USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 20
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In the same general section is Show Low, which has a name that needs a bit of interpretation. It is on ground once controlled by Captain Cooley and Marion Clark, both of whom were devoted to the game of "seven-up." At a critical stage of one of their games, when the stakes had risen to include about all the property of the players, Clark exclaimed, "Show low and you take the ranch !" Cooley showed "low." The same ranch was later sold by him for $13,000 to W. J. Flake.
The agricultural valleys of Apache and Navajo counties today are occupied almost wholly by Mormon farmers, industrious and frugal, and thereby pros- perous. Saint Johns, once Mexican, now is a Mormon center, with a large denominational school.
SPREADING INTO SOUTHERN ARIZONA
One of the first expeditions southward was led by Daniel W. Jones, one of the elders of the church, who had spent some years in travel in Spanish-speak- ing countries and who had a good working knowledge of the Spanish language. There had been a scouting party a couple of years before that had traveled down through Arizona and that had returned with the general report that the country was practically uninhabited and open for settlement. Jones' expedition left Nephi September 10, 1875. Crossing of the Colorado was at Lee's Ferry and thence the way led through the Moqui and Navajo country to the Little Colo- rado, whence the way was plain to Prescott and southward. The party camped near Phonix and the next day traveled eight miles np stream to Hayden's mill, near which camp was made on the Winchester Miller ranch. The Mormons were welcomed by Chas. T. Hayden, the patron of the settlement and owner of the little cross-roads settlement and of much of the country around. They traded him a number of pack mules for light spring wagons and resumed their pilgrimage toward the southeast. Passing through the Pima Reservation, a church historian tells that they made a number of converts. Tucson was passed and the eastward way was maintained until at Fort Bowie the journey bent southward into Mexico. It would appear that little success attended this Mexi-
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can trip, for late in 1876 the party was back in Utah and Jones had reported to his superiors.
In January, 1877, under orders from the church, Jones led a second expe- dition of seventy-one members. Tempe again was reached and, on recommenda- tion of Winchester Miller, the party settled on Government land a few miles above Hayden's, near the river, around what now is the Village of Lehi. The settlement at first was known as Camp Utah and even yet is spoken of by old- timers as Jonesville. A small canal was dug from the river, with the assistance of a number of Indians, mainly Pimas, some of whom became converts. When the Indians wished to settle among the Mormons, there was a schism. Jones welcomed the Indians, but the larger number of the settlers did not and, led by P. C. Merrill (adjutant of the Mormon Battalion), moved to a new location on the San Pedro, where they established the settlement of Saint David. The Indians claimed a share of the water in the Utah ditch, but their aspirations toward land ownership finally were settled by their establishment upon a reserva- tion of their own, north of Lehi. Jones died in Lehi in April, 1915. One of the early leaders was Henry C. Rogers, who reached Lehi March 6, 1877.
In 1878 a correspondent of the Prescott Miner wrote in praise of the work of Mormon settlers who had established a colony near "Maysville," on the pres- ent site of Lehi. He told : "The work done by these people is simply astound- ing. The alacrity and vim with which they go at it is decidedly in favor of co-operation or communism." The correspondent was given a rather fantastic idea of the intention of the settlers, for he tells that their settlement was to be within a mile square, enclosed by an adobe wall about seven feet high, in the center a square around which are buildings fronting outward.
THE FOUNDATION OF MESA
A second expedition of seventy-nine members started from Paris, Idaho, late in 1878 under G. W. Sirrine and F. M. Pomeroy, moved by climatic con- ditions. The journey was made with little hardship, except from cold weather, and the party arrived without particular incident at a point northeast of Camp Verde. Thence a committee was sent southward to look up a site for permanent settlement. Jonesville was visited by the committee, but, unable to come to terms with Jones, it was induced to look into the possibilities of farming on a nearby mesa. The rest of the company arrived February 14, 1879, and work was started at once upon an irrigating canal. One feature that had determined the leaders of the new colony was the fact that the remains of an ancient canal were found leading out to the river to the very land on which the settlement was to be placed. This canal was cleaned out and deepened and the gradients of the ancient engineers were proven good. At the time it was estimated that utilization of this old canal had saved the Mormons at least $20,000 in the cost of excavation. Mesa soon outstripped her older neighbor, which today is a vil- lage. Mesa now is the second town in the Salt River Valley, in the midst of one of the richest and most carefully cultivated sections of the Salt River Valley.
