USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 32
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The craftiness of this archswindler is illustrated by the manner in which he enlisted the moral and financial support of men of national repute. He went to New York, lived at the best hotels in princely style for years, and lavished money like Alphonse Daudet's "Nabob." Among those whom he succeeded in bunkoing into the belief that his gigantic claim was just, or who were willing to avail themselves of his shrewdness in his attempt to convince the government of its justice, were Colonel Robert G. Inger- soll; Henry M. Porter, of the American Bank Note Company; Edwin S. Stokes, who became notorious through the killing of James Fisk as the result of a quarrel over Josie Mansfield; John W. Mackay, the San Fran- cisco millionaire; Charles Crocker, one of the principal stockholders in the Southern Pacific railway; Andrew Squires, of Cleveland, Ohio, W. E. D. Stokes, of New York, cousin of E. S. Stokes; Philip B. Thompson, Jr., Charles Reed, James A. Mahoney, L. J. Rose, John A. Benson, Hector de Castro, and other well-known men. Though not proven in the trial, it is generally believed that Roscoe Conkling, United States Senator from New York, was also imposed upon in the same manner.
In 1881 and in 1883 Reavis visited Guadalajara, Mexico. Late in 1885 he visited Spain and spent a year there completing his claim to the grant, the expenses of his trip amounting to $500 per month, being paid by John W. Mackay of San Francisco. While in Madrid he went before the Charge d' Affaires of the American Legation, and made a formal decla- ration of the fact that a woman, who up to that time had accompanied him as his ward, was in fact his wife, by virtue of a contract of marriage en- tered into with her in 1882. Upon his return to the United States he modified his form of procedure before Surveyor-General Johnson, whom he had failed to induce to make a favorable report on his claim, and amended his petition, claiming the grant not by purchase, but on the ground that his wife was the great-granddaughter of the original grantee, and the sole surviving heir to the property. According to his story, he had met his wife in 1877 or 1878 on a train near Sacramento. "She came down from Woodland," he testified, "and I was attracted to her appear- ance, her resemblance of Spanish type, and spoke to her on the train and entered into a conversation and exchanged cards before we left the train." He stated that he entered into a marriage contract with her December 31, 1882, and that this, with the formal declaration before the official of the American Legation in Spain, formed the sole marriage service uniting the two. During his conversations with her before marriage he learned, he said, that she was the heir to the vast property whose title he had been investigating for years.
Here was a state of affairs which proved of the utmost importance
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in the consideration of the case. According to his own sworn statement, knowing her to be the heir, he married her in 1882, subsequently filed his claim before Surveyor-General Johnson, therein claiming the grant by purchase, without mentioning her existence, and concealing the fact that she was his wife for nearly four years. But in 1884 he secured a license to marry a young woman in southern California, about two years subse- quent to the time he alleged he had executed a contract of marriage with the heir to the Barony of Arizonaca. When asked, on the witness stand, for an explanation of this cpisode, he said that it "was a bluff." There is no doubt that in 1884 he was still unmarried, and that he did not de- cide to marry the woman who had accompanied him to Spain as his ward until he had abandoned all hope of obtaining from the surveyor-general of Arizona a favorable report upon his claim. It is evident that he feared the surveyor-general would brand as forgeries the deeds through which he hoped to obtain possession, and that his only remaining hope was to find an heir to the estate.
Most adventurers would have abandoned the contest upon the filing of the unfavorable report upon the petition, but Reavis was made of sterner material. At no time after receiving his first setback did he relax his efforts ; but on the contrary set to work at once upon his fresh scheme.
