USA > Arizona > History of Arizona, Vol. VI > Part 18
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Early in 1873 James Stinson and his partner, Evans, located a place on Silver Creek. Dan Ming was connected with them in this enterprise. Evans had made some money by furnishing the Government with beef for the troops. He did not remain here long, he and Ming drawing out and leaving the place to Stinson. Stinson was a native of Maine. He came to Arizona in 1863, and, with others, located on Silver Creek, now Snowflake. He afterwards sold out to W. J. Flake, and moved to the Salt River Valley. Later on he left the Territory. His wife was Melissa Bagley.
Daniel H. Ming was a native of Kentucky, born in that State in 1845. He came to Arizona in 1869, piloting a herd of cattle across New Mexico to the Little Colorado River. He acted as a Government scout for some time, and dur- ing 1875 assisted in bringing in the different
J. LORENZO HUBBELL.
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bands of Apaches to the San Carlos reservation. Later he resided at Fort Thomas, where he was interested largely in cattle raising. He repre- sented Graham County twice in the Territorial Legislature. He died a few years ago.
The following interviews with early settlers in this portion of the country show the dangers and difficulties of life in this part of the Territory in those days :
J. LORENZO HUBBELL .- "Was born in Pajarrito, New Mexico, November 21st or 27th, 1853, and came to Arizona in 1871, settling at Fort Defiance on the Navajo Reservation where I established a trading store in partnership with a man by the name of Read.
"At the time I came into the country it was controlled by a lot of outlaws who would rob a man on the highway, and would enter the stores and take what they wanted. They finally killed a German on the main line to Prescott, and that started the mischief. Bill Cavanaugh was the murderer. He also went by the name of Snyder. He had a race horse and was an all round sport. At one time I ran a race with him at Fort Win- gate. At that time I was an all round athlete, a foot racer, a wrestler, a fighter, and anything that came along.
"When I came to St. Johns I asked the store- keepers why they allowed the thieves to rob them. I sent for guns and ammunition, and the fight started in St. Johns, and the first week seventeen of them were killed, and eight of our boys. J. G. H. Colter was one of us. It was a rough fight, and lasted a long time. It would die out and
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then start up again. Then the Clantons came in and we had trouble with them. When we ran them out, they came in here. One of them, Hum- phreys, married a relation of mine. He was captured but let go on account of being my rela- tive by marriage. There was quite a fuss stirred up about this matter; about our taking the law into our own hands, and they sent for the troops from Fort Apache to come and capture and ar- rest us. Captain Carter, I think, was the name of the officer in command. I stood up to him, and told him that we would not be arrested; that we were in the right, and I was prepared to look him in the eye and resist arrest. He said we were perfectly right, and he didn't arrest us. I was in St. Johns when they arrested Colter, Milligan, and some others in Springerville, and killed some of them when they had them under arrest. I didn't do any of the killing myself, but I supplied the guns and ammunition for the fighting, was, in fact, the man behind the guns. That kept on until I was elected sheriff in 1885. It would die down and then come up again.
"Finally the sheep and cattle men took up these outlaws. Colter and Milligan were cattle men, but were on our side. It was a fight be- tween the cattlemen and the sheepmen and the rustlers, but finally some of the cattlemen took up with the rustlers. We had it all settled, we thought, and were getting on peaceably, when Huhning, Tee and Smith, three of them who were elected to office by my efforts, turned around and wanted to put me out of office. They tried to put me out on account, as they put it, of absence from the Territory. I
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was on my ranch inside of the reservation, and they tried to make out that this was absence from the Territory; that was their ex- cuse. Rudd was County Judge. I refused to go out, and held the office. I was the strongest. I had the position and held it. Then it was de- cided in my favor. Then we compromised and there has been peace ever since. That war lasted years. It would flare up at times like fire. The first war was ended in two weeks. These out- laws came in from Colorado and Texas. Cava- naugh, who went by the name of Snyder, was one of their leaders. They killed Colonel Hunt, and wherever they went they left a trail of blood. In this first fight, as before stated, there were seventeen of them killed. It stayed quiet for a year, and then it flared up again. One of them was arrested here for the killing of Spencer. On the first trial he came within one of being ac- quitted, and then on the next trial he was ac- quitted. They were all outlaws, and we had to get rid of them.
