or their booty, which they had placed 
under the care of long-suffering Uncle Sam. Rations had been issued to all and 
when the absence of Nachis, Chatto, Geronimo and the principal fighting men was 
marked, the easy explanation was made that they had gone out into the hills after 
the balance of the Indians. The General, accepting these assertions as truth, left 
Captain Chaffee at Silver Creek, near San Bernardino ranch, to wait for the 
stragglers. The others reached San Carlos June 20. 

It is probable that Crook had some doubt about the Indians he had trusted, 
for Herbert Brown of Tucson in after years wrote that the General had told him 
that the escaped Indians ** can't be brought in in twenty years." The General, 
however, accepted an invitation to visit Tucson, a city which had shown a rare 
spirit of hospitality and of appreciation. He was extended a banquet and ball 



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248 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

at Levin's park. It is told that the General was graeioiis> but Tucson later 
became the center of a strong attack upon him and his policies. 

When the wearied party from the south crossed the international line, a 
number of United States customs oflBcers were in waiting, prepared to do their 
duty with respect to the importation of the Mexican stock, but were practically 
driven away by the military. It is told that there were scores of claimants for the 
cattle and horses, which were driven through to San Carlos in pursuance to the 
agreement. Bourke rather bitterly writes on this subject: **As in the Southwest 
the custom was to put on the brand of the purchaser as well as the vent brand of 
the seller, each animal down there was covered from brisket to rump with more or 
less plainly discernible brands of ownership. General Crook knew that there 
must be considerable percentage of perjury in all the mass of affidavit presented 
and wisely decided that the cattle should be driven up to the San Carlos agency 
and there herded under guard in the best obtainable pasturage till fat enough to 
be sold to the best advantage. Brands and all data concerning the disposition of 
each head of stock were preserved and the money realized was sent through 
Washington to the government of Mexico for distribution. ' ' It was told that some 
of the stock thus treated was brought in later by the bucks who had abandoned 
the main party and there was bitter complaint when it was taken from them. 

The prodigal Ishmaelites were placed upon the White Mountain reservation 
north of San Carlos and there rather ** close herded*' by troops, given rations and 
encouraged to cultivate small patches of ground in the valleys. 

APACHES SAVED FROM OIVIL AX7TH0BITT 

About this time Crook was receiving much unfavorable mention in the press 
of southern Arizona, and the depth of his resentment is indicated by a report to 
the War Department, in which he is said to have defended his action in keeping 
the wild Chiricahuas upon the reservation as having been made necessary as a 
measure of protection of their homes and property against ** white scoundrels." 
The Indians on the reservation were placed under charge of Captain Crawford, 
who was given the assistance of Lieutenant Gatewood. Crook surely had an un- 
happy period about that time. The civil authorities appealed through every pos- 
sible channel for the surrender to them of such known murderers as Chatto, the 
bloody assassin of the McComas family, and through diplomatic channels came 
demands from Mexico for the return of the stolen stock. 

Crook defended the Chiricahuas as prisoners of war, **who had surrendered 
with the understanding that their past misdeeds would not be punished, provided 
they behaved themselves in the future. To attempt to punish those at the San 
Carlos reservation as prisoners would be an act of perfidy and bad faith and 
would unquestionably not only prevent the return to the agency of the Chirica- 
huas left in the Sierra Madres, but would precipitate an Indian war which would 
be more serious in its results upon the two countries than any which has pre- 
ceded it. . . . It would be almost as impossible to exterminate the Chir- 
cahuas in their mountain homes as the wolf and coyote with whom they share 
their possession of the Sierra Madres." 

Though Captain Bourke, in his commendable loyalty to his chief, states that 
the last man, woman and child of the entire band of Chiricahua Apaches (512 in 
number) had been taken to Camp Apache, in July of that same year Indians from 



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CX)TOC, A MARICOPA CHIEF, AND HIS WIFE 




TYPICAL PIMA INDIAN ''KEE" NEAR PHOENIX 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 249 

the same Sierra Madres band were raiding the Nacozari and Moctezuma country. 
Bonito was sent southward by Captain Crawford to bring in the hostiles, who 
seemed to be terrorizing the whole country between Nacozari and Chihuahua. 
But Bonito took all the time he wanted and possibly participated in some of the 
subsequent raids. 

Some of the irritation was caused by su<jh stories, possibly true, that the 
McComas relatives were compelled to pay $50 to Chatto for the recovery of the 
Judge's gold watch, this having been considered much in the same category as 
cattle. At Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, in September, 1883, a band of Indians 
sold a gold ring and two bracelets marked with the name of Mrs. McComas. 

aSBONIMO BETUBNS TO HIS BATIOK8 

Conditions in Sonora about this time may be imagined from an offer made by 
the Mexican government of $250 for the scalp of any male Apache. Pour hun- 
dred volunteers, including a number of Americans, marched into the Sierra 
Madres in an effort to exterminate the San Carlos Apaches, still in the mountains. 
As a result, still more ** repentant'' hostiles surrendered to military camps along 
the border, together with no small number of horses and cattle. Chatto came back 
February 27, 1884, and, escorted by Lieut. Britton Davis, Geronimo returned to 
his rations at San Carlos March 14. Soon thereafter the Chiricahuas were trans- 
ferred to Turkey Creek near Fort Apache, mainly because of the dissensions of 
Captain Crjawford and Agent Wilcox. Even then they were not all home, for at 
least a score had remained in the hunting grounds of the Sierra Madres. 
Geronimo was indignant when Captain Crawford took stolen Mexican horses from 
him, an action that may have been cited by him as reason for his future breach of 
contract. 

Captain Crawford, weary with his controversy with Agent Wilcfox, in April, 
1884, was granted a court of inquiry, which, in July, gave him both acquittal of 
wrongdoing and praise for his work, his administration at San Carlos being de- 
clared **wise, just, and for the best interests of the Indians," who are declared to 
be very near to self support. The execution of an Indian named ** Charlie," in 
the opinion of the court was without barbarity, in accordance with Indian tribal 
forms and customs and of good effect. General Crook approved the findings of 
the court. 

There followed a few months of relative peace. Firmness was shown in sending 
Cayetano of the Chiricahua band to Alcatraz prison for trying to start an out- 
break. Some surcease from sorrow appears to have been afforded by the resigna- 
tion of the unpopular Agent Wilcox, in October, 1884. But the row between the 
Interior and War Departments over the management of the San Carlos Indians 
continued after the accession of the new agent, C. D. Ford. When Crook was 
overruled in February, 1885, in his claims upon the civil administration, he stated 
that his understanding was that **I should put them to work and set them to 
raising com, instead of scalps." 

OHntlOAHUAS AGAIN ON THE WAB PATH 

As was natural, while the white men were quarreling over questions of admin- 
istration, the Chiricahuas began to quarrel among themselves. Due warning was 
sent the General by Lieutenant Davis, who finally asked aid from the command- 



Vol. 1.— 17 



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250 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

ing officer at Port Apache, but, favored by the customary official delay, in May, 
1885, 124 Chiricahuas, including forty-five bucks, left the reservation headed 
southward on the same old bloody trail. They were led by Nachis, Chihua- 
hua and Geronimo, happy with their hands again wet with gore. They had 
killed twenty-one persons by the time they crossed the Southern Pacific near 
Deming. Soldiers sent on the trail were fought back by a rear guard of 
Indians and the Apaches made good their escape into the Sierra Madres. It is 
told that by this time General Crook, heartsick and weary, was willing to acknowl- 
edge the failure of his policy of gentle treatment and it is also told that for the 
first time direct orders were received from the War Department to kill every 
Apache on sight. 

Not content with the hunting in Mexico, several raids were made northward. 
One of these passed not far from Bisbee, through the Mule Pass Mountains and 
into the Sulphur Springs Valley. On June 10 Captain Lawton, with a small force 
of soldiers, had an encounter willi this same band, which surprised him while he 
was in camp in Guadalupe Cafion. There was terror all along the border and in 
every hamlet men were organized for defense. Companies of some size were col- 
lected at Tombstone, Clifton, Tucson and Bisbee. The Clifton command, under 
Captain Fisher and Lieut. W. J. Parks, had a fight in Doubtful Canon with 
twenty-five Indians, about its own number, and killed two Apaches. 

Bourke especially refers to what he called **The Tombstone Toughs,'' who 
** marched upon San Carlos with the loudly-heralded determination to 'clean out' 
all in sight. ' ' He was rather bitter over this civilian invasion of the military field, 
by what he called '* rum-poisoned bummers of the San Pedro Valley. " Bourke is 
authority for the statement that all this volunteer force did was to fire upon a 
decrepit Indian of the Eskiminzin band and then run away. Probably Bourke 
was prejudiced. 

A campaign of terror was inaugurated by the redskins, covering much of 
the territory between San Carlos and Moctezuma. Indians were reported every- 
where stalking Americans and Mexicans in the same manner that they would 
antelope. Against these light and fast-moving parties the heavily equipped 
American troops for a wliile seemed to have little success. Crawford, with a 
large force of White Mountain Apaches, was sent into Mexico, while seventeen 
companies of soldiers were strung along the border. There were occasional en- 
counters, in some of which a few hostiles dropped, five of them in one fight 
with some scouts commanded by Maj. Wirt Davis. 

In September Geronimo and a small band slipped through to San Carlos, 
probably hoping to get recruits, but left with the addition of only two squaws. 
They circled ]back through New Mexico, murdering as they went. 

This campaign brought the Indian war closer than ever home to the Arizonans 
and terror and resentment were expressed on every hand. One Board of Super- 
visors offered a reward of $500 for Geronimo, dead or alive. 

The hostiles must have been reinforced, for they seemed to swarm in the 
Chiricahuas and as far northward as the White Mountains beyond Clifton. 
The wide scope of the insurrection was shown by the fact that the Turkey Creek 
camp near Fort Apache was attacked by the broncos, who killed twelve of the 
resident Indians and captured two squaws. Chief Sanchez reported November 
22, 1885, that he had killed and beheaded one of the raiders, a son of Juh, and 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 251 

that the raid particularly was for the purpose of kiUing Chatto, who had re- 
fused to go on the warpath. The death list was a long one and to detail the 
circumstances attending each atrocity would unduly extend this necessarily 
limited chronicle. 

The situation was so grave that commanding General Philip Sheridan came 
from Washington and met General Crook at Fort Bowie in December, 1885. 

The hostiles became so bold that they even fired upon troops of cavalry, 
probably merely to exhibit their dexterity in getting away. Three of the Dun- 
can Rangers were wounded in a fight with Indians on the Gila River, Decem- 
ber 24. 

ZUUOK FEAB8 ATTACK ON SAN CABLOS 

One of the most unpopular actions of Gov. C. Myer Zulick, was his famous 
proclamation of December 23, 1885. The whole of Arizona was in an indignant 
turmoil over the Apache situation, the ever-lengthening list of murders and the 
apparent futility of the military pursuit. Possibly following the lead of General 
Crook, the Governor proclaimed : 

It is with regret that I feel called upon to notice officially the inflammatory appeals 
that have been made to the passion and prejudice of the people of the territory upon our 
Indian diffi.culties. I earnestly entreat our citizens to discountenance lawlessness, to prove 
that Arizonans are yielding obedience to the law, as this furnishes the highest test of 
citizenship. No wrong was ever corrected by sacrificing right. The peaceful Indians occupy 
the San Carlos reservation by authority of law. The Federal Government will give protec- 
tion to them and any unlawful attack upon them would aggravate our present troubles 
and subject us to the just condemnation of the civilized world. The hostile Chiricahua Apache 
renegades, murderers and thieves, I am officially informed, will be pursued until their cap< 
ture or utter destruction is effected. No effort will be spared by the Government to bring 
them to deserved punishment and give protection to life and property in Arizona. I therefore 
beseech our citizens to guard the good name of the territory by discouraging incitement 
to unlawful deeds. Our peace and prosperity depend upon the maintenance of the law 
and preservation of order. I warn all evil-disposed persons that the powers of the Federal 
and territorial governments will be evoked to preserve the rights and redress the wrongs 
of all persons within our borders. 

INDIGNATION OVER THE INDIAN SITUATION 

Intense feeling against the Apaches by Arizona at large was shown by a large 
number of meetings, held in various localities on June 13, 1886, in pursuance 
to a call that had been issued June 3 by the Society of Arizona Pioneers, which 
later chose Granville H. Oury to present to the President of the United States 
the true situation of Indian affairs in the Territory of Arizona and to convey 
an appeal for relief from the curse of Apache Indian depredations that had 
been allowed to rest upon them so long by previous administrations. This resolu- 
tion was signed by H. S. Stevens, President of the society, and Wra. J. Osbom, 
its Secretary. The resolutions from a dozen towns are fairly uniform in de- 
nouncing governmental failure in the handling of the Indian situation and in 
demanding a more vigorous pursuit of the Indian murderers and their sur- 
render thereafter to the civil authorities. There were references to ** corrupt 
officials and Indian rings in Washington, hand in hand," and to ** Indian reser- 
vations whereon hostile Indians are maintained in idleness, are fed, clothed, 
armed and given the opportunity to commit inhuman outrages as a tribal amuse- 
ment, whilst on an annual or biennial picnic, going to and from their favorite 



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252 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

mountain homes in Sonora." At several points there were recommendations 
for the formation of volunteer companies that should act independently against 
the Apaches. 

Florence and other points demanded that all Apache Indians should be 
removed from the Territory and the San Carlos reservation abolished and if this 
be not done that the army be withdrawn and the settlers be permitted to defend 
themselves. The contribution from Yuma was of especially vigorous tone. In 
it was claimed that Government oflficials ** apparently ever have been guided in 
their treatment of hostile Indians by religious sentimentalists and romantic 
female emotionalists who have derived their knowledge of Indian character 
from perusals of the novels of Fenimore Cooper and other hypochondriac 
fictionists and who believe that the Bible, done up in a wrapper of kindness and 
sweetmeats, is the only instrument which should be used in the subjugation of 
the savage but noble red men of the forest." The Chiricahuas were called mur- 
derers by instinct and fiends by choice and the policy of the Government was 
claimed responsible for their work. It was also respectfully suggested **that 
religion is about as much use to a Chiricahua Apache in his present mental 
condition as a pair of Mexican spurs would be in rafting a Hottentot across 
a river and that Fenimore Cooper probably never saw an Indian. * ' 

Globe was particularly severe upon the military, who were declared to have 
the mark of cowardice stamped deeply on their actions by their failure to accept 
engagements afforded them. The temporizing policy of General Crook was 
declared to have been the cause of the loss of many valuable lives and it was 
recommended that he be transferred from the military command of Arizona. 

Lochiel resolved that '*we, as American citizens, look with unutterable horror 
upon the management of Indian affairs as conducted in Arizona for the last 
twenty years that the policy of feeding and amusing Indians on reservations in 
the country of their nativity, and in sight of their favorite haunts, surrounding 
a farming population, enterprising ranchers, prospectors and miners, thus plac- 
ing the settlers at the mercy of the savages whenever these said savages become 
incensed by the robberies of thieving Indian agents, the cupidity of traders, or 
the incompetency of the United States officers, is a disgrace to the civilization 
of the age, a mockery upon justice, a stab at every principle of republican 
government and an insult to the American name.'' 

There was a practical note about the resolutions at Nogales, where Senor 
Don Manual Martinez, '*our respected neighbor,*' was thanked for his offer for 
militia purposes of the use of fifty well-broken saddle horses, and where it was 
resolved that the American and Mexican citizens at once form themselves into 
a frontier company for defensive and active work against the Apache Indians. 
Clifton considered the policy of General Crook vacillating, temporizing and 
damnable. From all of this may be gathered that the people of Arizona were 
somewhat dissatisfied with the southwestern administration of Indian affairs. 

Much to, the scandal of the Indian Rights Association, in February, 1886, 
in the Silver City Southwest Sentinel was found the following advertisement: 

$250 REWABD — The above reward wiU be paid by the Board of County Commissioners 
of Grant County to any citizen of said county for each and every renegade Apache kiUed by 
such citizen, on presentation to said board of the scalp of such Indian. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 253 

A SECOND DBIVE INTO MEXICO 

Late in December, 1885, General Crook started another drive against the 
Indians in Mexico, mainly with Apache scouts, in pursuance of his well-known 
policy. At the head of the expedition was placed that gallant soldier and expert 
handler of Indians, Capt. Emmett Crawford, with a staff including Lieuts. M. 
P. Maus, W. H. Shipp, S. L. Faison and Dr. T. B. Davis, Tom Horn and J. H. 
Harrison serving with the scouts. It was understood this move had the direct 
sanction of General Sheridan. The hostile Chiricahuas were chased far down 
into southeastern Sonora to a point beyond Moctezuma, where the fugitives at 
last, driven from their camps by an unexpected attack, sent word asking a peace 
talk. 

Then occurred one of the most distressing episodes of southwestern military 
history. A command of Mexican soldiery, mainly comprising southern Indians, 
approached stealthily and on the morning of January 11, 1886, opened fire on 
Crawford's scouts. There was natural assumption that the Mexicans had mis- 
taken the scouts for hostiles, so Crawford and his oflBcers, restraining the fire 
of their men, ran out on an eminence, waved their hats and shouted '* Ameri- 
canos.'' But the fire continued, clearly showing direct animus against the 
Americans. Then the scouts returned the fire, killing four Mexicans and 
wounding several. In the midst of the engagement, Crawford still stood up and 
waved a white handkerchief, only to fall back mortally wounded, with a bullet 
through his head. Then the scouts, who had learned to appreciate their leader's 
sterling worth, keen sense of justice and intrepid nature, could hardly be held 
back by Lieutenant Maus from closing in on the Mexicans, for all were ablaze 
with the single thought of vengeance for what appeared like downright murder, 
without reference to the wounding of Tom Horn and several scouts. Captain 
Crawford was taken to Nacozari, where he died on the 18th. Apologies were 
made by Major Corridor, the Mexican commander, but were not considered 
sufficient by the American oflBcers. 

Nachis and Chihuahua, through their mouthpiece, G^ronimo, expressed wil- 
lingness to quit the warpath, but insisted on seeing their friend. General Crook. 
This was agreed upon, the conference to take place two months later at Funnel 
Canon, twenty-five miles below the line. So the two bodies of troops and scouts 
marched northward, but separately. The Indians possibly utilized the time, 
for there was little cessation in the repK)rts of Indian murders and robbery 
through the Sierra Madres. One band even attacked the large town of Cumpas. 

The conference was held as scheduled. (Jeneral Crook, who seemed to have 
taken all precautions for safety at this time, advised the Indians that their 
surrender could not be upon the same terms as theretofore, back to San Carlos 
with their weapons and loot undisturbed. The hostile bucks were to be sent 
away from Arizona with their families, practically in confinement for an un- 
specified number of years. If the proposition did not suit them, they could get 
back into the mountains and the campaign against them would be resumed with 
vigor. 

The Apache troubles had caused such comment that President Cleveland had 
directed that he be kept informed of all developments. The proposed terms 
were submitted to him by General Sheridan and were disapproved. The Gen- 
oral telegraphed Crook, March 30, that, **The President could not assent to 



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254 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

the surrender of the hostiles on the basis of two years imprisonment east and 
then a return to the Arizona reservation." He gave instructions that Crook 
^^in enter into negotiations for unconditional surrender of the Indians, with 
maly the assurance that their lives would be spared, and Crook was directed by 
Sheridan "to take every precaution against the escape of the hostiles, which 
iHHrt; not be allowed under any circumstances. You must make at once such 
dflpontion of your troops as will insure against further hostilities by complet- 
iafi the destruction of the hostiles unless these terms are acceded to." 

The President's ultimatum was conveyed to a few of the chiefs, who pre- 
senled Ifccmselves at the intrenched military camp. To the conference Crook 
took Qqsfteins Bourke and Roberts, Lieutenant Maus, Faison, and Shipp, Doctor 
Davis, C. M. Straus, of Tucsom, C. S. Fly, a Tombstone photographer, and 
Messrs. Moore and Dailey, with Besias Montoya and Jose Concepcion as inter- 
preters. The principal Indians present were Nachis, Chihuahua, Geronimo 
and Kutli. 

HOSTILES OFFER TO 8UBBENDEB 

The three principal chiefs made formal offer of unconditional surrender. 
Chihuahua made a longer address than even the loquacious Geronimo. Pos- 
sibly he was a bit sarcastic, if his remarks have been correctly interpreted, for, 
after stating that he surrendered because Crook had never lied to him, he said, 
'*You may be our Gk)d; you must be the one who makes the green pasture, who 
sends the rain, who commands the winds. You must be the one who sends the 
fresh fruit that comes on the trees every year. There are many men in the 
world who are big chiefs, commanding many people, but you, I think, are the 
greatest of them all or you would not have come out here to see us.'' 

Crook bad brought with him none other than Kaetena, wh'o had been returned 
from Alcatraz, where he had been imprisoned for a few of his many crimes and 
the hostile chiefe expressed gratification at seeing him again alive. 

The formal surrender was on May 27, 1886. On the following morning the 
soldiory and Indians started for Bowie. General Crojok, with his unfortunate 
disposition to regard Indian promises as binding, seemed to have made no move 
toward disarming or otherwise making sure of his captives. It is probable also 
that the force he hjkl taken southward with him was not suflBcient so to do. 
It is possible that the Indians really intended to carry out the provisions of the 
» agreement, but another element intervened, and Nachis and Geronimo, with a 
score of their followrers, were lost on the night of the 29th. 

HOW WHISKEY BUmED A GOOD CAMPAIGN 

The element referred to was mescal, which had been brought into the camp 
by a Swiss named Tribolet, who lived near Fronteras. According to General 
Crook's report, **The man Tribolet brought three five-gallon demijohns of 
whiskey within three miles of camp and sold it for $100. On the morning of 
the 28th, when the move back was commenced, Nachis was drunk in camp. On 
the march, Geronimo and Kutla and three other bucks got so drunk they could 
not sit up on their horses. Lieutenant Maus, on seeing all the men drunk, went 
and knocked in the whiskey barrels and turned out the grog. The night fol- 
lowing this Geronimo left. This action is attributed to Tribolet following them 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 255 

and, through the Mexicans, making them believe they were all to be hanged and 
thus inducing them to leave/' In the same connection Bourke wrote that Frank 
Leslie told him at San Bernardino ranch that he had seen Tribolet sell more 
than thirty gallons of mescal to the Chiricahuas. Upon being remonstrated 
with, the wretch boasted that he could have sold $100 worth that day at $10 
a gallon in silver. It is evident that without consideration of the murders and 
rapine that would ensue, this frontier ** bootlegger'' saw in peace only a check 
to his exorbitant profits in the sale of his soul-destroying stuff. 

Tribolet owned a ranch two miles north of Fronteras a number of years 
later, A branch of the Guggenheims operated a small smelter at Nacozari Viejo, 
six miles from Nacozari. Tribolet, with the Presidente of Fronteras, was charged 
with conspiring to hold up the stage that was carrying the company's pay 
roll of 6,000 Mexican dollars. The robbery was done by four deputies, about six 
miles south of Fronteras, and the Mexican driver was killed. The American own- 
ers of the mine promptly complained to President Diaz, who made immediate 
demand upon the Governor of Sonora for the punishment of the guilty parties. 
A force from Arispe captured the Presidente, Tribolet and two of the actual 
stage robbers, the latter turning state's evidence. The four prisoners were 
started under guard for Arispe, but they never reached there. There was the 
usual explanation, '*They tried to escape." That was the end of the whole 
affair, for justice had been administered through the very convenient Mexican 
form of **la ley fuga." Complaint over this was made to the United States De- 
partment of State by American relatives, but investigation was dropped just as 
soon as the identity of Tribolet was established as that of the individual who 
had sold the liquor that had precipitated another Indian revolt. 