About 1890, under the name of James Addison Peralta Reavis, he filed in the United States Court of Claims at Washington, a suit against the United States, asking for $10,000,000 damages on account of the injury he had suffered through the illegal disposition, on the part of the govern- ment, of lands within his grant. Soon afterward-on March 3, 1891-Con- gress established the Court of Private Land Claims, giving it sole author- ity for the final settlement of all Spanish and Mexican grants in that por- tion of the United States which was once a part of Mexico. In the mean- time, after filing his claim, Reavis continued with renewed vigor his efforts to forge-literally-an unbroken chain of evidence in proof of the justice of his demands. Visiting the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1892, he began the manufacture of evidence in his behalf which soon enabled him to come before the court with evidences of the validity of the grant which for a time misled some of the best lawyers of America into believing that he would have no trouble in substantiating his title to the property. In February, 1893, he filed in the newly organized Court of Private Land Claims a petition asking that the grant be confirmed to him and his wife- not the grant that he had originally manufactured, but an almost entirely new product of his tremendous, tireless ingenuity. The claim, summarized, was substantially this: First, that Reavis' wife, Doña Sofia Loreto Micaela de Peralta Reavis, neé Maso, y Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba, was the great-granddaughter of Don Miguel Nemecio Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba y Garcia de Carrillo de la Falces, a Spanish gen- tleman of noble birth and distinction, holding under the royal authority of Spain the titles of Grandee of Spain, Sir Knight of the Redlands, Baron of Arizona, Gentleman of the King's Chamber with privileged entrance, Captain of Dragoons, Aid-de-Camp and Ensign of the Royal House, Sir Knight of the Military Orders of the Golden Fleece of St. Mary of Montesa, and of the Royal and distinguished orders of Carlos III, and of the Insignia and Fellowship of the Royal College of Our Lady of Guadalupe-and many other titles.
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Further, his petition claimed that Don Miguel, being in the confi- dence of the King of Spain, Philip V., in the year 1742, was made a royal inspector and business agent of the city of Cadiz, Spain, and sent by the king as such to the interior provinces of the vice-royalty of New Spain ( Mexico), with secret instructions and authority for the investi- gation of certain grievances affecting the royal revenues; and that so successfully did he execute this important mission that the king, by de- cree or otherwise, "declared his purpose to have selected and located to him," the Barony of Arizona, or some other land or property. It was
further claimed that not only did King Philip V., in 1744, confer this grant upon the "Baron of Arizona," or "Arizonaca," but that Ferdinand VI., in 1748, affirmed the same grant; that in 1758 actual possession was de- livered to Don Miguel; and that in 1778 all these proceedings were con- firmed by King Carlos III. The claim also stated that the grant was to contain three hundred square Spanish leagues, or 19,200,000,000 varas of land situated in the northern part of the vice-royalty of Spain, and to be of such form as not to interfere with previous concessions; that it was to include all of the lands, waters and currents, and all of the minerals, and everything appertaining to the lands; that the originals of the confirma- tory decrees have always been in the proper achives of Spain and Mexico; that the action of the Inquisition of Mexico on October 10, 1757, specific- ally designated the proposed location of the grant; that on January 3, 1758, the viceroy of Mexico ordered possession to be given to the newly- created baron ; that an act of juridical possession of May 13, 1758, re- cited that said act corresponded with the map etched upon a monumental rock in the centre of the west boundary line of the grant, lying at the eastern base of Maricopa mountain, and of the nobility, primogeniture, state and emoluments of said baron, and of the legitimacy, nobility and primogeniture of his son, Jesus Miguel Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba y Sanchez de Bonilla -- the second Baron of Arizona-by his wife, Doña Sofia Ave Maria Sanchez de Bonilla y Amaya; that by a codicil to his will, dated January 13, 1788, the first Baron devised to his son, Jesus Miguel, all the property known as the Barony of Arizona; that on Feb- ruary 1, 1824, the first Baron died in Guadalajara, leaving his wife and son, Jesus Miguel, the latter being his only heir, and that his will and codicil were admitted to probate in the city of Guadalajara, after which the executors administered the estate, including the Barony of Arizona.
