USA > Arizona > History of Arizona, Vol. VIII > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
180
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
or three times before he got the second shot. This was probably a white man who had been with the Indians so long that he had forgotten his mother tongue, as all who saw the body said it was much whiter than any Indian.
"The next morning we took the trail as soon as we could see distinctly, not wishing to miss any sidings, as we were on the rolling country which we knew was the divide between the East Verde and some other stream, and we were ex- pecting the Indians to break up into small par- ties as was their custom when followed and pressed by the whites. However, this did not happen in this instance, as we had completely fooled them and put them entirely off their guard by doubling back to the Verde from the foot of the big mesa. It was very lucky the Indian the men saw on horseback the day before did not see us, or the alarm would have been spread, and we should only have got the thirty- five.
"We traveled on a trot or lope for several hours the morning of the fourth day out, through cedar and juniper timber, over mesa and rolling hills along the foot of the mountain. About ten o'clock the leaders came right on to a big ran- cheria in a big canyon, the banks of which were so high and so near perpendicular that there was no way of getting down into the canyon only by single file down a narrow trail. The Indians were getting away. I took in the situation at a glance, and saw several Indians skulking into a gulch that ran into the main gulch near their camp. I forced my horse to jump down about ten feet, where he landed on loose sloping dirt, and made across the big gulch (which was about
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES. 181
one hundred yards wide) up on to the mesa on the opposite side, and made a dash to try to head off the Indians that I had noticed going up the mouth of the small side gulch. The mountain to the west of them was so steep and bare of brush that they dare not try to climb it, and I managed to get ahead of them and shot two. One raised up in a sitting posture, and I was about to give him another shot when 'Hold on, boys,' came from the corporal. He had been right at my heels, the same as the day before. 'Hold on, boys! Don't waste your ammunition. I'll finish him wid a rock !'
"I had seen an Indian down the gulch when I jumped off to shoot the first one, and I tried to watch the banks to prevent him from escaping; I had never taken my eyes off the place where I saw him long enough for him to climb the steep bank, and the mountain was too bare for him to try that side. Several of the men had fol- lowed up the gulch on foot from the Indian camp at the mouth, and I had asked them to look care- fully, which they thought they did, but none found him. Still I would not give it up and remained in my position. Finally a young fel- low named John Bullard came in sight from among the juniper trees and stopped right above where I had lost sight of the Indian. I hailed him and told him what I had seen, and for him to get into the gulch and hunt carefully while I watched from where I stood.
"With as little delay as possible he climbed down, and pretty soon a big boulder hid him from me; then a gun went off and Bullard's head came up from behind the boulder. Then down it went again out of my sight. Then up came
182
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
the head again, and Bullard climbed up on the boulder and, holding up his right hand (from which a part of the forefinger had been shot off with the guard of his pistol a couple of years before by Indians who waylaid him while he was on his way from Townsend's ranch on the Agua Fria), he halloos to me, 'I've got even with that finger. I'm very much obliged to you, Charley.' On all the trip Bullard had not got an Indian until this one.
"I went back now to the place where the In- dians were camped, and the men had already plundered the camp, looking for valuables, and among other things they had found a buckskin sack with a lot of indigo balls in it, and that re- minded me of what my wife had sent me to Pres- cott for. I poured about a pound of them into my saddle holsters to take home with me. The men had captured several guns, a few buckskins, etc., but nothing of much value.
"In the scrap at the Indian camp Townsend had a very narrow escape from an Indian bullet. He was walking through some brush and was within a few feet of a wounded Indian who was lying behind a boulder, so that Townsend could not see him, with his rifle cocked and sighted, and if Townsend had taken one more step he would have been within range, but Providence was with him. Jeff Davis caught sight of the Indian, called out to Townsend and stopped him, and, in the same breath, finished the Indian. We got a lot of roasted mescal and some horse meat at this camp, and took up the trail again, which led to the southeast from this point through low hills and long mesas.
183
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES.