According to General Crook, in an interview at Bowie with Herbert Brown, 
**This whole Apache business is full of complications that defy the best-directed 
efforts to surmount. I have had secret service men in Mexico who made special 
reports of the fact that the Mexicans traded with the Apaches at Casas Grandes 
and Nacori. They traded a watch and some jewelry at one place and United 
States and Mexican money. They took two kegs of Mexican silver dollars amount- 
ing to $1,000 from a pack mule in Samaniego's train about three months ago. 
They steal stock from this side and sell it in Mexico ; they do the same on this 
side, vice versa. This is the trade that has built up Nacori. The two years that 
the Indians were on the reservation this town was nearly deserted, while now it is 
booming. When the Mexicans were remonstrated with, they said it was their 
own country and they would do as they pleased." 

The hostiles who surrendered at Funnel Canon numbered ninety-two. Crook 
rather pathetically' observed that evidently the surrender was not because of fear 
of privation, "as they looked fat and were well supplied with everything. When 
they rode into camp, equipped with the finest saddles, scrapes and horses they 
could steal, with plenty of money, they presented a great contrast with my scouts 
that were getting but $13 a month." 

The escape of Nachis and Geronimo was a short distance south of the San 
Bernardino ranch on the line and about twenty miles north of Funnel Canon. 
Twenty-two bucks and thirteen squaws left, abandoning their horses and prop- 
erty and taking only their arms. They probably figured that horses and provisions 
were to be found at every Mexican ranch. Two of the bucks returned a few days 



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256 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

later, presumably after they had become sober. In the band of Chiricahuas were 
left only thirteen men and half-grown boys, the balance being women and chil- 
dren. The eighty remaining were escorted by Lieutenant Paison to Bowie, which 
was reached April 2, 1886. About the same time there were received at the post, 
with all due honor, the remains of the gallant Captain Crawford. 

OSOOK'S DEFENSE TO HIS SUPEBIOBS 

General Crook was saddened and dispirited by the escape of the principal 
Indians and the second failure of his attempts at pacification. Also he was resent- 
ful of the attitude of his superiors, who he felt had called upon him for a breach 
of trust and the violation of a solemn treaty. Not until a couple of days after 
Nachis and Geronimo had left did he receive the telegram from General Sheridan 
directing him to prevent any escape whatever. In justice to General Crook, it is 
felt that his reply to the Lieutenant-General should be inserted in full : 

There can be no doubt that the scouts were thoroughly loyal and would have prevented 
the hostiles leaving had it been possible. When they left their camp with our scouts, they 
scattered over the country so as to make surprise impossible, and they selected their camp 
with this in view, nor would they all remain in camp at one time. They kept more or less 
full of mescal. To enable you to clearly understand the situation, it should be remembered 
that the hostiles had an agreement with Lieutenant Maus that they were to be met by me 
twenty-five miles below the line, and that no regular troops were to be present. While I was 
very averse to such an arrangement, I had to abide by it as it had already been entered 
into. We found them in a camp on a rocky hiU about five hundred yards from Lieutenant 
Maus, in such a position that 1,000 men could not have surrounded them with any possibUity 
of capturing them. They were able, upon the approach of any enemy being signalled, to 
scatter and escape through dozens of ravines and canons which would shelter them from 
pursuit untU they reached the higher ranges in the vicinity. They were armed to the teeth, 
having the most improved arms and aU the ammunition they could carry. Lieutenant Maus 
with Apache scouts was camped at the nearest point the hostiles would agree to his approach- 
ing. Even had I been disposed to betray the confidence they placed in me it woul^ have 
been simply an impossibUity to get white troops to that point either by day or by night 
without their knowledge, and had I attempted to do this the whole band would have 
stampeded back to the mountains. So suspicious were they that never more than from five to 
eight of the men came into our camp at one time, and to have attempted the arrest of these 
would have stampeded the others to the mountains. 

General Sheridan responded; 

I do not see what you can now do except to concentrate your troops at the best points 
and give protection to the people. Geronimo will undoubtedly enter upon other raids of 
murder and robbery, and as the offensive campaign against him with scouts has failed^ 
would it not be best to take up the defensive, and give protection to the business interests of 
Arizona and New Mexico? 

THE GENERAL'S BESIOKATION ACCEPTED 

To this Crook sent the following final dispatch that ended his connection with 
the Military Department of Arizona : 

It has been my aim throughout present operations to afford the greatest amount of 
protection to life and property interests, and troops have been stationed accordingly. Troops 
cannot protect property beyond a radius of one-half mile from camp. If offensive opera- 
tions against the Indians are not resumed, they may remain quietly in the mountains for an 
indefinite time without crossing the line, and yet their very presence there will be a constant 
menace, and require the troops in this Department to be at all times in position to repel sud- 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 257 

den raids; and so long as any remain out tbey will form a nucleus for disaffected Indiana 
from the different agencies in Arizona and New Mexico to join. That the operations of the 
scouts in Mexico have not proved so successful as was hoped is due to the enormous diffi- 
culties they have been compelled to encounter, from the nature of the Indians they have 
been hunting, and the character of the country in which they have operated, and of which 
persons not thoroughly conversant with the character of both can have no conception. I 
believe that the plan upon which I have conducted operations is the one most likely to prove 
successful in the end. It may be, however, that I am too much wedded to my own views in 
the matter, and as I have spent nearly eight years of the hardest work of my life in this 
Department, I respectfully request that I may now be relieved from its command. 

There can be no doubt that Crook firmly believed that the only way to fight an 
Indian, successfully was by the help of Indians and he could see no way out of the 
diflSculty that confronted him without what he considered treachery toward the 
Indians on the one hand and disobedience to his superior officers on the other. 
General Crook's resignation of command was promptly accepted and he was 
ordered to an eastern command. 

Crook had great respect for the endurance and fighting ability of the Apaches 
and has been quoted as saying : 

I have come in contact with almost every tribe of Indians, but have never seen the equal 
to these Apaches, especially the Chiricahuas. They are absolutely indefatigable and do not 
seem to tire. They live on food that we would starve on. When they go into camp they wiU 
leave scouts and outposts six or seven miles behind. They will travel a hundred miles a 
day over the roughest country imaginable. The country is so immense that if they are ever 
caught it will be the merest accident. A mmion men cannot take them. Their little camp 
at Funnel Cafion could never have been captured by a thousand men. When I left Omaha 
I knew what the task was before me. Formerly when the Indians were poorly armed they 
were more easily subdued; but now that they have breech-loading guns, every rock is a 
fortress and ten men would be killed in trying to kill one of them. This was Custer's mis- 
take ; he failed to calculate the difference in the arms with which the Indians were supplied. 
Old Indian fighters back east fail to realize this same fact. 

DEPOBTATIOK OF OHXHUAHUA'S BAND 

Chihuahua's band of fifteen men, thirty -three women and twenty-nine chil- 
dren, with inclusion of one of the wives and a daughter of Qeronimo, left Bowie 
station April 10, 1886, under command of Lieutenant Richardb, for Port Marion, 
Florida. Just before the departure of the Indians, the Sheriff of Cochise County 
came on the scene with warrants for Chihuahua and for Nana, who was of the 
band, though old and decrepit. But the Indians were protected as prisoners of 
war and the Sheriff had to return with the warrant unsatisfied. 

In this connection reference should be made to the case of Byalile and the 
other Navajo chiefs imprisoned in later years at Port Huachuca by much the same 
process, declared illegal in the federal courts. It is interesting to speculate upon 
the possible results had such a decision been promulgated by the courts before the 
time of this capture in 1886, for the court in later years simply followed out the 
contention of Arizona generally that there was no state of war with the Apaches 
— that the Apaches simply were criminals who had committed crimes of robbery, 
murder and worse upon residents of the Territory and who should be tried in the 
federal courts for crimes committed on reservations and in the territorial district 
courts for crimes committed beyond the limits of the reservations. 



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258 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

A second Apache shipment eastward of thirteen individuals was made in July, 
1886, including Chatto, who was considered none the less bloodthirsty because he 
had refused to join the Geronimo party and who oflScially was charged with im- 
plication in more than fifty murders, including that of the McCwnas family. 
The Indians were taken under the protection of the War Department, extended to 
Chatto when the suggestion was made that he be tried for his notorious and 
bloody crimes. The Indians, and especially Chatto, made strong objection to 
deportation, but they appreciated that there were worse things than living east in 
idleness when told that the only other alternative was to turn them over to the 
mercy of the civil authorities in Arizona. This baker's dozen of Chiricahuas was 
followed in September by nearly all the rest of the band, 382 men, women and 
children being shipped eastward to Port Marion from Port Wingate. 



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CHAPTER XX 
END OF THE APACHE WARS 

Ceneral Miles in Command — Capture of Ceronimo*s Band — Deportation of the Chirica- 
huas — Refolds* Murder — Escape and Depredations of the Kid — Peace at Last, 
after Centuries of Bloodshed. 

Crook's successor, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, arrived April 11, 1886, at Port 
Bowie and there assumed command of the Department of Arizona. He had had 
large experience against Indians in the Northwest and was of acknowledged large 
ability. Instructed by the War Department to exterminate the hostiles at any 
cost, he promptly reorganized the campaign and started the task of distributing 
about 6,000 troops, a quarter of the available United States army, sent him for 
the dual purpose of protecting the border settlements and of carrying on a 
vigorous and unrelenting pursuit. At last enough soldiers had been sent for the 
task. 

When the Chiricahua band started northward from Mexico, still in the moun- 
tains were left fourteen bucks and eight squaws, mainly Janos Apaches, headed 
by Chico and Mangas, who had been co-operating with Nachis, but who refused 
to surrender. This was not illogical as they were on their native heath and 
had established amicable commercial relations with Mexicans in a number of 
towns. 

Nachis and Qeronihio, after their escape, gathering into their band all the 
bronco Indians of the hills, started on the same old familiar methods of ambush 
and murder. Well armed and hardy, they covered even seventy-five miles a 
day, apparently with keen enjoyment of the game, usually eluding with ease 
the heavily equipped soldiery sent after them and treating with contempt all 
efforts toward capture made by the Mexicans. Rather notable was their action, 
April 27, on the upper Santa Cruz, where they murdered Mrs. Ed. Peck and her 
child and a young man named Owens and rode away with Peck's niece, and 
yet spared Peck himself, taking his shoes and telling him to run. The Indians 
may have intended to kill him as he ran, but missed him in their target practice. 
The following, day the ranch of the famous Yank Bartlett, near Oro Blanco, was 
raided by an Indian band, from which Phil Shanahan had a narrow escape, 
managing, though wounded, to reach the Bartlett house. In a fight that fol- 
lowed Bartlett also was wounded by a bullet in the shoulder. That night Bart- 
lett 's son made his way to Oro Blanco and not only secured assistance for the 
wounded men at the ranch, but was in time to send messengers throughout 
the neighborhood and thus to save the lives of Shanahan 's family at a nearby 
ranch. 

259 



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260 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

THE BORDER STILL DRENCHED IN BLOOD 

Capt. T. C. Lebo of the Tenth Cavalry had a running fight with the Indians 
on May 3 in Sonora. Captain Lawton and Lieutenant Benson with scouts and 
several troops of cavalry kept hot on the trail of the hostiles, which May 11 
beat off a Mexican command west of Cananea. Geronimo then struck northward 
into the Mule Pass and Dragoon Mountain^ while Nachis led a few bucks back 
into the Santa Cruz Valley and northward east of Tucson and back again into 
Mexico. In the Rincon ilountains a variation of the usual style of murders was 
when an old man named Henderson was dragged to death behind a wild pony. 
In passing Greaterville, W. F. Wemple was murdered. Some Indians belonging 
to the other party were surprised to find resistance at Hooker's Hot Springs, 
where three Apaches were killed by the Jones brothers who, in order to e8tal)lish 
the correctness of their tale, brought the three scalps into WiUcox. There had 
also been successful defense by a party of miners in the Mule Pass Mountains. 
May 30 Creech and McGimley were killed at a cattle ranch on Eagle Creek and 
about the same time a Mexican near Camp Thomas. All over southeastern 
Arizona the ranches and prospect holes were deserted or else were held under 
incessant guard. 

Captain Hatfield, May 14, captured a hostile camp and a large number of 
horses, but the soldiers were ambushed and Hatfield in turn lost the horses and 
two of his men. 

In the Rincon Mountains on June 3, Dr. C. H. Davis was ambushed as he 
rode in his buckboard into a mountain pass and mercifully killed at the first 
fire. Thomas Hunt was killed at Harshaw on the 6th and Henry Baston near 
Arivaca on the 9th. A Tucson resident, M. Goldman, met death at Bear Springs 
on the 10th. Trinidad Berdin, the girl captured at the Peck ranch, made her 
escape from the Indians in the course of a fight between the hostiles and Mexi- 
cans near Magdalena. As she ran toward the Mexicans there followed an old 
squaw, in whose charge she had been, but the woman was shot down and killed. 

The hostiles had combined forces and it was their entire band that was 
chased by Lawton. July 13, Lieutenant Brown of Lawton 's force, with only a 
few scouts, captured the hostiles' camp and started the Indians on the run. 

Geronimo, pursuing his same tactics, before this had sent one of his band 
northward to Fort Grant, with a request for a conference with General Miles. 
He was told that the Chihuahua band had been sent to another country and 
that a similar deportation awaited the hostiles in case they surrendered. There- 
after the Indians started northward again. On August. 10, twenty-five miles 
from Bacuachi, they ran across a party of Americans headed by J. T. Kirk, a 
well-known miner, later superintendent of the Greene mines. They killed 
Thomas O'Brien and Pres Hatcher and mortally wounded John Thompson in 
the course of a fight that lasted about a day, when the Indians retired. Kirk, 
the only uninjured American, rode to Bacuachi for assistance for the wounded. 

Their trail followed almost unceasingly by Lawton, hemmed in by Mexican 
and American troops, the hostiles renewed tlieir offers of surrender. August 23, 
Colonel Forsyth and several cavalry troops arrived at Fronteras, Sonora, from 
Fort Huachuca, but found the Indians already gone from that locality. The 
Indians were making overtures at that time to the Mexican authorities, trying 
to secure assurance of protection with unlimited facilities for raiding into 



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SAM AX 

Mojave-Apache, 1915 



REV. GILBERT T>AV1S AND WIFE 
Mojave- Apaches 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 261 

Arizona, but General Torres had directed his oflScers to oflfer only terms of un- 
conditional surrender. 

LAWTON'S BAND OF SLEUTHS 

The record of the Lawton expedition after the Chiricahua bandits is well 
worthy of segregation. Under instructions from General Miles, Colonel Royal 
of the Fourth Cavalry at Fort Huachuca, May 4, 1886, relieved Capt. H. W. 
Lawton from duty at that post to assume command of an expedition into Mexico 
against hostile Apaches. There had been an agreement shortly before this 
between the Mexican and American military authorities permitting the chasing 
of hostile Apaches across the line by troops of either nation. To Captain Law- 
ton was given a command of 35 men of Troop B, Fourth Cavalry, 20 men of 
Company A, Eighth Infantry, 20 Indian scouts and two pack trains. The com- 
missioned strength of the command was First Lieut. Henry Johnson, Eighth 
Infantry, Second Lieuts. Leighton Finley, Tenth Cavalry and H. C. Benson, 
Fourth Cavalry, together with Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood, later Colonel 
of Rough Riders. The report of Captain Lawton, returned September 9 of 
the same year, was a model of soldierly brevity. The command had been in- 
structed to confine its operations to the hostiles south of the international boun- 
dary in their stronghold in the Sierra Madres and was directed to follow the 
trail constantly, locate the main camp of the hostiles and destroy or subdue 
them. The Indians in the course of a series of desperate raids in southern 
Arizona and northern Sonora had been met by Captain Lebo, Tenth Cavalry, 
who followed them into Sbnora, where about May 3, he fought in the Penito 
Mountains. The trail of the hostiles was taken up near Lebo's battle ground 
and the Indians were kept constantly on the move thereafter. June 6, not far 
from Calabazas, Lieutenant Walsh of the Fourth Cavalry intercepted a south- 
bound band of Indians and captured most of their animals, baggage and supplies. 
A new detail of Indian scouts was secured under Lieutenant Brown of the 
Fourth Cavalry, a fresh infantry detachment was sent to the line and the base 
of operations was changed to a point 150 miles south of the boundary. During 
this period of their chase Lawton *s command marched 1,396 miles, nearly all 
of the distance over rough, high mountains. The Indians did their best to 
throw the troops oflf their trail, but Lawton 's Indian scouts were too keen. After 
July 6 the infantry section of Lawton 's main command was given to Assistant 
Surgeon Wood, one of the few medical officers ever placed in active command 
of troops in the field. July 14 a sudden attack was made upon a hostile rancheria, 
which was captured together with the horses and equipage. 

The tired hostiles were driven into a pocket near Fronteras, which point was 
reached by Lawton by forced marches, July 20. Lieutenant Gatewood of the 
Sixth Cavalry with two Chiricahua Indians had been sent from headquarters 
to communicate with the hostiles and did consult with Geronimo and the Indian 
chiefs. Possibly the subsequent proceedings had better be told in the language 
of Captain Lawton himself. 

On the evening of the 24th I came up with Lieutenant Gatewood, and found him 
in communication with the hostiles; but on his return from their camp he reported that they 
declined to make an unconditional surrender, and wished him to bear certain messages to 
General Miles. I persuaded Gatewood to remain with me, believing that the hostiles would 



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262 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

yet come to terms, and in this I was not disappointed. The following morning Geronimo 
came into camp, and intimated his desire to make peace, but wished to see and talk with 
General Miles. I made an agreement with him that he should come down from the moun- 
tains, camp near mj command, and await a reply to his request to see and talk with Gen- 
eral Miles. After Geronimo moved near my camp, the Mexicans made their appearance near 
us, which so frightened the hostiles that I agreed that they should move with me toward the 
United States. General Miles declined to see and talk with the hostiles unless they gave 
some positive assurance that they were acting in good faith and intended to surrender when 
they met him. The hostiles were alarmed at the movement of troops in their vicinity, ard 
they agreed to move with me near Fort Bowie, where General Miles then was. The day 
following they agreed to surrender to General Miles and to do whatever he told them, and 
Geronimo 's brother went to Bowie to assure the General of their good faith. In the mean- 
time General Miles had started for my camp at the mouth of Skeleton Canon, which he 
reached on the evening of September 3d. On the 4th of September the hostiles surrender hI 
as agreed, and the leading men placed themselves in General Miles' hands, and were taken 
by him to Fort Bowie. The same day I started for Port Bowie with the main party of 
Indians, and by making slow marches reached that post on the morning of September 8th. 
This ended the campaign. 

During this latter portion of the campaign the command marched and scouted 1,645 
miles, making a total of 3,041 miles marched and scouted during the whole campaigu. 

The command taking the field May 5th continued almost constantly on the trail of the 
hostiles, until their surrender more than four months later, with scarcely a day's rest or 
intermission. It was purely a command of soldiers, there being attached to it barely one 
small detachment of trailers. It was the persistent and untiring labor of this command 
which proved to the hostiles their insecurity in a country which had heretofore afforded 
them protection and seemingly rendered pursuit impossible. This command, which fairly run 
down the hostiles and forced them to seek terms, has clearly demonstrated that our soldiers 
can operate in any country the Indians may choose for refuge, and not only cope with them 
on their own ground but exhaust and subdue them. 

I desire to particularly invite the attention of the Department Commander to Assistant 
Surgeon Leonard Wood, the only officer who has been with me through the whole campaign. 
His courage, energy and loyal support during the whole time; his encouraging example to 
the conunand, when work was the hardest and prospects darkest; his thorough confidence 
and belief in the final success of the expedition, and his untiring efforts to make it so, have 
placed me under obligations so great that I cannot even express them.. 

In another paragraph of the report special praise is given to Scout W. N. 
Edwardy, **who made an unprecedented ride after information, going on the 
same animal over 450 miles in a mountainous country in less than seven days 
and nights." 

A supplemental report was made at the same time by Surgeon Wood, who 
told very interestingly some of the details of the chase after the Apaches, who 
up to that time had done an immense amount of injury both in Sonora and 
Arizona. He told of little towns of the Sierras walled for fear of the Apaches 
and each with its history of sacks and repulses. Leading into each little town 
usually was a pack trail only. The heat was intense, often reaching 120 degrees. 
The command of Americans stood up well, men being sent back only when they 
were worn out. He wrote that the Apaches **are excellent walkers and make 
great distances on foot. Their muscular development is excellent, especially 
that of the foot, leg and thigh. Lung power remarkable. In short, they are a 
tough, hardy, well-developed race of men; fighting in a country where every- 
thing was in their favor, and against a regular organization. Their raiding 
parties were continually obtaining fresh mounts, while the command in pursuit 
had to get along with the same mount or on foot. . . . The Indian scouts were 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 263 

very efficient and hard workers and were constantly in the advance, always 
willing and ready, and physically the equals of the hostiles. . . . The greatest 
good feeling existed between our scouts and soldiers and I can say from toy 
own experience, that they are obedient and kind to their officers.'' 

BUNNINO DOWN THE QTTABBY 

The hostiles in the field in Mexico had been clinging to the idea that if worst 
came to worst nothing more serious would be done thap sending them back to their 
old pleasant hunting grounds near Fort Apache, where they had many tribal 
friends and well-wishers. This last crutch was stricken from them, however, by 
the deportation of July. They then appreciated that they were between the devil 
and the deep blue sea and they became more than willing to treat with General 
Miles' special representative, Lieutenant Gatewood, guided to them by two 
friendly Chiricahuas. Gatewood 's entrance, August 25, into the camp of the hos- 
tiles, where he was well known personally, was one of the pluckiest things ever 
done by any American officer. Undoubtedly he found the Indians with their 
minds already made up, yet there was the customary season of talk with old 
Geronimo before an agreement that the hostiles would surrender to Lawton, who 
had quietly drawn up very near. 

According to Connell, Lawton at Port Bowie gave the credit for (Jeronimo's 
capture to Gatewood. Yet no small degree of acrimony was created by the oper- 
ations of this campaign ; in which it would appear that there was glory enough 
for everyone. In the first place, there was jealousy between the Fourth and 
Sixth regiments of cavalry, as represented by Lawton and Gatewood. It is also 
told that there was an exchange of personal views of uncomplimentary nature 
betwixt these two officers at Huachuca and that there were many unfortunate and 
unpleasant features surrounding the whole aflfair. Sidney R. De Long, a well- 
known Tucson pioneer, about that time was post trader at Fort Bowie. In later 
years he told that he heard Captain Lawton, when he gave large credit to Gate- 
wood, rather chided by another officer of his regiment, who told him, "It must 
not be; the Fourth Cavalry must have the credit." 

Gatewood must have been well esteemed by Miles, or he would not have been 
given the honorable, though dangerous, mission to visit the hostiles. He was 
made an aide-de-camp to the General, but soon went back to duty with his regi- 
ment. In Wyoming he was severely burned in a post fire, was compelled to retire 
with a rank of first lieutenant and soon thereafter died. Throughout the whole 
affair there would appear to run a thread of attempted belittlement of the work of 
many of the gallant men who followed the Apaches so tirelessly and who finally 
penned up a band of the most bloody murderers ever known to history. 

