USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 24
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Resident in the vicinity was J. W. Ellison, one of the leading citizens of the basin. He states that at first the Grahams had the sympathy of the settlers, all of whom owned cattle and appreciated the danger to their range from the incur- sion of locust-like wandering sheep bands. But the fighting soon became too warm for any save those immediately interested, for the factions hunted each other as wild beasts might have been hunted. Mr. Ellison frankly states that he saw as little of the trouble as he could and is pleased that he managed to avoid being drawn into the controversy.
In the end the Tewksburys were victorious, with a death list of only four. One of the fleeing Grahams was Charlie Duchet, a fighter from the plains. He had celebrity from an affray in which he and an enemy were provided with Bowie knives and were locked together in a dark room. It was Duchet who emerged, but permanently crippled by awful slashes on his hands and arms.
The end of the war was the killing of Tom Graham. His clan about all gone, in 1892 he had fled from Tonto Basin and had established himself and his young wife on a farm southwest of Tempe. He had harvested his first crop of grain and was hauling a load of barley to town. When about opposite the Double Butte school house he was shot from ambush and his body fell backward upon
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the grain. The deed was witnessed by two young women, named Gregg and Cummings, who positively identified Ed Tewksbury as one of the murderers. A. J. Stencel, a Winslow cowboy, later declared that he had met Tewksbury, riding hard on the Reno road, on his way back to Pleasant Valley, 120 miles, whence a strong alibi later was produced. Tewksbury and one of his hench- men, John Rhodes, were arrested and charged with the crime. Rhodes was discharged at a preliminary hearing before a Phoenix justice of the peace, after a dramatic attempt on his life by Graham's widow. She tried to draw from her reticule her husband's heavy revolver, but the hammer of the weapon caught, giving time for her disarmament. Tewksbury was found guilty of murder in the first degree, although well defended. His attorneys, however, found that his plea of "not guilty" had not been entered on the record of the District Court and so the verdict was set aside. There was a second trial, at Tucson, on change of venue, at an expense probably of $20,000 to Maricopa County, resulting in a hung jury. Over 100 witnesses had been called. Then the case was dismissed. Tewksbury died in 1904 in Globe, where, for a while, he had served as a peace officer.
Soon after the Graham murder, a lad named Yost was assassinated while traveling through Reno Pass, on the Tonto Basin road. There was general belief at the time that murder had been committed by the Apache Kid, but it was considered significant that Yost had been connected with the Graham faction.
Thus ended one of the bloodiest range wars of the West and, like most wars, one that had no result save unnecessary cruelty and bloodshed.
ASSASSINATION OF A. J. DAGGS
The Daggs brothers had been hard hit financially by the wool slump during the first Cleveland administration. Two of them, P. P. and W. A., moved to Tempe, where they secured control of the Bank of Tempe and where they pur- chased thousands of acres of land for the consideration of remotely dated notes. The bank soon thereafter failed, with practically no cash left in the treasury and no satisfactory accounting of just where the cash had gone. The land had been transferred twice and thrice, so the original sellers generally got nothing. Two more Daggs brothers, R. E. L. and A. J., came from Missouri to handle the long-continued legal trouble that had arisen over these transactions. A record of family immunity from violence finally was broken when A. J. Daggs was assassinated. Though mainly engaged in corporation work in Phoenix, he had secured valuable mining interests in the Superior District and on January 1, 1908, paid a visit to his claims, accompanied by a body-guard, George Dit- more. From a distant hill top a prospector saw the men shot from ambush. Daggs dropped and two men broke from bushes beside the trail to pursue and slay the fleeing Ditmore. Then the pair returned and completed their bloody work. It developed, however, that Daggs had utilized his few remaining moments of life. Already mortally wounded, he had mustered up enongh strength to scribble in his note book, "Stewart and Fondren have killed me," then threw the book and pencil behind a near-by bush, where later they were found. Robert J. Stewart and Edward Fondren were promptly arrested. They had quarreled with Daggs over mining claims and had made threats on his life.
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but the prospector who had seen the murderers from afar could not identify them, and they might have escaped punishment had not one of them, in his cups, boasted of his deed. Both went to the penitentiary.