"When Cleveland was first elected President, I was elected to the Territorial Senate, and was also elected to the first State Senate. I have held several public positions and my experiences in Arizona have been long and varied.
"I knew Victorio and Geronimo personally ; knew them very well. I knew Victorio particu- larly well when he came through Fort Wingate. We got them both there in the fort, but they had not broken out on the warpath then; they broke out afterwards and killed a great many people. They came to Lasa Ward and killed every one there and took one woman. She took hold
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of one of the Indians and wouldn't let go. They killed everyone else. They just made a rapid march through there. They first came in there, I think, in 1871 or 1872, and, I think, made the raid in 1879. They wanted to stay at their home at Ojos Caliente, Tularosa, New Mexico. They wanted to stay there; they belonged to the Mangus Colorado tribe, the Warm Springs Indians. I knew Cochise and Pedro, knew them well. They cap- tured Sol Barth and several others, Chavez, Cal- deron and others, and took them out and turned them loose, all naked, and the only thing they had to eat was a dog they found. They had to walk seventy-five miles to the nearest settlement, and had no guns or ammunition."
Mr. Hubbell, at this writing, is still living.
The following is given me by Prof. E. C. Bunch, Principal of the Benson Schools :
"In giving you a few reminiscences of my early days in Arizona, I write from memory, which may cause some inaccuracy in dates.
"On August 1st, 1876, in company with sev- eral families of immigrants from northwest Ar- kansas, I crossed the line from New Mexico into Arizona, about fifteen miles east of St. Johns. Our company attracted considerable attention as it was the first company of immigrants to come into the Little Colorado country with their families, livestock and household belongings, with the avowed purpose of making homes and staying in Arizona. We were told that the farming land was about all taken up, but the cat-
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tlemen were directed to unlimited fields for graz- ing, which was the main thing they desired.
"The irrigated land was distributed about as follows: Sol Barth and brothers, Morris and Nathan, claimed all the water of the Little Colo- rado below Round Valley, where the first settle- ment was made in 1870 by W. R. Milligan, Joe Mccullough, Dionicio Baca, Anthony Long, and followed within the next three years by Hum- phrey Holden Jordan, together with many Mexi- can families who did the work on the canals, raised grain and looked after the stock.
"Silver Creek was held by James Stinson, while C. E. Cooley held undisputed control of Show Low.
"Colter and Murray, who had arrived the year previous to our coming, had taken all of Nutri- oso that Mr. Jones, the first settler, would admit he did not own.
"On the Little Colorado, Milligan and Sol Barth were the leading characters of that day, each being a man of means and resourceful, hav- ing large freight outfits which were constantly on the roads. Barth's teams, some thirty wagons, three yoke of oxen to each wagon, hauled freight from Trinidad, Colorado, to the various military posts throughout Arizona and New Mexico. Af- ter 1873 Milligan's teams were employed in farm work and hauling his grain to Fort Apache, where he had extensive contracts.
"As Round Valley seemed to be the most pro- gressive settlement, and Mr. Milligan needed all the men he could find to aid him in carrying on his extensive works (having at that time both a sawmill and a grist mill under construction),
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our party decided to make Round Valley the stopping place. Thus ended a journey overland with wagons and teams, both horses and oxen, be- sides a couple of thousand head of cattle in- tended for the range, from Carroll County, Ar- kansas. We were five months on the road.
"We received a hearty welcome from the set- tlers in Round Valley. The families divided house room, aid was given to erect new houses for the new people, and we were under shelter within a week, and all the young men at work. Milli- gan, as I have stated, was a resourceful man. He had, at this time, a contract to deliver 800,000 pounds of barley at Fort Apache, at the modest price of 51/4 cents per pound. As he expected to raise all this grain, together with wheat to meet his needs for flour, you can see his farming was on no small scale. He and Anthony Long had contracts for erecting several houses for the In- dians of the White Mountain Apache band. Each house was about 14x18 feet, built of logs and roofed with dirt. The contract price was $1,600 for each building, and I was told by men on the work that it often took 'Tony' Long and six Mexicans a whole day to build one of these houses, so as to get the Indian Agent to receive it.
"The power for the grist and sawmills was furnished by an overshot wheel which was erected first at the point where his irrigating ditch emptied its water back into the river. He used this power to thresh his grain after the har- vest of 1876. I was then put in charge of the teams and sent to mill at Albuquerque. We took five wagons, three yoke of oxen to each wagon,
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and depending entirely upon the grass for feed for our oxen, made the round trip in twenty-six days, bringing back, besides flour, enough gro- ceries to stock an ordinary store.
