USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 38
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After his reluctant retirement from office he visited Europe, saw the Paris Exposition in 1867 and wrote a book called "Europe in the Summertime." Returning to Washington he reentered the practice of law.
Poston dropped into official position again about the time of the Burlingame Treaty with China and was commissioned by Secretary of State Seward to visit Asia to study irrigation and to bear dispatches from the Chinese Embassy to the Emperor of China. On his voyage across the Pacific he was a member of the party of his old friend J. Ross Browne, who had been appointed Minister to China. On this trip Poston visited many countries of the Far East and therein found much to his liking. In India he gained a smattering of Brahminism that continued in his thoughts for the rest of his life, and his writings thereafter preferably turned toward the oriental rather than covering the Arizona field, in which his information was so valuable. When he returned to Arizona it was to again hold public office, to be register of the Arizona Land Office at Florence.
He interested himself in a study of the remains of the ancient races, evolving a theory that they were sun worshippers, a cult toward which he, for the time being, rather inclined. Across the river from Florence is a round hill to this day known as Poston Butte. Around and up this hill at considerable personal expense in 1878 Poston built a wagon road. Upon the summit, where he raised
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a sun flag, it was his dream to erect a temple where the deity should be wor- shipped with solemnity on the uprising of the sun, a glorious manifestation of celestial omnipotence. Financially he was hardly able to do more than build the road, so, to secure the necessary funds, Poston wrote a lengthy letter to the Shah of Persia, reciting all the alleged facts he had secured concerning the ancient races and urging upon the monarch the religious duty and high advisa- bility of reestablishing on the Western Continent the faith of Zoroaster, after the years of darkness that had followed the suppression of the sun cult as found by the Spaniards. It is told that the Shah, through diplomatic channels, ex- tended to Colonel Poston his felicitations and best wishes, but no money was returned; and now the road is only a ruin, like the rough stone watch tower on the summit that had given Poston his idea. It was Poston's wish that he be buried on the summit of this butte and possibly a sentimental State Legislature some day may make provision for this and for the erection thereon as well of a memorial shaft wherefrom may be reflected to the people below the first rays of the rising sun.
He wrote in rather bitter strain concerning his official position, which paid only $500 a year, "a recompense for my arduous pioneering and the loss of an ample estate by confiscation and robbery." He had an extra allowance of $100 a year for contingent expenses and rent, but acknowledges that there was little or no business in the office. So he filled in his time at Florence by the writing of an allegorical sort of work in verse entitled "Apache Land," published in San Francisco in 1878. By no means was it his best work, but it is valuable today as giving an outline of his travels and explorations, both in the South- west and the Orient. For a number of years later he retained official position, though in a modest way, serving as consular agent at Nogales, Mexico, and as governmental agent at El Paso. In May, 1882, in Tucson, irritated by news- paper attacks upon him, he fired a pistol shot at J. A. Whitmore, editor of the Tucson Citizen, fortunately missing his mark.
He returned to Washington, where for five years he had some connection with the Interior Department, again coming back to Arizona as agent of the Agricultural Bureau, with station at Phoenix. This employment ceased and Poston practically was destitute for a time, till by the Twentieth Legislature he was granted a pension of $25 a month, later increased to $35. The pension bill recited at length Poston's personal history and acknowledged a sense of grati- tude for his services to the Southwest, telling that in pioneer times he had been pre-eminently the moving spirit and "in fact may be truly said to be the Father of Arizona." He was the second Arizona pensioner, the first having been John Dobbs, a wounded Indian fighter. His mind was active to the very last and he was a valued contributor to the Phoenix newspapers. From the old Lemon Hotel he moved to the place wherein he died, on Monroe Street, near Second, his dilapidated domicile marked by an old Mexican molino, a stone handmill, that later decorated the entrance to the territorial capitol.
Colonel Poston was married twice. His first wife died early. For a while his sole support was from a daughter, the wife of Lieut .- Col. B. F. Pope, of the United States Medical Corps. Colonel Pope died in the Philippines. His wife started back with the body and died on the ocean. The second marriage, at American Flag, about 1881, was to Miss Mattie Tucker, daughter of a pioneer
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Arizona family resident near Phonix. This marriage, with material disparity of ages, did not seem to have been successful, for Mrs. Poston left her husband very soon.
