USA > Arizona > History of Arizona, Vol. IV > Part 4
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"With the gold that we had retorted in an old musket barrel, I started to meet a Mexican train that we heard was coming from New Mexico with provisions, with the governor and his escort and staff. I expected to go as far as Chino Val- ley (Del Rio), but met the outfit at Granite Creek, where Prescott now is, and it was a very agreeable surprise to me. I was awful hungry, although I had that day killed a chicken hawk and broiled it on the coals of my camp fire, one built on purpose for the occasion. That night I stayed with Uncle Joe Walker, who led the Walker party to Arizona, and had good grub for the first time in nearly one month. The next day I returned to the mine early, and we all had a big feed for Christmas dinner.
"In the latter part of November, two men, John Laughlin and Valentine, came to our camp and told us of a strike that had been made in the mountains east of the place where Lambert- son lived, and as I could not work much, and Valentine and Laughlin pressed me to accom- pany them, I took a pair of blankets and a little flour and coffee, and went the following morning with them. We went to Lambertson's ranch, and Mrs. Lambertson told us that Lambertson and Gross, (he was the man who found the rich ore), had left there that morning to go to the mine with burros, to pack in ore which they pro- posed to work with an arrastra. We took the fresh trail and just at night reached their camp on Turkey Creek, which was near the new strike. There we camped near Lambertson and Gross, and the next morning there was several inches of snow on the ground. Lambertson and Gross gathered up their outfit and returned early in
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the day, but my party decided to stay one day more, thinking it would clear up. But it did not clear until the third day. We had with us two pair of blankets, and we made a shelter of one pair and all slept between the other pair. We stopped one end with pine boughs and built a big fire at our feet at the open end of the shel- ter. Our flour and coffee were out, and we were forced to go home without accomplishing any- thing. Laughlin lived on Groom Creek. He was partner with R. W. Groom, while Valentine had a camp near by on the same creek, so we concluded to go to that place. We had a hard job wallowing through the snow, but made it to the head of the Hassayampa about four o'clock, and there we found some men who told us of the finding of the Vulture mine. Valentine re- marked that he would go down to the Hassa- yampa Sink, as we then called it, and 'talk Dutch to Henry, and get an interest,' which he did. Valentine was killed later at the nine-mile water hole near Tucson.
"About January 1st, 1864, Mahan went to Weaver and got his wife who had been staying there with her sister, and also brought quick- silver and powder. We had to use rifle powder which cost $1.50 per pound in small cans, and make our own fuse or, as it is called, 'squibs.'
"On the thirteenth day of February, 1864, John Pennington came to our place, having traveled from where he and U. C. Barnett were camped about six miles up the creek, and found us at breakfast. He wanted help to follow In- dians who had taken their last horse and started only a short time before he left his cabin. The Indians had taken a trail that led past our place
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and about one and a half miles to the east. Bar- nett followed on the trail and Pennington was to meet him at a prominent outcrop of quartz- site that the trail passed by. Beauchamp and I got ready while Pennington ate some breakfast, and with our sack of pinole, we started for the appointed rendezvous. When we got in sight of the big outcrop of rock, we could see Barnett about four hundred yards back of the outerop waving his hat and crouching down, which meant for us to keep as quiet as possible.
"When we got to Barnett, who had not moved from the place where we first saw him, he told us that he had seen a smoke on the opposite side of the big ledge before we came in sight, and supposed the Indians had made a camp there. It had been threatening to storm for some time, and by this time it was snowing pretty hard. We at once set out to see what was behind the bluff, making as little noise as possible. When we got to the south end there they were in a little gulch among the thickest kind of brush. We opened fire on them, but our guns were covered with the snow that was falling as hard and fast as it could, and we never knew what effect our shots had, only we got an old butcher knife, a lance, and bow with a quiver of arrows. The Indians had killed the horse and were cut- ting the flesh off the bones when we came upon them.
"We all returned to the mine, nearly frozen. That storm lasted five days, and our house, which was built of rocks and covered with dirt, leaked like a sieve, and continued to leak for sometime after the storm. We continued work and took
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out a little gold right along, the ore running by sorting about 300 pounds per ton.
