USA > Arizona > History of Arizona, Vol. VI > Part 16
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At the time of Miss Shaver's arrival the Phoe- nix school building was nearing completion. She reached Phoenix in the latter part of Octo- ber, 1873, coming from the State of Wisconsin, and on November 3d she appeared before the school authorities, passed a very creditable ex- amination, and on the 8th was formally em- ployed and entered upon her duties in the new schoolhouse, on the 10th day of November, 1873. Miss Shaver came to Phoenix highly recommended from her home in the East. On the 21st of November, 1873, the following item appeared in a contemporary newspaper :
"Miss Shaver, the new teacher, is progressing finely. She now has thirty-five scholars, with the prospect of an increase. The new school- house, in which the children are being taught. is an adobe, twenty by thirty feet in the clear, and sixteen feet high, with a good shingle roof. There are three windows on each side, one large double door in one end, and a fireplace in the other. The floor is dirt, but the trustees intend putting in one of plank as soon as they can
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procure the lumber. The building, so far, has cost $1,400, and it will take $200 more to finish it. Last week Judge Alsap, the county super- intendent, purchased a small supply of books for the children and he intends sending into Califor- nia for a new set in a short time. Several young ladies from the Mesquite are attending school."
In 1871 the children of school age in Maricopa County numbered 103; in 1872, from the county assessor's figures, 313; while in 1873, the school census returns, carefully compiled, showed the number to be 302, 157 boys and 145 girls. Of these children 232 resided within the Phoenix District, and the remaining 70 within the Mes- quite District. Of this number, however, but a comparatively small percentage, about twenty per cent, attended the public schools during the year 1873. In 1874 the number of school chil- dren in Maricopa County was placed at 323, of which 243 belonged in District No. 1, and 80 in District No. 2. James A. Young took the first county school census in the latter part of 1871; J. R. Darroche in 1873; J. D. Rumberg in 1874; and George E. Freeman in 1876.
In the beginning of the year 1874 the free schools of Arizona were in successful operation. Throughout the same year Miss Shaver con- tinued to teach in the Phoenix school with marked success, and to the entire satisfaction of the school trustees. The Prescott Miner of January 22d, 1875, had the following concerning the Phoenix public schools :
"The public schools of Phoenix opened on Monday morning, January 18th, under the effi- cient management of Miss Shaver. The chil-
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dren have had a long vacation, and it is pre- sumed that they have enjoyed themselves during the holidays. They are no exception to the general average of children, being loth to come down to the business of school hours, books, and birch rods again."
Just when Miss Shaver was proving her ster- ling worth as a teacher, and her pupils were mak- ing the most rapid progress in all their studies, John Y. T. Smith, of Camp McDowell, came upon the scene and induced her to became his wife. Their marriage occurred on October 3d, 1875, at the home of John A. Rush, at Prescott, the ceremony being performed by Rev. A. Gil- more, a chaplain of the United States Army then stationed at Whipple Barracks. When John Marion, owner of the Prescott "Weekly Miner," heard of the marriage of his friend Smith, he made the following allusion to it :
"It comes awkward to say 'Little Smiths,' but had the chaplain changed John's name to that of his bride, instead of hers to Mrs. John Smith, how convenient in wishing them joy, to add, 'and a whole band of little Shavers.' "
Mr. and Mrs. John Y. T. Smith had a son and two daughters as the result of their mar- riage.
The school trustees had to look around for another teacher, and finally selected Mrs. Ala- bama Fitzpatrick for the next mistress of the school. Miss Carrie G. Hancock, a sister of Captain Hancock and a resident of Sacramento, California, had also been considered as a pos- sible successor to Miss Shaver, and had come to Phoenix for the purpose of taking charge of
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the school. When the choice, however, was made in favor of Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Miss Han- cock was given the Hayden's Ferry school at the Tempe Settlement, where she taught from the fall of 1875 to the spring of 1876, after which she taught some time in the schools in Phoenix. When Miss Hancock assumed the role of teacher at the Tempe Settlement (Hay- den's Ferry), the trustees were Charles T. Hay- den, J. T. Priest and Winchester Miller. Un- der Mr. Hayden's direction a small adobe build- ing near the center of the little settlement was put in repair, and here Miss Hancock started her school. The little building had. a "lean-to" at the back, in which Miss Hancock made her home during the school term. The number of children at the opening of this school was four- teen, of which three were of American and eleven of Mexican parentage.