His stories were not freely told, yet were many. A favorite topic was his reign as alcalde of Tubac, wherein he had control of a half-dozen Americans and of hundreds of Mexican miners. He tried to better the condition of his people in every way possible, but found his task rather a hard one owing to the natural thriftlessness of the Mexican. On one point he was scandalized. Prac- tically none of the Mexican couples within the camp had been legally married. The tale continued :
There was no priest nearer than Altar, and you know that love-making proceeds as merrily in the wildest desert as in the most romantic vale. Though self-appointed as head of the civil government, I proceeded to exercise magisterial functions and formally wedded all couples who presented themselves. This proceeding became popular, for I charged no fee and gave the bride five silver dollars as a dot. So all was merry, and among the many dirty and almost naked urchins that played on the thoroughfares of the little pueblo there were many that had been named or renamed in honor of me. Later there came the reaction. I had intruded my American ideas into Mexican customs and had to stand the consequences. I was met with scowls and curses instead of smiles. A priest had arrived, had learned of the matrimonial peculiarities of the camp and immediately had excommunicated the whole bunch from the offices of the church. The women particularly were wild. I squared it, though it cost me about five hundred dollars. I had the priest remarry them and topped it all off with a holiday and with a grand baile in honor of the happy brides and grooms, not excluding their children.
To the day of his death Poston was ever cheerful and hopeful, ever seeing the silver lining of the blackest cloud and ever looking forward to the day when riches and prosperity would smile upon him in the fullest. Rarely did he yield to any captious criticism of his fellow men and his writings generally had his own personal note of optimism. His spare time, and he had much of it, was spent largely in writing poetry for publication or for his own enter- tainment. So much of his work was poetical, it is felt that this review of his life would hardly be complete if no perpetuity was given to what is considered to have been one of his sweetest songs, "The Syrian Dove," with particular reference to the "palomita" of Sonora and Arizona :
The dove of the ark was fleet of wing, But the Syrian dove is the one to sing; 'Tis as sweet on the limb of a cotton-wood tree, As it was on the banks of the deep Galilee When Jesus walked on the waters there And led the Apostles in holy prayer.
How came you hither, my sweet coo-coo? And how did you cross the ocean blue? Did you perch on top of the Pinta's mast, When Columbus sailed on his ocean task ? Or came you away from the old world's fret On the Mayflower, hid in the Pilgrim's net?
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Where'er you are found, my sweet coo-coo, It is sure that love will be found there, too; For as breath departed from the paraclete, It entered the body of the dove so sweet- Which sings on the Jordan, sings on the Nile, And sings on the Santa Cruz erewhile.
The coo of the turtle is heard in the spring, Whenever the voices of nature sing- On the earth, in the trees, in the ambient air, The voice of the turtle makes the world more fair, For its song has forever one refrain, And that is that springtime will come again.
The dove of the ark brings the olive leaf, As a gage of peace in its dainty teeth ; As a pledge that the world shall be drowned no more. But the Syrian dove from another shore, Sings a song in the springtime far more sweet- "Tis the plaintive voice of the paraclete.
WILLIAM H. KIRKLAND
One of the most interesting of the pioneers was Wm. H. Kirkland, dis- tinguished as the American who raised the first American flag in Arizona, at the time Tucson was abandoned by Mexican troops. He died in Winkelman, Arizona, in January, 1911, aged 78. According to a writer in the Prescott Journal-Miner, in 1907 :
Of all his acts or experiences in the territory, which he first entered in 1854, he is proudest of the fact that he was the man who raised the first Old Glory to the skies in Arizona, on the occasion of the evacuation of Tucson by the Mexican troops, February 20, 1856. Before the Mexican troops marched out of the town on that memorable occasion, after the Gadsden Purchase, he climbed to the roof of one of the adobe buildings and floated to the breeze a flag given him by an ex-government teamster, who had it securely hidden away in the mess box for many years. The officer in command of the Mexican troops objected to the Americans flying their flag until he had his men out of the town, but despite his protestations the seventeen sturdy Americans present refused to pull it down. He was the first settler in Kirkland Valley, which bears his name, and in his career has assisted in laying out the towns of Tempe and Safford, besides naming Solomonville. He was the first man to raise a barley crop in Yavapai County, on the place now owned by Grant Carter, in the Kirkland Valley, but he says that while the erop was a great success he secured no benefit from it, as the Indians, who were monarchs of all they surveyed at the time, harvested his erop for themselves, and drove away with them twenty-three head of his pack animals. He was assisted in building at Kirkland the first water wheel for an arastra ever seen in this part of the territory by Joseph Ehle.
