USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 15
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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 RICH MINES 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, Tepustetes, 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 Morales of Arizpe and Ignacio Tiburcio de Samaniego 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, early 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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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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silver, the mine of Arazuma. For nearly a century the accounts of the wealth of this mine were considered fabulous; hut 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 Cremony, whose tale on the subject is to be found elsewhere in this work, blamed the stoppage on the Apaches.
In 1851, José Antonio Acuña, 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 Acuña 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 Tumacacori 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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COMING OF THE AMERICAN MINER
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 lie 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 Pumpelly, S. F. Butterworth, Col. John D. Graham and Frederick Brunekow. 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, Brunekow 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, May 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 Angust 22, 1856, soon thereafter occupying the old town of Tubac. Poston, an enthusiast and dreamer, sent
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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 Tumacácori 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's work therefore includes a number in the Rio Grande and Mimbres sections to the eastward.
AMERICAN COPPER MINING 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 Fort 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. I-8
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of much excitement in San Francisco, where capital for development was not hard to secure. Soon the rich oxide surface ore was being hauled to the head of the Gulf and thence shipped by sailing vessel to San Francisco, whence most of it went to Swansea, Wales. Thirty tons of ore shipped to Swansea there sold for $360 a ton. A small furnace was operated for a while, according to Iaeger. In 1855 there was trouble with the Mexican authorities, who seemed to be unable to locate the new international line. There was one determined attack by Mex- ican soldiers, whom the entrenched miners managed to drive away. According to Poston, the company was organized "with Gen. Robert Allen president and Edw. E. Dunbar superintendent. The members were Fred. A. Ronstadt, Charles Suchard, Chas. O. Haywood, Peter R. Brady, Jo. Yancey and many others who are dead and forgotten. L. J. F. Iager at Yuma first packed the ore on mules. Then Tomlinson came from California with a train of wagons and California mules. The secretary went to London and brought out a steam traction engine, and that finished the business. These companies always manage their business with prudence and economy."
PLACERS OF THE GILA AND COLORADO
Up the Colorado River, discoveries of lode mines had been made as early as 1857, but to these there will be reference in following pages. Of more interest in the pre-organization period were the placers of southwestern Arizona. Emory in 1847 had expressed belief that placer gold was to be found on the Gila and pay dirt occasionally had been washed by California emigrants. But the real rush started in September, 1858, at a point on the river twenty-four miles above Fort Yuma. Then Gila City had its sudden rise, its brief period of activity and its rapid decline. Jacob Snively, later killed by Indians in Central Arizona, is credited with having done the first systematic washing on the river, but he had a hundred helpers within a month and the camp soon had a population that passed 1,000. It is said to have been a veritable hell on earth, with the gathered human scum of the Southwest come to prey upon the gold diggers. Mowry vis- ited the placers in November of 1858 and found already laid out a town with 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 José 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
JACK SWILLING First settler of the Salt River Valley
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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 WALKER'S 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 Forsythe, 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. Miller, 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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A. French, Jacob Schneider, John Dickson, Frank 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 Fé. 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 WANDERINGS
From Fort Craig we took a northwest course through a wide, desert country everywhere, lost camps, no one knew any landmarks, occasionally entting 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 sontherly 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 mnte distress that new populations even cannot and do not understand. Famishing for want of water is never understood by anyoue 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 ontings, 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 sigual 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 Theson and the soldiers. The white man was a Mr. Grinnell of Fort Ynma, accompanied by a half-breed
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