Coming down to the second Baron of Arizona, Don Jesus, the claim was made that on May 1, 1822, in the city of Guadalajara, he was mar- ried to Doña Juana Laura Ybarra y Escobeda, and that this couple was survived by one child, a daughter, Doña Sofia Laura Micaela Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba de Sanchez e Ybarra de Escobeda, who was born in 1832 at Cumpas Sonora: that she married Don Jose Ramon Carmen Maso y Castello of Cadiz, Spain, in 1860, and that on March 4, 1862, there were born to them twins. male and female, the first born of whom became the wife of Reavis. The birth of this great-granddaughter of the first baron is alleged to have occurred at the Bandini ranch at Agua Mansa. near San Bernardino, California, while Don Jose, commonly known as Jose Maso, and his wife and mother and father-in-law, and an American friend named John A. Treadway, were on their way to San Francisco. It was alleged that these infants were baptized at the old
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church of San Salvador, the god-parents being the maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother, and Louis Roubidoux and his wife, Flavia Castillo, and that the mother and the male twin died a few days later. The records of this church contain what purport to be entries of the baptism and burial. The remainder of the party continued on to San Francisco, remaining in that city several months, and forming the ac- quaintance of a number of persons who afterward testified to facts show- ing their sojourn in that city. In July, 1862, Doña Carmelita Maso, Jose Maso's mother, and a nurse named Tomasa, accompanied Treadway to the Sherwood valley in Mendocino county, California. Maso soon after- ward visited Spain for the purpose of obtaining from the Spanish gov- ernment a sum of money alleged to be due him and his father-in-law. He was followed a few months later by his father-in-law; but before the latter departed it was claimed that he made a will in San Francisco, to which he added a codicil after his arrival in Spain, leaving all his prop- erty to his infant granddaughter. Both men died in Spain a few years later.
About two years after the arrival of the Maso party in California, Treadway, who had been acting as guardian for the alleged infant heiress, went to Sacramento, where he is believed to have died. About 1867 the girl's grandmother died also. A year later the nurse, Tomasa, died, leav- ing the child in the custody of Alfred E. Sherwood, in whose house she had been since 1862. In 1860 Sherwood, being unable to provide for her education, gave her to John W. Snowball of Knight's Landing, who reared and educated her. From 1876 to the year of her alleged marriage by contract with Reavis, she resided with various persons, being a member of the household of John D. Stevens of Woodland in 1882, the year which marks her association with Reavis, according to his story.
These facts, or allegations, are an epitome of the statement which formed a part of the monstrous claim which Reavis and his wife placed before the Land Court at Santa Fé. Reavis presented a mass of evidence in proof of these facts which appeared to be conclusive. Nothing ap- peared to be lacking. There were certified copies of the contents of four books of record alleged to have been found in the Mexican and Spanish archives at Guadalajara, all properly attested, covering the allegations re- ferred to as incidents of fact transpiring between 1742 and 1778. The genealogy of the mythical first Baron of Arizona was traced back for cen- turies in Spain, and there was apparently indubitable evidence of his hav- ing had conferred upon him all the titles and properties necessary to es- tablish the right of his heirs to the same. All that appeared to be lacking was proof that the woman whom Reavis claimed as his wife was of the same identity as the great-granddaughter of Don Miguel Nemecio, the first Baron.
A brain as crafty and fertile as that of this prince of impostors, after having invented the barony, the royal decrees, the wills, the proceedings before the probate courts and a long line of noble ancestry-after having carried these generations down through a century and a half, accounting for nearly every year of their lives, naturally would not neglect to make the climax of all his duplicity as strong and as convincing as possible. Nor did he. In the month of May, 1893, soon after he had filed his peti- tion, he secured in Los Angeles and San Francisco depositions which
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appeared to prove the identity of his wife. So impregnable did the case appear that his principal counsel, a lawyer of national repute, said that nothing remained to make it unassailable before the court. So sure did his lawyer feel that after completing the taking of depositions at San Francisco he returned to the east without going to Los Angeles, leaving the labor of taking the necessary depositions in that city to his client. There Reavis produced a witness to the birth of the twins, the man who had prepared the grave and assisted at the burial of the mother and in- fant son, and enough others to prove the various changes of residence and custody of the surviving child, the co-claimant. Practically every fact of importance for a period of twenty years in her life was apparently sub- stantiated by the statements of persons who passed through most search- ing cross-examinations at the hands of an able lawyer. Few cases of perfect merit submitted to the high courts of the land have been accom- panied by evidence of such an indubitable character. Not only were the masses of thinking people who had followed the case because of the per- sonal interest in its outcome convinced of the justice of this monstrous claim, butt many lawyers in high standing expressed doubts as to the ability of the Federal government to withstand the contention. The in- terest of the people of New Mexico and Arizona was naturally the most profound, for upon the outcome of the proceeding depended the title to a tract of land having an area of nearly 12,500,000 acres, or nearly 20,000 square miles. This tract was of rectangular form, 236 miles in length, from east to west, and nearly 80 miles broad. Its western boundary was a line west of Phoenix, Arizona, and its eastern boundary reached Silver City, New Mexico.
