USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 21
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DRAMATIC FEATURES OF BISBEE'S HISTORY
Bisbee had its only lynching September 11, 1882. A drunken Mexican re- turned after midnight to a saloon from which he had been ejected and from the darkness outside shot into the lighted room, wounding a miner, Jack Walsh, known as "Curly," as well as two others. One of the wounded, Jack Kehoe, died from his injuries. The Mexican ran up the cañon and was found in a cabin, his identity established by identification of the rifle with which the shoot- ing bad been done. The miners of the camp laid off work for the morning to attend to what they considered a public duty. The Mexican was marched np the cañon and hanged to a tree near Castle Rock. While the body was hang- ing, one of the principal owners of the Copper Queen Company, just arrived on a trip of inspection, was driven by Supt. Ben Williams past the swinging body. Horrified by local conditions, he refused to stay longer and hurried away. At least one good was done by the trip. He determined that such barbarism as he had witnessed could proceed only from the lack of education and informa- tion, and so he sent from New York a large number of well-chosen books, that served as a nuclens to the splendid Copper Queen Library.
The Mexican hanged had a brother, who started a vendetta against the Ameri- cans concerned. A few months later "Curly" was assassinated on a trail near Globe and his brains were beaten out with a stone. The brother, according to James Kriegbaum, later sent an apology by a messenger, stating that he had learned that "Curly" really had nothing to do with the hanging and, therefore, apologies were due, for he didn't consider the row between the miner and the late lamented anything more than a gentlemanly dispute in which neither was particularly to blame. Judge Duncan, however, tells that Walsh really did adjust the rope at the lynching.
Bisbee never was really "bad" after the fashion of Tombstone and other early camps. As a rule her miners were of substantial and home-making sort. The management of the Copper Queen Company also had much to do with peaceful conditions and any man who started disorder found scant sympathy and immediate persuasion to leave.
Bisbee's first killing happened before there really was a town. in the latter part of August, 1880. A Mexican furnace man was shot down at his supper by an unknown Mexican, who was trying to kill, but only wounded, a girl who was waiting on the table. The Mexican escaped. Judge Duncan has chronicled a number of killings that followed, but this work is far too limited in space for
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the recording of any save the most striking of the hundreds of deeds of violence that have been known in Arizona towns since their American settlement.
On the 8th of December, 1883, occurred what is known as the Bisbee Mas- sacre, when a number of rustlers "took the town," with three attendant fatali- ties. The rustlers were Dan Dowd, James ("Tex") Howard, Comer W. ("Red") Sample, Bill Delaney and Daniel Kelly. About 7:30 p. m. a couple of them entered the store of Goldwater & Casteñeda. With presented pistols, they stood the occupants against the wall and robbed the store and safe of money and other valuables. Outside the three others kept the street clear by shooting at every one who appeared. John Tapiner was shot down on a saloon doorsill as he was seeking safety. D. Tom Smith, a deputy sheriff, and James C. Kriegbaum ran out in defense of the town, but the former was almost immedi- ately shot twice and killed. Kriegbaum was more fortunate in escaping unhurt and in wounding Sample. Mrs. Anna Roberts, a restaurant keeper, was shot through the body and killed, though the bullet was fired at a fleeing man. J. A. Nolly was fatally wounded by Dowd. Then the outlaw quintet left, "shooting up" the lower town as they escaped out upon the plains into the night.
Kriegbaum mounted and made the distance to Tombstone, twenty-eight miles, in less than two hours, and sheriff's posses soon were on the trail. Deputy Wil- liam Daniels, leading one party, found where the fugitives, in sheer cruelty, had thrown their wornout horses into a deep rocky crevice, after finding fresh mounts at a nearby ranch.
The robber band broke up in the Chiricahua Mountains, but the pursuit was continued. Daniels arrested Dowd down in Chihuahua and, helped by a friendly American mining superintendent, smuggled him back into the United States. Delaney made his way to Minas Prietas, Sonora, where he was arrested by a Mexican officer, who, without extradition papers, delivered him over to be brought across the line in a box car. Kelly was arrested at Deming, identified by a barber who was shaving him. Sample and Howard were caught near Clifton, betrayed by a gold watch that they had taken from the safe. This watch Howard had given to a woman of the underworld. She had exhibited it to a male asso- ciate, who, jealous of Howard, and recognizing the timepiece by the description that had been sent out generally, was only too ready to deliver his rival into the hands of the law and to collect the reward offered.
