USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 26
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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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a Mexican. Olive reached the fort in April, 1856, and, before she was pre- sented to the commanding officer, was supplied with proper clothing by the kindly wife of an officer. 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.
CHAPTER XIV APACHES IN NORTHERN ARIZONA
Raids on Early Mining Camps-Woolsey's Pinole Treaty-Woes of the Verde Valley Settlers-John Townsend-Hostile Mojaves and Hualpais-The Arizona Volunteers.
The pioneers who settled Prescott 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 Genung or Charlie Banta will tell 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 Prescott 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 Cañon 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 Prescott, 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 from Prescott, and the Indians closed in and burned the cabin.
KING WOOLSEY'S PINOLE TREATY
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 party 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 Hassayampa, 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.
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When the Verde was reached, all were tired and provisions were low, so, leaving the rest of the party to recruit, Peeples and several others 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. Ile 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 modern 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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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 officer, 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 killed. The men with him succeeded in driving the Indians off. 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.
VERDE SETTLEMENT UNDER DIFFICULTIES
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 harley and corn 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, Osborn 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 unthreshed
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barley. The white men killed a half dozen of the savages and actually succeeded in driving the whole band away.
In August, Swetnam and Polk James, while guarding a corn 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 corn 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 settlers and 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 Frank 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.
FIGHTING THE REDSKINS NEAR PRESCOTT
December 15, 1864, Capt. Allen L. Anderson, Fifth U. S. Infantry, with a small 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 Cañon, now penetrated by a branch of the Santa Fé 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 cañon 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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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 Fria, 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 off 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 of 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 McDowell, 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 Valley, 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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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 BARTH 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 effectively 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 Zuñi village in northwestern New Mexico. During that thue the men's bare 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 ont from Zuñi, met an Indian who divided with him a few tortillas. Barth happened to be well acquainted with the Indian, but the recognition was not mutnal, for the fugitive by that time had little resemblance to the well-fed and cheerful freighter who for years had made Zuñi 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 attaek of "ehills and fever."
JOHN TOWNSEND, APACHE KILLER
A remarkable expedition was that led in June, 1871, by the noted scont, John Townsend, the moving cause the theft of 137 head of stock from the Bowers
Captain Boyd
S. C. Miller
C. B. Genung
N. L. Griffin
NORTHERN ARIZONA PIONEERS
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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.
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