Especial credit is due to Lieut. Wilber E. Wilder, who in August seized the 
opportunity at Fronteras for a conference with one of the squaws of the hostile 
band, sending word through her that the Indians had better not try to make terms 
with the Mexicans, but should attempt to reach General Miles direct. 

Another sidelight on the last Geronimo campaign is a story that Judge A. H. 
Hackney, the venerable editor of the Silver Belt at Globe, indirectly may have 
been responsible for the surrender. The story runs that Geronimo had sent word 
by courier to his friends on the San Carlos reservation that he wanted to quit 
and that this information was taken to Judge Hackney by Mickey Free. The 



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264 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

Judge wrote Herbert Welch, secretary of the Indian Friends Society at Philadel- 
phia. Welch went to Washington and laid the information before the War De- 
partment and Miles then was instructed to send an officer down into Mexico to 
get into communication with the hostiles. 

SUBBENDEB AND PBOIIPT DEPOBTATION 

After the theoretical surrender, Nachis and Geronimo, insisting upon their 
procedure in former like cases, kept their arms and started independently for the 
border. Lawton, however, fearing a repetition of the circumstances of the famous 
march with Crook, practically enclosed the hostile band in a cordon of cavalry- 
men and scouts, who maintained unceasing vigilance in camp and on the march 
to prevent the escape of a single Indian. However, progress was made to a point 
in the San Simon Valley, at the mouth of Skeleton Canon. September 3 General 
Miles arrived at Lawton 's camp and there was met by Nachis and Geronimo. 
There was considerable talk but no concessions were made by Miles, except that 
the Indians should be joined soon by their families. 

On the day of the Skeleton Canon treaty, Lawton built a large cabin of rough 
stones on the spot, putting within a bottle containing a paper on which had been 
written the names of the officers. A year later the monument was torn down by 
curious cowboys. 

Five days after the surrender the band, by that time disarmed and held under 
close guard, was marched into Bowie and almost immediately dispatched east- 
ward to be held for a while at San Antonio and thence taken to Florida, Civil 
officers were not allowed access to the prisoners, against whom there were war- 
rants charging murder in at least four counties. One of these warrants, against 
Geronimo, in Pima County, was not dismissed until 1909, after assurance that the 
old rogue was dead. 

On the journey eastward a large force of cowboys gathered at the station at 
Deming to welcome the train bearing the Apaches, but word concerning their 
activities must have been telegraphed into Arizona. When the train stopped, 
from it poured a large number of soldiers, whose determined attitude prevented 
a lynching party of the largest sort, one that had been carefully arranged. Dem- 
ing had local crimes to avenge, for the Geronimo band had been active around 
that town for years. 

One of the Chiricahuas, named Wasse, jumped down from the train in Texas 
and escaped and made his way through the Sierra Madres to the Janos band, 
which then was supposed to embrace about fifteen. 

Besides the dispute between the War Department and the civil authorities, 
there was trouble between the Interior and War Departments concerning the 
proper custody of the prisoners. The former claimed that the Indians were sim- 
ply escapes from the reservation, while the army held that in reality they were 
escapes from a phase of military imprisonment. General Sheridan voiced the 
opinion of Arizonans generally in stating, concerning Geronimo, that, **He is 
entitled to no mercy, ' ' continuing to the effect that as there seemed no prospect of 
dealing with him summarily, possibly the next best thing would be confinement 
on a reservation, such as the Dry Tortugas. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 265 

The controveries concerning the last Geronimo campaign got to a stage when 
it should have had oflBcial rebuke, recriminations even appearing in the service 
journals. 

President Cleveland, August 23, 1886, advised the Secretary of War: **I hope 
nothing will be done with Geronimo which will prevent our treating him as a 
prisoner of war, if we cannot hang him, which I would much prefer. ' ' Cteneral 
Sheridan concurred in this. The President later suggested sending the remnant 
of all Apache reservation Indians to Florida and refused to move any west of 
the Mississippi. 

OEBONIMO 

The way of the captured Indians eastward was to San Antonio and thence to 
Port Pickens, Florida, where they were held a couple of years before being allowed 
to rejoin their families from Fort Apache at Fort Marion, Florida. Thence the 
band was taken to Alabama and latterly to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, these transfers, 
more or less on a sentimental basis, in the East called ** humanitarian.'* Indeed, 
there were many misguided and soft-headed people who even pleaded with the 
President and the War Department that Geronimo and his people might be per- 
mitted to return to their loved home in Arizona, on the argument that all their 
misdeeds had been merely defense against a ruthless invader and that henceforth, 
on the word of the Indians, peace would be assured. Geronimo himself was per- 
mitted to make his appeal for return direct to the President in March, 1905, when 
he and chiefs of the Sioux, Comanche, Blackfeet and Ute were in Washington to 
ride in the inaugural procession as representatives of the aboriginal Americans. 
Roosevelt gave him scant sympathy. It is to be deplored that the Interior Depart- 
ment saw fit to exploit the miserable old savage, exhibiting him as a curiosity 
at several national expositions, where his vanity was fed to repletion and where his 
autographs found ready sale at 10 cents each. At Sill he was kept employed in 
various capacities, he and a number of the other Indian leaders drawing pay from 
the Government. He professed religion, probably because profession gave him an 
opportunity for more talk. He died February 17, 1909. 

In 1906, under grudging consent given by the War Department, S. M. Bart- 
lett, Superintendent of Instruction, Lawton, Okla., issued ** Geronimo 's Story of 
His Life." In general, the contents of the volume are claimed to have been from 
dictation by the aged and unrepentant old murderer. He is quoted as telling that 
his birth occurred in June, 1829, in No-doyohm Canon, Arizona, on the head- 
waters of the Gila — which happens to head in New Mexico. He was, he said, of 
the Be-don-ko-he tribe, living to the northward of the Chiricahuas — a statement 
rather at variance with his membership within the Janos people, who lived well 
to the south and eastward of the Chiricahuas. At the date of writing, he claimed 
that only four other full-blooded Bedonkohe Indians yet were living, all of them 
held as prisoners at Fort Sill. He claimed that his grandfather, Maco, had been 
chief of the Nedni people (the Ojo Caliente?) and that Maco had been succeeded 
by Mangas Coloradas. Geronimo 's father, a Nedni, had married a Bedonkohe 
woman, thus allying himself with the minor tribe. Geronimo calmly laid claim 
to the title of War Chief of all the Apaches, on the basis of service rendered when 
no more than a boy, against Mexican troops in the Sierra Madres. This, of course, 
could not have been true and in fact was not. Geronimo was rather bitter in his 

Vol. lis 



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266 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

criticisms of Crook, who, he declared had lied to him. Prom other sources is 
learned that Geronimo's tribal name was Pee-ah-ly, which has otherwise been 
interpreted as Goyathlay, meaning **the one who yawns/' His father's name was 
given as Zaklishim, **the gray one," not a chief. 

A story was told with all seriousness back east that Geronimo went on the 
warpath because the whites murdered his wife. It is not specified just which wife 
it was that was killed. He had a squaw, a Mescallero, who, Connell states, beat 
him rather severely when he was a hanger-on around the old Chiricahua agency at 
Sulphur Springs. He claimed to have been in the Apache Pass fight in 1862. 

OENEBAL MILES HONOBED AT TUCSON 

Following the time of deportation of the Geronimo band, Albuquerque tem- 
porarily was made headquarters for the military department of Arizona, this 
undoubtedly on the basis of the shipment of the larger band from Fort Wingate. 
Albuquerque was most hospitable and the quality of its entertainment still is 
a matter of appreciative remark from many of the older oflRcers of the army. 
General Miles possibly resented the feeling in northern Arizona in favor of his 
predecessor and it may be that on this account headquarters of the military 
department not so long thereafter were moved to Los Angeles. 

While no personal animosity is known to have existed between Generals 
Crook and Miles, northern Arizona as a whole was ever partisan in its admira- 
tion of the former, while in southern Arizona the latter 's fame was much the 
greater. This feeling led to the signal honoring of General Miles by the people 
of Tucson, who, on November 8, 1887, presented the distinguished oflScer a 
handsome Tiffany saber, wherein the blade and grip were about the only parts 
of the sword and scabbard not made of gold. The presentation was made in the 
name of Arizona and New Mexico generally, in recognition of the soldier's serv- 
ice in the capture of Geronimo, as leading to the removal from the Territory 
of the entire Chiricahua tribe. General Miles and his party were met at the 
depot by what appeared to be the larger part of the city's population and were 
escorted to Levin's Park by a lengthy procession, which included the Society 
of Arizona Pioneers, representatives of the Mexican government and Mexican 
societies, the local fire department, the school children, mounted Mexican citi- 
zens and mounted Papago Indians. The presentation speech at the park was 
made by Judge W. H. Barnes and the response by the honored guest was re- 
ported as eloquent. In the evening there was an elaborate reception at the San 
Xavier hotel. 

A Tucson newspaper writer, rather bitterly comparing Crook and Miles to 
the latter 's advantage, has told that Crook and his staflf were too busily engaged 
in social diversion in Whipple Barracks at Prescott to keep busy in the field. 
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Crook and his wife were far 
from ambitious socially and had the simplest of domestic equipment. The Gen- 
eral himself never was happy unless out in the field mounted on a mule, with a 
shotgun across the pommel of his saddle, looking for game, all the way from 
quail to Apaches, careless of his personal appearance and of his own safety. 
Miles, on the contrary, was a military dandy. That he was a good soldier there 
can be no doubt, as shown by his campaigns agai^st the Sioux and the Apache 
and by the magnificent manner in which the Porto Rican campaign was handled, 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 267 

in comparison with the haphazard way in which a better force of American 
troops went to Cuba. It was Miles who elaborated the uniform of the United 
States army till its cost became burdensome upon the oflBcers and made himself 
a gorgeous vision through the operation of the same set of orders. No military 
man in the service was more easily accessible to reporters ttian was Miles. 

EILLINO OF BETN0LD8 AND HOLMES 

The Miles campaign in 1886 practically disposed of the ** Indian question" 
within Arizona. The heart of insurrection had been removed with the Chirica- 
huas and thereafter the demeanor of the Apaches of whatever breed compara- 
tively was as decent as the average in any American settlement. An occasional 
Indian went wild, but usually he vented his spite upon a tribesman and by his 
tribesman was corrected. Most of such trouble, naturally, was on the White 
Mountain reservation, where civil and military authorities were doing their 
best to make husbandmen of wild outlaws. The most serious group of such 
sporadic Indian crimes centers around the notorious ** Apache Kid." 

In 1889, the fall term of the U. S. District Court in Globe, before Judge Jos. 
H. Kibbey, appeared nine White Mountain Apache renegades, charged with 
various oflfenses. For several years there had been a change in the manner 
of Indian administration and Apache criminals now were called before the 
courts wherein they appeared to receive all due justice, despite any prejudice 
that the population at large might have against the race. One of these redskins 
was convicted of the murder at San Carlos of Lieutenant Mott and later was 
executed by hanging in Globe. The other eight, on Nov. 1, together with one 
Mexican prisoner, were started by special stage over the Pinal Mountains on 
their way to the penitentiary at Yuma, to which they had been committed for 
terms of various length. The posse, which proved too small indeed, comprised 
Sheriff Glenn Reynolds and a special deputy, Wm. H. Holmes, an old-time 
prospector, generally known throughout central Arizona as **Hunkydory.'' 
The driver was Eugene Middleton, proprietor of the stage line and a member 
of a Tonto Basin family that had had serious experience with Apaches. 

The second day of the journey, in the Gila Valley, near the present town 
of Kelvin, the sheriff took six of the shackled prisoners from the stage at the 
bottom of a steep sand wash. As the little party trudged up the hill, two of 
the Indians suddenly grasped the Sheriff, who was in front, while two others 
wheeled upon Hohnes. The latter, who, though brave, was subject to heart 
trouble, fell backward as his pistol was wrenched from him by the Indian 
Pash-lau-ta, who first attended to the Sheriff. Reynolds, struggling desperately, 
was shot in the base of the neck and then the Indian turned and shot Holmes 
through the heart. Middleton, from whom this story has been secured at first 
hand, stopped the stage and, pistol in hand, was guarding two prisoners that 
had been left with him. One of these was the *'Kid," who, in good English, 
shouted: '*I will sit down; don't shoot.'* The scene of the tragedy was not 
visible from the stage and the pistol shots were supposed by Middleton to have 
been fired by the Sheriff. A moment later he was better informed, for the 
Mexican prisoner ran up, seeking his own safety, just as the unseen Pash-lau-ta, 
from behind the coach, fired at the driver with the Sheriff's rifle. The four 
horses bolted and Middleton fell to the sand with a bullet through the cheek, 



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268 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

neck and left side of the body. The Indians rolled him over, searching him 
for valuables and cartridges and, fully conscious, he felt the muzzle of a rifle 
against his temple. Then, as Pash-lau-ta was about to make sure of his job, the 
**Kid'' saved his life by observing, **Save the cartridges; he is dead anyhow." 

The Mexican prisoner escaped from the Indians and made his way to 
Florence, where later he received a pardon from the Governor. 

Leaving Middleton still * Splaying possum,'* the Indians unshackled them- 
selves, took their commitment papers from the Sheriff 's pocket, tore them up, 
gave a whoop of joy and left the scene. When all was still, Middleton, horribly 
wounded as he was, staggered to his feet to seek help. He found that Holmes' 
body had not been molested, but the Sheriff's face had been horribly jabbed 
and cut by the muzzle of the gun and the forehead had been smashed in with 
a stone. It was not until the following morning that Middleton managed to 
drag himself back to Riverside station, about five miles distant. A posse from 
Globe started on the trail of the fugitives, but soon had to return on account of 
a snowstorm. The Indians had struck up the river to the mouth of the San 
Pedro near the site of the town of Hayden and thence on to San Carlos. It is 
told that the wife of a rancher named Cunningham, hearing of the escape of 
the Indians, died of fright. At San Carlos six of the outlaws were killed by 
Indian scouts, and the head of Pash-lau-ta was cut oflf and carried to agency 
headquarters in order to give full assurance of his death. The seventh Indian, 
badly wounded, was captured and at Florence was tried and sentenced to life 
imprisonment at Yuma. 

THE BLOODY TRAIL OF THE KID 

The **Kid*' managed to make good his escape, however, and for several years 
thereafter was a veritable nightmare in central and southeastern Arizona. He 
was heard from all the way from Tonto Basin to the Sierra Madres of Mexico, 
and in all of this district at least a dozen murders were charged to him, possibly 
some of them not of his doing. One was that of a young man named Baker, in 
the Sierra Ancha Mountains, but this may have been one of the features of the 
Pleasant Valley war. 

It is known that the **Kid*' returned several times to the San Carlos reser- 
vation, where he stole several squaws and where he was so feared by the Indians 
that his visit only was known after he had gone. At different times he headed 
small bands of outlaw Apaches and made excursions in force. On one of these 
trips, on December 12, 1890, the Indians penned up three white men on a hill- 
side twenty miles southeast of the San Bernardino ranch. One was no other 
than Gus Hickey, present Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Cochise 
County, and a prosperous merchant in Bisbee. The others were Cowboy Jack 
Bridger and Bunk Robinson. Hickey had been called to the spot by a cowboy 
to see a steer that had been killed by the Indians. When the trio came to the 
dead animal, one of the cowboys swiftly raised a rifle and shot down an 
Indian who, unconscious of their presence, was on his way for more beef. Then 
it was that the trio discovered that they had to settle with a band of not less 
than twelve Indians, led by the **Krd" himself. The white men ran behind 
a clump of rocks on the hillside and piled up more rocks in making a rather 
insecure sort of fortitioation. One of the attacking party was the notorious 



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THE APACHE KID 




KID AND HIS RENEGADES IN GLOBE, BEFORE TRIAL 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 269 

**Big Foot/' whose moccasin tracks, it was claimed, measured fourteen inches 
in length. The siege had continued several hours, and the party behind the 
rocks had begun to feel relative security, when a shot knocked a corncob pipe 
from Hickey's mouth. Bridger, laughing at the occurrence, leaned forward, 
possibly exposing himself, and received k shot through the head. Only a few 
minutes later Robinson fell back, killed in the same manner. Then it was that 
Hickey established a marathon record and beat an Apache Indian at running. 
He struck the trail for camp, in the bottom of a sandy gorge in which some 
water was flowing. At the first bend, however, he sprang behind a boulder on 
the side of the canon and struck away at a right angle, while the Indians kept 
running down the canon, thinking him still ahead, on the well-trodden trail. 
He had been cut oflf from his horse, so flight necessarily was on foot to safety 
at the Milt Hall ranch, where he had been stopping, with five others. The detour 
necessary was about fourteen miles. The next day the scene of battle was 
visited, the bodies were found unmutilated, but the heads had been crushed 
in with stones. 

Early in 1899 Colonel Kosterlitsky of the Mexican rurales declared that the 
Apache Kid was still alive at the head of a little settlement of well-behaved 
Apaches, renegades from the United States, in the Sierra Madre Mountains in 
Chihuahua. The colonel intimated that if the settlement of Apaches ceased to 
be well-behaved its end would immediately come. 

Though charged with participation in the murders of Thomas Hunt and 
Henry Baston, near Arivaca, in June, 1886, the Kid a year later was serving as 
sergeant of Indian police under Chief of Scouts Al Sieber. June 1, 1887, he 
wounded Sieber and went off on a little warpath of his own, accompanied by 
a couple of tribesmen. Within two days they killed a rancher, William Diehl, 
in the Galurio Mountains. Diehl's partner was E. A. Clark, a former chief of 
Hualpai scouts, hence well-known as **Wallapai Clark.'* Heading for the bor- 
der, the outlaws were turned by troops and, after killing Mike Grace near 
Crittenden, were captured by Lieut. Carter Johnson while trying to slip back 
upon the reservation. They were sent by the military authorities to San Diego 
and later to Alcatraz, but had to be brought back when the Supreme Court 
declared that jurisdiction in such matters belonged to the local courts. Worth 
noting is Clark's claim that vengeance finally came his way. In February, 
1894, receiving a return visit from the Kid, he succeeded in breaking that 
worthy's leg and in killing his squaw. Had he reversed the order of shooting 
to him would have come an immense reward that had been offered for the Kid, 
dead or alive, but preferably inanimate. This is believed to have been the 
Kid's last appearance across the international line, an ending of centuries of 
carnage and the final elimination of the Indian as a factor to be feared. 



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CHAPTER XXI 
PIONEER TRANSPORTATION 

Stage Coaching through the Indian Coimtr}^ — The Famous Butter field Contract — Trials 
of Mail Contractors — Perils of the Road — IVay^side Stations and Their Tragedies — 
Freighting fcp Wagon — Mexican Carretas, 

Early-day stage transportation through Arizona on the old transcontinental 
routes lasted only about twenty-two years, till displaced by the railroads. Though 
considered luxurious at the time, let there be consideration of the endurance of 
any through passenger who could stand the journey of a fortnight from San 
Antonio, Texas, to San Diego, with much of the travel at night. On lines less 
than 300 miles in length the travel usually was continuous, in deference to mail 
contracts, a passenger within the lurchiug **thoroughbrace" stages catching a 
few winks of sleep by passing an arm through one of the leather loops provided 
for such service and dependent from the side of the coach. There was slight 
break in the monotony of a desert road, where each landmark slowly was ap- 
proached and passed, with only the prospect ahead of arrival at some desolate 
mud-built ** station,'' where water, whiskey and the roughest of food could be 
secured, while the stage team was being changed. 

There would have been few stage lines in Arizona if their income had been 
solely from passenger and express business. As a rule, these items were subordi- 
nate to the mail contracts, from which the running expense generaUy was 
assumed to come. It has been stated that the carriage of mail in the earliest 
days at times cost the Government $65 a letter. 

The first through stage line on the southern route was that of the San An- 
tonio and San Diego Stage Company. In one of its early advertisements, in 
the Tubac Arizonian of June 30, 1859, is made the statement that the line *'has 
been in successful operation since July, 1857.'' Yet Silas St. John, who was 
one of its employees, stated that the first mail rider, Charlie Youmans, started 
from San Diego November 15, 1857. St. John took the mail pouch at Carrizo 
Creek and rode to Yuma (then laeger's Ferry), 110 miles in thirty-two hours, 
without changing horses. Thence to Tucson the riders were **Big Foot" Wal- 
lace, John Capron and James McCoy. According to St. John, the first real 
stage service was in November, when three coaches loaded with passengers rolled 
through eastward, reaching Tucson on the 18th. This first party went safely 
through to San Antonio. In the early part of the month a large number of 
horses had been driven eastward, to supply changes at the stations. 

The mail contract was in the name of the company's President, Jas. E. 
Birch, an experienced California stage man, who received $149,000 a year. The 
manager was Isaiah C. Woods, who later superintended from a New York ofSce. 

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^■THnHoruilKiiAil'r' STA(JE UN" A TUMBbTUNK STllKKT 




MARICOPA WELLS STAGE STATION IN 1874 

Telegraph Operator Oearhardt, Stage Manager J. H. Moore, Line Rider Billy Baxter, Book- 
keeper Charlie Naylor, Milt Ward 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 271 

Service was semi-monthly. There would appear to have been a change of 
ownership later, for the advertisement referred to, dated at San Antonio, July 
1, 1858, is signed by G. H. Giddings and R. E. Doyle, as proprietors. The 
advertisement recited that, ** Passengers and express matter are forwarded in 
new coaches drawn by six mules over the entire length of our line, excepting 
the Colorado desert of 100 miles, which we cross on mule back. Passengers 
guaranteed in their tickets to ride in coaches, excepting the 100 miles as above 
stated. An armed escort travels through the Indian country with each mail 
train, for the protection of the mails and passengers. Passengers are provided 
with provisions during the trip, except where the coach stops at public houses 
along the line, at which each passenger will pay for his own meal. E>ich pas- 
senger is allowed thirty pounds of personal baggage, exclusive of blankets and 
arms." 

San Antonio at the time best was reached by steamer to Indianola, Texas, 
and thence by stage. On the Pacific side recommendation was made of steam- 
ers north to San Francisco. There was another route by which you could go 
directly, if physically able, from Yuma through to San Francisco, by the stages 
of the Overland Mail Company. The fare from San Antonio to Tucson was $50 
and to San Diego $200. Extra through baggage was at the rate of $1 a pound. 
From Yuma northward by stage the fare was $40 to Los Angeles and $80 to 
San Francisco. From Yuma to San Diego the fare was $65. 

THE BUTTEBFIBLD CONTBACT 

It would appear that this San Antonio and San Diego Stage Company was 
succeeded in 1858 by the operation of the famous Butterfield mail contract, 
though on this point no exact information is available. The Butterfield con- 
tract, of six years' duration, had been awarded the previous September for semi- 
weekly service, at a stated price of $600,000 a year. It was stipulated that the 
trip of 2,759 miles from St. Louis to San Francisco should be made within 
twenty-five days. This schedule usually was beaten by three days and it was 
told that, when bearing a presidential message, the journey once was made in 
the wonderful time of sixteen days. 