In the middle seventies Boards of Examiners were organized in the various counties of the Territory for the purpose of determining the fitness of school teachers seeking employment in Arizona. At one of its first meetings, in the month of September, 1875, the Maricopa County Board granted teachers' diplomas to Hedgepeth, who taught for a time in the Mes- quite school, Carrie G. Hancock and Allie Fitz- patrick. Mrs. Fitzpatrick assumed charge of the Phoenix school on October 4th, 1875, and shortly afterwards the following appeared in some correspondence from the Phoenix settle- ment :
"The public school has been in operation for two weeks under the management of Mrs. Fitz-
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patrick, who is said to be a very competent teacher. There are forty-five scholars in at- tendance."
Up to this time all the teachers who had had charge of the Phoenix school had received a compensation of $100 per month, but an effort was made when Mrs. Fitzpatrick was appointed to make a noticeable reduction. By a vote of two to one, however, the trustees kept the salary of the teacher at the original figure, thus show- ing that even at that early date the citizens of Phoenix were strongly in favor of having first- class public schools, and were willing to pay the price.
The "Prescott Miner" of December 17th, 1875, had the following from a Phoenix correspond- ent :
"On Friday last, November 26th, 1875, the usual monthly examination of the public school in Phoenix, taught by Mrs. Allie Fitzpatrick, took place, at which a number of ladies and gen- tlemen were present. About forty children, mostly Americans, were in attendance, who ex- hibited considerable proficiency in the various exercises. Perhaps one of the best features was the singing, which was good. Music should be taught in all schools. Extracts read by sev- eral of the young ladies were very appropriate, and a dialogue by Miss Marilla Murray, Miss Flora Murray and Miss Annie Kellogg was ex- cellent. After the children were dismissed, the adults present canvassed the feasibility of a Christmas tree, with suitable presents, for the children of the school, and Mrs. Granville H. Oury, Mrs. John Smith, Mrs. Braniman, Mrs.
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M. P. Griffin, Mrs. Columbus H. Gray, Mrs. John Gardiner and Miss Greenhaw were ap- pointed a committee to solicit subscriptions, pro- cure suitable presents, and do all else necessary. The Hon. John Smith promised to procure a suitable tree. Mrs. Braniman, Mrs. Oury and Mrs. Griffin have already collected upwards of $100. Mrs. Smith is treasurer and at her house the committee is to meet to-morrow evening to consult further in regard to the matter."
Through the efforts of these kindly ladies the school children had their Christmas tree, a rare treat in the sparsely settled Arizona of that day.
Of the scholars mentioned above, Flora Mur- ray became the wife of R. L. Rosson, a physician and afterwards Treasurer of Maricopa county ; Annie Kellogg married Newel Herrick, a part- ner of George H. N. Luhrs, and Marilla Murray is now Mrs. Neri Osborn of Phoenix.
After a vacation extending through the holi- days, school was again commenced on January 3rd, 1875, Mrs. Fitzpatrick continuing as teacher throughout the year.
On February 29th, 1876, the trustees author- ized Judge Alsap to employ laborers to clear the school block, the brush and refuse to be piled in the adobe hole near the schoolhouse, an un- sightly excavation from which had been taken the dirt to make the adobes for the building. Soon after this was done, on March 19th, a con- tract was given to Benjamin F. Patterson for the planting of cottonwood trees on all sides of the school block. It was about this time that Allie Fitzpatrick decided to marry John Mont- gomery, then a dashing and energetic voung
MISS CARRIE G. HANCOCK.
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rancher, and her school career, like that of Ellen Shaver, ended in a happy marriage.
Miss Carrie G. Hancock succeeded Mrs. Fitz- patrick, school opening on the 11th day of Sep- tember, 1876. An order was issued at this time "that no public meetings, religious, political, or otherwise, shall be held in the schoolhouse of this district after September 11th, 1876."
Miss Hancock continued in charge of the school until March 27th, 1877, soon after which time she returned to California, and for many years was city librarian at Sacramento, but now, having returned to the Salt River Valley in 1916, she makes her home here with her nephews, Harry S. Hancock, and Herbert R. Patrick, of Phoenix.
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CHAPTER XII. SALT RIVER VALLEY PROGRESS (Continued).