Among the first to join in the pursuit was a Bisbee resident, John Heath, whose services were of negative character. He soon was looked upon with suspicion after he had led the posse from the trail a few times. He was recog- nized by Frank Buckles as having been at the latter's ranch with the five out- laws and other evidence of complicity soon warranted his arrest. The five were tried together and were sentenced to hang. Heath, tried alone, was found guilty of murder in the second degree. Judge D. H. Pinney thereafter set March 28 as the date of execution of the five and, on February 21, sentenced Heath to life imprisonment.
The verdict was not received approvingly in Bishee, and a number of Bisbee residents promptly set out for the county seat. On February 22, 1884, a mob, mainly composed of miners, took Heath from the prison and hanged him to a telegraph pole in Tombstone, setting the sheriff and his deputies aside and leav- ing the other five prisoners untouched. Heath showed plenty of nerve. Quietly
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assuring the crowd he was not guilty, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it over his eyes and asked that his body be not mutilated by pistol shots, as often had been the case in frontier lynchings. This request was honored. By Sheriff Ward the five were legally hanged together March 28, the drops actuated by the cutting of a single string. All protested their innocence.
Bisbee then formed a committee of safety, called the "Forty-five Sixty," the name derived from the cartridge caliber and load carried by the most popular rifle of the day. The committee found some work to do in ridding the camp of a number of individuals considered obnoxious or dangerous.
THE DOCTRINE OF "AN EYE FOR AN EYE"
At Tucson in 1873 the people began to apprecate that lax enforcement of law on the part of county officials made possible the escape, through legal technicali- ties, of too many desperate criminals. So, on August 8, the population rose, more or less en masse, and took from the county jail and hanged John Willis, Leonard Cordova, Clemente Lopez and Jesus Saguaripa. A coroner's jury summoned commended the executioners and stated that "such extreme measures seem to be the inevitable result of allowing criminals to escape the penalties of their crimes." A few months later a grand jury likewise approved the hanging as justice at the hands of "a large majority of our most substantial, peaceable and law-abiding citizens." Willis had been found guilty of killing Robert Swoope at Adamsville, in the course of a drunken discussion of the shooting of Colonel Kennedy by John Rogers, whose own fate seems to have escaped local historians. The three Mexicans, for plunder, had murdered in Tucson one of their own countrymen and his wife. The execution was without secrecy, upon a common gibbet erected before the jail door, after the condemned men had been given the benefit of clergy.
The people of the young Town of Safford, in August, 1877, took the law into their own hands and hanged Oliver P. McCoy, who had acknowledged the killing of J. P. Lewis, a farmer. McCoy was to have been taken to Tucson for trial, and there was fear of miscarriage of justice in the courts.
In December, 1877, the people of the little Village of Hackberry, in Mohave County, hanged Charles Rice, charged with the murder of Frank McNeil, whose offense seems to have been the disarming of Rice's friend, Robert White, in the course of an altercation in which White appeared in the wrong. About the time of the hanging, White, fearing a similar fate, tried to escape and was shot down and killed by his guards.
At Saint Johns, in the fall of 1881, was a summary execution, a gathering of citizens taking from the jail and hanging Joseph Waters and William Camp- bell, who had killed David Blanchard and J. Barrett at the Blanchard ranch. It was told at the time that the men hanged had been hired to do the murder by someone who wanted the ranch as a trading post. But nothing was done with the third party.
April 24, 1885, popular judgment was executed five miles below Holbrook, where two murderers from the town, Lyon and Reed, were run into the rocks by a posse of citizens headed by Jas. D. Houck, and killed. The couple had killed a man named Garcia.
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JIM VAUGHN Killed in Saint Johns Raid, 1884
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One of the most serious criminal episodes ever known in Yuma was early in 1901, when Mrs. J. J. Burns, a farmer's wife, was shot and killed by a constable, H. H. Alexander, who had been charged with the service of a legal paper. About two months after the shooting, Alexander was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. April 9, while being taken from the courthouse to the territorial penitentiary, walking between two officers, Alexander dropped dead, killed by a rifle bullet from the window of a building near by. It was assumed that a relative of the King family (to which Mrs. Burns belonged) had assumed the fullest degree of vengeance, but the matter was taken no further.