"One day in March a brother-in-law of Mahan, who lived at Weaver, came to the mine and brought us a letter from a man named James More, who was a partner of A. H. Peeples in a lot of beef steers which they were holding on Peeples' ranch, now known as Peeples' Valley. The letter was asking one of us to go to the ranch with two horses. A few days before this the Apaches had run off all the horses at the ranch, and King S. Woolsey and Peeples had organized a party to follow the Indians, and had taken all of the horses that were left around Weaver except two of the poorest which had been left at the ranch to drive and corral the cattle with. These cattle were easy to drive or handle on horseback, but would run from a man on foot, and the morning that the letter was written, the Indians had gotten the two poor horses from the place where they were staked while the men were eating breakfast. As soon as I could catch the horses I saddled and got to the ranch in time to corral the cattle that even- ing. I had been at the ranch three days when a man came in from Los Angeles, Sandy Hamp- ton, a big Scotchman. I had met Hampton in Los Angeles when he worked for the Sansevein Wine Company. Hampton had a horse and mule, and More hired him to stay at the ranch so that I could go home. Hampton's horse was sore footed, and there were a lot of old shoes that had been pulled off of the horses when they were turned out on the soft meadow land of the ranch, so I undertook to shoe the horse before I left. As the horse was rather large, I had trouble to
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get shoes out of the lot to fit him, but by using one that had corks on it, I made out to get the shoes on all around.
"Hampton himself had neither boots nor shoes. He had rags on his feet. I did not think much about the fact as I was nearly bare footed myself, but more than thirty years after I learned from a man who had traveled from Los Angeles with Hampton that they had met a man going out of the country shoeless and walking, and Hampton, having a horse to ride, took off his boots and told the man to try them on, and if he could wear them to keep them. He kept them.
"I returned to the mine after shoeing the horse, and, as we were in a bad place to stand off the Indians, we concluded to work what ore we had and quit the work for a while.
"William Kirkland and his companions were working a placer mine about twelve miles below us, and Kirkland had his family there with him. As there were quite a number of men and some good dogs there, Mahan concluded to take his wife there until we got ready to quit work. I will say that the Indians had been doing a lot of bad work in different places, and that the Mexican who brought the letter from More ask- ing for help, had a fight with them and broke a leg for one of them, between Peeples' Ranch and the Montgomery mine, when he brought the letter. Our nearest neighbors to the north were two and a half miles away, and eleven miles south to Lambertson's, which was a mile from the Kirkland claim. Peeples' ranch was six- teen miles to the southwest. That was not a good place to have a woman to take care of.
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"About the last days of March we got our ar- rastra cleaned up and cached what tools we had, and Beauchamp went prospecting while I went to the Kirkland claim where Mrs. Mahan was cooking for the men who were working the placers. The night that I got to Kirkland's, William Dennison, one of the partners of the claim, who, with another man, returned from Peeples' ranch where they had been after a beef, brought the news that Sandy Hampton had been murdered by a Mexican two nights before. The news had been carried to Weaver by a Mexican boy whom More had employed to stay on the ranch and help Sandy with the cattle, and a crazy white man named Jackson, whom the Mex- ican came near killing when he killed Hampton. The crazy man wandered from camp to camp and never was molested by the Apaches, and that day had dropped in at Peeples' ranch. The Mexican came to the ranch from toward Weaver just at dark. Hampton gave him supper and told him to stay all night. The house was a small one roomed adobe with a fireplace in one end. Hampton was sitting before the fire after supper, with his chin in his hands. Jackson was sitting in the corner of the fireplace farthest from the door, and the boy was sitting in the corner between the fireplace and the door. The strange Mexican was behind Hampton. All of a sudden he drew a long knife from under his sarape and plunged it into the side of Hamp- ยท ton's neck, killing him instantly I suppose, for he fell with his face in the ashes at the corner of the fireplace and never struggled. Jackson jumped for the door, and as he passed the Mex- ican he was stabbed in the back, but got out, and
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he and the boy made their way to Weaver as fast as they could and gave the alarm. Men started at once for the ranch and a search was commenced as soon as it was daylight for the Mexican, but they could not track him, although he had taken Hampton's horse and saddle. The trouble was that the Mexican had saddled the horse and taken the trail toward Weaver, and the party from Weaver had obliterated the tracks when they rode and walked over the trail in the dark. The next day after the news came of the killing of Hampton, I, with G. H. Vickrey and two others, went from the Kirkland claim to Weaver, which is about fourteen miles by trail. We passed the graves of a man named Mellen, who was partner with Lehigh in copper claims in Copper Basin, and two companions, who were' prospecting on the Hassayampa, also the new made graves of four Mexicans and a Frenchman near Weaver. All of these graves were quite fresh. Arriving at Weaver we learned that there was no trace of the murderer.