NARRATIVE OF MRS. MARY A. GRAY - FIRST
WHITE WOMAN IN VALLEY - DARRELL
DUPPA -. THOMAS THOMPSON HUNTER BRINGS IN FIRST HERD OF CATTLE-REMINIS- CENCES-EARLY SETTLERS-DESCRIPTION OF PIMA AND MARICOPA SQUAWS GATHERING WOOD -- ALFILERILA FLATS-CATERPILLARS- BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS THOMPSON HUNTER- MORE EARLY SETTLERS-LATER VISIT-NOTES DOMESTICATION OF INDIANS EARLY MAR- RIAGES IN VALLEY - CAPTAIN WILLIAM A. HANCOCK, BIOGRAPHY-HON. JOHN T. AL- SAP, BIOGRAPHY - SIMON NOVINGER, BIOG- RAPHY.
Columbus H. Gray and Mary A. Gray, his wife, were the first permanent settlers on the north side of the Salt River Valley. C. H. Gray, or "Lum" Gray, as he was known, was a very active citizen during his life. At one time he was a member of the legislature, and he was always, more or less, a miner and prospector. Careless in money matters ; a man of strong pas- sions, true to his friends and vindictive to his enemies, naturally he had close friends and bit- ter enemies. His widow is a typical pioneer woman, and has resided in one place on their ranch just south of Phoenix for nearly fifty years. At the time of his death, Mr. Gray was interested in mining properties about ten miles
COLUMBUS H. GRAY.
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west of Ehrenberg, in California. The follow- ing interview with Mrs. Gray gives much first hand information in regard to the settlement of Phoenix and the Salt River Valley :
"We came into the valley on the 18th of Au- gust, 1868. I was about the first white woman in the valley. The Adams family arrived on their way to California when we came here. Sheriff Jeff Adams was a little boy then. An- other family named Rowe came in here. We came and settled. The others were only camp- ing here. They went off, and then some of them came back. I have been a constant resi- dent on this ranch for forty-eight years since the 18th of August, 1868, and am now left alone. I am seventy-one years old.
"I have seen many changes in this valley. Mr. Gray helped take out the canal which was a part of the old Swilling Ditch. When we came in 1868, they had taken out a little water; it ran for two or three miles. They had planted some corn, beans, pumpkins, and anything they could get to plant. That was in 1868, the first crops raised here. It was mostly men in the valley then. There were no families. Swil- ling's wife was in Tucson. I was the first white woman to settle in the valley and stay here. I remember that when I went to court to give my evidence in the water rights case, I was in a hurry to get away, but the judge called me back and asked me if I was in the same place, and when I said that I was, he said that I was about the only one that was.
"The first church established here was the South Methodist Church. The first minister
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that came into this valley to preach was Mckean. Groves came next. When Groves came they had no church, and he preached in different places. He preached in our house for one thing ; that was when we lived in the old adobe. I think it was about 1870 or 1871-'70 I guess.
"My husband and myself came in 1868 across the plains, the railroad didn't come until 1869. We were on our way to Northern California, where Mr. Gray had mined when a boy. If we had had an idea that the Central railroad would « have been through to California in another year, we would have waited until it was completed. In 1878, when I went home over the northern route, the Southern Pacific had got to Yuma; there we met the train from here.
"I don't remember any of the old settlers who remain, if any do. They were kind of loose; there is none of them that stayed any length of time. Irvine was about the first, and the Os- borns came in 1869. They kept dropping in.
"We went broke in the dry year of 1891-92. Mr. Gray had over fifty head of stock die, and we couldn't get water enough to irrigate two acres that dry year. We had a wind mill pump and a hand pump in the well. We first got water about twenty-one or twenty-two feet down, but that vear we had to keep adding pipe until we got down about forty feet.
"Mr. Gray started to build a building for the Masonic Hall, on Jefferson and First Streets, and then sold it to the Goldwaters. Goldwater afterwards told me that 'Fools build and wise men occupy.' He told me they should have
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stayed in Phoenix, and he would have done much better here than he did by going to Prescott.
"Mr. Gray was in the Confederate Army. He got back home from California the year before the war broke out. He had been in California for ten years. He went there when he was six- teen years old with his brother, and then got back just in time to go into the war. He served in the war and was nine months in the prison at Alton, Illinois. He was captured at Helena, Arkansas, and then he escaped by jumping out of the cars as he was being transferred from Al- ton to Fort Delaware. There were three of them got away by jumping through the windows of the car. He got back home and stayed for three or four weeks, and then went back into the army.