"We had traveled some three or four hours and were following a long, low grassy ridge which was skirted on the south and west by a big wide canyon which seemed to run far back into the mountain. The trail ran along the top of the ridge, which in some places was quite narrow as it wound around the head of some short gulch that ran off toward the big valley below to the east. There was quite a little rise in this ridge just before it pitched off into the large gulch to the west of us, and as the Mexican trailer rode nearly to the top of the ridge, he threw up his hand and stopped and turned his horse partly around. He had seen what he supposed were two Indians on horses going ahead of us on the same trail about six hundred yards in ad- vance. Townsend slipped up and peeked over the ridge, watched a very few moments, then turned and came back and started down a very steep gulch which we could see led to the big wash. If we could get down it with our horses we should not be in sight of the Indians until we were close to them.
"Townsend had brought the gun that came so near killing him and had several buckskins laying across his saddle upon which rested the two guns. As he passed me he started down the gulch, dropped the Indian's gun, then dumped the buckskins, and was cleared for ac- tion. I had no plunder to dispose of except the indigo, and I could not part with that, for my wife sent me after it. That was a rough gulch, but our horses were surefooted, and we landed on the level ground side by side. Here the ground was soft, sandy land, and we turned our horses loose and gave them the spur.
184
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
"The Indians were going very slowly and ap- peared to be asleep, for we were in plain sight of them for as much as three hundred yards. They were following the main trail and were crossing a grassy flat with bunches of oak brush scattered here and there. We ran our horses at full speed to within forty yards of them, and both jumped off at the same time and fired. Both of us shot the same Indian as he was nearest to us, and we could see that he had a long rifle laying across the horse in front of him. We had both noticed before we jumped off that there were two on one horse, and at the crack of my gun the nearest Indian pitched head foremost off the horse, and with him went the gun and a big quarter of horse meat that he had laying across the horse's withers.
"The other two Indians jumped off the horse they were riding, and began firing at me, as I was in the open ground and Townsend was be- hind a small bunch of grass brush and the In- dians had the horse between them and Town- send. They fired three or four shots at me, one with a Henry rifle and the other with a six shooter. I was jumping sidewise and trying to reload my rifle when Townsend got in a shot and broke the right arm of the Indian who had the rifle. Then they both started to run, keep- ing as much as possible the brush between them and us. They had run only a few steps when they ran together, and the one with the six shooter got the Henry rifle and gave the pistol to the one with the broken arm. All of this time I was trying to get a shot, but there was too much brush and they were taking advantage of it.
185
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES.
"Then we both made a dash for our horses. Townsend's horse had stood still where he left him, but mine had moved off a little way, and I suppose he did the wise thing, for if he had stood right beside me as the other horse did, he might have been shot and killed. When I ran toward the horse he became frightened and would not let me catch him. When I realized that I could not catch him readily, I started running after the Indians. Townsend had started along the side of a low hill trying to get a shot, and at the same time trying to head them off to give me a chance. The Indians kept in the wash which headed about one-quarter of a mile from where we shot the first one. Along the wash on each side was a growth of oak brush higher than a man's head, which prevented Townsend from getting a shot. Townsend was on the left of the Indians, which made it necessary for him to turn in his saddle in order to use his gun. He said if he had been on the other side he could have had plenty of shots at them.
"At the head of the gulch there was a low divide, and there the Indians separated. One ran down the gulch and the other through some brush and was out of sight, but Townsend kept in sight of the one with the rifle and followed him for something like a mile before he got a good show to shoot. Then he hit him in the back of the head and killed him instantly. When Townsend rode up to where the Indian lay he took hold of his ankle to pull him down out of some brush, and the grain of his hide slipped like he had been scalded. When I came up to Townsend he was examining the Henry rifle, and he asked me if I had seen the wounded In-
186
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
dian, which, of course, I had not. He called my attention to the way the hide had slipped on the dead Indian's leg, and while we were com- menting on it the balance of our party began to show up on the hill about half a mile back on our trail. We got up in sight and they were all soon with us. We desired to go back to the big wash that we had crossed in overtaking the Indians, to camp, as it was then about sundown and we knew there was water and feed there. On our way back I was riding next to Townsend, the other men having caught my horse and brought him along. I said, 'Townsend, why didn't you shoot when you jumped off your horse ?' His reply was, 'Why didn't you shoot ?' I said, 'I killed that big Indian all right,' and we both claimed to have shot the Indian. When we got back to where he lay, we examined the body and found the small Henry rifle hole, and the bullet must have passed through his heart, while my big Sharp's bullet had passed through right between his shoulders. We had both fired at the same time, and we both thought the other had not fired. Townsend said to me, 'How many have you killed ?' I said, 'Two yesterday and two this morning.' 'Well,' he replied, 'you count this one. That shot would have killed a big bunch if they had been in line.' 'How many have you got ?' I asked. 'Eight,' was the an- swer, 'and one gone with his right arm all shot to pieces. We will track him up in the morning and that will be nine for me.' The gun that had caused us both to shoot at the same Indian proved to be the herder's gun that was killed when the herd was taken. The horse that he
187
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES.