THE LAW WEST OF THE PECOS
Frontier justices are famous for the rough hewn brand of law dispensed in any court "west of the Pecos," their variations on ordinary judicial procedure sometimes based on ignorance and sometimes on sheer contempt of precedent. Possibly sometimes they were mere instruments of the community, such as Justice George Allen of Globe, on whom was placed a decision that resulted in the summary execution thereafter of two murderers. In Mohave County in its earliest days, a Mineral Park justice is said to have sentenced a murderer to be hanged and the district attorney had trouble in keeping the camp constable from executing the sentence. A Tempe justice of the peace in the eighties divorced a Mexican couple which he had united a few months before. A south- ern justice, with the courage of his convictions and backed by a rather good knowledge of the law, took it upon himself to pronounce unconstitutional, illegal and void an act of Congress, and it is probable he was right. Another justice of the peace in Graham County, finding a willing maiden, but no available magistrate or minister, himself performed his own marriage ceremony, answer- ing the questions propounded to himself by himself and finally making a nota- tion on his marriage records and issuing himself a certificate.
In the early part of the last decade Judge Fitzgerald occupied the bench of the First Judicial District at Tucson. The judge proposed to check the laxity of conduct he thought he found in his courtroom. The attorneys were informed that smoking would not be tolerated and that coats must be worn under pain of displeasure of the court. The grand jury was called for the first time. Among the jurors summoned was a brawny miner, who appeared in his usual costume of dark shirt and overalls. "What do you mean, sir," thun- dered the magistrate, "by appearing in this courtroom in your shirt sleeves ? Where is your coat ?" "At home, Judge," mildly responded the juror. "Then go and get it. Not a word, sir, or I'll commit you for contempt." About two weeks later, the miner, dressed as the court had demanded, stepped within Judge Fitzgerald's range of vision. To the irate court he tendered the explana- tion that his home and coat were both in the mountains, near the Mexican border, over a hundred miles away, and that he had but obeyed the orders of His Honor.
BURNETT, THE CZAR OF CHARLESTON
Possibly Arizona's most noted justice of the peace was Jim Burnett of Charleston, who was killed by W. C. Greene in Tombstone. According to an old resident of Cochise County, the degree of lawlessness in Tombstone "wasn't a marker to Charleston, where they began the day at dark and where the San Pedro cowboys were allowed the fullest of swing. But the toughest of all was Burnett." Burnett had a number of followers, who seemed to do about what he wanted and who maintained him in authority as dictator of the town. Burnett made only one quarterly report to the Cochise County Board of Super- visors, and with it he made demand for a balance of $380 in fees. The super-
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visors cut it down. Burnett thereafter pocketed all fees and fines and advised Tombstone that, "Hereafter the justice's court of Charleston precinct will look after itself." Jack Schwartz, a saloon keeper, killed an assistant foreman in one of the mills, one Chambers. Burnett is said to have levied a fine of $1,000. Schwartz, not exactly satisfied with the judgment, is said to have consulted Mark Smith, with the idea that an appeal might be taken from the justice's court. The lawyer assured him that he was getting off light. Schwartz appre- ciated the gravity of his crime just in time to escape, before District Attorney Lyttleton Price sent a posse for him from Tombstone with a warrant. An instance of Burnett's operations was when he walked up to Jack Harrer when that desperado was crazy with drink, pulled him from his horse, disarmed him and on the spot fined him twenty head of three-year-old steers. Through such transactions as this and through trading in cattle that had "strayed" across the border, the Charleston justice attained a competency. It is singular that his killing was for one crime that in all probability he did not commit.
ORGANIZATION OF THE ARIZONA RANGERS
The organization of the Arizona Rangers was on recommendation of Governor Murphy to the Legislature of 1901. As the first captain was appointed Burton C. Mossman, a Northern Arizona cattleman, who proceeded with an organ- ization of a company that at first consisted of only twelve men, with Dayton Graham of Cochise County as first lieutenant. Mossman made his organization wholly non-political and men were sought for enlistment on account of their records as efficient officers, good shots and good frontiersmen, well acquainted with the country. In some cases, men were enlisted whose previous records would not have entitled them to distinguished consideration in a Sunday school, but who had reputation for courage and endurance. Such men usually gave a very good account of themselves. According to Mossman: "I have never known a body of men to take a more intense interest in their work. They were very proud of the organization, proud of the record that they were making, and there was great emulation among the men to make good." Every section of the territory had its representatives, so that wherever the command might be called there would be some ranger familiar with the country, water holes, trails, etc. During the first twelve months after organization, 125 arrests were made of actual criminals, who were seut to the penitentiary or back to other states to answer for crime. The deterrent effect of these many captures was great, serving to drive from the territory a large percentage of its criminal population.