In December, 1899, the county jail at Holbrook had a notable prisoner, George Smiley, convicted of the killing of a section foreman named McSweeney. The sheriff at that time was F. J. Wattron, a school teacher-editor, who thought to make the first legal execution in the new County of Navajo a sort of social function. So he issued a "cordial" gilt-bordered invitation to visitors, assuring those invited that "the latest improved methods in the art of scientific strangu- Jation will be employed and everything possible will be done to make the sur- roundings cheerful and the execution a success." There were hundreds of pro- testing letters over the sheriff's levity. Governor Murphy waxed indignant, scored the sheriff for flippancy and granted the prisoner a month's reprieve. Smiley was hanged January 8, 1900. The invitations for the second date were somber and funereal in tone. The sheriff tried to "even things up" with the governor by wording which was, "with feelings of profound sorrow and regret I hereby invite you to attend and witness the private and humane execution of a human being. You are expected to deport yourself in a respectable manner and any flippancy or unseemly language or conduct on your part will not be allowed."
"BAD MEN" OF FOOLISH TRAITS
Some of the "bad men" of early Arizona really were decent fellows down at the bottom, men who would divide their last cent with a friend and in whose hands a trust. would be inviolate. As was commonly said at that time, such fellows merely had "a streak of the devil in them," and a disposition towards violence that seemed to be encouraged by local conditions. In Arizona, as in many other states, the carrying of firearms was traceable to the necessity for protection against Indians. The habit generally was discontinued when danger from Indians passed in the middle eighties. Later a territorial statute was passed forbidding the carrying of deadly weapons in towns. Some of the des- peradoes of early days had really childish characteristics. They liked to shoot much for the same reason that a child likes firecrackers. Very often they were full of a childish vanity, which they considered assertion of a sense of personal honor, supporting their reputation for bravery and truthfulness. There rarely was malice in the actions of a band of cowboys riding' through a settlement, at full speed, in a joyous pastime of "shooting up the town." It was only one way for relieving over-exuberant spirits. Naturally, individuals such as de- scribed would have what they called enemies, usually men of their own inclina- tions. Bitter feuds started from merely a casual comparison of the relative pluck of a couple of cowboys and on such a trifling basis two men often would
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fight to the death. However, in many communities there were spirits who seemed to take pleasure in evil doing, who robbed stage coaches and trains and who murdered in sheer blood lust. The fate of some of these is told in this work, for nearly every one eventually had disastrous contact with the courts of justice or with popular tribunals. To handle these rough characters seemed to demand men with just as much of their own reckless spirit, and of such men, drafted into the service of law and order, the conditions developed many.
HOW COMMODORE OWENS "MADE GOOD"
In the pioneer days of any western community peace officers usually were selected for personal prowess and quick-firing ability. On the doctrine that the devil should be fought with fire, each community sought the services of men individually able to cope with any desperado who might appear. This was a condition which usually meant battling with no evil other than mere violence.
One of the most famous of frontier sheriffs was Commodore Owens, whose particular field was Northeastern Arizona. "Commodore" wasn't a nickname; he was thus christened. He looked the part of the frontier sheriff, with long hair down his back, large hat and high boots, carrying at least one large revolver. In his life happened many sensational episodes, but what gave him more than local celebrity was a fight in 1886 at Holbrook, in which he killed three cowboys and wounded a fourth.
At that time Holbrook was still included within Apache County, of which Owens was sheriff. One Andy Cooper had a few head of cattle in Pleasant Valley. He bore a bad reputation with the stock men generally and on numerous occasions had been accused of stealing cattle and horses, but the fellow had been canny in his operations and never could there be gathered together evidence enough to convict. Finally the Apache County grand jury found an indictment against him, but evidence was lacking. The sheriff was advised by the district attorney that the indictment had been found more as a "scare" than anything else. So Commodore practically let the matter drop, as was expected of him, but the public had not been taken into the confidence of the district attorney and only knew that the indictment had been found. On the day of the killing Cooper was in Holbrook visiting his mother, at a time when the sheriff inoppor- tunely also happened in town. The latter promptly was advised of Cooper's . presence by a number of saloon loungers. When Owens showed no inclination to make the arrest, he was baited by the crowd which finally struck a tender spot in the sheriff's makeup with a suggestion that Cooper was known as a hard customer and that probably Commodore was afraid to tackle him. Then it was that Owens lost patience. Seizing a rifle and jumping on his horse, he answered his tormentors, "I'll show you whether I am afraid to arrest Cooper," and rode to the house of Cooper's mother, Mrs. Blevins, in the eastern part of the town. About thirty feet in front of the house he dismounted and then walked up on the porch. In response to his rapping, the door was opened slightly and Cooper's face appeared. "What do you want?" he inquired. Owens replied, "Andy, I want you." "All right, Commodore," said Cooper. "Just wait a minute," and he slammed the door in the sheriff's face.