The first Butterfield mail eastward left San Francisco September 16. Los 
Angeles, 462 miles, was reached in 80 hours, Yuma, 282 miles, in 72 hours and 
Tucson, 280 miles, in 71 hours. The eastern stage terminus was Tipton, Mo., 
end of the Missouri Pacific, then 160 miles long. John Butterfield met with an 
ovation when he stepped from the train at St. Louis with mail that had been 
on the road only 24 days, 20 hours and 30 minutes. President Buchanan sent 
his congratulations. There had had to be great preparations for this trip, for 
the equipment consisted of more than 100 Concord coaches, 1,000 horses, 500 
mules and 750 men, including 150 drivers. Later, when the line had been taken 
over by the Overland Mail Company, the service was daily and the mail pay 
raised to $1,300,000. Indian hostility blocked an attempt of the Central Mail 
Company to use the 35th parallel route. 

With reference only to Arizona, the diflBculties encountered by this early 
transportation line seemed almost insurmountable. Stations had to be estab- 
lished at points where water could be secured and where there could be pro- 
vided some security against the Indians. Provision had to be made for the horses 



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272 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

and their keepers and of forage for the horses and of food and shelter for the 
travelers. The stage route, over the old Overland Trail, most of it broken by 
the Mormon Battalion and later followed by tens of thousands of California 
gold seekers, was well defined and not particularly arduous, yet needed protec- 
tion at many points, not only from attacks by Indians, but against Mexicans 
and outlaw Americans. It should be appreciated also that stage robbery in the 
early days was one of the commonest forms of crime. When Ross Browne 
passed, in 1864, the stage road was still marked by many indications of the 
sufferings of emigrant parties and drovers, with the wrecks of wagons half 
covered in the drifting sands, skeletons of horses and mules and the skulls and 
bones of many herds of cattle that had perished by thirst or had fallen victims 
to the terrible sand storms that swept the desert This description, however, 
particularly referred to the Colorado desert in California ; the terrain in Arizona 
was found much more favorable. 

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the Butterfield line necessarily was 
abandoned, for it passed through rebel territory, in and out, and in Arizona had 
lost the very essential support against Indians and bandits that had been 
extended by the soldiery. That this protection was necessary was shown by an 
awful experience passed through by St. John himself. In preparation for the 
first service, early in September, 1858, he was in charge of a crew of men in 
the construction of a stone corral and buildings for a station at Dragoon 
Springs. On the night of the 8th, three Mexican laborers, probably seeking 
loot of mules and weapons, attempted the murder of their four American com- 
panions. Three were killed or mortally wounded as they slept, but St. John, 
who had awakened, fought off the assassins and drove them away, though at a 
fearful cost, for a blow from an axe had severed his left arm and there was a 
deep axe wound in his hip. Then came three days and nights of torture. 
Lying on a heap of sacked grain, St. John defended himself and the bodies of 
his dead or dying comrades from the coyotes and buzzards that had been 
brought by the reek of blood. Finally, at noon on the fourth day, assistance 
came in the arrival of a party headed by Col. Jas. B. Leach and including Lieut. 
Sylvester Mowry. The last of the other wounded Americans, James Laing, 
died the following day. The nearest surgical assistance was at Fort Buchanan 
and a messenger was sent thither by way of Tucson, for the desert trail was 
infested by Apaches. Dr. B. J. Irwin, later chief surgeon of the Department 
of Arizona, made a hard ride of 116 miles to the rescue and succeeded in saving 
St. John's life and in getting him to the post hospital. Within six weeks his 
patient had so far recovered that he was able to start for the East. St. John 
returned to Arizona later and was the first secretary of the Pioneers' Home 

In 1864 Sol Barth carried mail from Prescott to Albuquerque, sub-contract- 
ing with Ben Block from a brother of Chas. D. Poston. The mail was carried 
weekly, provided the mail carrier wasn't killed by the Indians. Two such kill- 
ings were known among the employees of Barth and Block. In 1866 they had 
the mail contract from Albuquerque to Fort Stanton, and in 1866 also secured 
a contract for carrying mail from Prescott, through Maricopa Wells to Tubac, 
but sold the latter to Aaron and Louis Zeckendorf, of Albuquerque. Louis 
Zeckendorf went down to Tucson to investigate the mail route and liked the 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 273 

country so well that he settled, establishing a mercantile business that later 
grew into the largest in the Southwest. 

ESTABLISHINO MAIL SEBVICE 

Though a notation has been found of the arrival of a horseback mail in 
Tucson September 1, 1865, and though there were military expresses, regular 
mail service through Southern Arizona does not seem to have been re-established 
till about 1869. In 1866 Governor McCormick expressed shame when he stated 
there was not at that time a stage coach running within the Territory. In Feb- 
ruary, 1867, B. C. Truman came to Arizona to lay out mail routes. In 1869 
there had been estajblished service from San Diego by the Gila route and Tucson 
to Mesilla, New Mexico, on the Rio Grande. John Capron was a sub-contractor 
west of Yuma. Within Arizona the stages were operated by J. A. Moore and 
L. W. Carr, who had their headquarters at Maricopa Wells. The Tucson Citizen 
of October 17, 1870, expressed extreme gratification over the arrival of the mail 
from San Diego in the remarkably fast time of four and one-half days and over 
the assurance of the owner of the line that the public could depend thereafter 
on semi-weekly service. 

Daily service was established in 1875, with six-horse Concord coaches, these 
connecting with the Southern Pacific Railroad at each succeeding terminal point 
from Colton southeastward. The last trip into Yuma from the west was in 
November, 1878, when railroad service was established into the Yuma station. 

The stage route ran south of and parallel to the Gila River. The principal 
stations east from Yuma in 1877 were Descanso, Gila City, Rattlesnake, Mission 
Camp, Filibuster, Antelope Peak, Mohawk, Teamster's Camp, Stanwix, Burke's, 
Oatman Flat, Gila Bend, Maricopa Wells, Pima Villages, Sweetwater, Sacaton, 
Montezuma, Sanford (Adamsville), Florence, Desert Wells, Point of Mountains, 
AVater Holes and Tucson. 

PEBILS OF THE BOAD 

There is a story connected with every one, for the days were wild and human 
life, on the whole, was of little account. Filibuster was named after the Crabb 
party, which struck southward from that point. Mission Camp had an especial 
notoriety as a place where the members of the Reed family, who kept the sta- 
tion, were murdered December 24, 1870, by Mexicans, who chopped the cook's 
head oflf. The bandits were driven oflP by the opportune arrival of several sol- 
diers in an ambulance. Mohawk had distinction in its well, into which Keeper 
Kilbright jumped, after he had taken poison, and into which the leaders of a 
six-horse coach team fell. The horses were lost and a new well then had to be 
dug. Stanwix was started by the famous Arizonan, King Woolsey, who later 
moved to Agua Caliente. Near Burke's Station, King Woolsey and two other 
men were ambushed by about a score of Apaches while the trio were returning 
to the station with a wagon load of wild hay. The Americans had only a shotgun 
charged with buckshot for a weapon, but succeeded in standing oflf the attack 
and even in killing the Indian leader. Then escape was made by mounting the 
wagon mules. Reinforcements and arms were secured at the station and return 
was made to the scene of the fray, where the dead chieftain had been left on the 
ground. Woolsey 's party hanged the body of the Indian to a tree by the road- 



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274 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

side, where for several years it dangled as a warning to the Apaches, stuck full 
of arrows, shot by passing Pimas and Maricopas. 

A similar spectacle was afforded on the same road about the same time near 
Maricopa Wells, where on a rude cross was seen the dried body of an Apache, 
crucified by the Maricopas. At least the Indian had been tied with cords to a 
rude cross, probably before torture and death. It is an interesting conjecture 
whether this novel method of treatment of an enemy had not been suggested 
by the tales of the crucifixion brought by the early missionaries. 

Au^st 18, 1873, at Kenyon Station, two Mexicans killed Ed Lumley. He 
had been stabbed several times and had been tortured to make him tell where 
his money was. Henry S. Gray and a man named Home started after them. 
The Mexicans crossed the Colorado below Yuma. One was caught while hunting 
his horse. The same evening the second man was overtaken on the Mexican 
border west of Yuma, showed fight and had to be killed. The man first caught 
was brought back to Yuma. As the crime was committed in Maricopa County, 
the prisoner was started eastward by stage for Phoenix. When the station again 
was approached, a deputy sheriff in charge of the prisoner, having been warned 
that trouble awaited him, got out of the stage with his man, and tried to walk 
around the station, to meet the stage beyond. It is probable that the stage 
driver told the group of waiting avengers, for the officer's ruse failed, and the 
prisoner was taken from him and hanged. 

Woolsey throughout his life rather made his own law^s and controlled the 
destinies of those around him. He was a very forceful and determined man, but 
just. One instance illustrative of his character -has been detailed by John H- 
Crampton: In August, 1872, a Mexican came to Woolsey 's home at Stanwix, 
and finding no one there but a Mexican boy, detailed to him a plan for Woolsey 's 
murder. The lad was faithful and himself became a vicarious victim. The 
murderous Mexican was captured soon thereafter by Woolsey himself. The 
next day he was ordered to dig a grave. This he did. He was then placed on 
the edge of the shallow excavation, before which was drawn a party of four 
of Woolsey 's Mexican employes, armed with rifles. Woolsey himself gave the 
word and the murderer, with four bullets through his body, fell backward into 
the trench, which forthwith was filled in upon the corpse. 

G. R. Whistler, of Burke 's Station, was killed in July, 1874, by his Mexican 
stableman, Ventura Nunez, for plunder. The Mexican was chased ninety miles 
by Woolsey and a party from Stanwix and brought back to the station, and 
there hanged on a mesquite tree by the roadside. The body hung for months, 
maintained as a warning to the evildoer. The skeleton at last dropped from 
the rope and was buried by Mexican freighters, who placed a rough cross above 
the grave. It is told that discovery was made of a plot to kill all American 
station keepers. 

Oatman Plat was named after the Oatman family of unhappy memory. 

Gila Bend is especially notable for the fact that near the station was an 
early farm, cultivated for years by A. C. Decker, the agent. It is believed that 
this was the first American irrigated farm in South Central Arizona, antedating 
the Phoenix settlement by at least three years. A small colony settled at the 
Bend in 1865, fought Indians, dug a ditch and raised grain for the use of the 
freighters. 



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JOHN TOWXSKXD 

A famous Indian fighter and scout of early 

Apache days 




-1^ 









CX)L. KING S. WOOLSEY 
First leader against the Apaches, member 
of Legislature and promoter of irrigation 
and agriculture in Salt River Valley. 



COL. (^HARLES D. POSTON 
First delegate to Congress, 1864 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 275 

A DESEBT METROPOLIS 

Forty-five miles east was the principal station of the road, Maricopa Wells. 
As early as 1868 it rejoiced in a big pool table, and in 1873 it had connection 
with the outside world by military telegraph line. Though now abandoned, a 
mere group of adobe ruins, all but forgotten by even the old-timers, it once 
was one of the central points of the Southwest. It was protected from Apache 
raids by the mere presence of several thousand friendly Pima and Maricopa 
Indians, who from their irrigated farms brought stores of wheat and vegetables 
to trade for the white man's goods. There were a hotel, blacksmith shop and 
store, at one time all owned by Moore. In 1869, according to one record, there 
was a custom house, in charge of Chas. D. Poston, who moved with the office to 
Florence in 1871. The place was maintained as an Indian trading post by 
Barnett & Block until about 1882. In the pioneer days Northern Arizona was 
reached through Maricopa Wells and a direct road ran to Fort McDowell. 
Prescott was reached by a road which skirted the border of the present City 
of Phoenix, and which struck towards the northwest by way of Wickenburg. 
The ** wells "were on the south side of a hill, in the Santa Cruz Wash, about 
eight miles east of the present Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad. Fair-sized mesquite 
trees now are growing on the site of the old-time activities. 

Eastward were a number of stations, rather closely set within the Pima 
Indian country. The first was Casa Blanca at a Pima village, where was estab- 
lished the first steam flour mill of Southern Arizona, operated by Nick Bichard 
and brothers. After the Gila rise of 1868, the mill was moved to Adamsville, 
below Florence. Sacaton then was only a stage station, but now is the central 
agency point for the Pima and Maricopa reservations. 

Adamsville, in itself a mere ghost of a town, once, though only over a brief 
period of years, had no small prominence as a settlement, in the period when 
Maricopa Wells was declining and Florence had hardly started to be. In a casual 
motor car, sightseers bound for the Casa Grande ruins may take the rather 
unused road through the single street of the deserted village and pass the site 
of the old flour mill and along the bank of the canal that brought it water for 
power. 

OUTLAWS AND APACHES 

Mexicans are said to avoid Adamsville, for it is told that a ghost is loose amid 
the ruins, guarding a hoard of gold. All of this is based upon a rather fantastic 
tale of the killing of two priests and six other stage passengers east of Florence, 
of the loot of a box of gold, of a siege of the robber, a Mexican, who had taken 
refuge in an Adamsville adobe, of the dropping upon him of a dynamite car- 
tridge and of his death from rifle bullets as he fled from the impending explosion 
toward the shelter of the river bottom willows. The reality of the tale is this : 
In March, 1872, Station Keeper McFarland, of Sacaton, disappeared near a 
ranch of ill repute, kept by a Mexican named Gandara. Americans from Adams- 
ville investigated, to have one of their own number, Badel, shot by Gandara on 
entering the latter 's house. Gandara in turn met his death by the bullet route 
and at once. A few days later the same citizen posse shot and killed at Adams- 
ville two Mexican outlaws, Manuel Reyes, the robber brought to bay, and one 
Aguilar. McFarland 's body was found buried near the Gandara ranch. 



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276 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

As late as August of 1878 a wagon train was attacked by Apaches on the 
Tucson road, only a few miles east of the Pima villages. The party, which was 
headed by Captain Freeman, h«ui had warning by a prospector, who came wildly 
riding up to the traiii from the eastward, having escaped from the Indians, 
while his partner was killed. The wagons promptly were parked and prepara- 
tions were made for defense. The Indians soon appeared, about a dozen of them, 
mounted, and opened fire on the small party of Americans. The defense was 
not in any straits, however, when several hundred Pima Indian horsemen, sum- 
moned by the firing, came charging down from the westward, followed by a 
reinforcement of Americans. Then it was that the Apaches took to the hills 
with all dispatch. Two of the attacking party were killed and the teamsters' 
cook was slightly wounded. 

At Montezuma, Austin Densy (or Dempsey) had a trading post. Florence 
was next, twelve miles away, started as a stage station and having its existence 
as a town from the time that the custom house was moved there from ^laricopa 
Wells. Establishment of a land office followed soon. It was a long journey to 
the next station, Picacho, forty miles over the desert. The well at Picacho was 
200 feet deep and had the only water for many miles around. It was on the 
line of one of the Apache trails to Sonora and, as a consequence, near the station 
could be counted at least seventy-five graves of persons slain by the red raiders. 
Near Picacho also occurred the only battle in Arizona between the Union and 
Confederate forces, although the aflEray was not accompanied by much bloodshed. 
Desert Well, 212 feet deep, was twenty-seven miles from Tucson, and Bailey's 
Well only ten miles. 

In 1871 a driver named Baker, who drove between Blue Water Station and 
Tucson, was murdered at his home, at the former point, together with his wife 
and two children. This deed also was done by Mexicans, who, like those of 
Mission Camp, made good their escape into Sonora, whence extradition was 
refused. 

ADVENT OF GBIFFITH AND STEVENS 

In 1874 was organized the Texas and California Stage Company, to operate 
between Fort Worth and San Diego. The main line was 1,700 miles long and an 
item of its equipment was 1,200 horses. Manager and later president of the 
company was Wm. M. GriflSth, who had headquarters successively at San Diego, 
Yuma and Tucson, as railroads encroached upon his shrinking field till at last 
the iron horse trailed along every mile of the route between Yumi^ and the 
Texas terminal. Griffith stayed with Arizona, managing stage lines and ranching 
and for a term served as United States marshal. For a while the line between 
Yuma and Tucson was superintended by another noted Arizonan, Dan C. 
Stevens, now resident in Florence. 

In 1878, when the Southern Pacific had reached Yuma, 720 miles from San 
Francisco, further passenger transportation from the Colorado River eastward 
was by means of stages operated by Keams & Mitchell, for whom Wm. M. 
Griffith was general agent. In an advertisement of the period it is noted that 
the passenger tariff from San Francisco to Phoenix was $93 and to Tucson an 
even $100. El Paso could be reached for $183, and if the traveler wanted to 
go as far as Fort Austin, Texas, he could be accommodated by the expenditure 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 277 

of $240. Tucson was reached on the fifth day from San Francisco, and El Paso 
on the ninth day. 

Within the Territory about that time most of the mail contracts were held by 
two large transportation companies, Kearns & Mitchell, soon succeeded by 
Kearns & GriflBth, and Gilmer, Salisbury & Co., whose interests in the South- 
west were in charge of the well-known Jim Stewart. The main routes were 
covered by these two firms, though transportation by stage or buckboard could 
be found between almost any points on regular mail schedules. For the side 
trips there was a general tariflP as high as 20 cents a mile. From Phoenix to 
Prescott cost $20, and the traveler had his choice of the direct and rocky road 
over Black Canon Hill, on Griffith's line, or, with somewhat larger coaches and 
on a better road, around by Wickenburg, under the care of Jim Stewart. One 
road was 105 miles long and the other 130, and the time consumed on either 
was from twenty to twenty-six hours of continuous travel. 

As late as 1880 mail was carried across Northern Arizona froiii San Ber- 
nardino through Fort Mojave and Prescott to Santa Fe by a buckboard stage 
line> one that had had many vicissitudes. In 1871 a weekly mail contract was 
advertised for a route up the Colorado from Arizona City (Yuma) to St. George, 
Utah. For a while the main passenger and freight route from California into 
Northern Arizona was from San Bernardino by way of Ehrenberg and Wicken- 
burg. This line was owned by James Grant, with Jim Stewart as superintendent. 

Globe, after the coming of the Southern Pacific, had the advantage of three 
routes of ingress. William Sutherland (Idaho Bill) ran a stage line from Casa 
Grande through Florence, Riverside, Dripping Springs and Pioneer, over the 
Pinal Mountains. But about half the passengers took his side line from Flor- 
ence to Silver King, where mules were mounted for an adventurous journey 
through Devil's Canon to Bloody Tanks, where a buckboard would be in wait- 
ing. The third route, generally used for eastern travel, ran southeast from 
Globe through the Apache Reservation to Willcox or Bowie. 

TRAVEL OUT OF THE OLD PUEBLO 

Tucson was the departure point for many mining camps, but particularly 
for Sonora, into which ran two rival stage lines. Both were equipped after 
the Mexican fashion, with large Concord coaches, drawn by two wheel mules 
and four ponies abreast in the lead. Beside the Mexican driver sat a helper, 
whose duty it was to yell and throw stones. Frequently the two rival stages, 
starting at the same time, would get tangled in racing down the narrow Meyer 
Street, to the great edification of the populact. The journey was accounted an 
unusually happy one if the passengers escaped with no more than one upset on 
the wretched roads, over which the teams were galloped southward. There were 
minor details also of impossible food and of lengthy stops at ranches, where 
the hostlers seemed never to have thought of the simple expedient of gathering 
the next team in from the range until the stage came into sight. 

The eSLTl^ days of Tombstone were palmy ones for Tucson, from which many 
loaded stage coaches steadily rolled out for the new bonanza. 

The early-day stage driver was a character well worth consideration. Usu- 
ally he was of the type of which gamblers are made, quiet and undemonstrative, 
absolutely fearless, even to the point of recklessness, skillful in handling his team 



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278 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

of from four to six horses through the heat and dust, appreciative of the pres- 
ence on the box beside him of one of his own kind and even resentful of the 
presence thereon of an ignorant tenderfoot. It was generally understood that 
in case of a hold-up the driver should not fight, for his first duty lay in the 
safety of his passengers, horses and equipment. Pew there were of tiie old-time 
Jehus who had not had narrow escapes, for every stage that bore a freight of 
value was accompanied by an express messenger, who sat beside or behind the 
driver, a sawed-oflf shotgun in his hands. These express messengers were of the 
type of which sheriffs were made, keen and alert, brave and dependable. There 
have been instances, with express messengers shot from ambush, where the 
driver seized weapons and, sometimes at the cost of his life, fought the highway 
robbers. Some of the drivers were marked as men who would fight and who 
expected no mercy in the event of a hold-up. 

WELLS IN THE DE8EBT 

A most valuable possession in the early days was a well of water down in 
the desert by the side of the stage road. These stage stations usually were deso- 
late places, with an adobe house or two, a corral and the well. Prom the latter 
usually came a sad sound, as of ungreased wheels. Almost invariably the water 
was hoisted by a mule, usually blind or blindfolded, which in time became so 
accustomed to its work that little oversight was needed from the bare-le^ed 
Mexican boy who generally acted as engineer. Prom the cool, dark depths 
below, the water came up in a small barrel. The mule would back a few steps, 
the water was dumped into a small reservoir and then the bucket went down for 
a fresh filling. 

One of the most noted of these stations was Culling 's Wells, on the old 
Ehrenberg road, about sixty miles west of Wickenburg. One of the later keepers 
of the station was Joe Drew. That he was a man possessed of both imagination 
and a true sense of humanity was shown by the fact that at night, swung from 
a tall Cottonwood pole above the well frame, ever was raised a lantern, its beams 
visible along the waterless road many miles to the east and west. Drew had 
grieved that several deaths from thirst had occurred only a few miles from the 
station, and his action followed the arrival one evening of an almost spent lad, 
who, on the point of lying down to die, had seen in the distance a glimmer 
of light from the windows of the station house. Drew thereafter called himself 
** Keeper of the Lighthouse on the Desert." . 

Another noted station was that of M. H. Calderwood, an officer of California 
volunteers, who established himself at the crossing of the Agua Pria on the 
stage road between Phoenix and Wickenburg, where he found the purest of 
water, not far from "where the Santa Pe now enjoys a supply of similar quality 
at Marinette. 

Around these frontier stations, in keeping with their appearance, too often 
was tragedy. This was peculiarly true of the stations along the old Butter- 
field route, as narrated elsewhere. Sometimes there was tragedy even before 
the station started, as instanced by a ring of dirt north of Wickenburg, 
toward which the stage driver would incline the butt of his whip as he told 
the story of a couple of young men, bent upon starting a station, who dug a 
well 125 feet deep, which, lined only with the ribs of saguaro cactus, caved in 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 279 

while one of its diggers was at the bottom. The body there was left, in what 
was called the deepest grave in Arizona. 

ENTEBTAINMENT FOB THE TBAVELEB 

Among the noted station keepers was Snider, of Bumblebee, who had married 
a sister of King Woolsey's wife. Snider was a mild sort of individual. He 
didn't drink liquor, but he had it for sale. One frosty morning a traveling 
friend dropped oflf the Black Canon stage coach and demanded whiskey. The 
black bottle was placed upon the rough counter and a generous drink was 
swallowed by the benumbed traveler, who, with a contorted face, immediately 
exclaimed: ** Snider! if that was whiskey you gave me, it was the worst I ever 
tasted." **Vat! vasn't dot good whiskey?" ** Horrible." Then Snider with 
uplifted hands sorrowly declaimed: **Vell, I guess I have been cheated. Do 
you know," he impressively informed his friend, '*I paid $2 a gallon for dot 
whiskey down in Phoenix." 