A part of its present Mormon population originally settled at Tempe, but later moved on lands west of Mesa. The Mormon element of Mesa now probably numbers less than half the population and, though still strong in the faith, no longer itself forms a concrete community. For many years Mesa ranked as the
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richest colony of the church and from it have gone many missionaries and a considerable number of pioneering bodies into Mexico and various southwestern sections.
Soon after the Maricopa Stake of Zion was formed in 1879, Alexander F. Macdonald, an energetic Scotchman, was sent from Utah to be its president. A broader field was found for him in 1885 as president in charge of the Mormon colonies in Chihuahua. About that time there was a hegira of Mormons from Arizona into Mexico, driven out by Federal prosecution, this one fact largely accounting for the number of Mormon colonies in Sonora and Chihuahua at the time of the outbreak of the Mexican troubles, following the deposition of Presi- dent Diaz. President Macdonald died of Bright's disease at Colonia Dublan, March 21, 1903. He was an orator of wonderful force, persuasive powers and memory and is worthy of a place in church annals as a pioneer missionary of the highest type.
Another notable Arizona Saint was Benjamin F. Johnson, who died in Mesa in 1905, aged 87 years. A New Yorker, he had been a member of the church since 13 years of age and had been closely associated with the prophet, Joseph Smith. He was leader of the Mormon party that settled at Tempe. His eighty- seventh birthday, celebrated only three months before his death, had been made the occasion of a popular gathering whereat he blessed the attendants in the manner of a patriarch of old. It is understood that Johnson had at least seven wives and forty-two children and at the time of his death his posterity was said to include about 800 individuals. Scores of children and grandchildren are today resident in Arizona and are rated among the best of her citizenship.
Geo. W. Sirrine, generally known as the "Father of Mesa," died in his home town in September, 1902, aged 85.
SETTLEMENT OF THE GILA VALLEY
Within Graham County, including the Gila Valley, possibly a majority of the residents today are followers of Joseph Smith. The first, headed by Jos. K. Rogers, came in 1879, a small colony which had been unsuccessful on the lower Little Colorado and which found a tract of land of remarkably fine character in the vicinity of the present Town of Pima, which first was known as Smith- ville. It was then in the midst of a dense mesquite forest, which had to be cleared away before crops could be planted. The farmers at first also were handicapped by a necessity for digging a long canal from the river.
Thatcher, three miles west of Safford, was laid off by Stake President Chris- topher Layton in 1886 and now is the administration point for the Mormon Stake of Saint Joseph. The name of the pioneer president, who died in 1898, has been perpetuated in the suburb of Layton, near Safford. President Layton's memory is honored yearly on the anniversary of his birth. At a reunion lately held in Pima, there was announcement that the pioneer was survived by three wives and, including those married into it, that the family then embraced exactly 594 individuals. President Layton was one of the most remarkable men ever known on the frontier. He first came to the Southwest in the Mormon Battalion. He had remarkable powers of administration, shown both by his conduct of church affairs and by his personal success in business, though handicapped by ahnost entire absence of "book learning."
D. K. UDALL President of St. Johns Stake
ALEXANDER F. MACDONALD Former president Maricopa Stake
JESSE N. SMITH Former president, Snowflake
LEADERS OF THE MORMON SETTLEMENT
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Thatcher, the location of a large academic school, now is considered the head of the administration of the Church of Latter Day Saints within Arizona, under President Andrew Kimball of Saint Joseph Stake. The denomination, once separate and isolated by its own preference, latterly has shown the fullest desire to join with the Gentile population in everything that leads toward the betterment of moral and civic conditions within the commonwealth.
FEDERAL AND TERRITORIAL PROSECUTION
The years 1882-5 were sad ones for the Mormon people of Arizona. Not only were they prosecuted generally for "unlawful cohabitation," but they were practically disfranchised by an act of the Territorial Legislature that shut out even believers in the practice of polygamy. In Apache County there arose a feud, the Mexicans, led by Americans, relied upon to force the Mormons from the locality. Mormon town lots in St. Johns are said to have been seized with- out warrant of law and for a while Mormons there lived in dread of assassina- tion. There is said to have been even a movement to capture and mistreat Brig- ham Young, Jr., and F. M. Lyman, Mormon Apostles who were on a church visitation within Northeastern Arizona.