Owens took the hint of trouble and backed from the porch towards his horse, carrying his rifle at his hip, a position in which he could shoot practically as well
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as he could with his eye on both sights. He had backed nearly to his horse when the house door opened and a rifle ball sang past the sheriff's head and killed his horse. Before the door could be closed, Owens fired, shooting his would-be murderer through the shoulder. Then was appreciated the fact that he had several men to deal with, for the man he had shot was John Blevins, Cooper's half brother. At almost the same instant, Cooper's face was seen peering over the sill of a window. Commodore immediately fired through the boards of the house, directly below the window sill, shooting Cooper through the lower part of the body. A simultaneous attack from three points had been planned, for hardly had the sheriff's second shot sounded before a third cowboy, named Roberts, was seen stealing around from the rear of the house, with a revolver held over his head in readiness to fire. When he appreciated that the sheriff's eagle eye already was on him, he attempted to turn for shelter, but not soon enough, for a rifle bullet struck him in the back. He dragged himself into a back room and was dead in ten minutes. Then young Blevins, a lad only 16 years of age, appeared through the same front door from where the first shot had been fired. Clinging to him was his mother, shrieking and trying to hold him back, but the half-crazed lad, disregarding her, was dropping his pistol to shoot, when Owens sent a bullet through his heart. Owens expressed regret after the affair only over killing the boy, but observed that a "boy could kill as easily as a man"- there was no other way for him to do, he simply had to kill the boy or be killed by him.
The scene of the tragedy has been well described to the editor by W. H. Burbage, who was on the ground at the time. The sight within the house was horrible. Andy Cooper was crawling around on the floor, on hands and knees, cursing and imploring anyone to put him out of pain. In an adjoining room John Blevins was sitting in a chair, bloody from his wounds. In another room young Blevins lay dead, and on another bed was the dead body of Roberts. Blood was everywhere, on the floors, walls, doors and furniture, and the air reeked of it. Most pitiful was the sight of the mother mourning her slain sons.
Needless to say, there was no further adverse comment by the populace con- cerning the personal valor of the sheriff.
PEACE OFFICERS WITHOUT FEAR
Henry Garfias was appreciated by Arizonans as one of the bravest men ever known in this region of brave men. He came in 1874 from Anaheim, California, and was a native of the Golden State. In 1876 he was elected constable of Phoenix precinct and since that time had continued till his death to be a peace officer in some capacity. For seven or eight years he was city marshal.
One of the famous episodes of Phoenix history was participated in by Garfias in his capture of "The Saber Slasher," who was trailed by the officer far down into Sonora, and was found in a den of cut-throats. Garfias, nothing daunted, marched boldly in, captured his man, brought him back across the border with- out any such formality as extradition and deposited him safely in the Phoenix jail where he was later killed.
A desperado named Oviedo was to be arrested. As he and Garfias were per- sonal enemies, the latter was unwilling to undertake the arrest, but did his duty. Oviedo had threatened to kill Garfias on sight. As the officer walked toward
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him, his hands open and with pacific words, Oviedo snatched up a shotgun and fired pointblank. Garfias was one of the quickest of men with a revolver and prob- ably beat the record on this occasion, for when the load of buckshot whistled over his head he had put two deadly bullets into Oviedo's body.
Several years later, while Garfias was city marshal, several Texas cowboys, fresh from their native heath, mistook the character of Phoenix and started to "shoot it up." They were plainly not acquainted with the reputation of the marshal. As the first joyful yell came to his ears and the sound of pistol shots opened the ball after the fashion of the Panhandle, Henry was on his horse. The four cowboys were gaily curvetting down Washington Street eastward, occa- sionally taking a shot at a promising looking door, sign or hanging lamp, when called upon by the lone marshal to surrender. They did not, and there lay their error. They opened fire. The marshal was unharmed, despite a very hail of lead and in his response was fortunate enough to wing two of the cowpunchers, one of them fatally. Then he rounded up the others and put them in jail.