It was at the same Bumblebee station that Joe Coulson, a stage employe, 
secured respect for his hostess' food at the point of a revolver. An English 
traveler had objected to the main article in the menu, uncivilly protesting that 
beans were fit food only for horses. The Arizonan taught him better and after- 
ward gleefully told that the tenderfoot had eaten two platefuls and he believed 
could have stood a third if the instructor's trigger finger hadn't cramped. 

Joe, at a later period, about 1880, represented the stage line at Gillett on the 
Agua Pria. Before daylight one morning he got into an altercation with the 
driver of a southward-bound stage. The driver couldn't get to his revolver 
under his heavy ulster till Joe had exhausted the contents of his weapon and had 
fled back into the brush. The driver searched through the darkness for the agent, 
but vainly, and finally, his bullet-riddled overcoat flapping around his heels, 
returned to where his stage had been. But the horses, scared by the flying 
bullets, had started southward, taking with them the coach and about a dozen 
passengers. There was a wild, driverless ride for about a dozen miles to Hall's 
Station, but the passengers were all spilled before the coach reached that point. 

MEXICAN TBAFFIC BY CABBETA 

As far down the years as 1883 occasionally Tucson and Phoenix were visited 
from Sonora by long trains of carretas, rude Mexican carts, usually held together 
with rawhide, with wheels that had been turned from a cross-section of a large 
Cottonwood log and with the long pole of each cart attached to the horns of a 
couple of half -wild oxen. The noise of the wheels' creaking could be heard for 
miles ahead. But the trains were welcome, for they brought fruit, panoche 
(coarse sugar) and zarapes, to trade for American goods. 

FBEIOHTINO IN PIONEEB TIMES 

The Arizona ** freighter" was a very important personage in the days before 
the railroad came. As a rule he was a professional, closely allied to the rather 
contemptuous stage driver, who cursed him for cutting up the roads and for 
raising too much dust. Some of the freight ^'outfits" of those days were awe- 
inspiring affairs. The team might be anything up to twenty-four mules, driven 
by a **jerk line," and handled with a skill marvelous to the uninitiated. The 



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280 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

driver was in the saddle an the **nigh wheeler," and the passage of the road in 
times of diflSeulty or upon grades developed a flow of language on the frontier 
said to be equaled only by that of a cavalry captain. The star performers in 
a mule team were the spry little mules on the lead and the mules on the ''swing*' 
which, on a turn, would step over the chain and, undirected, keep the fore wheels 
in the proper track. 

The mule, without doubt, was the greatest traction factor in the upbuild- 
ing of the Southwest. Oxen at first were tried, but for them the country was 
too hot and too dry. Horses, save in the Mexican ** rawhide" outfit, suffered 
much from the same disadvantages. Yet the finest team ever known in the 
Southwest was one of sixteen Percheron Norman horses, known along the Globe- 
Willcox road as **The Bell Team," for every horse, save the one ridden, bore 
above the hames a set of bells. The average weight of the horses of this team 
was not less than 1,500 pounds, and they were curried and blanketed and cared 
for as carefuUy as though on an eastern estate. 

In the freighting of the ores of the Silver King mine down to the mill at 
Picket Post, the motive power comprised a number of eight-mule teams, consid- 
ered by the freighters absolute perfection and a standard of excellence never 
elsewhere surpassed in the Southwest. The mules all were carefully matched, 
and had been purchased in Kentucky with little regard to cost. The drivers 
had a collateral income, for about the only way to get specimens from the Silver 
King was to subsidize a driver to throw a few chunks of ore at his lead mules 
about the time he was coming into the town of Pinal. 

The wagons of the old-time freighting outfits were in keeping with the 
importance of the work. Eastern wagons would not do at all. They went to 
pieces on the desert. The best and the biggest wagons were made in Arizona, 
especially at Yuma, Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott, where no stick of wood was 
used that had not lain for a year's seasoning and drying. Some of the lead 
wagons had wheels fully eight feet in height, and had capacity for a half-carload 
of goods. Following a sixteen-niule team usually there were three or four wag- 
ons, diminishing in size toward the end vehicle, which was used for forage and 
for the bedding and food of the freighter and his ** swamper." Both men were 
armed even more heavily than the cowboy, with a repeating rifle near at hand, 
in a boot under the driver's leg or swung where a motion could pull it from the 
side of the big wagon, and each man bore his 45-caliber revolver, with a cartridge 
belt for each of the weapons. These were not for empty show, for outlaws, bandit 
Mexicans and Apaches all found atractive loot in the cargo of the wagons, espe- 
cially when a part of the cargo was in barrels. 

In the Apache country travel was by wagon trains, following the system 
much used in crossing the plains. At least a dozen teamsters would join for 
mutual protection, and at night would park in a circle, with outposted videttes 
and sentinels. Sometimes on the road through the San Carlos Reservation, 
tired of the dust and the slow travel and looking for a bonus at the terminal for 
fast service, a driver would push on ahead. Too often the caravan next day 
would come across the smoking debris of the wagons, in its midst the mangled 
and mutilated remains of what once liad been a man. 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STA^TE 281 

A GRAY LIFE OF DAKGEB 

Though the life was not attended with any large degree of profit, a freighter 
usually continued in his occupation till the railroad took it away from him. 
Possibly the best conditions were on the road to Prescott, a view expressed by 
a young Mormon ** swamper." Around the camp-fire one night, while the *'mule 
skinnera" were discussing their opportunities in life, the lad broke in: **You 
know what I'd do if I was rich? I'd buy a bang-up team and a Yuma wagon, 
and I'd go to freighting on the Prescott road and wouldn't live on nothin' but 
canned goods." 

On this same Prescott road the traveler by stage rarely was out of sight of 
a freight team, distinguished by its cloud of dust, the driver coated from the 
pulverized roadway. Bach town made provision for the freighter in mud-walled 
corrals of large size, wherein a degree of protection was afforded the goods and 
where forage could be had, as well as wagon repairs and shoes for the mules. 

While the life sometimes may have appeared of the grayest, beside the 
danger from outlaw or Indian, the vicissitudes of the road sometimes gave a 
variation not welcomed. The load as a rule was adjusted on a basis of a reason- 
ably good road. When there was sand or when a hill had to be climbed, the 
rear wagons were dropped and the bad ground was passed before the team was 
brought back, sometimes ten miles, a process known as ''doubling up." Some- 
times this process was changed by the doubling of the teams of several outfits, 
till as many as forty mules would be tugging at a single wagon to get it over 
such a grade as that of Black Canon. At the foot of a grade usually was a 
ceremony ^that seemed uniform. Whips did not seem particularly popular, 
though carried. Instead, when diflBculty loomed ahead, the driver took from the 
side of the wagon a long-handled shovel and, carefully and conscientiously, with 
its blade beat every mule in the team. Possibly the idea was that noise with 
the mules was just as effective as pain. With the first pull on the jerk line 
every mule was in the collar and with the second every trace was being strained 
to its capacity. 

The days were not always dusty ones on the roads of Arizona, for the dry 
wash may be a raging torrent within a few hours. A typical episode was that 
in which one of the Sears brothers was concerned. In the canon of the Has- 
sayampa, where he had made camp for the night, near the Brill ranch, with 
several teams, he was awakened from slumber by a roaring noise that could 
mean only the coming of water from a cloudburst. The mules hurriedly were 
cut loose and were driven out of the river bed. Sears, not so fortunate, took 
refuge in a tall willow tree just as the flood tore down upon him through the 
narrow gorge. The tree bent as each wave came, and Sears, desperately clinging 
to a limb, repeatedly went far down into the flood only to be brought back by 
the elasticity of the bough just as his breath was about failing. At daylight he 
was rescued by means of a rope thrown from the bank. Of the wagons and 
their contents nothing remained in sight. 

Another freighter, with a single wagon, cached a part of his load of dyna- 
mite at the foot of the short Hell Canon grade, north of Prescott, reloading at 
the top the boxes brought from the bottom on his shoulders. As he started with 
the last box, the wagon load at the top of the hill unaccountably exploded, and 
of wagon and mules very little was left. 

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282 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

At the forks of the Vulture road, not far from the present railroad station 
of Morristown, an overloaded teamster cached 600 pounds of dynamite. A 
few hours later, another freighter noted the pile, tarpaulin-covered, around 
it sniflSng a coyote. The opportunity for a rifle shot was good and was promptly 
taken, but the shooter, at a distance of several hundred yards, immediately was 
flattened to the earth by what seemed to be the end of the world. Whether the 
bullet hit the coyote or not was immaterial. At any rate it was chronicled that 
the animal undoubtedly died. 



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CHAPTER XXII 
FROM CAMELS TO AUTOS 

Jefferson Davis' Experiment ixfith ** Ships of the Deserf — Beale's Experiences j»ith 
Camels — Turned Loose on the Arizona Plains — The Faithful Burro — Modem 
Roads and Bridges — Military^ Telegraph Lines. 

A mistaken idea of the character of the southwestern ** deserts," which with 
respect to sand are not at all similar to the deserts of Africa, induced Congress, 
in 1855, to authorize the expenditure of $30,000 for the purpose of buying 
camels and taking them to the Southwest to be used for military transportation 
purposes. Jeflferson Davis, then Secretary of War, was an enthusiastic sup- 
porter of the scheme. He detailed Maj. Henry C. Wayne to proceed to the 
Levant without delay and there execute the provisions of the act. Major Wayne 
journeyed far and had many interesting experiences with Turkish, Arabic and 
Egyptian camel sellers, who appeared to have been more expert in trade than 
even the far-famed Yankee horse dealers. Finally, at Smyrna, he completed 
the purchase of about thirty camels. Several calves were added during the 
voyage to America, which was made on the naval store ship Supply, com- 
manded by Lieut. D. D. Porter, afterward the famous naval leader of the Civil 
War. The camels were landed on the coast of Texas in May, 1856, and in the 
following January Lieutenant Porter added to the herd a second lot of forty- 
one. 

Wayne became deeply interested in the camels and kept busy in train- 
ing the brutes and inventing new methods whereby they might be made useful 
under their new environment. In this work his best assistance was from two 
Greeks, Hi Jolly and Greek George. Pew of the soldiers developed any expert- 
ness in riding the ships of the desert and it is told that harassed cavalrymen, 
unable to acquire the expertness of the Greeks in packing or riding, often 
assisted in stampeding their ungainly mounts, with the fond hope, that they 
would never return. It took months of association also to keep horses or mules 
from bolting at the sight of a camel. 

tJEUTENANT BEALE'S CAMELS 

The first practical test of the animals was made in the cross-country survey 
of Edw. P. Beale, which started from San Antonio, Texas, June 25, 1857. Each 
camel at first had a load of about 576 pounds, which later was increased to 700, 
though occasionally raised to 1,200 pounds. Indeed, there is a tale that a camel 
carrying 2,000 pounds made fifty miles in California in a single day. Some 
of the Turkish drivers left the party at San Antonio, on the excuse that they 

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284 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

had not received pay due, and the *' ships of the desert" thereafter had to be 
steered by inexperienced occidental hands. There was trouble at first, but soon 
there was better knowledge concerning methods of packing, and the camels 
gained in popularity when at last they proved equal to keeping up with the 
wagons. The leader of the party wrote that he had become convinced of their 
usefulness, that ** their perfect docility and patience under difficulties renders 
them invaluable, and my only regret at present is that I have not double the 
number." When the Rio Grande Valley was entered, the camels found a food 
much to their taste in the screw-bean mesquite, and in general they preferred 
brush to grass. A drink of water a day seemed all they wanted. A couple of 
months later Beale again wrote: ** Certainly there never was anything so 
patient and enduring and so little troublesome as this noble animal. They pack 
their heavy load of com, of which they never taste a grain, put up with any 
food offered them, without complaint, and are always up with the wagons, and, 
withal, so perfectly docile and quiet that they are the admiration of the whole 
camp. They are better to-day than when we left Camp Verde with them, 
especially since our men have learned the best mode of packing them. ' ' 

One Arizona experience proved their high value, for they were used in pack- 
ing water back to the mules, after an ignorant guide had caused the party to 
get more than thirty miles from a spring. They were used on every reconnois- 
ance while the mules were resting. Heat and cold alike seemed to affect them 
little. 

The Legislature of the State of New York, under date of April 15, 1854, 
gave additional official standing to the ship of the desert by incorporation of 
the American Camel Company, within which as commissioners were named 
Wm. G. King, Chas. W. Webber and Edward Magauran, authorized to receive 
stock subscriptions to the amount of $100,000, **for the purpose of importing 
camels from Asia and Africa into the United States, so as to make that animal 
applicable to the purpose of burden, transportation, subsistence and fabrics.'' 
The prospectus issued by the commissioners gave much data concerning the 
habits and usefulness of the camel and made the claim that '*the camel is the 
animal of all others best adapted for facilitating and extending commercial 
intercourse over the deserts and plains intervening between the Mississippi and 
Pacific Ocean." Introduction of the camel in the West was considered only 
second to that of the horse, starting **a second great epoch in the history of the 
domestication of animals useful to man on this continent." Particularly quoted 
in the prospectus were observations of Boundary Commissioner Bartlett, who, 
in his work on the Southwest, stated: **I do not hesitate to hazard the opinion 
that the introduction of camels and dromedaries would prove of immense benefit 
to our present means of transportation, that they would be a great saving of 
animal life and would present facilities for crossing our broad deserts and 
prairies not possessed by any other domestic animals now in use." 

CAMELS ON THE ABIZONA PLAINS 

Interesting data concerning camels in the Southwest was gathered by 
Gov. L. C. Hughes in 1893. He found that a number were driven westward over 
the southern route, with the loss of some near Agua Caliente, on the Gila, and 
that, '*0f the camels taken to California, a number were returned to Arizona 



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A FREUmTlKii -rM'TiaT" 




ARIZONA'S FIRST lU RDKX HKARKR, THK lU RRO 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 285 

in 1876, for the purpose of transporting ores from the then rich Silver King 
mine. Here, again, their presence was objected to by teamsters and freighters, 
and the band was turned loose between the Gila and Colorado rivers, through 
which section they have been roaming ever since. In 1883 nine of the band were 
captured by Papago Indians and turned over to a circus. At that time there 
were twenty head in the band, eleven of which were two or three years old. The 
Arizona stock is said to be a great improvement on the original.'* In the same 
data is copied an article credited to Col. D. K. Allen, of the Yuma Sentinel, who 
stated: **At the present time there are ninety-seven of them in the mountains 
and hills east of the Yuma and Harqua Hala wagon roads, away from the haunts 
of white men and Indians. They have roamed mostly in the Eagle Tail and 
adjoining ranges, where few, if any, human, beings ever go. It is estimated that 
if none had been killed there would now be not less than 1,000. They are very 
wild and vicious and make a hard fight when caught or even cornered.'' The 
Governor recommended that the remaining camels in Arizona be captured and 
removed to some national park. 

In the fifteenth century Spaniards took African camels to Peru, but they 
were found less available for transportation uses than the native llama. 

A number of the camels were sent westward into Arizona and to Drum 
Barracks, near Los Angeles, consigned to L. P. Redwine. It was found that 
their feet would not stand the rocks of the Southwest and it was also found that 
they needed special care and attention that could not be given by the casual 
packer or cavalryman. The remnants of the herds eventually were sold in 
Texas to menageries and in California to a Frenchman, who in turn failed in 
finding the beasts of any use, either in Nevada or Arizona. So the camels were 
driven out into the desert to shift for themselves. Before the coming of the 
railroad, east of Yuma, numbers of them, undoubtedly seeking human compan- 
ionship and with the memory of oats, occasionally were seen by freighters. As 
the appearance of the weird animals inevitably threw every mule team into a 
panic, it became the custom to shoot the unwelcome visitors on sight. 

In the summer of 1880 two camels were captured east of Yuma by Ryland's 
traveling circus, wherein for several years they constituted all there was of the 
menagerie, draped with plush trappings on which were set forth the names, 
respectively, of Romeo and Juliet. 

Chief Engineer William Hood of the Southern Pacific told of seeing camels 
when he was laying out the line of his road in Southern Arizona in the late '70s. 
A camel cow and calf were seen by a prospector at a water hole near Quitova- 
quita on the Sonora border about fifteen years ago, and about 1909 two camels 
were reported to have been seen in the vicinity of Quartzsite in northern Yuma 
County. It is not improbable that a few of them, of a younger generation, still 
have succeeded in evading the rifles of the teamsters and are roaming the deserts 
near the international line. 'Their existence was even recognized by statute a 
few years ago, by including them within the Arizona game laws as protected at 
all seasons of the year. 

Both of the Greek camel drivers ended their days in Arizona. George is said 
to have been killed near Prescott by a Mexican, who accused him of cheating at 
cards, and Hi Jolly died at Harrisburg, Yuma County, in 1902. 



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286 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

THE EVEB-FAITHFUL BXJBBO 

The pioneer trangportation factor of the Southwest, however, was the mule's 
near kin, the burro, meekly bearing on his back the weight of many afflictions, 
as well as the cross which, the Mexicans tell, was placed there by the Savior as 
a reward for the journey that ended at the gates of Jerusalem. The burro is 
nothing more than the native ass of Andalusia and Barbary and was brought to 
America by the Spaniards soon after the country's European occupation. The 
burro has borne over the mountains of Arizona the pack of almost every pros- 
pector, and upon him is the only reliance for bringing down the ores of mines 
of the mountain peaks. Nowadays he is usually found with the Mexicans, living 
on less than the demands of an outcast dog, apparently relishing brushwood 
quite as well as the most succulent alfalfa. Back in the days of the first white 
settlement, where wagon roads were not or were mere apologies, the burro 
brought in the supplies needed for the civilization of the day. Sol Barth, with 
a train of 100 or more burros, brought flour to Wickenburg and Prescott from 
the Pima villages or even from far down in Central Sonora. He brought flour 
and grain on burroback from Ehrenberg and salt from the great Zuni salt well 
over the New Mexican border. Today the burro is the companion of the sheep- 
herder, moving with the flocks and as faithful as are the collies. On his back 
is brought down the firewood that is used in the mining camps of Arizona. He 
has been almost indispensable in the upbuilding of the commonwealth. 

AUTOMOBILE BOADS OF TODAY 

For about five years Arizona has been pursuing a good roads policy, mainly 
due to the spread of the use of the automobile. State highways have been 
constructed, from Prescott through Phoenix to Douglas and a start has been 
made on two transcontinental highways, one from Yuma through Phoenix to 
the eastward and another paralleling the Santa Fe Railroad in the north-central 
part of the state. A number of expensive bridges have had to be built, the most 
important those across the Salt at Tempe and across the Gila at Florence. Both 
of these were built mainly by convict labor, which has been generally used upon 
highway construction as well. The latest bridge of importance is that which, in 
the spring of 1915, was completed across the Colorado River at Yuma, its west- 
ern abutments upon the site of the historic Fort Yuma. It had formal dedica- 
tion on June 20th, when Governor Johnson, of California, and Governor Hunt, 
of Arizona, shook hands across a mark that located the interstate line. Not till 
then was there discontinuance of the historic ferry that dated back to the days 
of the California Argonauts. 

THE COMINO OF THE TELEGRAPH 

The benefits of telegraphic communication first were enjoyed by Arizona 
in 1873. Congress had voted $50,311.20 for the construction of 540 miles of 
military telegraph line from San Diego, California, via Fort Yuma fend Mari- 
copa Wells, to Prescott and Tucson. The military authorities feared they would 
not get the appropriation at all, and the amount asked for was so insufficient that 
there could be set only seventeen posts to the mile, so it was jokingly told at the 
time recourse had to be had to giant cacti and mesquite trees. The following 
year an additional appropriation of $40,000 was made for extension of the lines 



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BABY-GAUGE MINING RAILROAD AT 
CX)RONADO 



COLORADO RIVER STEAMBOAT WITH 
BARGE, AT YUMA BRIDGE 



WAGON BRIDGE OVER SALT RIVER, TEMPE 
FORT YUMA AND FERRY 



RAILROAD BRIDGE ACROSS THE COLO- 
RADO AT PARKER 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 287 

to Fort Verde and Camp Apache, and a year later $30,000 more was appropri- 
ated for still further extensions. The line was of tremendous benefit to the 
military, giving immediate communication between forts in the event of Indian 
troubles and rendering unnnecessary the services of the gallant couriers, who, 
at the risk of their lives, had theretofore dashed across the Apache-infested 
country, carrying orders. It was years before the Apaches began to fully 
appreciate the importance of the iron string and to learn that it should first be 
cut away before any deviltry was attempted. 

Then the soldier linemen encountered added dangers. Owing to the tem- 
porary construction of the main line, there was continual work for the soldiers 
of the signal corps, who acted as operators and linemen. Most of the trouble 
was on the western side of the Colorado, where Lieutenant Reade, placed in 
charge of the system in 1875, reported that as poles twenty-five feet in height 
were frequently covered up by sand in storms, they should be replaced by cable. 
The telegraph service was of great benefit also to the civil population, bringing 
news of the outside world and even permitting the printing of press reports in 
the newspapers of the day. The military telegraph lines were in operation till 
succeeded by the railroad lines along the main southern highways and for years 
thereafter provided the only telegraphic communication into North Central 
Arizona. 

When the line of the northern extension was laid out. Phoenix was left off 
to one side, much to the disgust of its inhabitants. A storekeeper in Phoenix 
then was Morris Gold water, later distinguished as one of Arizona's legidators. 
He lately told how he secured a change of route through Phoenix from Maj. 
Geo. P. Price, U. S. A., and R. R. Haynes, who were building the line. This 
was done when Goldwater, who had some knowledge of telegraphy, offered to 
donate a set of instruments, which he had on hand, and also to serve as operator 
free of charge. The oiBSce was in Goldwater 's store at the comer of First and 
Jefferson streets. Goldwater served as an unpaid volunteer till displaced by a 
member of the signal corps and the office was moved to the stage office, near the 
comer of Washington and Center streets. The first operator employed was 
Chas. M. Clark, now a resident of Miami. Whipple was reached September 
2, 1873. 



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CHAPTER XXIII 
SOUTHWESTERN RAILROADS 

Helped b\f Land Grants and Subudies — Fremont's Large Plans — Coming of the Southern 
Pacific and Santa Fe Sy^stems — Ho7» the Arizona Branch Lines Were Built — The 
Phelps-Dodge Roads — Railroad Lights that Failed, 

Immediately after the Mexican war, Congress materially helped in the 
exploration and eventual development of Arizona by voting liberal appropria- 
tions for surveys for transcontinental railroad lines. The route on the thirty- 
fifth parallel, afterward occupied by the Santa Pe System, was declared feasible 
by Sitgreaves in 1851 and, soon after, was carefully surveyed by Lieutenant 
Whipple. In the south a route was found north of the Gila, but the Gadsden 
Purchase in 1853 had its chiefest reason in a wish to get a better. Gray, Emory, 
Michler and other army engineers surveyed the Gila Valley and even more 
southerly routes, uniformly with final approval. In those days, however, there 
seemed to be little thought of anything save the passage of the wilderness, that 
access might be had to the Golden State and connection secured between the 
seaboards. Only Emory seemed to think of the freight that would come from 
copper mining, and even he mentally placed that freight on flatboats on the Gila 
River. 