Organized in August, the rangers proved effective from the first. In Novem- ber two of its members, Carlos Tafolla and Dean Hamblin, reinforced by four Saint Johns cattlemen, chased the Jack Smith band of outlaws into the Black River country south of Springerville. The outlaws were headed for Mexico with a band of stolen horses and were surprised while in camp. After apparent surrender, they dodged behind trees and opened fire. Tafolla and a cattleman named Maxwell were killed and two of the outlaws wounded. The latter escaped in the darkness on foot, leaving their camp outfit and horses behind. Captain Mossman, with three more rangers, soon was on the trail, but the gang, stealing fresh horses, managed to escape in the snows of the New Mexican mountains. Tafolla's widow was pensioned by the Legislature.
ARIZONA RANGERS AT MORENCI, 1903
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Captain Mossman early established amicable relations with the Mexican authorities, and an agreement was entered into with Lieutenant-Colonel Koster- litsky of the Mexican Rurales that either should have the privilege of chasing outlaws across the border and that they should work in unison with the definite object of ridding the Southwest of the "rustler" element.
In 1903 the force embraced twenty-six officers. Six years after organization report was made that the rangers in that time had made 4,000 arrests, of which 25 per cent had been for serious felonies. The best work was against horse and cattle thieves. Especial value was found in the fact that the Rangers were independent of politics and were not controlled by considerations that often tied the hands of local peace officers. This very feature, however, led to occa- sional trouble with disagreeing sheriffs.
After Governor Brodie assumed office a change was made in the leadership of the Arizona Rangers, to the position being appointed T. H. Rynning, who had been a lieutenant of Rough Riders. Under him the organization did splen- did work, especially in the labor troubles at Bisbee and Morenci. At the latter point, one episode most worthy of mention was when a band of several hundred rioters, coming over the divide from Chase Creek, encountered a few rangers, commanded by Sergeant Jack Foster. Foster was hailed and a demand was made upon him for his guns. The sergeant, remembering his experience in the Rough Riders, deployed his men along the crest of a ridge and laconically answered : "If you want the guns, come and get them." The rioters concluded to move on, and Foster saved both his rifles and his self-respect.
The history of the rangers, under whatever leadership, was one of devotion and of rare courage, well worthy of a separate volume. Some of it is told in this work, but much more necessarily left unchronicled. There is the story how Ranger Frank Wheeler, with Deputy Sheriff John Cameron, killed Herrick and Bentley, former convicts wanted for horse-stealing, in the course of a battle in the rocks, after the fugitives had been tracked for five days. There might be mentioned, as typical, the encounter in Benson of Capt. Harry Wheeler with a desperado named Tracy, wherein the latter died with four bullet holes in his body and Wheeler received wounds that disabled him for months. There was the case of Willis Wood, an outlaw of worst type, who was taken by Rynning from a roomful of the prisoner's friends. All such things were merely in the day's work.
Rynning resigned to become superintendent of the territorial prison during the period of its reconstruction at Florence and, March 21, 1907, was succeeded by his lieutenant, Harry Wheeler, later sheriff of Cochise County. Wheeler notably was successful in handling difficult border conditions. But politics finally caused the disbandment of the rangers. The Legislature of 1909, striving to take away all prerogatives and power from Governor Kibbey, voted to abol- ish the force. Since that time county rangers have been authorized, though not as effective, assuredly not as picturesque, as were Wheeler's men. It is possible, however, that the old-time need for the organization no longer is known.
ARIZONA'S OLD PENITENTIARY AT YUMA
Provision was made in 1867 for an Arizona penitentiary building by an act of Congress, that left the designation of the sites of the buildings to the Legis- Vol. II-12
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latures of the several territories favored. December 7, 1868, was approved an act of the Arizona Legislature locating such prison at or near the Town of Phoenix, then in the County of Yavapai. In 1873, however, the Federal Govern- ment had done nothing in the premises and so a legislative resolution was sent to Congress, seeking early construction of the building contemplated, it being told that there was pressing necessity, as criminals under sentence were con- fined in the insecure county jails, where their health was impaired by reason of close confinement and where useful employment was impossible.