The Thirteenth Legislature passed an act disfranchising polygamists and permitting challenge of any person accused of membership in any order or sect that countenanced plural marriage. This act seems to have had little consid- eration, as election officials in Mormon communities generally were of the faith of the majority. Governor Zulick two years later warmly defended the Mormons and called upon the Legislature for repeal of the law, as affecting opinions and not merely acts. The matter seems to have been settled by merely leaving out any reference to it in the Revised Statutes of 1887. This action, according to Governor Wolfley (Report to the Secretary of the Interior, 1889), followed a switch of the Mormon votes to the democratic party. Governor Wolfley urged that Congress disfranchise all Mormons, claiming that, "Morally and politically, they are an unwelcome and dangerous element." Acting-Governor N. O. Murphy in his report for 1890, possibly also on political grounds, stated his belief that the influence of the Mormon Church was "vexatious" and asked of Congress a "test-oath" law, similar to that known in Idaho.
Vol. 11-10
CHAPTER XXXVIII THE LAW OF THE FRONTIER
Popular Administration of Justice at Many Points-Phoenix as a "Wild West" Town- Globe's Hanging Tree-The Bisbee Massacre-Heath Lynching at Tombstone- "Bad Men" and Frontier Sheriffs-Commodore Owens-Pete Gabriel and Joe Phy.
In the early summer of 1879, Phoenix was the supply point for the whole of the north-central territory, including rich mining districts which then were in a state of almost feverish activity, with hundreds of prospectors exploring the hills. The Southern Pacific Railroad had stopped construction work at Casa Grande, and a large representation of its camp followers had gravitated to Phoenix.
The town then had about 1,500 inhabitants, about half of them Mexicans. There was a semi-organized vigilance committee, composed principally of farmers. This body had done some good work in the past, but seemed to sleep in the period under view.
Men were wounded and killed till "a man for breakfast" no longer was interesting. The Semi-Weekly Herald seldom gave more than a half-column to a murder. Gilmer, Salisbury & Co.'s stage line furnished communication with the railroad, at old Maricopa station, twenty-eight miles distant. The coaches were held up by "road agents" about twice a week; even "old man" Stewart and the famous messenger Gilson were obliged to throw up their hands on several occasions. Billy Blankenship tried to hold down the "agents" once and had his hands filled full of duck shot for his pains.
Race jealousy, too, ran high. One manifestation of it was rather dramatic. Sunday horse races on the main street were an important feature. One May Sabbath day, about half the population was stretched along Washington Street, in two long lines, pressing toward the street center, looking westward to see the start of two racing ponies. Down the course a horseman came galloping, appar- ently to clear the way. But the fellow was running "amuck." In his hand was a long cavalry saber, with which he was savagely slashing right and left, as he yelled, "Muerte รก los Gringos!" ("Death to the Americans!")
He dashed down the line and escaped before the crowd had fully compre- hended his murderous mission. A half dozen people were wounded, two of them seriously. The "Saber-Slasher," as he was thenceforth termed, was followed far down into Sonora by a courageous officer, captured and brought back and lodged in jail in Phoenix, to await the results of the wounds he had inflicted. He made a break for liberty, with the assistance of a mesquite club, and was
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killed by Attorney Stephenson and Jailer Hi McDonald, in pure self defense. The Mexican population chose to regard the killing as murder, and on an August evening a large number of "paisanos" began to display decidedly wicked tend- encies. Nearly every one seemed to be armed with a pair of primitive horse pistols. All things pointed to trouble on the morrow. Messengers were there- fore hurriedly dispatched to all parts of the valley, to assemble the vigilantes.
The week preceding this day had been rather a lively one, even for a lively town. There had been six killings, including two murders of especial atrocity.
Luke Monihan, brother of a later mayor, was a farmer living a few miles to the west. He was driving home in the dusk of the evening, when a wretch named Keller, with whom he had had trouble, shot him in the back, from behind the screen of the roadside sagebrush. The steady farm horses trotted home, and the wife, as the team stopped at the door, came out to find the lifeless body of her husband in the wagon bed. It didn't take long to run Keller down. Indian trailers followed his footsteps to the house where he lodged, and the little iron cage of the county jail received him forthwith.
