USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 19
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ARIZONA CATTLE ON PASTURE
ARIZONA CATTLE ON THE RANGE
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In 1873 was the real modern start of the grazing industry of Arizona. Yet in 1877, according to Geo. W. Atkinson, interviewed by Col. Allen T. Bird of Nogales, "when he came to this region and located at Calabasas in 1877, there were but three herds of cattle in these parts. One was owned by Doctor Benedict, who was located at Guebabi, on the Santa Cruz, a couple of miles below the pres- ent site of the municipal pumping plant; another was owned by Pete Kitchen, whose headquarters were at the place known now as the Saxon Dairy Ranch, about five miles north from Nogales, on the road to Calabasas; and the third was owned by the late Sabino Otero, who lived at Tubac, and his cattle ranged in the hills on either side of the valley. In those days cattle were so few, and feed on the range so abundant, that farmers never considered it necessary to fence their cultivated fields, and produce of all kinds was raised along the Santa Cruz with- out fencing the lands at all."
The present practice of fattening range stock was started in 1887 by the Hooker and Vail interests, when the railroad was completed into the Salt River Valley and its alfalfa fields, which since have turned off up to 50,000 head of beef cattle a year. The great drought of 1892-3 showed the cattlemen how grievously the ranges had been overstocked. Several varieties of the native grasses, once standing as high as a horse's back, had perished through over-graz- ing, though, in the wool of the sheep had been brought from California the seed of the alfilaria (fileree), now one of the most valuable and most widely spread of Arizona's forage plants.
Arizona has taken pride in her comparative immunity from the live stock diseases of Texas and other states around her. This has been due almost wholly to the efforts of the Live Stock Sanitary Board, which was established in 1887, with A. J. Chandler as veterinarian. Will C. Barnes, who led the board for a number of years, latterly has been in congenial employment with the grazing section of the forestry division of the Agricultural Department at Washington. Colin Cameron for years was a notably efficient member. From 1893 for many years the veterinarian was J. C. Norton of Phoenix.
INTRODUCTION OF SHEEP
Marco de Niza in 1539 had something to say of the possession of sheep by the natives of Cibola, but probably was mistaken, unless mountain sheep then had been domesticated. In 1775 Padre Font wrote of the Pimas: "They own some large sheep, whose wool is good, and also Castilian fowl."
Protected by the peaceful, sedentary Indians of the Rio Grande Valley, sheep raising had an early start in New Mexico and rapid development, the herds fur- nishing their owners with clothing, as well as food. Carson and other pioneers drove sheep from the Rio Grande to California, to feed the Argonauts. Bartlett wrote that in 1852 there had been lost near Yuma, stolen by Indians, a band of 4,217 sheep, owned by Joseph White, started from Sonora for California. Near Tucson Bartlett met an American headed for California with 14,000 head of Chihuahua sheep. But none of these remained with the country.
The first sheep raising within Arizona was by Navajo and Hopi Indians, whose bands were seized and slaughtered by the soldiery of the Civil War period, who thus brought the redskins into a state of comparative peace, befitting a people of property. In 1874 Felix Scott brought New Mexican sheep into the Little Colo-
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rado River Valley, and in the following year some Navajo sheep were taken by Frank Hunt into Yavapai County. In 1876, according to a rather uncertain item, one Robinson drove 2,000 sheep into Tonto Basin and in 1878 Wm. H. Hardy had 3,000 Angora goats on his Mohave County range.
Really the pioneer sheep raiser of Arizona, however, was John Clark, now a resident of Flagstaff, still interested and prosperous in the live stock industry. In 1875 he started from Kern County, California, with 5,000 head of sheep. He lost over half of the band in a California snow storm, with the remainder crossing the Colorado at Hardy's Ferry on December 7. The winter was spent on the Big Sandy, but in the following spring a better and permanent range was found in what is now Coconino County, near Bill Williams Mountain. Soon thereafter he had a neighbor, William Ashurst (father of the present senator), who brought a large sheep band from Nevada.