rode belonged to the Bowers ranch, and the other horse belonged to the late Robert Postle. It was quite a noted race horse. The whole com- mand had sat and watched Townsend and me until the first shots, then came on as fast as pos- sible.
"One of the soldiers had noticed a road leading up the mountainside across the valley some eight or ten miles away, and recognized it as a road that he had traveled several years ago, and said that it led from old Camp Reno on Tonto Creek to Green Valley. That was the first that we had an idea where we were at. From what I can learn from people who have lived in that coun- try, the creek that we were camped on is now known as Wild Rye.
"The next morning we were out as soon as we could see and tried to locate the wounded Indian. We found his track where he had crawled through the brush and skulked along for nearly half a mile, then in some way he built a signal fire and other Indians had come to him during the night and taken him away. So Town- send only counted eight for the trip. After sat- isfying ourselves that there was no show to find the wounded Indian, we took the trail and about ten o'clock struck Tonto Creek and the old wagon road before mentioned. The Indian trail led down the creek to a point below a small canyon that the road was built around. There the Indians had left the road and creek and taken to the hills again, going east. Here we halted for the first time to consult. As our horses were in very bad shape (several being entirely or par- tially barefooted) and our grub all gone, that
188
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
is, the citizens' grub, we concluded that it would be folly to go on further on the trail, and we also realized that the Indians were thoroughly roused, as we had seen smokes by day and fires by night on the mountains for the past twenty-four hours.
"Some of the party were in favor of going back and trying to get home via Camp Verde. It was also suggested by some that we might as well take our back trail. The suggestion made some merriment among the wise ones, and Town- send spoke up and said five hundred men could not get back by the way we came without losing half of them. Townsend hunted up the soldier who had recognized the wagon road the day be- fore, and learned what he could about the coun- try and the road. The soldier had been over the road but once, but he thought we were not more than a few miles from Old Camp Reno and from there there had been wagons over the Reno Mountain road. We concluded to go to McDowell, and as we began to mount our horses, Townsend remarked, 'We will have to be on our guard from now on or somebody may get hurt.' That was the most talk that he had made on the trip at any one time, and the lieutenant had not said that much so as to be heard by the citizen part of the crowd, and we all began to think he was all right. Even Jeff Davis had quit calling him 'corporal' when he had occasion to address him, and called him 'Mr. Morton.' We were halted on a mesa of a considerable extent while we were consulting about the road to take. The mesa was covered with prehistoric ruins of some kind, and they had covered many acres of ground. We had a good road until we
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES. 189
reached the old abandoned post. We passed a few miles above the post what had been a gar- den irrigated with water taken out of Tonto Creek. This was done by soldiers while the post was occupied, we afterward learned. We reached the old ruined post about noon, having traveled some twenty or twenty-five miles that morning, and had spent a considerable time hunting for the Indian with a broken arm. That Indian, building a fire with one hand was a puzzle to us all. He must have had matches.