A dozen other stories might be told of the dead deputy sheriff. He seemed absolutely without fear. As one frontiersman put it, "Henry isn't entitled to any credit for his sand, for he doesn't know any better." Liberal to the last degree, he spent his large earnings as fast as made and he left no estate.
One of the most notable peace officers of the Southwest was George Scarbor- ough of Deming." He had killed a number of men, but always in discharge of his duty. There was nothing of the bully about him. It is probable that he was feared by the cattle rustlers as had been no other man. In April, 1900, Scarborough and Deputy Sheriff Walter Birchfield of Cochise County started from San Simon to investigate a case of cattle rustling. In the Chiricahuas Mountains they rode up to a couple of saddled horses, when they were fired upon from ambush. The two officers, revolvers in hand, galloped into the rocks under a hailstorm of bullets. Both officers were wounded, Scarborough so severely that he died two days later. His companion dismounted and built up a rock fortification, behind which, when darkness fell, he left Scarborough and, finding his own horse, dashed away for help. Before daylight in the morning he was back from San Simon with a force of cowboys, but the outlaws had departed, headed for Mexico. The outlaw band, which had five members, was met by the two officers unexpectedly. It had come from the mountains near Saint Johns, Apache County, where, on March 27, Frank Lesueur and Gus Gibbons, two young cowboys, were ambushed and killed. The next day the five bandits suc- cessfully resisted an attempt toward arrest made by Sheriff Beeler and a number of stockmen. Four of the murderers were known, namely, John Hunter, Ben Johnson, John Wilson and John Coley.
For about fifteen years the peace of Prescott was kept by Jim Dodson, an officer typical in all respects of the accepted melodrama type of the city marshal. Jim handled matters rather after his own ideas and petty misdemeanors inter- ested him very little. He was always looking for large game and the carrying of a huge revolver in a belt where his hand could reach it quickest was not for ornament, for upon a silver-mounted belt that had been presented him by the citizens of Prescott he had carefully cut eight nicks, the number standing for the number of men he had killed in the performance of his duty. Possibly on account of Jim Dodson, Prescott never was a disorderly town, however much
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the cowboys and miners might flock in from the hills. It was told that in the Civil war he had been a member of the Quantrell guerrilla band. In the course of time he retired from office as marshal and served as guard on the wall of the penitentiary at Yuma, when his skill with the rifle proved valuable in at least one desperate attempt made by the prisoners to escape. The latter part of his life was spent in Phoenix, where he died May 10, 1907, at the age of 67.
A DEADLY DUEL IN FLORENCE
One of the historic "shooting scrapes" of Arizona was that between Pete Gabriel and Joe Phy on the main street of Florence, in June, 1888. Each was considered worthy of a high place among the gun men of the day. Gabriel had been sheriff and had done good work also as United States deputy marshal. Phy had had long service as an officer of the law and had been deputy sheriff under Gabriel. Bad blood had been developed between the two when Phy made an unsuccessful attempt to succeed his chief in office. For weeks it had been known that a meeting between the two would mean deadly work. This meeting came accidentally in Keating's saloon. There was a quick exchange of shots, each man claiming that the other fired first, and then the battle was continued outside. Each man emptied his revolver and every shot told. Phy finally went down with a broken hip bone. Gabriel weakly stood above, to receive fierce summons from his foe, "Damn you! I can't get up. Get down here and we'll finish it up with knives." Gabriel, shot through the kidneys and otherwise desperately wounded, answered, "I guess we both have plenty," and tried to cross the street, reeled and fell. The only surgical attendance at hand was given Phy, who died in the night. Gabriel lay for hours in the office of Stevens' corral till a surgeon could be brought from Sacaton. He recovered and later moved his residence to Yuma. Of the two, Gabriel was rather of higher type, yet was a hard drinker, while Phy was an abstainer. Phy had gone to Florence from Phoenix, where, while serving as a pcace officer, he had been ambushed by Mexi- cans in an alleyway, just north of the present site of the Adams Hotel, repeatedly stabbed and left for dead, a few minutes later found with his head under water in a large ditch. When he was able to travel, he left Phoenix, which he said was a bit too tough a town for him.
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