In the early days of the sheep industry there was incessant war with the cattlemen. Wandering sheep bands from New Mexico, herded in to consume the summer grasses of Arizona, were turned by force at the crossing of Cañon Diablo. There was the same opposition when Northern Arizona sheep were started south- ward into the Tonto Basin and the valleys of Central Arizona. Something of this is told in this volume in the chronicles of the wilder days of the territory. When the forest reserves were established, with their regulations and limitations, there was general protest from both ends of the live-stock industry. In practice the reserves have proved a blessing. Overstocking is prohibited, prior rights are protected, and, best of all, definite zones of occupancy have been established, as well as legal driveways, over which sheep may be sent southward in the fall, through the cattle country, to winter and lamb and to be sheared on the warmer plains.
THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERD
The long-continued fight between the western cattlemen and the sheepmen now forms a study for the psychologist as well as for the economist. There was little in common between the two industries. Cattle and sheep could no more occupy a range in common than oil and water could flow coherently, so the cow- puncher hated the sheepherder with a hatred that was deep and intense, and the shepherd girded himself with artillery and sullenly stood on the defensive. The difference between the habits of the two classes of live stock is broad. Cattle are home-keeping and hard to lose, for a range cow will make her "run" where she was born. Drive a cow away even a hundred miles and back she will drift, although it may be to starve and to die. Sheep, on the contrary, necessarily are nomadic, gregarious, bunching by instinct, and can be handled in bands of even four to six thousand, though half the larger figure is usually preferred.
The sheepherder socially has a lower place than the cowboy, though more often than not he is better paid, more saving and more prosperous. As a rule, he is a foreigner in Arizona, a Mexican, Frenchman or Basque. The American is too nervous to stand the life of a shepherd. He cannot endure the monotony, the necessary separation from humanity, with only a dog for company for months at a stretch. To the credit of the sheepherder may it be said that he is rarely unfaithful to his flock or its owner. There is nothing poetical about him, but he will risk his life for the safety of a lamb. He is much quieter in type than the
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cowboy, even when in his cups. In the "open" days of Arizona after the wool had been clipped and all hands were in town for a little fling, he had no wild yearning for shooting holes in the firmament. He is happiest on a sunny hillside, lying at ease where he may overlook his flock and hear the ceaseless voicing of its lamentation.
ELK AND OSTRICHES
A herd of seventy-nine elk was turned loose in the forested mountains south of Winslow in 1913, the animals brought from Wyoming at the expense of the Arizona Order of Elks. Protected by law, they have prospered in their new location and few have been killed by Indians or the casual hunter. When the, white man first came to Arizona elk were plentiful in the forested North, but had been extinct for years before this importation. In the same region were large bands of antelope, a game animal now rarely seen. It is given protection in all seasons. Also protected are mountain sheep, which once were known in almost all parts of Arizona.
It is told that the first breeding ostriches brought to the Western Continent came in 1882. The first brought into Arizona, other than in menageries, were purchased in California in 1888 by M. E. Clanton from the Cawston Company. They were twenty in number, but only two survived the trip. In 1891 the first ostrich was hatched in Arizona, the property of Josiah Harbert, who in 1896 had a flock of 123 birds. A few ostrich farms outside of Arizona were bought and the Arizona holdings increased, till in 1914, upon a half dozen farms, there were at least 6,000 ostriches in the Salt River Valley. About the time of the start of the European war it was definitely decided that the industry was unprofitable and the birds of the largest farm were offered for sale at prices that ran down to $5 a head, though held at $200 a head only the previous year. Through this sale ostriches have been placed on scores of Arizona farms, where they are handled under about the same conditions as fenced cattle. Indeed, they are listed as live stock for purposes of assessment. In 1914 and for several years theretofore a claim was made that within the Salt River Valley were more ostriches in confine- ment than known elsewhere in the world outside of South Africa.
HOW THE HONEY BEE CAME WEST
While honey is a valuable product of the agricultural valleys, the mountains of Arizona now abound in bees. In hollow trees are to be found the Italian or hybrid Italian type and in caves the little black bees, Kipling's "little people of the rocks." There can be no doubt that the yellow bees are escapes from the val- leys, but it is possible that the black bee is as indigenous to the country as is the rabbit. This is not believed by scientists who have studied the subject, though it has been stated that about 500 varieties of the genus apis have been found in Arizona and New Mexico, mainly in the mountains of the latter state. Bees were taken to Texas as early as 1820 and in 1845 trappers found honey in the rocks near the San Carlos River of Arizona. Several hives of bees were brought to Prescott early in 1864 by Joseph Ehle and wife. Around 1879 hives had been taken into the Salt River Valley and in that year J. B. Allen of Tucson brought two swarms from San Diego.