"I took our horses out to find some place where I could stake them on good grass, intending to stay with them all night and bring them in with me in the morning. I went out about two miles southwest of Weaver, and, finding a good place, I took my saddle off. While tying my horses I noticed that I was on a trail which appeared to lead from Weaver and Antelope Creek toward the sink of the Hassayampa. I examined the trail closely and found that the last tracks which had passed over the trail led toward the Has- sayampa and were made by the horse that I had put the shoes on for Sandy Hampton some- 4
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time before at Peeples' ranch. I recognized it by the one corked shoe, while the other three were plain shoes. I at once determined to fol- low the tracks to the Hassayampa if necessary. I saddled up and took all of the stock back to Weaver, and told some of the people what I had found. I asked for one or two volunteers to go with me on the trail. The men said it had been too long; that we could never overtake the Mexican, and, besides, that the stock was all poor and not fit for a long trip, perhaps clear into Sonora, as it was evident that Sonora was where the Mexican was heading for, at that time there being no other places in Arizona except Tucson and Gila City, now Yuma.
"I inquired about the road and learned from a man who knew the country that there was but one road through the Hassayampa Canyon, where the railroad bridge now crosses, and about two miles below the Tucson road left the river and turned east, while the other road followed the river bottom. I realized that if I could get the tracks at or near the forks of the road, I should be sure that my man would go directly to one of the two places. I bought a few pounds of pinole, some pinoche, and a little coffee, and with a quart cup and canteen, started for the Hassayampa, but took the main road as it was quite dark and I had to depend on picking up the trail the next morning. I passed Henry Wickenburg's camp before day, and about nine o'clock in the morning I came to the forks of the road. Here I was bothered a good deal, as both roads had been traveled by wagons and ox carts. I had about made up my mind to take the Tucson road as being the most likely one
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for my man to take, when I noticed a trail that went over a point of a mesa that the wagon road passed around. I went and examined this trail, and there was my corked shoe sure enough. Now I was sure the Tucson road was the one for me.
"I slept the most of that day and gave my horse a chance to fill up on good gramma grass. Getting to the Pima Villages, I found there a mule which had been left in care of Mr. White, who had a flour mill there, and White wished to send the mule to Re Allen, its owner, in Tucson. I had White inquire of the Indians if they had seen the Mexican, (who was easy to describe on account of the big buckskin horse), but he had not been seen, so I concluded he had passed through the Indian villages in the night. I took Allen's mule and left my horse with the Indians, and that evening pushed on toward Tucson and the next day reached what was known as 'Soldier's Grave,' a road station es- tablished by the old Butterfield Stage Company. The man at the station had seen nothing of the Mexican with the buckskin horse, but told me that someone had been to the well and got water two nights before, and had gone toward Tucson; that the horse tracks were larger than most rid- ing horses.
"I rested my mule nearly all day and took the road about four in the afternoon; made Blue- water station that night about twelve o'clock and lay down until daylight. That was another one of the old Butterfield stations, and there about the same thing had happened as at Soldier's Grave, only I had gained about twelve hours on my man according to our calculation.