A stoutly-built, bluff, jovial man was Johnny LeBarr, who kept a saloon on Washington Street. On the evening of August 21 he was treating some friends in an adjoining saloon, but refused to provide liquor for a rough named Mc- Closkey. The latter left the saloon, returning a few minutes later with a long butcher knife, with which he slashed LeBarr across the body. His victim died a few hours later.
Next morning, bright and early, the Mexicans commenced to assemble around the Plaza, hundreds of their ponies tied to the huge cottonwoods that then shaded the block. A little later the farmers commenced to ride in. All were armed with rifles and revolvers. The gathering place was on Jefferson Street. Marion Slankard, since deceased, was the captain. Around Montezuma Street, into Washington, swung the column of over a hundred determined men. All was quiet in the ranks and on the crowded sidewalks. Up to the little adobe court- house the men marched and filed in. The officers knew what was coming and had discreetly found occupation elsewhere. The jailer was the only one on guard. He demurred to the suggestion of handing over his keys, but soon was convinced that he should do so.
At least ten malefactors were imprisoned at the time, but the committee wanted only McCloskey and Keller. These men they took to the plaza. The fourth and fifth cottonwoods from Montezuma (First) Street, on Washington, were chosen as gibbets. The condemned men, singly, were put into a wagon, allowed a few parting words, and then the wagon was driven from under them. Keller confessed his guilt. He had plenty of drop and appeared to die easily. McCloskey made quite a sensible and really manly talk-said he deserved his fate and warned the spectators to profit by the spectacle of his punishment. He bitterly spoke of liquor as the source of all his many misdeeds. Just as the wagon commenced to move, McCloskey mounted to the endboard and voluntarily made the leap into eternity. He was a heavy man and the elastic limb bent till his toes touched the ground; and so he died, a dreadful sight, death drawing but slowly across the uncovered face.
McCloskey's spirit had hardly flown ere there were two cowering figures more in the dreadful wagon. They were those of two Mexican merchants who
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had for several days been preaching a crusade against the "Gringos." They had been captured by a clever flank movement from among their demoralized partisans. Slankard spoke good Spanish and made himself quite plain. Point- ing to the swinging bodies, he warned the shrinking men that such would be their fate if another incendiary word were to cross their lips. They were then released ; and the Mexican insurrection was a thing of the past.
The vigilantes then turned their efforts towards cleansing the town of its undesirable element. Everyone suspected of being a rough or a crook was given a canteen and a warning. Departure was forthwith, many finding an appro- priate field of operations in the newly-opened camp of Tombstone. For years thereafter Phoenix was as quiet a town as one could find in staid New England. This gratifying result was directly due to the vigilantes. That they accomplished a work of good is incontestable. They presented the law a peacful city and neighborhood, and peaceful has it remained.
The first lynching in Phoenix occurred July 3, 1873, when Mariano Tisnado was hanged on a cross beam of the Monihan corral. On the face of things it would appear that he had been hanged for stealing a widow's cow, but there seems little doubt that he was guilty also of the murder of B. F. Griffin, a highly- respected pioncer who had lived south of the village. In 1877 was the execution of another popular decree in the hanging of a soldier who had shot Lew Bailey through the window of a hall in which the better element of the population had met to dance. This hall was the old stage station on the east side of Center Street, half a block north of Washington. The lynching was on a cottonwood on the site of the present waterworks. Bailey later died of his wounds.