CHAPTER XXXVII MORMON COLONIZATION
The Church a Great Pioneering Force-John D. Lee Long a Refugee in the Grand Canon-Settlements in Northern Arizona-Missionary Work of Jacob Hamblin- Founding a Stake in the Little Colorado Valley-Communities Established at Lehi, Mesa, Saint David and on the Gila.
The Mormon Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) probably was the greatest pioneering body the world ever has known. Like the Pilgrims of old, its leaders sought a home in the wilderness wherein they might not be hampered in the exercise of their peculiar religious beliefs and wherein they could found colonies of the proselytes that were expected, and that, indeed, did come. Brigham Young, a very level-headed sort of indi- vidual, early determined upon a spread of his faith southward by means of colonization and it would appear that at one time there was an ill-founded hope that in Mexico the faith might be extended materially. Wherever pos- sible he made friends with the Indians, the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon, and his missionaries even succeeded in converting some of the redskins.
The Mormon occupation of Arizona has included many former residents of Southern Utah who in early days were sent by the church as colonizers to various parts of the Southwest. In 1851, C. R. Hakes, later president at Mesa, and President Flake were members of a party of 100 families that settled in San Bernardino, Cal., where some of the original settlers still reside. They were led by Chas. C. Rich and Amasa M. Lyman. The latter's son now is president of the Mormon Apostles. They settled on the Lugo ranch of nine square leagues, for which they paid $77,500. To this sum 10 per cent was added for deferred payments and the total sum rose eventually to $140,000. They remained in peaceful possession till December, 1857, when Riley Morse, one of the brethren, came post haste from Sacramento with the news that 200 mounted vigilantes were on the way southward to run the Mormons out of California. The Mormons, not wishing to fight, almost immediately took the back track and at least 400 of them in December started for Utah, leaving not over twenty families behind. On learning this, the Californians returned to their homes. Probably a score of these San Bernardino pioneers later came into Arizona.
JOHN D. LEE IN THE COLORADO'S CAÑONS
The cause of the California anti-Mormon outburst was the Mountain Meadows massacre, which occurred September 11, 1857. The affair itself has
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no place in a volume of Arizona history, but has a connection through the fact that much of twenty years thereafter Northern Arizona was the hiding place of John D. Lee, leader of the white and Indian assassins of the 125 men, women and children ambushed in Southern Utah. Lee's Ferry, the only available crossing of the Colorado River in Northeastern Arizona, was named after Lee, and there is still standing in a cañon below a stone cabin occupied by him for a number of years. The time of himself and a number of followers largely was occupied in the washing of gold-bearing bars. Lee, sometimes known as Doyle (his middle name), was a veritable pioneer in Grand Cañon explora- tion, and it is known that he traveled for many miles through the abysmal gorge and that he remained for months or even years at different points in the main cañon and in Kanab Wash, which branches northward into Utah. Several of his wives accompanied him on his exile and were scattered around at his various hiding places.
For at least three years, Lee lived with the Havasupai Indians, in the bot- tom of Cataract Cañon, which at the time had been visited by few whites. He is credited with planting the first fruit trees known in the valley and with teaching the Indians much in the way of agriculture. The Powell party, in the summer of 1872, found Lee tilling a little farm on the Paria, a short dis- tance above the Colorado. At the time, Lee told Dellenbaugh that he had tried to stop the Mountain Meadows massacre and when he could not do so he went to his home and cried, and that the Piutes ever afterward called him "Naguts," or "Cry baby."
Lee finally was captured while visiting one of his families at Panguitch, in Southern Utah, and he was legally executed, by shooting, March 23, 1877, on the spot where his crime had been committed.