Congress still failing to contribute, on February 12, 1875, was authorized a loan to provide for the erection of a territorial prison and two years later pro- vision was made of a sinking fund. The location finally was fixed at Yuma, where, in 1876, Supt. Geo. Thurlow started with seven prisoners.
Few prisons have had a larger degree of publicity than the old territorial penitentiary at Yuma. It was built upon a site most admirably adapted for the purpose, on a high tongue of land thrust far out into the channel of the Colorado River. It was little more than an open corral, though from the outside, the thick wall, built high of sun-dried adobe brick, with watch towers on the corners and armed wardens pacing the top, it had close similitude to a castle of days medieval. Though the prisoners at night were locked in long tiers of rock-built cells, there was little about the prison itself to hinder escape. The true barriers were the rifles and the old-fashioned pepper-box Gatling gun that was mounted high on one of the corners, where it commanded both the jail yard and the quarry. This same Gatling was used with effect in several outbreaks
October 27, 1887, occurred one of the most serious attempts to escape ever known at the prison In the resultant fight, Convicts L. Puebla, E. Bustamente, José Lopez and F. Vasquez were killed and Superintendent Thomas Gates was seriously wounded. The superintendent had entered the jail yard in the early morning, when he was seized by five knife-armed Mexican prisoners, who, as they pushed him toward the sallyport, demanded their liberty, with Gates' life as the alternative. The convict doorkeeper threw open the main portal in the wall, the gate later closed by Assistant Superintendent J. H. Behan against a threatened exodus of all the convicts. The gang with Gates tried to use him as a shield against the bullets of several prison officers who were closing in. Par- ticularly admirable was the work of old Guard Hartlee, who, from the top of the prison wall, used his rifle as coolly as though at target practice, his rifle bullets finding their marks within a few inches of the superintendent's body. Puebla finally drove his sharp butcher knife into Gates' body, through the lungs, and was about to administer even a more deadly stroke when he was seized by another convict, Barney K. Riggs, who, securing a pistol, shot Puebla near the heart. Riggs himself had a narrow escape from death, for Hartlee's deadly aim for a moment was directed against him, till his defense of the Superintendent became apparent. Riggs, a life prisoner, sentenced from Graham County for murder, was pardoned, of course. Upon leaving the penitentiary he resumed his old ways and, a few years later, was shot and killed in a brawl at Stockton, Texas. Gates never quite recovered from his wound and never regained his old- time spirit. Finally, four years later, in his quarters outside the prison wall, he shot himself through the head and was dead when ind, kneeling beside his had
GUARD HOUSE OF OLD YUMA PENITENTIARY
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From Graham County Laustenneau, leader of rioters in the Morenci strike of 1903, and a number of his lieutenants were sentenced to terms in the peni- tentiary. Laustenneau again was heard from May 28, 1904, when he headed an attempt to break out. An attack was made upon Supt. W. M. Griffith and Asst. Supt. Wilder and both were beaten, though not seriously injured. They were saved by the help of a conviet cook, W. C. Buck, who, at the risk of his life, came to the assistance of the officers with a carving knife. Buek left several of the would-be escapes in such shape that they had to be taken to the hospital for surgical assistance. He received a pardon as reward. For his part in the attempted outbreak, Laustenneau was given an additional sentence of ten years, after trial in the District Court at Yuma. He died in prison of consump- tion, August 20, 1906.
Penitentiary removal was determined upon in the Legislature of 1907, with- out material opposition from Yuma. Before the change, an appropriation was made of $120,000 for the construction of modern buildings on a site near Florence. The new penitentiary structure was erected almost wholly by the labor of convicts, directed by Supt. T. H. Rynning, himself a practical builder. Within a high conerete wall were placed a number of detention and shop struc- tures, also of conerete, and the prisoners found time, in addition, to build a concrete bridge across the nearby Gila River and later to do much road building.
The deed to the old prison lands had come to the Territory of Arizona with a reservation that the title should return to the City of Yuma whenever the land ceased to be used for prison purposes. So, within the old adobe battlements were placed offices of the Yuma City government and a section of the Yuma schools. To the north of the walls, on a rough pebbly slope, still remains the old prison cemetery, with rough erosses and wooden headboards that usually bear only numbers.