In the trial of the case at Santa Fe the government was represented by Matt. G. Reynolds, United States attorney for the Land Court, as chief counsel. He was assisted by Severo Mallet-Prevost, of New York, who afterward became secretary of the Venezuela Boundary commission; Levi A. Hughes of Santa Fe, and Will M. Tipton, special agent of the Land Court. Able lawyers of New Mexico agree that to Mr. Hughes and Mr. Tipton, who secured most of the evidence to support the government's contention of fraud, the greater credit for the successful issue should at- tach. It is doubtful if the astounding attempt of Reavis could have been circumvented without perfect proof of his forgeries-and Mr. Hughes and Mr. Tipton furnished the proof. J. T. Kinney appeared in behalf of Reavis and his wife.
Summers Burkhart of Albuquerque, assistant United States attorney, participated in the defense. The bench was composed of Joseph R. Reed, Chief Justice, and Associate Justices Thomas C. Fuller, William W. Mur- ray, Wilbur F. Stone and Henry C. Sluss.
Following the beginning of the action by Reavis and his wife, the chief attorney for the government sent agents to every point where it was believed that any evidence regarding the monstrous allegations of the claimants might be found. These agents not only visited many points in America, but also Spain and Mexico. The result of their research, which it at first was feared would prove futile, was the revelation of facts as astounding as the claim itself. Under them Reavis' scheme collapsed like a house of cards. Severo Mallet-Prevost and Mr. Hughes investigated matters in California and Mexico. The former also made two trips to
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Spain. He ascertained that the will of the second Baron of Arizona, in the records in Madrid, was a forgery; that no such person as Don Miguel Nemecio Silva de Peralta had ever been a member of the Orders of the Golden Fleece, Charles III and Montesa; that while Reavis was in Spain in 1886 he had been detected in the act of attempting to introduce into the archives in Seville forged papers relating to the grant, and had fled from Spain before he could be apprehended; that legal proceedings had been instituted to determine the validity of the documents, which the government officially branded as spurious; and that the criminal records of that country branded the claimant as a fugitive from justice. Upon examining the archives at Guadalajara it was first found by Mr. Tipton that the language used in some of the decrees was not good Spanish, and that some of the statements made were not historically consistent. For example, in the cedula or decree, of 1742, reference was made to the com- mandant-general of the internal provinces of New Spain; but history shows that those provinces did not become a political subdivision of the vice-royalty until 1776, and there was no such officer as a commandant- general until the latter year. In a decree of 1758 there was found a ref- erence to the judicio de conciliacion, a proceeding unknown in Spanish court procedure until after the adoption of the constitution of 1812.
These discrepancies at once excited doubts as to the authenticity of the documents in toto, and further critical examination furnished further grounds for the suspicions aroused. A fact that created still further doubts and resulted in renewed vigilance on the part of the government's investigators was the fact that Reavis, having learned of the intention to send a Spanish and graphological expert to Guadalajara, wrote Don Man- uel Cordero, one of the chief officials in charge there, urging him not to permit the representatives of the government to inspect the originals. Mr. Tipton, in an account of this investigation,* says :
"The cedula of 1742, appointing the Baron of Arizona a royal in- spector, was found in a manuscript book of cedulas of over 500 pages, which had been arranged and bound in 1766. The cedula in question was upon two leaves, on the second of which three words bore evidence of having been written over other words which had been erased. These words were visitador, inspector, Baron, baron, and Arisonaca, Arizona. The first leaf was in a single handwriting and contained no such changes. Much study was given to this document, and the results were these: The first leaf was a forgery throughout, having been skillfully interpolated for a genuine leaf which had been as skillfully removed. The second leaf was genuine, excepting the three changed words. The problem was to decipher the words originally written under these. After a prolonged study, this was accomplished. The word virrey, viceroy, had originally been written in place of visitador, inspector ; conde, count, had been written under Baron, baron; while Fuenclara, the same in English, had occupied the space covered by Arizonaca, Arizona. The riddle was solved. The cedula claimed by Reavis to show the appointment of the Baron of Arizona as inspector of New Spain, had been in its original form a cedula advising the city of Guadalajara of the fact that the King had appointed the Count of Fuenclara as Viceroy of New Spain.