Kirkland, a Virginian by birth, arrived in Tucson January 17, 1856. The following year he stocked the Canoa Ranch, forty miles south of Tucson, with 200 cows he had bought in Mexico. This herd he claimed was the first ever brought into Arizona by any white man not of Spanish ancestry. According to a Tucson authority, he married in 1859, the bride a Miss Bacon, who had started from the East with her parents for California. This was the first American marriage in Tucson. February 28, 1861, was the birth of a daughter, now Mrs. Thomas Steele, the first American child born in Tucson
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PETER R. BRADY
Peter R. Brady, who died in Tucson in 1902, aged 77, was one of the dis- tinguished pioneers of the Southwest. In his youth, he had been appointed from his home City of Washington to the position of midshipman in the navy. In 1845, seeking adventure he went to Texas, where in 1846 he joined Capt. W. P. Crump's Company of Texas Rangers, serving on the boundary until the close of the Mexican war, thereafter living for several years in Jalisco, Mexico. Returning to Texas, he served again in the rangers until 1853, when he started to Arizona in the expedition of Col. A. B. Gray on the survey of the first Pacific railroad. In July, 1854, he organized in San Francisco the first mining com- pany to operate in Arizona, the same which took possession of Ajo mine near the Mexican border. For a number of terms he served in the Arizona Legis- lative Council. Personally, Brady was one of the most companionable of men, fortunate being those who have heard him tell of his experiences on the frontier when connected with the Arizona Mining and Trading Company.
FRITZ CONTZEN
Dating back to 1855 was the Arizona experience of Fritz Contzen, who died at his home in Tucson in May, 1909. He was a German by birth, but had been in Texas a number of years. He joined one of the surveying parties of the United States Boundary Commission, which was running a new line between the United States and Mexico. For a while he had been a member of "Big Foot" Wallace's ranger company, in which Peter R. Brady was also interested. When Contzen came to Arizona Pete Kitchen was found in the upper Santa Cruz Valley and there were some Germans at Calabazas and Tubac, while at Fort Yuma he met Solomon Warner, who later became a merchant of Tucson. A brother, Julius Contzen, had come to Arizona a year before with Henry Ehrenberg. The brothers in 1855, while on their way to Hermosillo to buy supplies, were attacked by Apaches, of whom they killed not less than twelve; however, at the expense of severe wounds to themselves and the loss of three horses and equipment. With them were a couple of Papagoes, who did good service in bringing out a strong party of men from Imuris and saving the beleagured men. Less than two years later Julius died at San Xavier of the effect of his wounds. Another Indian experience was when the Indians in 1861 drove all his cattle from his ranch at Punta de Agua, three miles south of San Xavier. With him at the time was Bill Kirkland.
ESTEVAN OCHOA
Estevan Ochoa, though a Mexican by hirth, became an American citizen of whom Americans were proud. When the Confederate column arrived in Tuc- son, one of the first acts of the commanding officer was to send for Ochoa, who had been reported to him as a Yankee sympathizer of a pernicious sort. The merchant was informed curtly that the Confederates had come to stay and that Ochoa was expected to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy and that in default of so doing he could expect exile for himself and confiscation of his property. Ochoa was courteons in his reply, but positive. He stated that his property and life he considered at the disposition of the Federal Gov- ernment, from which he had received many favors. So he was allowed to take
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one of his own horses, with saddlebags, rifle and ammunition and was escorted out of the pueblo with his face pointed toward the east. Through the Apache- infested country he made his way safely 250 miles to a Union post on the Rio Grande. When the Union troops came back, Don Estevan was with them with added prestige. He soon regained a degree of wealth, though later heavily stricken by both Apaches and an approaching civilization for which he was not prepared. The Indians drove off all the draft oxen of Tully, Ochoa & DeLong and the carcasses later were found where the animals had been killed and their flesh dried on a high mesa north of Salt River, that to-day bears the name of Jerked Beef Butte. His great freighting business and his stores both suffered when the railroad came and the old-time firm that had borne so large a part in pioneer days then went to the wall.