"He was born in Florida in 1833. I was born
in Arkansas.
My people and his people were
real pioneers. My grandparents went to Georgia when they had to stand guard over the fields to keep the Indians off. I was born in the southern portion of Arkansas, in Union County, about twelve miles from the Louisiana line, in 1846. I was seventy years old May last, and never had good health until we came here. We were coming just for a rest, but when we saw the valley we made up our minds to settle here. The valley when we first saw it was lovely. There was grass about a foot high, and it was fine. I never had any trouble with the Indians. We never saw a wild Indian all the way across the plains; never saw an Indian until we got here and saw the Pimas and Maricopas.
"I don't remember just when it was the Mor- mons came in here at Tempe. VI-17
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HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
"I don't remember just when the Tempe Canal was started, but the Swilling Ditch was giving us water before the Tempe Canal was commenced.
"I was here when they had the contest over East Phoenix and West Phoenix, and it was set- tled by the vote of the people. The town started off at this end of the valley, and the settlers were coming in down here. Swilling was fighting for East Phoenix. His place was right over here.
"Jim Murphy, the deputy sheriff, is a son of the Murphy, who was of the firm of Murphy & Dennis, and whose wife was a Mexican woman. The little store he established was a godsend to us, as we had no merchants nearer than Wicken- burg on the one side, and Maricopa Wells on the other. When we wanted merchandise, about all the men in the valley would have to go to Wick- enburg for it, and maybe they could get a piece of bacon about a foot long, and six inches wide, for the whole settlement. I was one time with- out shoes, and Mr. Duppa was going over to Maricopa, and I asked him to bring me a pair. He brought me a pair of sixes, and at that time I wore twos. I told him they didn't fit me ex- actly, and he said that it was all he could get, and a sight better than going bare-footed.
"I don't remember the time Duppa died. I think he was alive in 1887. He was a strange character. I asked him once why he didn't go back to England. His older brother had died, and they sent for him, and he said that he couldn't go back and have to pull his hat off to people; that he would have to open up the old estate and accept all the responsibilities of a
MRS. MARY A. GRAY.
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high position over there, and that he did not want to do. Duppa would never become a citi- zen of the United States though. They sent his younger brother over after him, but he told him: 'John, you can go back and rest satisfied that I will never return.'
"At times he would go off in the mountains and stay until his hair came down to his shoulders, and sometimes when he came back he didn't look like a human. I was home once when he returned from the mountains, and he was as rough a character as you would want to see. He looked like he hadn't washed his face or combed his hair for months. He went to Maricopa and brought me back some Sonora oranges, and he had been shaved and cleaned up, and bought a new suit, and he came to the door and knocked, and when I went to the door, he be- gan by saying: 'Good morning, Ma'am,' think- ing I wouldn't know him, but I knew him by his voice. Duppa lived right over there. (Point- ing west.)
"Dr. Thibodo and his wife are both dead. Duppa got his remittances through Dr. Thibodo. Thibodo used to come down here sometimes, but toward the last he hardly ever went out of his drugstore.
"I was married in 1865, August 24th, my hus- band's full name being Columbus H. Gray and mine Mary A. Grav. My maiden name was Mary A. Norris. My brother, Coleman Norris, lives here in town. He is not doing anything now. He has two sons and a daughter. Bud Gray a half brother of my husband is dead. He
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was taken sick out at the mine and came in, and died in six weeks.
"My brother Mr. Norris came into the valley about thirty years ago. When I went back home in 1878, I brought my parents back with me. I think he came in within five years after they left. His wife came of a delicate family, and they didn't think she could live two years there, so he brought her here."
Thomas Thompson Hunter was born in Louisiana February 24th, 1844. He was reared in South Carolina; received an academic educa- tion. During the Civil War he served from the beginning to the end in a battery of General Longstreet's corps, and was mustered out at Nachitoches, Louisiana, June 26th, 1865, when he went into Western Texas and embarked in the cattle business. Learning of the natural ad- vantages of Arizona, he drove his herd across the plains, and came into what is now the Salt River Valley and Phoenix with the first herd of cattle. Upon reaching Maricopa, a few pioneers came over from the Salt River and told his party about that wonderful country where there was plenty of grass and a fine place to recruit their cattle. They changed their plans and on the first of January, 1868, entered the Salt River Valley, and pitched their camp just west of Hay- den Butte. Both the Gila and Salt Rivers were at high tide, and after crossing the Gila they lived on beef straight until the waters of the Salt subsided, when they crossed on the 16th of Feb- ruary, 1868, and found a few pioneers on the north side of the Salt River taking out the first canal from that river, known afterwards as the
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Swilling Canal. Mr. Hunter says: "The busi- ness men of the Territory were assisting the enterprise, and the Government policy at that time was to aid all infant settlements, and Fort McDowell, being thirty-five miles from us on the Verde River, helped the little settlement a great deal.