GLOBE'S MOST EXCITING EPISODE
On August 23, 1882, Frank Porter, packer on the mail route across the Pinal Mountains, dashed wildly into Globe, shouting that the Apaches had taken in the mail train and that the express messenger, Andy Hall, was dead. The mules of the pack train were found dead on the trail. The mail, untouched, still was strapped to the back of one, but the express box, with $10,000 in gold, intended for the Mack Morris payroll, was gone. Two sets of tracks showed that white men had done the deed, rather than Indians, and other footprints showed that Andy Hall had followed the robbers, in the line of his duty. Across a hill, dying, was found Dr. Vail of Globe, who, with his last breath, told what he could of two robbers, whom he had accidentally come across as they were dividing the gold. Further on the trail, miles away, at dusk, was found the body of Andy Hall, who, ambushed, had fought to the end, his body stiffening in a stunted shrub in which he had crouched, the last cartridge unfired in a magnificent revolver that had been presented him by the Wells-Fargo Company for faithful service. In the body were a dozen bullet holes. The next day, three arrests were made. One was of John Hawley, a well-to-do wood contractor; the second was Lafayette Grime, a cowboy-miner, who had done distinguished service with the Globe Rangers in a late Indian campaign, and the third Cicero Grime, the town photographer. The last-named confessed, for he had been only a scout, who had made sure of the coming of the bullion and had not par- ticipated in the actual shooting. There was a short conflict of authority at Bloody Tanks, where the prisoners had been held, and where Pete Gabriel, the
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PEARL HART, ARIZONA'S FEMALE BANDIT
NEWS
MAIN STREET OF GLOBE IN 1882, SHOWING THE "HANGING TREE"
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noted sheriff of Pinal County, tried to take the men away from Bill Lowther, the equally brave sheriff of Gila County. In the evening, the men were brought into Globe, placed in a little adobe jail, whence, a few hours later, they were taken by an armed organization of citizens. Everything was done in orderly manner. Geo. A. Allen, the justice of the peace, was summoned and bidden forthwith to make examination into the case. The trial was held in Stallo's Hall and the defendants were given legal counsel. The evidence was such that Allen could do nothing else than bind the prisoners over, without bail, to the next grand jury. This, in effect, was a sentence of death.
Hoping for a chance to escape, Hawley and Lafayette Grime assented to a proposition that they show where the money had been hidden. Escorted by a dozen horsemen, on the darkest of nights, the couple led the way twelve miles up Russell Gulch, where the loot was found buried some distance apart under separate trees. In Grime's cache was two-thirds of the spoil, thus demonstrat- ing the full guilt of the brother. Cicero Grime's case, in the meantime, was being put to a vote, and his life was spared by a very slight majority of the ballots cast. He was speedily taken away, for there would have been recon- sideration when the Russell Gulch party returned with the money and reported. The orderly proceedings to an extent were directed by J. J. Vosburg, the express agent, who had read to the crowd a telegram from his superintendent: "Damn the money. Hang the murderers. (Signed) Valentine."
When Hawley and Grime returned, they were given time to make their wills, Hawley's wife getting his property, while Grime deeded his cattle to the girl he was to marry. It was past 2 in the morning when they had finished. Some one at the Methodist chapel around the corner commenced to toll a funeral knell. Out of the hall, down the street silently tramped the multitude, the prisoners under guard at the fore. Both walked firmly and made no complaint at their fate. Near where the creek bent to cross the street stood a large sycamore tree, one branch stretching nearly across the roadway. Over this branch were flung two of the three ropes at hand, over the culprits' necks the nooses were drawn, and a hundred men grasped the ropes, quietly awaiting the word of command. A good and respected clergyman stepped forward. He was not there to stop the work, but to do his office for the dying. Hawley roughly refused his aid. Grime more gently said, "Mr. Calfee, I don't believe that anything you can say would aid me where I am going." As his handcuffs were taken off to more closely secure his hands behind him, Grime bitterly exclaimed, "Damned if I'll die with my boots on!" and down in the muddy street he sat and pulled off his high-heeled boots. Then he stood erect at the side of the imperturbable Hawley. "Now!" shouted the express agent. The line stiffened, and the bodies rose to the tree branch above. A few minutes sufficed to still the twitching limbs, the ropes were wound round the tree trunk and the work was done. Andy Hall and Doctor Vail had been avenged to the extent of man's feeble power.
On the whole, Globe rather has prided herself on her peaceful condition. Violence in the early days was unusual. Possibly all such expression of energy was saved for use against the surrounding Apaches. The first killing within the camp was that of a prospector named Jones by a miner, Burns, who sus- pected Jones of designs on his claim in the annual time of relocation.
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Tom Kerr, a tall, blonde miner, who at need acted as the camp's auctioneer, murdered a man who lay asleep on a sidewalk bench-yet somehow, for a time, escaped retribution. On New Year's Eve of 1882, at Pioneer, he shot and killed a young teamster who had refused to drink with him. He was seized at once and the miners and prospectors were brought in by the sounding of the mill whistles. After a short trial Kerr was taken forthwith to a convenient tree and hanged. His last words were: "Here goes a New Year's present to the devil." The bitterest feature of it all developed in a letter from his mother in Illinois, written in reply to what was intended to be a mercifully inaccurate account of her son's death, for she told how good he always had been to her.
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