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"From there I pushed on to the Picacho station, only eighteen miles from Tucson, but the keeper had seen nothing of my man. Arriving at Tucson I at once called upon Major Duffield, the United States marshal, and told him my story. He took some interest in the matter. and said he would try to locate the Mexican if he was in or around Tucson. I didn't leave the matter in the hands of others, but went all over the town and to all nearby ranches of which there were several, but no sign of the buckskin. I bought a Comanche pony from a Mexican, and the second afternoon I went to the old Mission San Xavier, which is eight or nine miles from Tuc- son, the main traveled road to Sonora. About halfway from Tucson to the Mission there had been a big mudhole which changed the road. The mudhole had dried, but the wagons still went around the place, while saddle animals took the shorter cut over the dry mudhole. And there I found my corked horseshoe mark, and pretty fresh too. I pushed my horse along pretty lively until I got to the Mission. There were a lot of Papago Indians living there and one white man, who went by the name of Ale- jandro. I told Alejandro my business. He inquired among the Indians, and we concluded that the Mexican had passed there late the night before. I had given my pony to a Papago to feed and water for me, and when I had him brought up to saddle, he had the colic. I went after Alejandro, who was running a mill for grinding wheat by burro power. He found me an Indian who would trade me another pony for $20 to boot. If my pony died I was to keep the Indian's pony, or if I returned the Indian's
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animal and took my own, the Indian was to have the twenty dollars for the use of his horse. Rather a hard bargain! But I accepted the proposition and was soon on my way again.
"I traveled nearly all of that night, and the following afternoon rode into a military camp, two companies of cavalry stationed at the mouth of the Sohbapuri Canyon. When I got within a mile or two of this camp, I lost the track of the corked shoe which I had been seeing all day. The cavalry herd had obliterated the tracks.
"I thought sure I should find my man or some trace of him when I saw the soldiers, but I did not. I knew he was not far away, for his horse had completely given out, and he had been walk- ing and driving the horse ahead of him for the last twenty miles. It was but a few miles to Tubac, where I had learned there was some Americans living, so after satisfying myself that there was nothing at the soldiers' camp for me, I pushed on for Tubac, watching all the time for tracks in the road. But no corked shoe track did I find. At Tubac I found a family named Pennington, all but the grown men folks. There were several women and two boys, twelve to fifteen years old, and a Mrs. Page and a little daughter. Mrs. Page was a Pennington. After she had married Page and before her girl was born, the' Apaches captured her and a twelve year old Mexican girl, but as Mrs. Page was not able to travel as fast as the Indians wanted to go, they lanced her full of holes, threw her body over a bluff, then threw rocks on her head, and left her for dead. She came to and after crawl- ing around for two weeks or more, and living on roots, managed to reach a camp in the Santa
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Rita mountains. She told me the story herself as I stayed there that night with the family.
"The next morning I was out as soon as I could see, expecting the Mexican would pass that place in the night as he had every other place where he was liable to be seen. He had not passed that way however, and the women told me of a road that went up the Canyon to an old deserted ranch, and on to the Sierra Colorado mine and Sonora, and showed me a trail that would take me by a short cut to the old ranch. I hurried across to the old ranch, which was the ruins of what had been a big ranch at one time, and here were my horse tracks quite fresh, and the man tracks on top. I examined my shot- gun carefully, and pushed my pony for all that he could stand for about four miles, watching the trail at every step. Finally as I rode down into a little sandwash that came into and across the road from the low hills to my right, I saw the tracks leading up the wash, and the sand was not dry where the horse tracks had dis- turbed it. I followed up this little wash about a quarter of a mile, and there on a flat near the wash was the horse hobbled. and in the shade of a bush in the sand on the saddle blankets, lay about the worst looking, black, scar-faced greaser that I ever looked at. But he looked good to me just then !
"I cut the hobbles off of the poor horse, and went on to the Sierra Colorado mine, and rested two days. Colonel Colt. the gunman, was pre- paring to work the mine, after having had a massacre at the mine some time before.
"I did a little prospecting near the Sierra Colorado mine, and found an old abandoned
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mine that had hackberry trees growing on the dump a foot through at the butt. I returned to San Xavier and got my Comanche pony all right. "At Tucson I met Jack Swilling and others of a party who, with King S. Woolsey, had re- turned from a prospecting trip in the Pinal mountains. The party had divided at what was known as 'The Wheatfields,' Woolsey going to
the Agua Fria ranch near Prescott.
They
parted with the understanding that Swilling would go to Tucson and fit out a strong party, and meet Woolsey, who would fit out another party at Prescott, and a third party would start from the Pima Villages with Indians who were ready at any time to go after the Apaches. All three parties were to meet at a certain place on an appointed day, and all were to kill as many Apaches as possible.