SAMUEL HUGHES
In a Welsh family of ten children, three eventually became pioneers to Southern Arizona and rose to high distinction. The first of the trio, Samuel Hughes, now ranks as the dean of Arizona pioneers. His residence dates back to 1858, when, after years of interesting personal experience, mainly in the West, he was compelled to leave Northern California to seek a milder climate. That the climate of Arizona did all that was expected is shown by the fact that he is still relatively hearty at the advanced age of 87. It is notable that he also has had a family of ten, all save one still living. He helped in the organization of Tucson and was one of the councilmen for seven years. He also served as territorial and county treasurer. He was an organizer of the Arizona Pioneers' Society and for a while was president. In Tucson he is depended upon as the locality's best historian, his wonderful memory retaining details of rare interest concerning the early days wherein he was one of the very few "Americanos."
THOMAS HUGHES
Another distinguished member of the Hughes family died November 7, 1907, Thomas Hughes, a resident of Tucson since 1868. He had been a gallant soldier in the Civil war and had been brevetted colonel of volunteers for meritorious services during the War of the Rebellion and the Indian wars of Western Kansas. For twelve years after coming to Arizona, he farmed in the Sonoita Valley, near Crittenden, and the tale of his trials and losses in that locality are to be found elsewhere in this work. In 1880, he was in Tucson, thereafter employing himself as a merchant, as territorial auditor, president of the board of trade, postmaster of Tucson and treasurer of Pima County.
LOUIS C. HUGHES
A third brother, former Governor L. C. Hughes, died at his home in Tucson November 24, 1915, aged 73. It is probable that he considered his life work well accomplished, for two things he had fought for, prohibition and woman suffrage, had been adopted in Arizona, wherein he had been their first male advocate. Following a Civil war experience as one of the volunteers from his native state, Pennsylvania, he studied law for a while, and in 1871, seeking the betterment of his health, he came to Arizona, to Tucson. Successively, he was
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probate judge, ex-officio county school superintendent, district attorney, terri- torial attorney general, court commissioner, member of the Chicago World's Fair Commission and delegate to the democratic national conventions in 1884 and in 1892. The Arizona Star was edited and published by him for thirty years, and he took pride in the fact that he was the first president of the Arizona Press Association on its organization in 1892. He was governor for three years, from April 1, 1893. Three years before coming to Arizona, he was married in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Two children are living, State Senator John T. Hughes and Mrs. Gertrude Woodward.
SIDNEY R. DE LONG
One of the prominent men in the history of Tucson died November 29, 1914, Sidney R. DeLong, who had served as president of the Society of Arizona Pioneers, as commander of the local post of the Grand Army and as the first mayor of Tucson. He came to Arizona in 1862 as a member of the California Column, under General West. He was post trader at Fort Bowie for fifteen years and was connected with the pioneer freighting and merchandising firm of Tully & Ochoa. His connection with the Camp Grant raid is told elsewhere in this work. He served as a member of the Territorial Legislature and he served also as receiver of the land office, county supervisor, county treasurer, city councilman and superintendent of schools. Locally his best service was in 1872 as the first mayor of Tucson, when he acted as trustee in the purchase of an addition of 1,280 acres. He devoted much time to the work of the Society of Arizona Pioneers, writing a small history of Arizona and many articles of historical interest.
JOHN B. ALLEN
Among the unique features that attended the life of John B. Allen was a gift made to him and gratefully received, in April, 1899. It was a tombstone, presented him as an old customer and valued friend by Zeckendorf & Com- pany, inscribed "John B. Allen. Born 1818. Died 1899. Territorial Treasurer six years, 1865-1871. Mayor of Tucson two terms. A man without an enemy." Allen at the time was suffering from a malignant abscess of the ear and was looking forward entirely without fear toward death that soon closed his suffer- ing. He appreciated his novel present as the kindest testimony of esteem that could have been given, somewhat in the way of proffering flowers before the funeral.