Probably the most definite plan to build a railroad across the «ontinent on 
the southern route was that of the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany, which was incorporated by the Legislature of Texas February 4, 1856, with 
a large grant of State lands. The lands could not be sold and the Civil War added 
still greater perplexities, but in 1868 the company was heard from, once more 
in a petition to Congress for a loan of United States bonds. The Texans 
secured John C. Fremont as attorney and sent him east to raise funds. A 
chronicler of the times tells how the Pathfinder fell into the hands of Marshall 
0. Roberts, ''who, for the trifling consideration of 11,000 out of 20,000 shares 
of stock, agreed to float the enterprise. Having thus secured control, he now 
proceeded to freeze out the Texans by levying a 5 per cent assessment upon the 
stock." This stroke of high finance seems to have been countered by Fremont's 
friends and construction of the line later was aided by congressional grants. 

Fremont along in this period seems to have bloomed out as a promoter. In 
1867 he was accredited as being the brains of a plan to connect by rail Norfolk, 
Virginia, with Guaymas, Sonora, possibly the longest line ever then projected. 
Fremont, who was to be general manager, according to a letter of April 24th 
of that year, held **a written contract with Juarez and with Maximilian, bv 
which an area of territory thirty miles in width on either side of his road is 

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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 289 

granted through Sonora and Chihuahua from the confines of northern Texas to 
Guaymas on the Gulf of California. The company holds 10,000,000 acres in 
Texas, security enough to induce the general government to advance bonds to 
the amount of $16,000 a mile. If Congress fail, there are French capitalists 
who propose to furnish the money and to accept a mortgage on the company's 
lands." 

In January, 1867, also, Fremont, who had his office in New York, was 
president of the original Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, a corporation 
capitalized at $100,000,000, organized to build 2,000 miles of railroad and 
claiming a grant of 55,000,000 acres, under a congressional act of July 27, 1866. 
He was president also of an older and interlocking corporation, the Southwest 
Pacific Railroad Company, which had completed ninety miles of road and 
reported 200 more miles under construction, and which then had acquired a 
land grant of 1,250,000 acres. This road had been bought by Fremont, person- 
ally, in May, 1866, for $1,300,000, assuredly a sum that did not come out of the 
vest pocket of the always impecunious Pathfinder. In this connection it is 
interesting to note that, as early as February 7, 1849, Fremont's father-in-law. 
Senator Benton, of Missouri, had pushed a bill in Congress for the location of 
a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, with a subsidy grant 
of the major part of the proceeds from the sale of public lands in the localities 
traversed. 

The Union Pacific division of the National Pacific Railroad in 1868 asked 
aid on equal terms with the Union and Central Pacific lines for a road that 
should pass through Arizona, which was being surveyed on both the thirty-second 
and thirty-fifth parallels. The famous John Le Conte was chief geologist on 
these surveys. 

From the westward a number of corporations sought governmental aid in 
building to the Colorado River from San Francisco or San Diego, along survey 
lines already established by the Government. 

Soon after the establishment of the territorial government, railroad subjects 
cropped up in large number. The Second Legislature in December, 1865, incor- 
porated the La Paz & Prescott Railroad Company, which appeared to be headed 
by one of the legislators, Manuel Ravena. Congress was asked by the Legisla- 
ture to donate to the company every alternate quarter-section of land along the 
line when located. Another corporation was the Prescott, Phoenix, Tucson & 
Sonora Railroad, which was to run as far south as Guaymas. Even more inter- 
esting was the Utah Southern, which, already completed to Nephi, 120 miles 
south of Salt Lake, was t6 be continued on to Prescott. Just how the crossing 
of the Grand Canon was to be negotiated was not told, though it is probable a 
feasible route exists by way of Hardy ville or Lee's Ferry. 

LAND GRANTS FOB TWO BAILBOADS 

Congress early made provision for two transcontinental railroads across Ari- 
zona, respectively on the thirty-fifth and thirty-second parallels of latitude. To 
both were attached lanS grants of alternate sections for forty miles on either 
side of the railroad line. The southern route was to be taken by the Texas- 
Pacific Railroad Company, which in the middle '70s had been completed to 
Fort Worth, Texas. It made a couple of surveys across Southern Arizona for 



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290 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

what the old-timers knew as the **Tom Scott road," named after the railroad's 
president. One route approximately followed the Gila, a line of excellent 
gradient, but of expensive construction. The other was by way of Tucson, 
much on the line later followed by the Southern Pacific. To hold the franchise 
some work was done in the way of grading at San Carlos and Yuma. At the 
latter point there is still in evidence a cut that was to have led to a bridge across 
the Colorado. Undoubtedly the road would have built through to the coast 
had its main promoter been able to raise the necessary funds. Possibly it is 
as well that he did not, for had the road been built, every alternate section along 
the line, within a strip of eighty miles width, would have become the property 
of the railroad company, leading to complications that might have aflEected 
adversely the prosperity that later has been known by the agricultural valleys 
of the Gila and Salt. 

It ^was in 1877 that the Arizona Legislature first took notice of the possibility 
of the construction of a real railroad, giving authority to the Southern Pacific 
Railroad Company, a California corporation, to maintain railroad and telegraph 
lines across this territory eastwardly on two routes. The first was to be from a 
point on the Colorado River near Needles, practically on the line of the thirty- 
fifth parallel. The grant of authority to the railroad was extremely liberal, 
witlj the limitation of passenger fare to 10 cents a mile and a freight tariff not 
to exceed 15 cents a mile for each ton. 

There was a good deal of log rolling over the Southern Pacific Railroad fran- 
chise and a strong lobby to push its passage was established in Tucson under the 
leadership of Phineas Banning, of Los Angeles. The measure was held up for 
some time, probably for the reception of ** arguments," but it is told that the 
committee on territorial affairs, at a meeting held in Charlie Brown's Congress 
Hall saloon, finally concluded to recommend the bill for passage. It may be 
worthy of note that in later years C. P. Huntington, head of the Southern Pacific, 
set the ** value" of an Arizona Legislature at the ridiculously low figure of 
$4,800. But he may not have referred at the time to this particular franchise 
grant. The territorial charter was dated October 8, 1878. The city council of 
Tucson provided the right-of-way and depot grounds without cost and, on June 
21, 1879, $10,000 in bonds was voted to pay for lands needed by the railroad 
company. 

COBONO OF THE SOUTHEBN PAOIFIO 

The Southern Pacific was completed to the west bank of the Colorado River, 
opposite Yuma, in May, 1877. The bridge then had to be built, and it was not 
until September 29th that operation into Yuma was attempted. There had been 
no hurry, up to that point, and there had been a long delay at Indio, California. 
There was a serious dispute with the United States authorities, which suffered the 
building of the railroad and the bridge, but which denied the company the right 
to run trains across the Colorado or on the military reservation. To enforce the 
order was the duty of the garrison at Fort Yuma, which then consisted of only 
a few men, commanded by Major Dunn. While the garrison was sleeping, very 
early in the morning, a number of railroad engineers and construction men 
boarded a couple of flat cars and very quietly were pushed by an engine past 
the fort, over the river and upon solid ground on the Arizona side. Then the 



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PROSPECTORS READY FOR THE HILLS 




COPPER ^DNES AT METCALFE 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 291 

engineer tied down the whistle valve and used all the steam he had in celebrating 
the advent of the iron horse into a new territory. The garrison woke up and the 
railroad men were forced to steam back to the California side and even to open 
the drawbridge that their exploit might not be repeated. 

Construction eastward was resumed November 19, 1878. At Casa Grande, 
reached May 19th, work was held up during the hot season of 1879. The track 
reached Tucson March 17, 1880, with passenger service starting a few days later. 
The New Mexican line was reached September 15, 1880^ with a gross construc- 
tion cost across Arizona of $30,813,390. 

Maricopa then was about four miles west of the present Phi^nix junction 
point. They called it Maricopaville in 1879 and it afforded coast real-estate 
speculators a chance for what might have been called prophetic investment. At 
least one special train was run from San Francisco for the convenience of invest- 
ors, who were supplied with great maps of the Southwest on which Maricopaville 
was in the red center of a spiderweb-like tracery of railroads that ran ix> every 
point of the compass. Particularly remembered was a road than ran, contemptu- 
ous of the Grand Caiion, straight through from Salt Lake to Guaymas on the 
Gulf of California. Till about June, 1879, Maricopa had a population of several 
thousand. Today, called Heaton Switch, it is hardly a whistling post, for in the 
summer of 1887 its railroad oflSces were moved, together with the name, to the 
present junction point. 

The story how Tucson celebrated the occasion is told in another chapter. 
Construction from Tucson proceeded without intermission until the track reached 
El Paso, in May, 1881. Beyond Tucson the Southern Pacific developed several 
important junction points, such as Benson, Cochise and Bowie, but only Willcox 
became a town of any size. As far as San Pedro the line has been an expensive 
one to maintain, damage by flood in the fall of 1887 alone, in the Cienega 
section, causing a loss of over $1,000,000. The *'desert" sections were easy 
to grade and there were some wonderful tracklaying records, of a dozen or more 
miles in a day. But pioneer Arizonans, remembering the stage coach, considered 
with patience all such reasons for delay in travel. The Southern Pacific tried 
to absorb the Scott land subsidy, but failed. 

THE SANTA FE AND ATLANTIC & PACIFIO 

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company first was chartered in 
1859 as the Atchison & Topeka Railroad Company, within Kansas, its name 
being changed to its present form four years later. Work was first begun in 
1869 on the line from Topeka west. The present incorporation was in Kansas, 
December 12, 1895, for a term of 999 years. The original line only intended to 
build into the coal fields of Kansas, but stretched gradually westward along the 
old Santa Fe Trail, with various branches within the plains country. 

The Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company was organized in 1867, but for 
years did nothing more than run a number of surveys westerly from New 
Mexico. In 1879 there was a reorganization, with new surveys from Albu- 
querque, New Mexico, headed for deep water at Guaymas, Sonora. Preliminary 
lines also were run toward Yuma and Topock, for possible crossings of the 
Colorado River, with San Diego, California, as the objective point. The line 
along the thirty-fifth parallel finally was adopted and a definite location survey 



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292 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

was started back from Topock, below Needles, in 1880. About the same time 
construction work was begun at Albmiuerque. Tracklaying commenced in 1882 
and reached the Colorado River in May, 1883, though the road was not completed 
till August. Paralleling the 393 miles in Arizona was a land-grant strip of 
10,058,240 acres, taken in alternate sections. 

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Company contested with the Southern 
Pacific its entry into El Paso within the same month of 1881. For years the 
best eastern connection for Southern Arizona was by transfer to the Santa Fe 
at Deming. From that point the Santa Fe had planned a road to deep water 
at Guaymas, but a favorable traffic agreement made with the Southern Pacific 
induced the building of the Sonora road from Benson in 1882. 

The building of the Atlantic & Pacific through Arizona was a task of 
largest degree of difficulty, with contractors' grading camps strung along the 
survey for several hundred miles of work prosecuted at the same time. For 
the central division supplies had to be freighted by wagon from Maricopa, even 
300 miles away. Only in one feature was the construction favored — a-plenty of 
timber for ties was at hand along the mountain sections. Water was almost 
lacking in the same forested area, till storage reservoirs had been provided. 
Maximum grades had to be surmounted. Yet the original location has been 
demonstrated about the best that could have been found and in late years has 
been changed only slightly in the course of double-tracking. 

While the Atlantic & Pacific was working through Arizona, the Southern 
Pacific was stealing a march by building eastward from Mojave in California 
to Needles, on the Colorado River, occupying a route that the Santa Fe itself 
had expected to take. There was the customary railroad compromise. The 
Atlantic & Pacific took a lease on the unwelcomed line and secured trackage 
rights over the Southern Pacific from Mojave through Tehachapi Pass to Bakers- 
field, from which point it continued on to San Francisco, part of the way using 
the San Joaquin Valley road, which was purchased from San Francisco capi- 
talists. Southward from Barstow, the Atlantic & Pacific built first to San 
Diego and National City by way of Cajon Pass, San Bernardino and Temecula 
Canon, later extending from San Bernardino and Orange to Los Angeles. 

The Atlantic & Pacific was a corporation entirely distinct froiu the main 
line of the Santa Fe, which continued from Albuquerque southward to El Paso 
and Deming. In later years, following completion of the side line to Phoenix, 
there was a strong probability that the Atlantic & Pacific would fall into the 
hands of the St. Louis & San Francisco System. So Maj. G. W. Vaughn vfak 
sent out to scout eastward from Phoenix for a connection with the Santa Fe 
near Silver City. He reported a feasible route up the Gila with low grades. 
This would have been utilized, but the Frisco System later permitted the 
Atlantic & Pacific to be absorbed by the Santa Fe. 

EABLY ABIZONA RAILWAYS 

About the time the Santa Fe got to Flagstaff, there had been organized a 
company to build the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad, later known as the Arizona 
Central. It had an ambitious idea, nothing less than the tapping of the great 
mining camp of Globe, about 160 miles to the southward, through the Mogollon 
forest and Tonto Basin. Involved was a tremendous engineering problem, in 



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John G. Capron Clark B. Stocking 

MEN OF THE SOUTHERN ROAD 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 293 

getting down the 2,000-fcK)t rim of the Mogollons. Construction was begun in 
1881, in charge being Colonel Eddy, later of the unique Angel's Flight Road 
of Los Angeles. Associated with him as manager was Gen. A. A. McDonald, 
also manager of the Buffalo Mining Company of Globe^. Thirty-five miles of 
railroad was built and a tunnel was dug east of Pine, near the rim. There had 
been an agreement with President Strong of the Atlantic & Pacific that he 
would provide $5,000 a mile, but thereafter the Atlantic & Pacific practically 
failed. Then, December 4, 1888, the Mineral Belt was sold at sheriff's sale on 
execution of labot liens for $44,000, and was bought by Riordan & Hinckley 
for a logging road. A part of the old line still is in use for the hauling of 
logs to the Flagstaff mills of the Arizona Lumber & Timber Company. 

The Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad was completed into Phoenix July 4, 1887, 
at a cost of $540,000. Construction had been favored by a subsidy of $200,000 
granted by the County of Maricopa. The company might have lost its subsidy 
had not its local surveyor, H. R. Patrick, started building the line on his own 
responsibility. He had heard nothing whatever from his principals at San 
Francisco and appreciated that the subsidy would run out with the last day of 
October, 1886, unless work had by that time been done upon the line. So he 
set a few stakes and threw up about 300 feet of six-inch grade and saved the 
subsidy by the margin of a day. Though the majority of the stock is under- 
stood to have been turned over to the Southern Pacific, the line had nominal 
independence until late in 1903, when it was absorbed by the Southern Pacific. 
Still later it became a part of the Arizona Eastern Railroad Company, a South- 
em Pacific subsidiary organization, to which also were turned over the Globe 
and Cochise-Pearce lines. Its first extension, in May, 1895, was from Terape to 
Mesa. Another, in 1911, was to Chandler. In April, 1907, the Phoenix & 
Eastern extension of the Santa Fe in the course of a main-line **dear' was 
taken from the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix System of the Santa Fe and 
attached to the Arizona Eastern, giving it a 100-mile eastern branch up the Gila 
River to Winkelman with nine miles of trackage later added to a point near 
Christmas. The Phoenix-Christmas section has its most important feeder in a 
seven-mile broad-gauge from Kelvin to Ray. A narrow-gauge line was built in 
1915 from the Arizona Eastern to Superior. A forty-five-mile extension, built 
westward to a point on the Hassayampa River near Arlington, passes Liberty 
and Buckeye and is to be extended on to Yuma. 

The Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix system of railroad lines, now providing 
traffic facilities for about all of Arizona between Ash Fork and Phoenix, had 
its start in a need for cheaper transportation for the freight of the Congress 
mine, then owned by '* Diamond Jo'' Reynolds, of St. Louis, whose Arizona 
representative was Frank M. Murphy, of Prescott. There was much prelimi- 
nary work, much of it political in character. A subsidy voted the proposed line 
was vetoed by President Harrison, but the Legislature substituted a twenty-year 
exemption from taxation. Reynolds died, but Murphy went ahead just the 
same, plucky and undismayed whenever financial or legislative obstacles inter- 
vened. Showing that the proposed line would control the traflSc of .Central 
Arizona, he secured the support of high officials of the Santa Fe system, with 
D. B. Robinson of their number serving as first president of his new corporation. 
Murphy, who had started in Prescott as a salesman in a store, soon showed rare 



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294 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

ability as a financier and early secured the co-operation of such men as Phil 
Armour, N. K. Fairbank, Norman B. Ream and Boise Penrose, as well as of 
the great Detroit firm of Bowen & Ferry, which already had large property 
interests in the Salt River Valley. 

Organization of the Santa F6, Prescott & Phoenix Railway Company was 
effected in May, 1891. An offer was made for the Bullock road to Prescott and 
was refused. So, January 22, 1892, construction was begun at Ash Fork. Pres- 
cott was reached in April, 1893, and Phoenix in March, 1895, by way of Congress 
and Wickenburg. Phoenix welcomed with large enthusiasm the coming of the 
Santa Fe branch and the reception of a party of visiting railroad magnates was 
the more notable by reason of a speech by Thomas Fitch, who, fifteen years 
before, oratorically had welcomed the arrival of the iron horse in Tucson. 

OONFLIOTIKa BAILBOAD INTEBEST8 

Construction of the Phoenix & Eastern Railroad was begun near Phoenix 
in February, 1902. The line was an extension of the Santa Fe system, intended, 
as was later developed, to furnish a through connection with El Paso. An- 
nouncement at first was made that the road was to run only to Benson, there 
to make a Southern Arizona and Sonora connection. The line had been built 
through Tempo, Mesa and Florence, about as far as Kelvin on the Oila, when 
trouble materialized with the Southern Pacific system. The Santa F6 had 
switched its grade to the northern side of the river, thus indicating that it 
intended to follow the line of the Vaughn survey up through the Gila canons 
to a connection with its own line at Sweetwater, New Mexico. Epes Randolph, 
representing the Southern Pacific, already had organized the Arizona Eastern 
Railroad Company. With only an hour or so between the filing of his survey 
and that of the new route of the Santa Fe, he sent a large force of men into 
the Gila Valley and vigorously commenced the building of a grade east of Kel- 
vin. The two opposing railroad forces even came to blows and, naturally, much 
litigation followed. 

After many moves in the game of finance that controls all railroad con- 
struction and that allots each road its field, the Southern Pacific won. It took 
possession of the Phoenix & Eastern from Phoenix to Kelvin May 1, 1907, and 
added the road to its Arizona Eastern system. There had been a general squar- 
ing of railroad accounts in the Southwest, all starting in a row over the pos- 
session of a road in Northwestern California. When negotiations had been 
completed, the road in dispute, near Eureka, came under joint management. 
The Mojave-Needles road passed to the Santa Fe, while the Santa F6 turned 
over to the Southern Pacific all its rights to the New Mexico and Arizona line 
between Benson and Nogales and the Sonora Railroad between Nogales and 
Guaymas, there being established some sort of '* gentleman's agreement" con- 
fining for a time the spheres of action of the two competing systems within 
Arizona. 

Randolph, who came to the Southwest for his health, yet as the personal 
representative of President Harriman of the Southern Pacific, has doiie great 
things in a railroad way since he came and has planned things even greater. 
Among the latter is completion of the Gila Canon cut-off to San Carlos and the 
building of several links that would give the Southern Pacific a duplicate line 



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AKIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 295 

through Arizona, practically following the Gila River from its mouth at Yuma 
to its headwaters in Southwestern New Mexico, near Deming. This road, which 
would have no gradient higher than one-half of 1 per cent, would at the same 
time be somewhat shorter than the present line to the southward. The cost of 
its construction would be very large, however, and so the project still is in 
abeyance. He has planned also the building of a line from Durango into 
Arizona, to a connection near Globe with the Arizona Eastern. This route 
would pass through three coal fields, in Colorado, Northwestern New Mexico 
and Northeastern Arizona, and also would provide, through Phoenix, with the 
Gila Canon extension, the shortest transportation line between Denver and Los 
Angeles. The project went as far as the preparation of working plans upon 
which contractors could bid. 

The Gila Valley, Globe & Northern Railroad was completed through to 
Globe in December, 1899, from Bowie Station, a distance of 124 miles. No 
railroad ever found a greater need for its service, for the camp had practically 
closed down awaiting development of cheaper transportation facilities. An 
interesting feature was the diplomatic manner by which a right-of-way through 
the San Carlos Indian Reservation was secured. The road was held up a while 
until this could be accomplished. The Federal authorities were willing enough, 
but gave the Indians to understand that the final decision rested with them. 
After a few months of maneuvering, a grand powwow was held at the railroad's 
expense. At this an agreement was made that the Indians should be given 
$8,000, to be divided in silver. So a check for the amount was handed by 
President Garland to Lieutenant Rice, who superintended the final division of 
the subsidy. The railroad later was extended to Miami, after absorption into 
the Arizona Eastern system. 

NOBTHEBN ABIZONA OONSTBUCTION 

The Santa F6 & Grand Canon railroad line, built early in 1900, had its 
inception in a desire to furnish transportation to copper mines a few miles from 
the Grand Canon rim. These mines had been sold by W. 0. 'Neill of Prescott 
to the Chicago firm of Lombard, Goode & Co. It was later demonstrated that 
while much copper could be found in the limestone capping, there really had 
been developed no continuous ledges or deposits. Yet so confident were the 
promoters that a blast furnace was erected on the eastern edge of Williams, 
though never operated. There were plans for the erection of a hotel at the 
end of the sixty-five mile road at the head of Bright Angel trail, where the 
great El Tovar Hotel later was built, and it was planned that water power 
would be secured by the fall of Indian Garden Creek, three miles below. The 
junction point was placed at Williams for the reason that a substantial cash 
subsidy thus was secured, though a strong competitor was Flagstaff, which there- 
tofore had enjoyed practically all the Grand Canon traffic, taken through the 
forest to the northward by means of six-horse coaches, some of them double- 
decked. The railroad was not a financial success. Its best promoter, O'Neill, was 
killed in the Spanish war. The line went into a receivership and finally was pur- 
chased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa F6 system. Today practically all 
of its income is from tourist business and it is told that, save as a matter of 
advertisement, its operation is at a loss. 



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296 ARIZONA— TUE YOUNGEST STATE 

The Arizona & Utah Railroad was completed into Chloride about July 4, 1899. 
On account of the heat, it is told, white labor could hardly be secured for the 
work of grading and track laying and so most of the line was built with the 
labor of Mojave Indians. It has passed through the usual course of failure 
and has been absorbed by the Santa Fe. 

The first feeder of the S. F., P. & P. was a 26-raile narrow-gauge, built 
by W. A. Clark to Jerome. The Prescott and Eastern branch was finished in 
1898, the Bradshaw Mountain road to Poland in April, 1902, and to Crown 
King in April, 1904. 

In March, 1904, construction was begun on the Arizona & California Rail- 
road, from a point five miles north of Wickenburg, westward to Parker and to 
connection with the main line at Cadiz. Through traflSc was inaugurated July 
1, 1910, a couple of weeks after the road had been built through to Cadiz on the 
main line. Just above Parker, the Santa Fe had erected what was then con- 
sidered the finest bridge on the Pacific slope, a quarter of a mile long, spanning 
the muddy Colorado, at a cost of $1,000,000. The bridge rises seventy feet above 
the ordinary river level, while its piers in some places were sunk 110 feet 
below. In the same year was built a branch from Bouse to Swansea. 