"When Swilling got to Tucson he could get no flour to outfit a party. He had to send men and animals to Hermosillo, Sonora, for a supply of flour, and it was necessary for Woolsey to know this. Swilling had tried to find some men to go to Prescott with dispatches, but the country was alive with Apaches, and there were no volun- teers to try the hazardous trip with less than five men. I learned of this one evening late, and went to Swilling's house, and proposed to take the dispatches to Woolsey if I could get a good saddle animal, and an order for another at Maricopa Wells, where the Swilling party had left all of their stock that they could spare as they went to Tucson. They had left their stock in charge of a man named Chase, and two or three other men. At Maricopa Wells there was pretty good grass. It was near the friendly
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Indians, and had good houses and corrals which had been built by the old Overland Stage Com- pany.
"Swilling was glad of the chance to get word to Woolsey, and at once set about writing letters to Weaver and Prescott, that is, what is now Prescott.
"About four o'clock in the morning of May 1st, 1864, Swilling had his letters written, and I went to the citizens' corral, (which joined the government corral on one side), to get the mule which I was to ride to Maricopa. I found a lot of the soldiers in and around the government corral, and on making inquiries learned that the Apaches had got away with five cavalry horses which were in the corral, notwithstanding the fact that there had been a sentinel walking in front of the corral all night. The Indians had cut a hole in the back side of the wall and got the horses. They cut the wall by tying a rock to a rope, then throwing the rock over the wall, and by pulling the rock up near the top and let- ting it down, soon cut a piece out big enough to get a horse through.
"I had a splendid mule under me, and by good daylight was at the nine-mile waterhole. I pushed on to the Picacho station and lay there until about sundown; made Bluewater station before day, and remained there until late in the afternoon, when a man named George Frame came in from Fort Yuma. He came in a cart with one mule, carrying the United States mail. I saddled my mule and started, intending to go as near the Pima Indians as I could before sleep- ing. When I got out four or five miles on the road, my mule shied and bolted into a run, leav-
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ing the road at right angles. He was badly frightened, and I could not stop him and make him stand. I soon learned the cause of the mule's fright. There was a heavy thicket of greasewood and mesquite at the point where the mule stampeded, and about two hundred yards from the road I saw plenty of moccasin tracks, and on the ground lay a 38-caliber Colt's re- volver. I tried to get the mule to stop so that I could get off and get the gun, but I could not make him stand. So I turned him and rode past the gun and picked it up from the saddle. It was loaded and clean. The Indians in their hurry to get to the road in time to ambush me, had dropped it, I presume. Anyway, I got the gun and let the mule go as fast as he wanted to through the brush, and didn't go to the road until after dark.
"I watered my mule at the Soldier's Grave, and pushed on to near the Sacaton station, where I rested a few hours. Then I pushed on to White's Mill, and arranged with Mr. White to send my horse that I had left when I got Allen's mule, to Weaver or Walker by the first oppor- tunity. I rode on until I reached the last of the Maricopa farms, and there I stayed and had a good sleep, reaching the Maricopa Wells early next morning. Here I found Chase, delivered a letter from Swilling, and after supper started on a fresh horse. The mule that I had been riding belonged to Chase. He told me that he had captured the mule from the Apaches on a raid that he had participated in at Pinos Altos, New Mexico, hence his fear of Apaches. If I had been riding a less timid animal the Indians
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would have killed me, where the mule saved my life.
"Leaving the Wells I rode all night, and until after the sun was well up. Then, turning off the road into the mesquite timber, I slept until nearly sundown. Coming back to the road I found the tracks of two horses going towards Maricopa Wells. I learned that the two horse- men, one of whom was James Sheldon (after- wards killed by the Yavapais), were going with dispatches from Woolsey to Swilling to notify him that there were not sufficient supplies in the Walker country to be had to outfit a party, and that Woolsey had sent a pack train to La Paz on the Colorado River to buy a supply for the expedition. Not knowing this, I made the best time I could via Weaver to where Prescott now is, reaching there May 5th in the morning. I think it is nearly three hundred miles the way I travelled.
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