*Published in the "Land of Sunshine" (now "Out West"), Los Angeles, February and March issues, 1898.
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"The study of the other three books gave similar results. The book showing the genealogy of the first Baron of Arizona consisted of thirty- eight leaves, the first and two last being genuine, except where an attempt had been made on the latter to change, in the notary's certificate, the words stating the number of leaves of which the instrument was composed. Between leaves I and 37, thirty-five leaves of solidly forged matter, show- ing the noble descent and purity of blood of Mrs. Reavis' great-grand- father had been interpolated. In the notorial certificate on the last page, a pen stroke had been drawn across several words, and the words treinta y ocho, thirty-eight (the number of leaves in the book), had been changed from their original form. When deciphered they were found to have been ciento sesenta y nueve, one hundred and sixty-nine. So this genuine cer- tificate had originally been attached to some genuine document containing that number of leaves, and it had been altered by the forger to make it agree with the number contained in the spurious document to which he attached it.
"The book of proceedings relating to the probate of the will of the first Baron was at first sight somewhat puzzling, because much of it was genuine ; but it took but a few days to separate the genuine from the forged portions. There was no mention of the Baron of Arizona, either by name or by any one of his numerous titles, in any genuine part of it. This was also true with regard to every other document in the archives purporting to relate to the grant.
"The last book was one of parchment containing copies of various cedulas, and depending for its authenticity on the signature appearing on the last page, of Urbano Antonio Ballesteros, a royal notary. The genuine signatures of this officer were numerous in the archives, and the scientific comparison of the signature in question with these, quickly demonstrated that it was a bungling forgery."
It is evident that these forgeries formed the weakest link in the other- wise strong chain of evidence which Reavis had forged in substantiation of his claim. The work of Mr. Tipton was, therefore, the chief factor in bringing the whole fabric to the ground. The work Reavis accomplished was truly remarkable when it is known that during the entire quarter of a century that he devoted to what he believed to be an impregnable fortress of evidence in behalf of his stupendous fraudulent claim he found not a single genuine document relating to Peralta or a Peralta grant tinder any name whatever. Yet as Mr. Tipton says: "To one skilled in the study of forged writing it is hard to believe that he could have expected his so- called original documents to withstand the test of examination at the hands of a competent graphologist."
Although the investigations of Mr. Tipton in themselves might have been sufficient to bring the cause of Reavis tumbling to the ground, the government left no stone unturned. Mr. Hughes was sent to California to make an inquiry into the truth of the story outlined in the depositions taken in California in behalf of the claimants. After months of arduous labor, during which he more than once almost abandoned hope of success, he finally discovered that the manuscript records of the ancient church of San Salvador had been mutilated by the removal of entire leaves and the substitution of others containing forged entries regarding the baptism of the Maso twins and the death of the mother and the infant son. From
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Louis Roubidoux and his wife, the alleged god-parents of these twins, he obtained a denial of all knowledge of the occurrence on their part. He ascertained that the sworn statements by which Reavis hoped to establish the identity of his wife as the lineal descendant of the alleged first baron were perjuries, and that, with one exception, the remaining witnesses to the lives of the fraudulent heiress were nothing but creatures of this wonderful swindler. The exception was John A. Treadway. From compe- tent witnesses he secured the final link in the chain of evidence which the government sought-that Reavis's wife was the daughter of Treadway by an Indian woman with whom he lived in Sherwood valley. He found the man who buried Treadway on November 21, 1861-more than six months before the time when it was alleged that he had brought to Sher- wood valley Maso's infant daughter.
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