The Verde Valley Railroad, a Santa Fe line, was completed in October, 
1912, giving broad-gauge transportation to the new smelter town of Clark- 
dale. The road is one of remarkable scenic attractions, built down the canon of 
the upper Verde. 

January 1, 1912, in Los Angeles, the Pacific Coast representatives of the 
Santa Fi system organized the California, Arizona & Santa Fe Railroad Com- 
pany, a $50,000,000 incorporation, for the acquirement of all subsidiary Santa 
Fe lines in the Southwest. Later the headtjuarters of the Santa Fe, Prescott 
and Phcpnix system were moved from Prescott to Los Angeles. 

BAILBOAD EXTENSIONS IN THE SOUTH 

The Cananea, Yatjui River & Pacific Railroad was the lengthy title first 
adopted for the Southern Pacific branch running southward from Cochise 
Station to Pearce and Courtland, for the line at first was intended to be con- 
tinued on into Mexico. 

The Greene Consolidated Copper Company 's railroad from Naco to Cananea, 
in ^lay, 1902, was sold to the Southern Pacific Company for $1,000,000. A 
second railroad connection with Cananea was made in the last days of 1908, 
when Gov. Luis Torres of Sonora drove a silver spike that marked completion 
of a broad-^auge Southern Pacific line between Nogales, Sonora, and Del Rio 
Junction on the Naco-Cananea road. 

In 1904 the Imperial Copper Company connected its smelter at Sasco and 
its mines at Silver Bell with the Southern Pacific station of Red Rock by means 
of a broad-gau«:e railroad. 

The Johnson, Dragoon & Northern Railroad, a nine-mile road out of Dragoon 
Station, was absorbed by the Southern Pacific in December, 1911. 

Tucson, on May 5, 1910, celebrated alike a Mexican holiday and the opening 
of Mexican west-coast railroad service, in the completion of the Southern Pacific 
branch through Tucson and Nogales. It happened that the road really didn^t 
stand traffic at that time and the Mexican visitors had to come around by 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 297 

^V: Benson. It was an international sort of celebration, among those present, 
ik greeted by Governor Sloan of Arizona, being Governor Torres of Sonora and 
^1 Governor Redo of Sinaloa. The school children were much in evidence and 
■ i there was a parade from which local Mexicans shouted greetings to the southern 

visitors, who replied in congratulatory tone to addresses of felicitation, made 
tt\. in the evening at a banquet, whereat Bill Greene delivered a two-hour speech, 
'ii\ finished at 2 :30 a. m. 
3 1: A railroad was built by the Southern Pacific to the Laguna damsite, under 

contract with the Reclamation Service and another line was constructed south- 
liiL ward from Yuma late in 1914. 

GROWTH OF THE 80UTHWESTEBN SYSTEM 

: .: When the mines of Bisbee reached the producing stage, all freight had to 

K be hauled from Benson up the San Pedro Valley. In 1883 the Sonora Rail- 
£: road was completed past Fairbank, which became the station for Bisbee, freight 
I; being hauled oVer the mountain at a cost of $7 a ton. A heavy traction engine 
was tried for a while, but bogged down in the valleys. The Copper Queen 
Company, rejecting plans for a narrow-gauge road across the mountain, com- 
pleted, in 1889, a broad-gauge around the hills from Fairbank, thirty-seven 
z miles long, lightly built, though costing much more than a $200,000 estimate. 
;r It was profitable, however, for the transportation cost was only one-sixth of 
the former charge. It is told that Dr. James Douglas called on President 
Nickerson of the Santa Fe to urge an extension of the road, then built to Deming, 
down through Bisbee and thence into Sonora. Nickerson is said to have treated 
^ the suggestion with indifference, preferring the B'enson line for the New Mexico 
^ & Arizona Railroad, which proved unprofitable from the start. 

The Copper Queen line from Fairbank was incorporated under the name 
of the Arizona & Southeastern. It was extended later to Benson, a distance of 
less than twenty miles, to cut out Santa F6 freight charges. The next extension, 
early in 1901, was to Douglas, it having been determined to place the Copper 
Queen reduction works at that point on the border. Subsequently the system 
was rechristened, given the name of the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad Com- 
pany and was extended still farther, late in 1902, 217 miles to El Paso, in order 
to reach a competitive point and retain the profits of transportation to as 
large a degree as possible. About this same time were built branches to Deming 
and Lordsburg and to Nacozari, Sonora. At the latter point were rich mines 
owned by the Phelps-Dodge syndicate. Still later were built the branches from 
Fairbank to Tombstone and from Douglas to Courtland, both designed as ore 
feeders to the Douglas reduction works. The El Paso & Northwestern Railroad 
system, with 452 miles of trackage, was purchased by the El Paso & Southwestern 
Railroad in May, 1905, for about $20,000,000. 

There had been consideration of an alternative route westward down the 
San Pedro Valley, tapping the rich Mammoth, Winkelman an^ Ray copper min- 
ing sections, but that via Tucson finally was preferred, from Fairbank parallel- 
ing the Southern Pacific. Tucson was reached in November, 1912, the road 
received with great rejoicing. A subsidy of $60,000, collected among the busi- 
ness men of the city to provide station and yard grounds, generously was returned 
to the community by the railroad corporation, with the suggestion from Presi- 

Vol. 1—20 

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298 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

dent Walter Douglas that the funds be devoted to a building for the Young 
Men's Christian Association. This was dcme. Lately has been added a branch 
to Fort Huachuca. 

In 1914 was incorporated the Tucson, Phoenix & Tidewater Railroad, with 
James Douglas, former manager of the Nacozari Railroad and brother of Walter 
Douglas, at its head. This company has made several surveys through to 
Pho&nix, where it has spent a large sum of money in the purchase of terminal 
grounds. While it is stated that the corporation has no connection with the £1 
Paso & Southwestern, there is expectation that its line will be used in event of 
a Rock Island-Southwestern extension to a Santa Fe connection or to the coast. 

ABBUOKLB AND THE ''BABT^AUQE" 

The first mining railroad built in Arizona was the 20-inch '^baby-gauge,'' 
mule-operated, from the Leszynsky copper furnaces at Clifton to the Longfellow 
mine. Its first locomotive, ** Little Emma," which weighed only about four 
tons, was freighted, in 1880, overland from the Santa F6 terminal at La Junta, 
a distance of about seven hundred miles, through Santa Fe and Mesilla. The 
machinery was put together at Clifton by Henry Arbuckle, who had been a 
railroad engineer back in the States. It is said that the gambling element laid 
odds that the queer contraption would not run. Run it did, with its throttle 
pulled for many years thereafter by Arbuckle, who became affectionately known 
in the district as **Dad.'' His train consisted of the ordinary steel-hopper mine 
ears, the ore dumped at a high trestle above the old smelter and loaded at the 
Longfellow incline or, after the extension of the road, at Metcalf or Coronado, 
farther up the canon. His train crew was wholly Mexican, a queer lot of rail- 
roaders, usually wearing the large, high-crown straw hat of their native land. 
There was reckless scrambling over the ore-piled cars to set the hand brakes 
on the downward journey, which was made with the locomotive running free 
in the rear. Motive power was necessary only on the up-grade, with empties. 
Not once but many times Arbuckle and his crew were fired on by Apaches, 
both arrows and bullets striking the cab and the sides of the cars. On one 
occasion the Indians deployed both in front of and behind the train and thought 
themselves sure of its capture. But Fireman Pancho Membrila threw a few 
extra sticks of dry mesquite into the fire box, Arbuckle pulled the throttle out 
to its limit and the enginemen fiung themselves over the short tender into 
the protection of the first ore car, while the locomotive tore through the attack- 
ing force. Arbuckle retired finally, after more than a score of years of service 
and died, at the age of 73, in the fall of 1909, at a new home he had established 
in Los Angeles. 

An independent railroad system is that of the Arizona Copper Company, 
which controls a broad-gauge line, the Arizona & New Mexico Railway, from 
Hachita, New Mexico, on the Southwestern, through Lordsburg, to Clifton, as 
well as many miles of mining road to Coronado, Metcalf and Morenci, including 
the original ** baby-gauge.*' The Arizona & New Mexico road was built as a 
narrow-gauge in 1883, at a cost of $2,265,000, soon after the Southern Pacific 
construction passed Lordsburg. It was broad-gauged in May, 1901. 

The Morenci Southern is an eighteen-mile narrow-gauge, built in 1900 by 
the Detroit Copper Company from Guthrie, on the Arizona & New Mexico 



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AKIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 299 

i Eailroad, to Morenci. It climbs up a narrow canon, with very heavy grades 

i: and 40-degree curves, with three tunnels and with five remarkable ** loops," 

several of which now are being eliminated. Within the past few years the 
I Shannon Copper Company has built its own railroad from its smelter below 

V Clifton to its mines near Metcalf . 

The latest Arizona railroad is being built by Bisbee mining interests from 
Ei Gila Bend on the Southern Pacific, southward forty-two miles to the old copper 

[ camp of Ajo, where the Calumet & Arizona Company is undertaking extensive 

operations on low-grade ores and the erection of a large reduction plant. 

BAILBOADS THAT WEBB LIABILITIES 

In the Legislature of 1879 was passed a **gag" act, commanding the Super- 
visors of Maricopa and Yavapai Counties to issue bonds in subsidy of the Arizona 
Central Railroad, which was to connect Prescott with Maricopa by way of 
^ Phoenix. A survey of the line was made for the company by S. A. Henszey of 

Philadelphia, through Stage Pass in the Salt River Mountains and north out 
, of Phoenix along the Black Canon Road. There was bitter opposition in Phoenix, 

where the Supervisors solemnly resolved to go to jail rather than approve the 
act, which, they declared, ** would ever hang like a refulgent millstone around 
the necks of its perpetrators." Probably because of this opposition, no funds 
could be secured for the construction and the project died. 

There was a time when subsidies seemed a necessary preliminary to rail- 
road construction. This understanding resulted in much tribulation for the 
taxpayers of Pima County and a load of debt, still carried, over a period of 
many years. In 1882 in Tucson was worked up a railroad boom. Right through 
the rugged mountains to the northward a narrow-gauge line, the Tucson, Globe & 
Northern, was to be built to Globe, and to northern coal fields, incidentally 
bringing riches to the point of departure. There was authority in the terri- 
torial statutes and, under a charter granted November 23, 1882, soon toward 
the county line was being built a poor apology for a railroad line, with even 
worse rolling stock. But it was enough to secure from the Supervisors $150,000 
in 7 per cent county bonds. Then construction stopped abruptly, about ten 
miles out, and in time even the ancient rails disappeared. For years thereafter 
the taxpayers of Pima County had the nightmare of the possible forced collec- 
tion of this enormous sum. The holders of the fraudulently acquired bonds 
sold them to purchasers of a more or less innocent variety, who occasionally 
made demands upon the county for at least the interest. 

In 1894, in the case of Lewis vs. Pima County, the United States Supreme 
Court decided the bonds void. In the Arizona Legislature of 1895 there was 
put through a memorial to Congress reciting the fact that Arizona did not wish 
to repudiate her just obligations, undoubtedly without reference in the minds 
of the legislators to the Tucson matter. Possibly on this basis, Congress, on 
June 5, 1896, amended the Arizona funding act, incidentally legalizing **all 
other outstanding bonds, warrants and other evidences of indebtedness . . . 
which have been sold or exchanged in good faith in accordance with the terms 
of the acts of the Legislature by which they were authorized." The holders 
of the bonds, understood to have been purchased at about fifteen cents on the 
dollar, at once made demand for the exchange of their holdings into territorial 



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300 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

5 per cents. On the new basis of the later act of Congress, the courts then 
decided for the bondholders, who gained final judgment in the United States 
Supreme Court in 1902 and to whom later were delivered $318,000 in terri- 
torial bonds, charged to Pima County, though with interest thereon fixed at 
only 3 per cent. The right-of-way was not forfeited till in June, 1915. 

Prescott's first railroad was the Prescott & Arizona Central, organized May 
10, 1884, and completed in December, 1887, with the assistance of $291,000 
bonds issued by Yavapai County to T. S. Bullock. The road issued its own 
bonds to the amount of $750,000. These were floated, but a second issue in the 
same amount was never realized upon. The road was about seventy-two miles 
in length, from Prescott Junction on the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. It was 
built of scrap material throughout, with second-hand rails and with rolling 
stock of the most antique description. The P. & A. C. fell into hard days when 
the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad was completed into Prescott from 
Ash Fork. Bullock had been offered a substantial sum to turn over his road, 
but is said to have observed that, inasmuch as he paid no interest on his bonds, 
he could make more money than the sum offered during the necessary building 
period of a new line. When the new connection was established, the Atchison, 
Topeka & Santa Fe system, which had absorbed the Atlantic & Pacific, routed 
everything through Ash Fork, and even changed the name of Prescott Junction 
to Seligman. Bullock's road, known in sarcasm, as **The Old Reliable," con- 
tinued intermittent operation and then passed into the hands of W. N. Kelly, 
receiver, finally going out of existence, both the rails and the ancient rolling 
stock going on to still further use elsewhere. Some of the material is said to 
have gone into another speculative line built by Bullock in central California. 

Though the Prescott & Arizona Central had vanished from the face of the 
earth, the county bonds still lingered, with interest to be paid annually by 
taxpayers, who could see little justice in the transaction. These bonds with 
accrued interest were funded into territorial 5 per cents, after their legality 
had been established in a series of decisioiis that began in the District Court 
at Prescott in September, 1887. The people of Yavapai County did thieir best 
to establish the illegality of the bond issue and the injustice of having to pay 
for a dead horse, but without success. September 17, 1897, the Loan Commis- 
sion of Arizona ordered the Territorial Treasurer to deliver 240 Arizona funding 
bonds of the issue of 1892 and eighteen funding bonds of the issue of 1896, to 
Kitchen & Co., of New York, in exchange for 203 Yavapai County bonds of the 
is.sue of 1886, with accrued interest thereon, amounting in all to $260,641. One- 
third of this debt had to be assumed by Coconino County, though that part of 
the county had received no benefit from the road's construction. 

At the time of statehood. Congress acknowledged its debt in this regard by 
a land grant, especially to reimburse all Arizona counties that had issued bonds 
in aid of railroad construction. 

In the Congress of 1889 was passed a bill permitting Maricopa County to 
vote about $300,000 in bonds in aid of the construction of a north-and-south 
railroad. This bill was vetoed by President Harrison, who appeared to have 
been protecting the people of the county against their own wishes. There was 
a high degree of popular excitement on receipt of the news of the vote. It 
was locally declared that Pha*nix had been killed and there were suggestions 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 301 

for the burning of the President in eflSgy. Harrison, while in Congress was 
the author of an act, which prohibited special legislation in territorial Legis- 
latures and which likewise limited the indebtedness to which territories or 
their legal sub-divisions could subject themselves. It was this same limitation 
that at first defeated the attempts to collect the Tucson and Prescott railroad 
bond issues. After years of experience, there now can be no doubt that the 
limitations of the act were wise and that more than once they prevented a 
veritable orgy of legislative extravagance. 

The Santa Fe Railroad Company has always used mountain time on the 
system in Arizona, at least as far as Seligman. The Southern Pacific used Pacific 
time as far eastward as El Paso. Late in 1911 the Southern Pacific changed to 
mountain time to include all of Arizona, the new time now embracing about all 
the railroad mileage of the state. 



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CHAPTER XXIV 
THE MIGHTY COLORADO 

Early^ Transportation on Arizona* s Onl}^ Navigable Stream — The First Steamboats — 
Difficulties of the Pioneer Skippers — Explorations within the Cfond Canon — Powell 
and Stanton Parties — How a Corge Was Dug and the Material Removed. 

The Colorado river, now blocked to navigation by the Laguna dam above 
Yuma, in the early days of Arizona Caucasian settlement was one of the prin- 
cipal thoroughfares of the Southwest. Today it is practically unused by com- 
merce, and there is little need of it. It may be different in later times, when great 
agricultural communities shall have arisen on its banks, with lands now unused 
made fertile by the diversion of the precious waters. The stream, classed as 
one of the Nation's greatest, has its origin very near the head springs of both 
the Missouri and Columbia and drains much of the western slope of the Rocky 
Mountain region. Thus it happens that in the early summer thirty-foot floods 
at Yuma, 100 feet deep in the canons, come down through Arizona from the 
melting snows of Colorado and Wyoming. But for the rest of the year the 
lordly Colorado is relatively shallow, its reddish tide wandering southward 
around sandbars of its own creation till at last, through a delta it has thrust 
out a hundred miles or so into the primitive sea, it joins its waters with those 
of the Gulf of California. Of late history, though undoubtedly of frequent 
geologic recurrence, has been the creation of the Salton sea within a deep Cali- 
fomian basin that once held an arm of the ocean, before the silty Colorado itself 
dammed its western outlet Deposited a thousand or more feet deep in the 
Salton basin. Imperial Valley and delta region are the Grand Canon's missing 
thousand cubic miles of earth (more or less), cut through sdona of erosion, 
and transported in solution hundreds of miles till precipitated by the chem- 
istry of the sea. The minimum flow of the stream now is well appropriated in 
the Imperial Valley. Already plans are in the making for great dams in the 
Canon, where water will be stored for agricultural use and where the might of 
the stream will be harnessed in the generation of electric power to turn all the 
wheels of southwestern industry. 

The discovery of the lower Colorado and its early exploration are too closely 
interwoven with the chronicles of Spanish times to be transferred thence and 
the story of the river may be taken up with the advent of the Anglo-Saxon 
peoples, less than 100 years ago. 

Through an unhappy and perverse fate, it would appear that about all the 
early explorers of the Colorado River delta country got to the region in summer. 
Not only at that season is the climate almost unbearable from heat and humid- 

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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 303 

ity, but the Colorado in the early summer is at floods fighting against the tides 
of the Gulfy and creating conditions of navigation perplexing and dangerous. 
It was under these conditions, in the summer of 1826, that the first Englishman 
since Pilot Strafort sailed to the head of the Gulf. He was Lieut. B. W. H. 
Hardy of the British navy, who, presumably for pearl fishing and his own 
entertainment, chartered, at Guaymas a schooner, the Bruja (Witch or Owl). 
The Englishman's name still is borne by the side slough of ^'Hardy's Colo- 
rado," which he unwittingly entered in his efforts to stem the tide. He thought 
he had reached the mouth of the Gila, but he was mistaken. The stream from 
the east that he called by that name in reality was the main arm of the Colorado. 

The first governmental exploration of the Colorado River after the acquisi- 
tion of Arizona from Mexico was by Lieut. G. H. Derby of the Corps of Topo- 
graphical Engineers, who had been ordered to find a route for water transporta- 
tion of supplies to Fort Yuma. He got to the mouth of the Colorado December 
23, 1850, in the schooner Invincible and for the following week made progress 
up the river with the flood tide. Then recourse was had to a small boat. 
January 13, 1850, Derby was met by Major Heintzelman, who had come down 
stream hunting him and who brought wagons to receive the schooner's cargo. 

More supplies for the new fort were brought in in 1851 by George A. John- 
son on the schooner Sierra Nevada, including lumber for the construction of 
river flatboats. Johnson later became distinguished as a river pilot and there 
is a bare possibility that it was he who handled the steamer, Yuma, spoken of 
by Hobbs. 

ARIZONA'S FIBST STEAMBOAT 

There seems a bit of doubt concerning the identity of the first steam craft 
that ever was floated on the waters of the Colorado. There is a story, on the 
authority of Capt James Hobbs^ who passed through in 1851, to the effect that, 
during his short stay in the Yuma village there came up the river a sternwheel 
steamboat, the Yuma. He is very definite about it, telling that the Indians 
were so frightened that they ran for their lives, yelling that **the devil was 
coming, blowing fire and smoke out of his nose and kicking the water back 
with his feet." 

The steamer Uncle Sam, generally considered the first steam craft to navigate 
the river, reached old Fort Yuma December 29, 1852, when the post was under 
command of Capt. George H. Thomas, who later became famous as the com- 
mander of the Union forces at Gettysburg. The steamboat had been brought 
to the mouth of the Colorado on the schooner Capacity. She was a side- wheeler, 
with a locomotive engine of twenty horsepower and, with a load of thirty-five 
tons, drew twenty-two inches of water. In January, 1853, her commander, 
Captain Tumbull, was much perplexed by changes made in the channel of 
the river by an earthquake. This steamer sank at her moorings five miles below 
the post, June 22, 1854. 

Capt Geo. A. Johnston arrived in Yuma with the General Jesup, a boat 
about twice the size of its predecessor, January 14, 1854. She had a misfortune, 
for on August 25th her boiler exploded, with fatal consequence to one of her 
crew. It is told that at this period the Government paid $75 a ton for freight- 
ing up from the mouth of the river and that the military freight bill for four- 



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304 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

teen months aggregated $94,000. Johnston then had a still better steamer, 
the Colorado, floated in the fall of 1855. It was probably with this steamer 
that Johnston made a notable trip far up the Colorado to the mouth of the 
Black Canon. 

An official exploration of the river was made in the winter of 1857-58 by 
Lieut. J. C. Ives of the Topographical Corps, the same who had been an engineer 
assistant in Whipple's railway survey along the 35th parallel.* This Ives expe- 
dition was very valuable, mainly for the fact that its leader was an expert 
topographer and made careful maps of the river valley. From a point of 
exploration it was practically valueless, as waters were traversed well known 
to the navigators of the day. The work could have best been done by the 
employment of Johnston with his well-proven river boat. Instead, some depart- 
mental misconception of conditions loaded Ives down with a small and rather 
grotesque craft, fifty-four feet long and only partially decked, armed for some 
reason or other with a 4-pound howitzer. The craft had been built in the east 
and shipped around in sections to San Francisco, whence she was brought to 
the head of the Gulf on the schooner Monterey. She was put together at Rob- 
inson's Landing and was named the Explorer. Johnston had gone up the river 
to ferry the B'eale party across, January 23, 1858, and, returning, passed the 
Explorer as she feebly worked her way up stream. The journey had been 
undertaken at the worst possible period of the year, when the Colorado was 
at its lowest stage. The little stem-wheeler butted into snags and mudbanks 
and sometimes became wedged in rocks, for it had been found necessary to 
run a couple of timbers along her keel to stiffen her wobbly structure. The 
Black Canon was reached finally and there was joy on board for a brief period 
as the boat moved swiftly through the smooth waters, then there came a crash, 
for she had run upon a sunken rock. Investigation found that the boiler was 
broken loose from its fastenings, the wheel house was torn away and the explora- 
tion of the upper river had ended far below the point that Johnston had reached 
only a few days before. While Pilot Robinson and the engineer worked on the 
steamboat, Ives and two men rowed up the stream as far as Vegas Wash. 

The half-ruined steamboat was floated back to Fort Yuma and Ives, with 
fresh supplies, brought up by pack-train, and led by the well-known Mojave 
Chief Iretaba, struck eastward, much on the same route that had been pursued 
by Padre Garces and, like the reverend traveler, penetrated the depths of 
Cataract Canon and passed on to the towns of Hopiland. Later in the same 
year Fort Mojave was established. 

OPENINa NEW TBADE ROUTES 

During the Civil War there was concerted action by San Francisco mer- 
cantile interests and the Mormon church to secure an alternative freight route 
into the Great Utah Basin from near the mouth of the Virgen, from which 
point was a natural wagon road to Salt Lake City, only 350 miles distant. In- 
spector General Jas. F. Rusling recommended that military supplies be brought 
in by way of CoUville. In 1864 the Arizona Legislature asked of Congress an 
appropriation of $150,000 for the improvement of the Colorado river, two-thirds 
of the sum to be spent above Fort Mojave, where it was told the blowing up of 
a number of rock dykes would permit navigation as far as the Virgen. In 1884 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 305 

a congressional appropriation of $25,000 was expended to good effect between 
Needles and the Colorado canon. 