"As we found a fine large stream or spring near the old camp we concluded to camp there that night to rest our horses. Several of the citizens had walked all the morning to favor their horses. My own horse was very lame, and the first thing that I did after reaching the camp was to hunt up the old blacksmith shop, and I found plenty of shoes that were good enough to keep a horse's foot off the ground. I also picked up quite a lot of nails, most of which had been bent, but I got enough to put a shoe onto my own horse and a lot to spare for the others. While several other men and I were hunting for the nails, we were startled by seeing some of the fellows in camp run to their horses, while others were running to camp from where they had been picking blackberries, of which there was quite a patch at this place,-the first that I had ever seen on the Pacific coast growing wild. The excitement was caused by a big cloud of dust about two miles up the McDowell road- just at the mouth of a canyon that the road passes through before it reaches the open mesa country. Our first impression was that it was
190
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
Indians coming with a band of stolen stock, as we could see nothing but the dust, and a glimpse of something moving. Only a few of us had our horses when we heard a bugle call, and the soldiers said it was a command to charge, and I guess it was, for here they came, just tearing the earth until they were within about four hun- dred yards. Then they subsided and walked their horses into camp, and none of them a bit hurt. It turned out to be a company of cavalry sent out from McDowell to kill Indians, and as our soldiers were all mounted on white horses, they were mistaken for a band of sheep, and the officer in command had the horn blown-I suppose to scare them away so they would not eat him. The officer stopped and talked a while with our men, and made a strong talk with some of the boys, trying to induce them to join him and go after the ones we had lost. He went so far as to offer to dismount some of his men and send them back to McDowell, and mount the citizens on the fresh horses. There were men in our party who would have liked to have ac- cepted the offer had it not been for the bugle. The name of this officer I do not recall, but the guide was Hi Jolly, one of the men imported to the United States with the camels which were brought to Texas in the early fifties. When the McDowell officer struck the trail of the Indians where we had left it, he took the back track- the trail that we had come to Tonto Creek by, instead of following the Indians. He was after- ward court-martialed for that. Hi Jolly made the complaint, I believe, which brought him be- fore a court-martial. Hi Jolly was a good and
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES. 191
careful guide and scout, and died a few years since at Quartzsite, Yuma County, Arizona.
"Our party slept at the Old Post that night, and we could see signal fires in every direction on the mountains. The next day we started to make McDowell. Townsend spoke to the lieu- tenant, whom we had all learned to like by this time, and told him to have his men keep close up and not get scattered as there was liable to be Indians trying to cut off any who might lag behind. It was a long rough ride over the Reno Mountains, and we were all tired after the excitement of the chase and our horses were badly fagged and sore footed. We scattered out on both sides of the road and after we came in sight of McDowell (which we could see ten or twelve miles away) I was riding on the upper side of the road and Townsend was below the road. I noticed him working his way up toward me and when he got alongside he said to me, 'Suppose they don't give us rations when we get down there,' nodding at the post, 'what shall we do ?' I replied, 'I don't know.' Says he, in an undertone, 'We will take the post,' and turned to go back to his place in the line of march. As he started off, I said, 'All right, Townsend.' I will say here that we had been living off the soldiers' rations after the third day out and had eaten everything they had the day before, except some mescal that we had found in the Indian camps.
"We didn't have to take the post, however, as the commanding officer did everything he could for our comfort-gave us good quarters for ourselves and horses, and an order for any-
192
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
thing that was in the commissary. I believe his name was Major Dudley. We rested at McDow- ell two days, then started for Prescott via Black Canyon and Townsend's Ranch, where Town- send found his family all safe and well. This woman had been staying at the ranch alone with her small children and no neighbors for several miles. The ranch is more than forty miles from Prescott and right in the heart of the Indian country, but she had dogs and guns. The lady raised a large family, and is living somewhere in this country now. The Indians killed Town- send some time after; shot him at long range, but didn't dare to go near him to get his horse. The faithful animal stayed with him several days, then went home. They found the body by back tracking the horse. Townsend had seen signs of a large party of Indians in the country, and, having no neighbors to go with him, he went after them single-handed, as he had done many times before. In all he killed thirty-five Apaches in the five years that he had lived on the Agua Fria River.