The execution was witnessed by Mr. Hakes, who knew Lee well, and who very lately has contributed some sworn evidence in opposition to the general understanding that the massacre had been with the sanction of the Mormon Church, and that Lee and his party later had been defended by the Mormons. Curiously enough, this evidence, though in the hands of the Mormon authori- ties as early as July, 1907, has not been used, as the Apostles seem to prefer to let the awful memory die. The white men engaged in the massacre were members of Mormon communities and were assumed to have been communi- cants of the Mormon Church, but the church has denied throughout that it had any responsibility for their action. President Brigham Young, referring to it, said that Lee and his confederates had "planned and executed that ter- rible deed without asking counsel or advice from Brigham Young or the Mor- mon Church, and he knew nothing of it until it was too late to stop it. They had done it on their own responsibilities and the results are on their own shoul- ders, for I say to them, and wish the whole world to hear it, that Brigham Young or the Mormon Church will never come to their aid in avoiding the conse- quences of their crime."
Mr. Hakes came closely into the affair the day before Lee's arrest, which he had privately learned from his brother-in-law was planned by the United States marshal. Hakes took the news to Brigham Young and other church dignitaries, who happened to be at the nearby Town of Parowan. The presi- dent called the senior members of his party together and asked for sugges-
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tions. None were offered. If he had been given the word, Hakes was ready to ride across the mountain and warn Lee, that he might again take refuge in his cañon haunts. But the Mormon head, failing to receive any advice, turned and said, "Brother Hakes, we thank you for this information, but it is all right, for the time has come when they will try John D. Lee and not the Mormon Church. That is all we have ever wanted. Go to bed and sleep, for it is all right."
At the execution, Lee arose from where he had been sitting on his own coffin and said only a few words, that he had no fear of death and had only one deep regret, that he left his wives and children on the mercy of a cold world, but he added, "There are Brigham Young, George A. Smith and Daniel H. Wells, leaders of the Mormon Church, with whom I have been acquainted all of my life. I have traveled with them and stood guard over them. I have kept them at my house and I have been with them at their homes. We have been the most intimate of friends. Now, in my time of trouble they do not come to comfort me."
MISSIONARY EFFORTS IN ARIZONA
Soon after the western exodus of the Mormons, scouting parties, of the Saints were sent in all directions from Salt Lake. One of the parties, with a strong missionary trend, in 1846 visited the Moqui villages, but it is told received about as inhospitable a greeting as had Padre Garcés, and soon re- turned northward. A Mormon settlement was at Tubac in 1852, but left when its irrigation supply dried up.
According to Historian Andrew Jenson of the Latter Day Saints, the first Mormon settlement in Arizona was made by Anson Call in 1865 on the Colo- rado River. Callville's loeation now is in Nevada. In the same locality in 1868 the Mormons settled Fort Thomas. A few years thereafter was estab- lished Fredonia on the Kanab Wash, on the very northern border of Arizona.
One of the leaders in the settlement of Northern Arizona was Jacob Hamblin, who, though poor and of no high rank in his church, yet seemed an especially trusted agent of President Brigham Young, who sent him in the fall of 1858, with a party of twelve, to find if there might be a missionary field among the Hopis. Members of the party were Indian, Spanish and Welsh interpreters, the last considered necessary, for a report had come that there were evidences that the Indians were of Welsh extraction. This and a similar visitation the following year found the Indians not in receptive mood. On a trip led by Hamblin in 1860, the Navajos killed one of the party, Geo. A. Smith, son of one of the Mormon presidents. In the fall of 1861 Hamblin helped in the founding of Saint George in Southwestern Utah and from that point, two years later, was sent again to the Moquis, crossing the Colorado below the cañon and returning, by the Ute crossing, with three Hopis, who were taken on to view the glories of Salt Lake. Returning with his Indian visitors, Hamblin left Saint George in March, 1863, by the western route, taking the Garcés trail through Cataract Canon, where they assured the resi- dent Indians they would lead no one else into the gorge.
In 1870 and 1871 Hamblin was of service to Major Powell in his surveys around the cañon and went with Powell to a great talk in which 6,000 Navajos
ANDREW KIMBALL President of St. Joseph Stake
FRANCIS M. POMEROY One of Mesa's founders
C. R. HAKES Former president of Maricopa Stake
LEADERS OF THE MORMON SETTLEMENT
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participated. Four years later Hamblin, while on a peace mission to the Navajos, who had, in error, charged to the Mormons the killing of several of the tribe, was in serious danger, during an eleven-hour session within a council lodge, but escaped by his own argument and with the respect of the chiefs.