"The one event I can never forget was the bringing in the first sawlog. It was on Sunday morning, early in October. All the men were asked to lend a hand. Two log wagons and teamsters, and all the Mexicans that could get on to the wagons, Mr. Milligan, Master Mechanic McCurren, the head sawyer N. B. George, my- self, and a number of interested neighbors, went into the canyon for logs. I am sure there were men enough to have lifted the logs onto the wagons, but we could not all get hold at once. After all manner of suggestions and trials, we finally succeeded in getting one log on each wagon, where it was securely chained and con- veyed to the mill, and during the week cut up into boards. Later the grist mill was completed, and although it would not answer the demands now, it furnished flour to the settlers and from that time to the present, the valley has known the ad- vantages of a grist mill.
"I think a tribute should be paid to many of the men who moved on at the first approach of civilization. There was old man Humphrey, who could do artistic as well as much plain swear- ing. Old man Stephens, who was an expert with a broad axe, hewing logs in competition with the sawmill; Jordan, Benton, Walker and others whose names have passed from my mind. These men were not angels, and I never dug deep into their past histories, nor inquired the names they bore before coming to Arizona, but they had big
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hearts and many good traits. Others, like Milli- gan, Baca, Long, Creagh, Colter, Murray, Franklin, Ruiz, Becker, Rudd and Martin, re- mained in Arizona, and became leading citizens.
"Harry Springer was the pioneer merchant, for whom Springerville was named, though in 1875 Julius Becker opened a small store which grew into the big store of 'Becker Brothers,' and later, into the 'Becker Commercial Company.' Gustave Becker is the man who built up this great establishment, which has extensive inter- ests in both Arizona and New Mexico.
"When I came to Arizona, Banta was here writing up the doings of men, not even sparing the military officers, whose works were, some- times, 'not in good form.' He is still here, 'kick- ing' against the trend of society, though he still believes there are greater evils abroad in the land than the 'Tango Dance,' 'Split Skirts,' or even the boys playing baseball on Sunday.
"In 1878 Sol Barth sold the water of the Little Colorado River to the Mormon people under the leadership of Amon Tenney and David K. Udall, and the real agricultural development began in the Little Colorado Country.
"In the early eighties Springerville became the center of the cattle industry, and soon ac- quired a name abroad as a real 'wild and woolly' town of Arizona, where everything went 'from the hip.' While these days were less excit- ing than those of the seventies, newspapers carried greatly exaggerated stories to the out- side world, and men became famous as 'bad men,' who were known locally as petty rustlers. The same result is seen in the case of the Indians;
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Geronimo has become the hero of Apache his- tory, because the newspapers were here to give exciting stories of his exploits, while Cochise, Nana, Victorio and Hoo (Juh), are seldom men- tioned. To me, or to any of the people scattered along the San Francisco river from Alpine to Clifton, he looks like a kid compared with Vic- torio, who killed more people from 1879 up to the date of his death than were killed altogether after his death in all the raids. Military history gives no account of the all-day fight at Alma, just over the line in New Mexico, when several promi- nent men, and dozens of poor Mexican families were butchered. Among the prominent men killed that morning, before the people could get into the fort, was Mr. Cooney, Superintendent of the mines. His body was placed in a tomb, blasted in the large rock which the Indians used to hide themselves while lying in ambush. I sup- pose it is still there as it was skillfully sealed with cement and stones. Only one man was killed inside the stockade, though a constant fire was kept up all day. Mr. Murray was shot in the arm after dark, having run into a few In- dians who had crawled up near the stockade to carry away their dead. Next morning no dead Indians were found, but it is well known that they lost several. As to which side was winner in these encounters with the pioneer settlers, it is only necessary to compare the warriors led by Victorio, estimated at from six hundred to a thousand, to the handful surrendered with Gero- nimo. Of the many who were killed by the Apaches, I can recall but few names, though they
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were well known at the time. Of those whose loss I keenly felt, owing to close associations, were Paddy Creagh, deputy sheriff, and James Richmond, who were killed on Eagle Creek while returning from Clifton and the Gila Valley where they had been to assess the property which then belonged in Apache County. An- other was Robert Benton, an old pioneer of Cali- fornia, Nevada and Arizona. During Indian uprisings he would come into town and make my cabin his home. It always gave me a feel- ing of security to have the old man around as I had learned much of his prowess and cool- ness in times of danger. It seems a strange fate that he, who had spent much time and a long life on the frontier, and fought Indians in the whole Rocky mountain region, should be killed in the very last raid of the last tribe to be subdued. Seven dead horses lying around him, many empty shells from his Winchester, and a body left unmutilated, is sufficient proof to me that the old man fought a good fight, and con- tributed in the fullest measure his share toward making Arizona a fit place for our children to live. Many of these pioneers who were married had Mexican wives, and a great majority of the families were Mexicans.