For a while after 1864, Johnston had opposition on the river, offered by the 
Pacific and Colorado Navigation Company, managed by Thos. E. Trueworthy, 
a steamboat man from the upper Sacramento. In 1866 we find, spread upon 
the minutes of the legislative session at Prescott, a resolution thanking ** Ad- 
miral" Robert Rogers, commander of the Esmeralda, and Capt. William Gil- 
more, agent, for the successful accomplishment of the navigation of the Colorado 
river to CoUvillfe, ''effected by the indomitable energy of the enterprising Pacific 
and Colorado Navigation Company." The trip was made in October of that 
year, with a barge. About the same time the steamer Vina Tilden, commanded 
by Paddy Gorman and owned by the Philadelphia Alining Company, was 
brought around from San Francisco. Johnston later formed the Colorado Steam 
Navigation Company, with A. H. Wilcox and Ben. M. Hartshorn as associates, 
and employing more than 100 men, held control of river traflSc till he sold to the 
Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1877. 

This pioneer period along the Colorado was of keenest interest. Mining 
machinery and all supplies very generally came up the river, for distribution 
from the river depots of Yuma, La Paz, Ehrenberg and Fort Mojave and back 
along the same route came the rich surface silver ore of the period, shipped for 
reduction to the Selby smelter at San Francisco. Indeed, some of the ore went 
as far as Swansea, Wales. 

Until the Southern Pacific had reached Los Angeles, about the easiest way 
to enter Arizona from the west, assuming that San Francisco was the initial 
point, was by steamer around Lower California, with stops usually at the 
Mexican ports of Mazatlan and Guaymas. The deep-sea boats would be met 
at Port Ysabal or some other up-gulf bay by light-draft stern-wheel steamers, 
to which transfer would be made of passengers and freight. If much freight 
there was, flat boats or barges would supplement the cargo space of the river . 
craft 

Most of the traffic was with Yuma, which lies 175 miles from the Colorado's 
mouth. There in waiting were the long wagon trains that crossed the deserts 
to supply all the camps of southern and central Arizona. Prescott was more 
easily reached, over a better road, from Ehrenberg, the next important up-river 
stop. Hardyville, near Mojave, was considered the upper terminus of the river 
navigation, 337 miles above Yuma. Its princiiml inhabitant was W. H. Hardy, 
who maintained a ferry, a store, and a forwarding business, who served as post- 
master and whose pen ever was active in celebrating the wealth of his locality. 
Above Hardyville the difficulties of navigation increased, for the river was 
narrowed by the towering walls of box caiions; yet navigation there was 
through the canons, to reach isolated mining camps, and even into the Rio 
Virgen, to secure cargoes of salt, much used in the amalgamation processes of 
the small quartz mills of the period. Sometimes schooners were used in this 
up-river work. It seems odd that such could have been the case, but, as ex- 
plained by Captain Mellen, '*The wind changes on the river once a day at 
least. In the Canon it simply had to be either up stream or down stream. 
Going up there was, of course, no room to tack, so we anchored till the wind 
was astern." At several rapids, it is told that ** snubbing posts'' were placed 



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306 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

and iron rings were set, to be used in easing down or helping up the light craft 
of the period. Latteriy, it might be noted, much fuss is made if some ''hardy" 
explorer covers these same stretches in a row boat. 

TBOUBLE ON A SHAUiOW STREAM 

The steamers of the sixties and seventies were of light draft, but often 
went aground, even near Yuma. But this mattered little. Over the side, with 
poles and ropes, went the amphibious crew of Cocopah Indians and soon the 
craft was seeking a deeper passage, discernible in the opaque stream to the 
pilot's marvelous intuition. The journey up river, as made in 1874, has been 
well described in Mrs. Summerhayes' most interesting book, ** Vanished Ari- 
zona." But it was her misfortune to make the trip in late summer, after three 
weeks of dreary waiting on ocean and river steamers at the head of the Gulf 
and her chronicle of how she entered Arizona, the bride of a junior infantry 
lieutenant, is one of much discomfort and woe. She wrote, **Our progress was 
naturally much retarded, and sometimes we were aground an hour, sometimes 
a half day or more. Captain Jack Mellen was then the most famous pilot on 
the Colorado and he was very skillful in steering clear of sandbars, skimming 
over them or working his boat off when once fast upon them. But he was always 
cheerful. River steamboating was his life and sandbars were his excitement. 
On one occasion I said : * Oh, Captain, do you think we shall get off this bar 
today r *Well, you can't tell,' he said, with a twinkle in his eye; *one trip I 
lay fifty-two days on a bar,' and then, after a short pause, *but that don't hap- 
pen very often; we sometimes lay a week though; there is no telling; the bars 
change all the time.' " 

Most of the navigation on the Colorado has been superintended by Captains 
C. V. Meeden Isaac Polhamus, A. D. Johnson, William Poole, S. Thorn, J. H. 
Godfrey and John A. Mellen. One of the most interesting of all was the last- 
named, who came in 1863 and who for about fifty years remained on the river. 
For one period of ten years he was never a half-mile from its banks. Though 
his deck hands at all times were Indians and though he had seen much Indian 
trouble, he noted a curious fact that no steamboat was attacked by any of the 
Colorado River tribes. There was too much mystery about the operations of 
the pufiBng river craft. He also called attention to the fact that the Indians 
before the coming of the white men, though at home on the river, swimming or 
with rafts, had no knowledge of boating till taught by the whites. 

SOLVINa THE CANON'S MYSTEBT 

The mystery of the Colorado canon endures even to this day, for there are 
parts of the gorge that yet are unexplored. The canon ever has had a powerful 
attraction for the adventurous and for those who seek things that are out of the 
ordinary. Almost every mineral known has been found in the canon depths. 
It has proven unsatisfying as a whole to the prospector, though there have been 
found great riches of copper and deposits of mica, asbestos and other minerals 
of value. However, the sheer canon walls, set far within an almost waterless 
plain, have been factors that have discouraged effectually either mining exploita- 
tions or human settlement. Save for a couple of hotels along the brink, the 



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IN THE GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA 



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AEIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 307 

canon region today has as few inhabitants and as little human activity as was 
known at the time of the coming of the first Spaniard. 

Many of the attempts that have been made to penetrate the canon fastnesses 
have been left unrecorded and many of the explorers never returned from their 
quest. The river itself is known to have been dared as far back as 1824 by the 
Ashley expedition, which failed to even reach the main gorge. In 1844-5 Fre- 
mont explored the headwaters of the river. Early trouble fell upon every adven- 
turer who launched a boat upon the upper stream. 

The Colorado never was mastered or the secret of its abysmal gorges 
unfolded until the expedition of Major John Wesley Powell in 1869. Powell, 
a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, had fallen under the lure of the river 
when he camped in 1867 on one of its main affluents, the Grand. A couple of 
years later his dream came true, and, securing funds from several educational 
associations in Illinois, where he had been a teacher, he started upon the trip 
that gave him world-wide fame. The only participation of the United States 
in the expedition was in a grant of rations for the party of ten. 

Green River station, at the crossing of the Union Pacific railroad, was the 
starting point. The date of departure was May 24, 1869. The time, chosen 
probably on that account, was about the end of the spring flood season. Within 
the first few days a boat was lost on the rocks. Within sixty days, mainly by 
accident, had been lost eight of the ten months' provisions carried. Danger 
and toil were to be met with at almi^st every river turning, for only in few 
places was the stream placid. Portages had to be made around some of the 
rapids, but most of them were run at the risk of life. * Not till July 31 did the 
party pass the mouth of the San Juan and about a week later, after compara- 
tively easy going, Lee's Ferry had been left behind and the Grand Canon really 
had been entered. August 10 Powell stopped his boats at the mouth of the 
Little Colorado in order to walk up the side canon a few miles. 

Thence Powell in his diary called the journey one into the '* great unknown," 
a journey that he viewed with grave forebodings. August 15 he ran into the 
granite gorge of the deepest part of the canon and there named Bright Angel 
Creek, simply to balance a prior designation further up stream of Dirty Devil 
Creek. Travel through the granite stretches was found especially arduous, the 
party additionally dispirited by the black and dismal nature of its surroundings. 
Near the lower end of the granite, late in August, when provisions remained for 
only a few days' consumption, there were encountered rapids that looked more 
dangerous than any that before had been passed. Then it was that dissension 
arose within the party and three of its members, failing to persuade its leader 
to abandon the expedition, entirely separated from it. They were O. G. and 
Seneca Howland, brothers, and Wm. H. Dunn. They were given firearms but 
refused to take any share of the rations, believing they could live on the game 
they shot. The trio climbed out of the canon, bearing messages from the rest 
of the party and duplicate records of the trip. The men left behind felt that 
they were a forlorn hope, with probable death before them. The men who left 
were thought assured of life and safety, yet by a curious anomaly of fate, the 
situations developed contrariwise, for the Rowlands and Dunn, a few days 
thereafter, were ambushed and murdered by the Ute Indians. 

The passage of the falls proved not so arduous after all. By night the 



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308 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

granite had been left behind and by noon of the following day there was 
reached the mouth of Grand Wash, the end of the Grand Canon. Soon there- 
after Powell again was in touch with civilization, represented by three Mormons 
who at the mouth of the Virgen River were found fishing. Powell and his 
brother here left the river and went out by way of the Mormon settlements. 
The balance of the party went down to Camp Mojave and the next year two of 
the members continued on to Yuma. 

POWELL'S SECOND EXPEDITION 

Powell's second expedition had behind it governmental authority and funds 
and was on a much more elaborate scale and with much greater safeguards. The 
leader made careful investigation of the region and found several points where 
provisions and supplies might be brought to the river. The trip was to be not 
merely one of river exploration, but of added geographical importance, for upon 
the party was placed the task of a survey of the country for twelve miles on 
either side of the river channel. 

This party left Green River May 22, 1871. It had eleven members. Second 
in command was A. H. Thompson, a highly qualified topographer. Another 
member was F. S. Dellenbaugh, who rated as artist, but who has given to the 
world by far the best descriptive matter concerning the Grand Canon ever pub- 
lished. Dellenbaugh, not content with this single trip, for years thereafter 
repeatedly visited the Canon at many points and by written word and delight- 
ful sketches has placed in the public eye the wonderful attractions of this most 
scenic section of the Nation's domain. 

Owing to its larger field and benefited by the maps made and by the prior 
experience of several of the party, this second trip was far from being as 
dangerous as the first. It was also much slower, owing to the added work 
put upon it. The mouth of the San Juan was passed October 4th. At the 
Crossing of the Padres, Powell left for Salt Lake. 500 miles away and the 
party went overland to Kanab in southern Utah to go into winter quarters, 
from which expeditions were sent out for triangulations in the northern canon 
country. 

The trip was resumed August 13, 1872, from Lee's Ferry, though with only 
seven men in two boats. Bright Angel was reached September 1, after a number 
of dramatic experiences, chief among them the running of Sockdolager rapids, 
wherein the river dropped eighty feet in one-third of a mile. The trip was 
abandoned at Kanab Wash, September 7. Indians were said to be waiting in 
ambush lower in the canon and the risks of running the rapids below were con- 
sidered hardly commensurate with the benefit to be secured. Instead, the 
topographical work was taken up where it had been left the previous winter. 

The fame of John Wesley Powell does not rest upon his canon work alone. 
He was the second Director of the Geological Survey, following Clarence King 
in 1881. In 1894 he resigned, to accept a paid appointment as Chief of the 
Bureau of Ethnology within the Smithsonian Institution, where he supervised 
the issuance of a large number of reports of the highest scientific value and 
interest, incidentally writing much on the basis of his own investigation of the 
western Indians and of the remains of the ancient races. Upon his initiative, 
the Geological Survey started upon the work of making a complete topographic 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 309 

map of the United States and much value attached to his ideas. He was a 
pioneer in the movement that finally led to national aid in the development of 
the arid valleys of the Southwest. He died September 23, 1902. Late in 1915, 
under authority of Congress, a monument was reared in his honor on a point 
above Bright Angel trail. 

MISCELLANEOUS CANON EXPLOBATIONS 

In 1867 an individual named White claimed to have come through the 
Grand Canon on a raft when picked up near Collville by a trader. He told 
that he had come all the way from Grand River, where he and a companion 
named Strole had taken to the river to avoid the murderous Utes. The trouble 
with White was that he had too great a flow of language. His descriptions were 
altogether too vivid and he made the canon continuous through Arizona with- 
out reference to Lee's Ferry and a number of other points where he could 
just as well have left his raft. Added dramatic zest was given the tale by the 
loss of his companion. Dellenbaugh believes that White was one of the most 
artistic liars ever known. Fully as vague are three inscriptions cut at points 
far apart on the upper canon's depths, **De Julian, 1856," possibly left by 
some unknown prospector. 

An attempt to penetrate the fastnesses of the Grand Canon from below, was 
started in September, 1871, by Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler of the Topc^raphical 
Engineering Corps, with a party of thirty-four, including boatmen, scientists 
and soldiers. Of these, P. W. Hamel, the topographer, Frederick W. Loring 
and one Salmon later met death in an attack of Apaches on the Wickenburg 
stage, as they were starting to leave the Southwest. Wheeler had had some 
information from 0. D. Gass, who had been a member of a party that had 
worked up the Grand Canon a distance in 1864. Two land parties paralleled 
the river carrying supplies. The mouth of Vegas Wash and the Virgen River 
were passed and by hard rowing the expedition entered the Grand Canon 
itself, after work in the rapids, which seems to have brought special credit 
upon Geologist G. K. Gilbert. At places the boats had to be unloaded and 
hauled by main strength up the cataracts, sometimes with serious damage. 
The party reached only to the opening of Diamond Canon, from which point 
a good natural road exists to Peach Springs. The trip had taken four weeks 
of dreadful labor. A boat party that started back on the river reached Fort 
Mojave on the evening of the fifth day. Little was accomplished by this expedi- 
tion, for Powell had covered the same ground in the course of his first journey. 

STANTON'S TWO TRIPS IN THE OOBOE 

It was not till May 25, 1889, that another noteworthy attempt was made to 
conquer the canon. Frank M. Brown, a Colorado railroad man, conceived 
the idea that the mountains might be passed on a water grade by following the 
Colorado Caiion, thereby opening up a much more economical route to send the 
coal of the Rockies to the Pacific Coast. So he organized the Denver, Colorado 
& Pacific railway and sent some surveying parties into the field, the first of 
them down the Grand River and up the Green from the junction. He himself 
led the main expedition. On the date noted he started down the Green from 
the Rio Grande Western railroad's crossing of that stream. He had light boats 



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310 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

and rather insuflScient equipment, even without life preservers, though he had 
been cautioned by both Powell and Professor Thompson. The chief engineer 
of the party was Robert Brewster Stanton. The light boats were badly used 
on the rocks, but the expedition managed to reach Lee's Ferry. A couple of 
days* passage below. Brown was thrown from his overturning boat into the maw 
of a whirlpool, from which his body never was recovered. Three days later, 
two more men, Hansborough and Richards, were drowned. Then it was that 
Stanton, appreciating his handicap, abandoned his boats and climbed out with 
the survivors. 

Stanton, a determined man of large ability, feeling that he could follow 
where Powell had led, in the fall of the same year organized another party and 
provided equipment of the best, including boats that practically were non- 
sinkable. He started a bit down the river, as further mapping of the upper 
stream was unnecessary, and launched his boats below the upper Cataract 
Canon late in November. By Christmas he had reached Lee's Ferry and on 
the last day of the year passed the place where Brown had been lost. An 
incident in travel came the very next day when Nims, photographer of the 
expedition, broke a leg and had to be carried up the terrific clifib to the 
mesa edge, where Stanton had provided a wagon by walking thirty-five miles 
back to Lee's Ferry, where the injured man was left. January 13, 1873, they 
found in good condition the supplies they had cached on the first trip. Ten 
miles below they found and buried the body of Peter Hansborough, whose 
name they carved on a cliff above his grave. 

Boats were injured and only their cork jackets saved Stanton and several 
of his men from drowning ; and the usual vicissitudes were known till, on March 
17, the rocky fastnesses finally were left behind and the lower and calmer 
reaches of the river were entered upon. Stanton made a good job of it and 
continued on to the very mouth of the river. Salt water was reached April 
26, 1890. 

Following the Stanton expedition, the Grand Canon has been essayed by a 
number of adventurers, most of them practically unchronicled. Early in 1897, 
N. Galloway and William Richmond, Mormon trappers, shot the canons from 
Green river to Needles in light boats, consuming thirty -six days. 

In the winter of 1909 at the time of low water, Galloway piloted J. F. Stmie, 
a Columbus, Ohio, banker, most of the way through the canon in a couple of 
fiatboats. George Clark, with two men made the journey through to Needles. 
The Kolb brothers made the trip to secure photographs and even took some of 
the rapids with a moving-picture machine. Loper and Russell made a couple 
of attempts in 1914. In the fall of the same year J. H. Hummell made the 
hazardous journey by himself in a small boat This list by no means is complete 
and takes no account of the many who failed and of numbers whose lives were 
lost in the awful solitudes. 

The Canon has been the dramatic setting of many individual tragedies. One 
of the most notable of these was about 1900, when William Ashurst, father of 
Henry Ashurst, later Senator from Arizona, died alone on a sandbar at the 
very bottom of the canon, seven miles above Bright Angel trail. He knew the 
region well and did not fear to invade it alone. He had gone to the river for 
water and had started to climb out when he overbalanced a boulder and under 



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ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 311 

it fell backwards. With his legs crushed and no help possible to secure, he lay 
there for days, occasionally jotting his impressions in a note book. The body 
was found several weeks thereafter by a searching party headed by John Hance 
and was buried on the spot. A year or so later the remains were carried out, 
on the back of Miles Cameron, for proper burial elsewhere. 

On the whole, the Grand Canon has been really known to singularly few 
men. Explorers usually have passed down the innermost gorge, seeing little 
beyond the immediate walls. Several parties of devoted and skillful govern- 
mental engineers have studied the topography and measured its abysses. A 
few names, however, will attach for many years. Possibly best known of all 
the guides was old **Cap." John Hance, who opened up the first trail used by 
the white man at a point north of Flagstaff and about sixteen miles east of 
Bright Angel. Hance 's stories in themselves would make a large book and 
few are the old travelers to whom he did not tell how he jumped into the caiion 
astride of his best horse and only saved himself by stepping off as he passed a 
crag he indicated, that lies about two thousand feet below the point where the 
awesome story was related. 

Hance in his day opened up two trails. A short distance below him, the 
Cameron brothers, at what was called Grand View, made a trail down to some 
copper mines. Bright Angel trail, at present the principal thoroughfare, was 
an old Havasupai trail to Indian Gardens, opened up and improved by the 
Camerons and by Buckey 'Neill. A short distance below this is a trail lately 
built by the Santa Fe Railroad Company. Lowest of all is the Bass trail, built 
by another pioneer guide, W. W. Bass. Other well-known names of the region 
are Sanford Rowe, Al Doyle and Bill Ashurst and the Caiion is known to few 
as it is to Prof. G. Wharton James, who has written much upon its beauties 
and mysteries. 

In 1900 the last-named headed a small commission that made investigation 
of the nomenclature of the region. In his report to the directorate of the United 
States Geological Survey, a number of suggestions for changes were accepted. 
Some of these changes were : Bissell Point to Comanche Point, Morgan to Ute 
Point, Grand View to Piute Point, Rowe's to Hopi Point, Bass to Havasupai 
Point. 

CREATION OF THE OOBQE 

Though geologists generally have insisted that the Grand Canon is the great- 
est known example of river erosion, formed from its very start by the flow of 
water, those who live along the Canon generally are of the opinion that the 
erosion started in a deep volcanic crack, where the earth had slipped during a 
cataclysm, much as the ground slipped along the Pacific Coast at the time of 
the San Francisco earthquake. Several similar slips are to be traced along the 
Canon, while many smaller gorges in Arizona would appear to have had the same 
origin. In the lower part of the Grand Canon proper are several small volcanic 
cones, of recent origin in a geologic way of speaking, possibly in themselves 
sufficient to have riven the ground asunder. It should be appreciated also that 
very near rises the lordly San Francisco Mountain, the highest in the South- 
west, between its three peaks lying a stupendous crater, its northern lip broken 
where a torrent of lava once descended upon the plain below. From the summit 



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312 ARIZONA— THE YOUNGEST STATE 

of the peaks can be seen a half-dozen other extinct volcanoes of large size, as well 
as no less than 500 small volcanic cones scattered all over the forested region 
north of the Santa Fe railroad. The ground is covered with an immense pine 
forest, growing upon a deposit of volcanic scoriae, which in places is 200 feet 
deep, all blown out of the earth by the nearby volcanoes. Surely these evidences 
indicate that volcanic action may have bad some share in slicing across the 
long side-hill a gash into which fell the waters of the great lake that occupied 
the Utah valley and of that which once filled the valley of the Little Colorado 
in Arizona. These waters, under a **head'* of thousands of feet had power 
enough to tear even iron apart and without a doubt the ** erosion*' of the upper- 
lying sandstone and limestone strata into the wide gulches and canons of today 
was a matter that could have been accomplished within a very short period 
indeed by the fearful hydraulic forces that then were unchained. 

TAMING THE BIVEB'8 MIGHT 

Much of the Imperial Valley of Southern California lies below the level of 
the ocean, once a great inland sea, wherein the waters of the Colorado deposited 
their silty contents. Occasionally in later years the river overflowed its west- 
ern banks and the water ran as far down as the Salton Sea. In freshet periods 
following 1905, through a cut in the bank that had been made by careless irri- 
gation engineers, the entire flow of the river was diverted to the westward and, 
taking the route of the sloughs and of the Imperial canal, raced past Calexico 
into the Salton Basin, cutting a deep gorge through the alluvial lands of the 
valley back past the international line. A few miles more of cutting and there 
would have been established a permanent connection with the Colorado that 
might have led to the submergence of the entire Imperial Valley, with a loss to 
the nation of an agricultural area with a potential value of several hundred 
million dollars. 

Epes Randolph of the Southern Pacific was called by his company to the 
task of damming the flood, which in January, 1907, was tearing through the bank 
crevasse with a flow of about forty thousand second feet. Randolph side-tracked 
passenger trains to rush in rock of large size from quarries as far away as 
southeastern Arizona, laid forty miles of steel cable and hundreds of cords of 
brush, built over this a trestle and dumped his rock till the river had been 
diverted to its proper channel. This break was closed in short order, but still 
another later had to be fought. This work and loans necessarily made to the 
canal company cost the railroad company nearly $2,000,000. A part of this 
sum later was repaid by Congress in accordance with a recommendation made 
by President Roosevelt. The railroad company's interest primarily lay in the 
fact that its tracks beside the Salton Sea had had to be moved several times to 
higher ground and, had the flood been unchecked, an entirely new line would 
have been necessary in that locality. Beyond this were the company's railroad 
interests leading into Imperial and the loss of one of its largest producing sec- 
tions. The company's work had many patriotic features, however, as was 
properly recognized in a message sent Congress by the President. 



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