"Our party broke up next day at the Bowers ranch, having been gone eleven days and recov- ered all but fourteen head of the horses and mules stolen. The soldiers went to Camp Verde, and those of the citizens that didn't belong in the Agua Fria Valley, returned to Prescott, where we found the citizens organizing a search- ing party to go out and find and bury us. As they didn't know that we had joined issues with the soldiers, they concluded that the Indians had got us into some tight place like the Black Mesa on the East Fork of the Verde, and killed
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES. 193
us all. I got to Prescott about ten o'clock in the morning and was preparing to start that day and drive through to Skull Valley, where I had left my wife and baby nearly two weeks before to be gone only two nights, but my friends got around me and persuaded me to stay until next day as they were preparing an entertainment for me and the balance of the party. That was a day and night of great rejoicing in Prescott, it being the first time that the Indians had been followed, overtaken and severely punished by either citizens or soldiers for their crimes. It was really the beginning of a long fought battle in which the Indians got the worst of it every time. While we were at McDowell we occupied the quarters of a company of cavalry that had gone to meet General Crook, who had just come to the country, and was on a tour of inspection of its geography, which he accomplished by going to every military post before he started his cam- paign, which ended so successfully.
"When I had put my team back in Brook & Lind's stable, I walked down across the plaza, and someone introduced me to a Mr. John Dun, from Virginia City, Nevada. We talked a few minutes and he asked me to come into the store a minute (we were standing in front of Levy Bashford's store). Dun said: 'Mr. Bashford, give me that gun, if you please.' Bashford went and brought out a new Winchester rifle, one of the latest models. Mr. Dun passed the gun to me and said: 'See if that is any good. If it is, keep it.' I certainly kept it until it was burned with my house and all its contents in Salt River Valley. That act of Dun must have suggested VIII-13
194
HISTORY OF ARIZONA.
something, for the citizens of Prescott presented John Townsend with a gun just like it, with appropriately engraved plates on the stock, and also presented Lieutenant Morton with a pair of gold-mounted forty-five pistols, properly en- graved. I will say that the older officers at Verde had sent Morton out as a lark, not expect- ing him to accomplish anything, and were having a lot of fun about it at first, but when he was gone longer than he was rationed for, they be- gan to get uneasy about 'the boy' as they called him when he first left them. When he returned it was a different name he bore.
"The night's entertainment consisted, first, of a wine supper, the table being the full length of a new store that Bashford was building. In the center of the table was a row of wine baskets set end to end the whole length of the table. This wine was Hammond's Port Wine,-the first I ever saw. The first course served was wine, and then Judge Howard made a little speech, and winked with both eyes. Then we had a course of wine, then a short speech from R. C. McCormick, and another course of wine. We had short speeches and wine until most of the party went wine-ding home. The old Prescott pioneers did do things right when they started.
"The next morning, having my load all ready the night before, I started with William H. Smith and Charles Boyce for Skull Valley. Ar- riving at the Bowers station where there were several military officers sitting on the porch, I drove up alongside of the steps, and as my wife and Mrs. Bowers came down the steps, I handed my wife the holsters that I had put the indigo
195
CITIZEN EXPEDITIONS AGAINST HOSTILES.
balls in at the second fight, and said to her : 'Here is the indigo, wife. I had a h-1 of a time to get it.' The next day I got home to Peeples Val- ley, having been gone nineteen days, when it was my intention on leaving home to be away only five days. There I found John Burger suffering badly from some wounds that he had received at the hands of the Apaches on April 1st of that year, when his companion, H. Wyckoff, was killed while he and Burger were on their way from Peeples Valley to Wickenburg. Burger had three balls in his right side and was shot through the left thigh, which wound crippled him for life. The wounds were nearly all healed when I left him and he was getting around a little on crutches. When I returned the wounds in his side were badly inflamed and were full of proud flesh. One rib had been shot entirely in two and the ends of the rib were growing together nicely when I left him, but when I got the inflammation down and the proud flesh burned out of the wound, I found there were little ulcers formed on the ends of the new bone. I cut them off with my pocket knife, and with such attention as I was able to give him, Burger was out of bed and quite well in a short time. He was one of the early settlers of Phoenix, and was killed accidentally in his own mill on Hum- bug Creek.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.