CLEARING AWAY THE HUMAN DROSS
In the listing of crimes of desperadoes, of lynehings and of hangings, the Editor would state that by no means has he tried to illustrate more than typical phases of border outlawry and crime. The lists in any particular intentionally are incomplete and it is possible that there have been passed over many events that might be considered worthy of notice. But enough undoubtedly will be found to show that to Arizona, as the scum of the ocean drifts toward its edge, came many of the worst of humanity, seeking a land without law or religion. This scum had been driven steadily westward and comprised many who had won notoriety in the camps of the plains and Rockies. Most of them are dead, and the greater number died by violenee, as they had lived by violence.
It should not be understood that the bloody deeds of these men had any degree of approval from the communities they seem to have dominated. It was easier to let a gun fighter pass than to take up any unorganized and possibly fatal opposition to the wrongs of the community. The days of the "bad man" are gone in Arizona, where the earrying of firearms was made a crime by a Legislature of many years ago. The gambling halls and drinking places they frequented no longer are known within the new state. In brief, Arizona, under a new dispensation, is peaceful and law-abiding to a degree unknown in many other commonwealths.
CHAPTER XLI RELIGION AND EDUCATION
How the Work of the Missions Was Taken Up-Establishment of the Diocese of Tucson -Entrance of the Episcopal Church-Bishop Kendrick's Good Deeds-Early Protestant Missionaries-Foundation of the Public School System-The University and Normal Schools.
In 1850 New Mexico was made a vicariate apostolic of the Catholic Church and to it as bishop was appointed the Rev. Jolin B. Lamy, a young Cincinnati priest and a native of France. Doctor Lamy had to make a trip into Mexico and interview the Bishop of Durango, under whose charge New Mexico had been, before his authority was acknowledged by the priests of the new diocese. His trip to Durango was made on horseback, his total journeyings before he was seated in office amounting to 1,900 miles. Bishop Lamy found a dozen priests within his new charge, most of them within Indian pueblos. To this force he added from time to time, mainly by recruiting priests in France.
In 1859 the western part of New Mexico was annexed by papal decree to the diocese of Santa Fé and Vicar General Machebeuf was sent to make inspection of religious conditions. Tucson at that time had about six hundred inhabitants. Since the expulsion of the Franciscan fathers there had been no resident priest. Father Machebeuf assumed the station himself. The old church was in ruins and a chapel had to be improvised. The new priest took a great interest in the nearby mission of San Xavier, where he found that some of the Indians still "could sing at mass in a very tolerable manner" and could remember the Span- islı prayers that had been taught years before. The same priest in 1860 per- formed the same work of pioneering in Denver and in 1868 there was consecrated as bishop.
In November, 1863, Bishop Lamy traveled through Northern Arizona by way of Prescott to Los Angeles and thence returned by way of La Paz, Maricopa Wells and Tucson. A new parish, that of Saint Augustine, was founded at Tucson, administered by Rev. C. Mesea and Rev. L. Bosta, Jesuits, who in 1864 were recalled by their superior and the territory again was left without priests. Two started from Santa Fé, but were turned back, for the road had effectually been blockaded by the Apaches. This lack was not filled until January, 1866, when from New Mexico started three volunteers, Fathers J. B. Salpointe, Francis Boucard and Patrick Birmingham. Fathers Salpointe and Boucard were estab- lished at Tucson and Father Birmingham at Gila City.
September 25, 1868, the Territory of Arizona was organized as a separate diocese, at its head Bishop J. B. Salpointe. In 1869 it was transferred from the
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Missionary Bishop of Arizona (deceased)
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Durango see to that of Santa Fé. The bishop-elect had to postpone for a while his ordination trip to Europe because in the whole territory there was but one other priest, Rev. Francisco Jouvenceau. On his return from Europe the bishop brought six French missionaries, one of them Rev. Peter Bourgarde, later his successor as Bishop of Tucson. In 1875 Santa Fé was erected into a metropoli- tan see and Bishop J. B. Lamy made its archbishop. In February, 1885, Bishop Salpointe was sent to Santa Fé to become coadjutor to Archbishop Lamy, to whose office he succeeded July 18, 1885, with the resignation of his predecessor. Archbishop Salpointe resigned January 7, 1894, and was succeeded by his coadjutor, Bishop P. L. Chapelle. Archbishop Chapelle later was transferred to the see of New Orleans. Successor to the Bishopric of Tucson is Rt. Rev. Henry R. Granjon, a strong administrator of church affairs, with keenest interest in the history of the church in the Southwest.
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