"To this day I have a kind, sympathetic feel- ing for the Mexican people, at whose hands I have seen so many deeds of mercy, such kind hospitality extended to every one in need who came amongst them. One well-known Mexican said: 'I have no concern who eats at my table, just so every one is fed.' Berrando's sign at Horse Head Crossing (now Holbrook), painted
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by an American and intended to discourage free meals, read as follows: 'If you have the money, you can eat.' Seeing the misery its enforcement caused, however, and the gloom thrown over the light hearted tourists who were trying to make Prescott from Santa Fe without a cent, he added the following line in his own way: 'No got a money, eat anyway.' "
Professor Bunch adds the following "briefs" as he terms them :
"BRIEFS.
"1. William R. Milligan was the first white man to settle in Round Valley in 1870. His irri- gating ditch covered about a thousand acres. He brought in a ten-horse power threshing machine, and built a sawmill and a grist mill.
"2. Henry Springer opened the first store and gave his name to the town.
"3. Julius Becker founded the house of Becker Brothers in 1875.
"4. Sol Barth and brothers, Morris and Nathan, were the leading men of St. Johns, doing extensive trading and stock raising in addition to a heavy freighting business.
"5. Charlie Franklin afterwards known as A. F. Banta, was 'Alcalde' or 'Jues de Paiz' and writer for various papers, not yet having established a print shop of his own.
"6. Judge Stinson raised stock and farmed on Silver Creek (now Snowflake and Taylor).
"7. C. E. Cooley farmed Show Low; sold his produce at Fort Apache, where he was a particu- lar favorite with the army officers, and his great services in Indian Affairs were acknowledged
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by General Crook in a letter which Mr. Cooley had framed and hung in his room.
"8. The first outlaws to infest the county were Mexicans. They robbed all travellers to or from Springerville and St. Johns. It was this band who robbed Colonel Brickwood at the 'lagoon' near Concho, taking his horse in ex- change for an old mule, which he rode barebacked into Milligan's Fort, a distance of thirty-five miles. I can never forget the young man's ap- pearance when he reached Milligan's. This gang went the way of all men who defy the law. "9. A second band of outlaws from Utah and Nevada established headquarters in Springer- ville in 1878, and did much killing and robbing, but failing to agree over the division of the money taken from an old German near where Holbrook now stands, a shooting took place, in which several of the gang were killed, and one, 'Snyder,' whose real name was Cavanaugh, was badly wounded. It was while I was 'sitting up' with him, attending him as nurse, that he told me the cause of the trouble within their ranks.
"Several men were killed in St. Johns in a pitched battle with the Mexicans, and the people of Springerville finished the band. Nine repose on the hillside overlooking the mill near Eager. Other bands organized and seemed to run the country for short period of time, but when the citizens decided to put a stop to such outlawry, it was done with little fuss."
JAMES G. H. COLTER.
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CHAPTER XIV.
MORE SETTLEMENTS (Continued).
INTERVIEW WITH JAMES G. H. COLTER-SET- TLES IN ROUND VALLEY-LOCATES AT NUTRI- OSO - INDIAN TROUBLES - INDUCES HENRY SPRINGER TO LOCATE IN VALLEY AND NAMES SPRINGERVILLE AFTER HIM-EXPERIENCE AS DEPUTY SHERIFF-FIGHT WITH JACK OL- NEY - SELLS OUT NUTRIOSO TO MORMONS- FIGHT WITH GERONIMO AND VICTORIO-FRED T. COLTER IN FIGHT.