"Jack Swilling was the first settler on the canal; old man Freeman came next, then Mc- Whorter next, whose settlement was abandoned not long afterwards. Coming back from a busi- ness trip to Fort McDowell, the Indians mur- dered poor old McWhorter, as he was called. Then came Pump Handle John, and next to him was Lord Duppa and Vandermark, then myself, Hunter, and McVey, then the Irish boys, Jim Lee, Fitzgerald and Tom Conley, the Starar brothers, Jake and Andy, next, then old man Adams and family, then one-eyed Davis and Bill Bloom. Frenchy Sawyer was located some- where near the Irish boys, and built the first house erected in the valley, which consisted of four cottonwood forks set in the ground and cov- ered with mud, making a nice retreat on a hot day. While sojourning in Pima and Maricopa counties, I witnessed several incidents which are hard for me to forget. One that impressed me so much I will relate. We turned our poor cat- tle loose to hunt forage. They were compelled to range out ten to fifteen miles. It was my cus- tom to cut sign every morning, go outside of all cattle tracks among the sand hills. Occasionally the squaws would band together and go away out to procure mesquite wood. The first time I wit- nessed this sight I was out some ten or twelve
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miles. From the top of a sand hill, looking back toward the river, I saw the strange sight. I saw two hundred and fifty Indian women in a long line with their three-cornered baskets and long slick-sticks, that at first resembled a herd of cat- tle, their sticks looking like horns. The wood being reached, they began filling their baskets, and when filled they each had a good burro load. It was a sight to see them when loaded start back with their heavy burdens in a little trot peculiar to themselves. I noticed, too, what struck me so forcibly, a picket line being maintained along the crest of sand hills by the Pima warriors. They were armed with bows and arrows, and each sentinel stood with his bow slung ready to fire on the first sight of an enemy. Thus was the frontier being maintained by these naked, pov- erty-stricken, ignorant savages, the price of peace, self-preservation, the first law of nature, even among these savages. Just a little negli- gence on the part of this frontier army, and the Apache might rush upon their women and take them off to captivity and slavery. From the bottom of my heart I pitied these poor, helpless, starved people, fighting their battle of life, and making their struggle for existence in their own peculiar way. We call them savages for one thing, that they make beasts of burden out of their women, and we were taught in our child- hood days that no Christian nation ever did that. The first sign of civilization was to place our women on a level with the men. While we con- demn the Pima and Maricopa Indian slavery, we find the flower of the highest civilization on earth stationed upon the frontier in order to
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maintain the peace, while their women are in the same condition that we find the savage Indian women forty years ago.
"While we held our cattle on the Salt River plains, I was the herder. On Churchill's Addi- tion to the city of Phoenix was a low, heavy soil that I designated as the Alfileria flats. Sev- eral hundred acres were well set with alfileria, and being the first of its kind that either the cat- tle or myself had ever seen, the cattle took kindly to the new forage, and soon were as fat as butter. I would always turn the cattle loose about day- light. They would go no father than the Al- fileria flats. There they would eat their fill and lay down, and about the noon hour I would start them back to the river for water. The alfileria had begun to mature, and it seemed to me that in one night every bunch of it was covered with a large variegated colored caterpillar, and, as a consequence, the cattle would not touch it that morning, and lit out to hunt pastures new. I mounted my pony and started after them, and I had to ride hard to turn them back, as they, in a little while more, would be in the Apache coun- try. I drove them back, and it was probably the middle of the afternoon before I got them to the Alfileria flats. In examining the weed, I found out for the first time what the trouble was,
-it was the worm. Then I saw a funny sight. A long line of Indians of all kinds were coming across the flats. On my approaching near enough I discovered that they were gathering these worms and eating them raw, happy and innocent as children in a huckleberry patch. After getting their stomachs filled, the maidens
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