In the winter of 1873, Hamblin laid out the wagon road now used from Lee's Ferry to the San Francisco forest and in the spring guided to Moencopie the first unit of 100 wagons, owned by a company that had been sent to settle on the Little Colorado or on the Gila. Hamblin remained at Moencopie, to plant vegetables and soon witnessed the return of all the emigrants, who had become demoralized and had turned back before they had passed the desert into the forested country beyond. On the Moencopie, in 1877, was established a Mormon settlement called Tuba City, named after a friendly Hopi, who had traveled much with Hamblin. Substantial good was planned for the Indians by John W. Young in the establishment in 1879 at Moencopie of a woolen mill, to be run by water power, whereat were to be worked up the fleeces of the Moqui and Navajo herds. . The mill was well equipped, with the best type of machinery of the day, but the Indians seemed to prefer their own hand looms and little wool was brought in. The old stone mill still stands at Tuba, but the Mormons are gone, for the reservation has been extended to the Colorado River. The settlers were bought out by the Government and their holdings made into a farm for a large Indian school.
Not discouraged by failure, the church authorities started a more sturdy expedition southward in 1876. Covering this, nothing at hand is better than an article contributed by R. E. Porter, now a resident of Saint Joseph, Navajo County :
At a meeting held in Salt Lake City in January, 1876, four companies, consisting of about fifty men each, besides the families of such as had families and chose to bring them along, were organized, with Lot Smith, Jesse O. Ballinger, George Lake and Wm. C. Allen as captains. These companies began their journey early in February, and on the 23rd of March, 1876, the lead teams reached Sunset Crossing of the Little Colorado River at or near the place where the A., T. & S. F. railroad now crosses that stream, about two and one-half miles east of the present City of Winslow.
On the day following, the companies, led by Allen, Smith and Lake, proceeded some twenty miles farther up the river. Allen's company, which settled Saint Joseph, camped on the site of the present town of that name on the night of the 24th.
It was decided at a council held here that Smith should go back as far as Sunset Crossing; and his company settled the Town of Sunset, some three miles north of that crossing and on the north side of the river. Allen's company first settled about five miles east of the present Town of Saint Joseph; but in a short time, moved to a place about one mile east of the present location, where the town now stands. This settlement was at first called Allen; but in February, 1878, the name was changed to Saint Joseph.
Lake's company settled about three miles south of Saint Joseph on the opposite side of the river and named their settlement Obed. It was located near some marshy land and because of the prevalence of chills and fever, broke up in 1877, the inhabitants scattering among the other three colonies.
During the winter of 1876-77, these four settlements all constructed forts for their pro- tection against the Indians. At Obed, the outside walls of the fort were all constructed of rock. In the other three settlements, the forts were for the most part of the stockade tyre, constructed of cottonwood logs obtained from the river bottoms.
Considerable trouble was experienced by these settlements in controlling the waters of the Little Colorado for irrigation purposes-Saint Joseph built a new dam in that stream every
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year from 1876 to 1891, inclusive. The dam constructed during the latter year proved sufficiently stable to withstand the impact of heavy floods and is still in use.
During the first few years, all these settlements adopted the communistic system of living, the division of labor in each settlement being arranged by the leaders or managers.
Of these four settlements, Saint Joseph alone has remained permanent. The greater part of the inhabitants of Brigham City left during the fall of 1880, most of them moving to the Upper Gila Valley in Pima County and nearly all the remainder, during 1881, moved further up the Little Colorado, joining with other settlements which had been made in Eastern Arizona. Sunset was abandoned about 1885, many of the settlers leaving as early as 1883.
In 1878 the Village of Snowflake was founded by two sturdy Mormon families from Utah, those of W. J. Flake and Erastus Snow. The name evolved itself as a matter of course. The site had been the headquarters of the cattle ranch of James Stinson, who accepted $11,000 for his land, 550 head of cattle and control of water rights in Silver Creek. Snowflake now has about 800 popu- lation, and along Silver Creek is a total population of about 2,000, nearly all Mormons. Flake also was a pioneer of California, going in 1851, a member of a Mormon party that purchased the present site of San Bernardino. Another member of the party was the present bishop at Snowflake, John Hunt.
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