JAMES G. H. COLTER, father of State Senator Fred Colter from Apache County, con- tributes the following :
"I was born in 1844 in Cumberland County, near Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. Left home and came to Wisconsin when sixteen years of age, about the year 1860; came to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and then worked for one man lumber- ing, and, when twenty years old, ran one of his camps. He was a lumber man. I then bought three hundred and twenty acres of pine timber, and went lumbering for myself. This was when I was twenty-one years of age. In 1872 I started to Arizona, and arrived in Colter, Ari- zona, or where Colter is now, where my sons still live. There were three in our party that came across the plains. We bought some horses at Atchison, Kansas, and brought three two-horse teams to Round Valley, Arizona, that I lumbered with in Wisconsin. I also brought a reaper and mower, my intention being to raise barley for
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Camp Apache. That post was created to get the Indians on the reservation.
"The first Indian trouble I saw, we were com- ing across the Navajo Reservation, one corner of it, and they, the Indians, about a hundred and fifty of them, rode in front of us and stopped us. They were Navajoes, and we thought we were gone up sure, I was driving the head team, and other teams were following, and when the In- dians stopped us, the boys said: 'We had better fire at them.' We had our guns, but I said, 'No, we better not.' We had one wagonload of pro- visions, flour, bacon, coffee and sugar, a year's provisions, and before they would let us go any further, we had to give them about half our pro- visions for toll, to get across the reservation, and we were glad to get off that easy. It was in the afternoon that this occurred. We drove all night and the next day until we tired out our horses.
"Then I took up land in Nutrioso, and with Mexican labor took out ditches and opened it up. The next Indian trouble I was at Nutrioso alone, fifteen miles from anybody. I had a log house on the farm and my horses were over there, but the other boys were in another valley. One day I looked down the valley, and saw about two hun- dred Indians coming up the valley, and I thought surely I was gone up that time. They came up to the house, but didn't seem to be on the war-
path. They wanted provisions, and I hadn't very much, and I wouldn't give them any at first. Some of them came into the house. The young bucks were very sassy, but I had my gun and six shooter in my hands. At last the young
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fellows went out of the house and the old fellows, three or four of them, came in, and then they got kind of good and I gave them some provisions. The young fellows were angry, and one young buck, he could talk good English, shook his fist at me, and said: 'You son of a bitch.' At last I gave the old man some provisions and they went on through the valley. I thought they were just going through, and started up to get some more logs for the houses. My nice harness was laying on the ground outside of the cabin, and I thought they would not come back. I went out alone and took my gun and six shooter, and at night when I came back, my fine harness was cut to pieces, and the straps and lines all gone. They had come back and cut the harness up and took all the best pieces, but they didn't take my horses; I had them up in the hills with me.
"I took out ditches and worked Mexicans, and raised a good crop of barley the first year, and threshed with sheep the first year for Camp Apache, furnished the barley to that post, and the next year I sent for a threshing machine to Atchison, Kansas, and it cost more to get it across the plains than the machine cost. Barley was eight and nine dollars a hundred at the time, to feed the cavalry horses.
"The reason I came out from Wisconsin, there was one man by the name of Moore ahead of us, and he sent word that barley was worth eight and nine dollars a hundred to feed the cavalry horses at Camp Apache, fifty-five miles from where I settled. Afterwards I bought a farm, one of the finest farms in the Little Colorado, from Mc- Cullough; the next two years I bought that farm
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from him. The country at that time was infested with Indians and desperadoes, who were as bad, if not worse, than the Indians. At that time the whole State was four counties, Apache county being a part of Yavapai. I was the one who had Apache county separated from Yavapai. Every- thing was very high at that time, and I used to haul my goods from Albuquerque to live on. I was hauling goods one time from Henry Spring- er's store in Albuquerque, and I told Henry Springer he had better come into Round Valley, as it was called then, and put in a store; that the people were coming in and we would name the postoffice and little village after him, Springer- ville, and that was old Henry Springer.
"Bowers was sheriff of Yavapai County, and I was his deputy in that part of the county; it was about three hundred and fifty miles from Prescott, and I had to assess property and collect as far as Clifton, which was the first mining camp opened up. I had to travel through Indian country all the way ; it was all Indians that day, you know. I always travelled in the night; mostly on horseback with pack animals; we would make fires to cook a little coffee, etc., and then I would put them out and move camp. When I laid down I would lay down in another place from where I had had my fire.
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