To old timers he generally was known as "Pie Allen," with reference to the fashioning by him of some wonderful dried-apple pies when he came to Arizona, at Calabazas. He was a merchant at Tubac and also at Tombstone, but during his latter years lived in Tucson.
FRED G. HUGHES
One of the most remarkable of southwestern pioneers was Fred G. Hughes, of English birth, but of fifty years of Arizona residence. A professional faro dealer, he yet repeatedly was elected to office and ranked as a leader of his political party. In 1860 he was a member of the Ormsby expedition from Washoe, Nevada, against the Piutes, escaping from what was known as the
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"Washoe Massacre," in which about sixty whites were slain. In December, 1861, he came to Arizona in the California Column. October 16, 1863, he left Fort Craig, New Mexico, in a military party that was to escort the new terri- torial officials. The officials being delayed, the column moved on. December 18, Hughes was left with a dozen men at the San Francisco Springs, near the site of Flagstaff, to guard a cache of supplies, while the military party went on to the Chino Valley Camp, where the first official seat of government soon after was established, which Hughes did not reach till March 1, 1864.
Five times Hughes was elected from Pima County to be a member of the Territorial Council, and in the Tenth, Sixteenth and Nineteenth sessions he further was honored by selection to the post of president of the Council. Latterly he was clerk of the board of supervisors, residing in Tucson. He was president of the Arizona Historical Society, and as such was made custodian of an appropriation of $3,000, given the society by the Legislature in 1897 for the compilation of the records on file. One night an attempt was made to burn up the courthouse in Tucson. In an investigation that followed, it was found that Clerk Hughes was far behind in his accounts and the charge was made that he had set fire to the building in order to wipe out the records of his peculations. Then it was discovered that the Historical Society's coin was gone. It had been gambled away. The Pima County supervisors, two of them old pioneer friends of Hughes, made up the shortage to the county. For the embezzlement of the society funds he was sent to the penitentiary. For a while Hughes sought to evade arrest, fleeing to Randsburg, California, and then into Mexico, but he finally surrendered himself for trial. He had many friends, who believed him simply careless and not criminal. A petition pre- sented to the governor asking pardon was described as little short of a copy of the great register of Tucson. Hughes was paroled by Governor Murphy from the territorial penitentiary in December, 1900, and would have had liberty earlier had he not chosen to consider himself a martyr and a man unjustly restrained. His death was most tragic. At the age of 74 he had returned to the placer camp of Greaterville, of which he ranked as founder. On a Septem- ber evening, while sitting in the door of his adobe house, he was struck by lightning and instantly killed. He was survived by a wife, seven daughters and three sons.
CLARK B. STOCKING
Clark B. Stocking, widely known as the "Old Guard," now, in peace, a resident of Los Angeles, came to Arizona with the California Column in the Fifth Infantry, and served five years in the Southwest. This service was unique in that most of it was spent as an express rider, carrying messages between the various army posts and commanders, usually through a country swarming with Indians, where the lone courier was in danger almost every mile. At Oatman Flat, 1862, he was a member of the detail that hewed out poles to make a fence around the graves of the Oatman family, and at Oatman also he helped to dig trenches against the expected coming of a Confederate force that later proved only a raiding party. After his southwestern experi- ence, he became a plainsman and army scout and then a contractor, who fur- nished elk and antelope meat to railroad graders and secured no small fame Vol. II-19
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as a stage messenger, in one Wyoming affair killing two bandits. In 1869 he was a boss packer in the Wheeler survey in the Grand Cañon region. He appeared to travel from one danger to another, as a hunter, messenger, Lead- ville mine guard and as a bullion guard in Sonora. About 1880 he was in Tucson a deputy sheriff and deputy marshal, and was in one fight at Silver Lake near that city where he shot the leader of a band of four Mexican robbers and helped in the capture of the three others, the same who later, when con- victs, led in the attack on Superintendent Tom Gates at Yuma and were killed by Guard Hartley. It is probable that Stocking would prefer as an epitaph, "I did my duty as I saw it."
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