USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 50
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Richard H. Hanna, of Santa Fé, where he located for practice in June, 1900, was born in Kankakee, Illinois, in 1878, and was educated in the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Illinois, and the University of Colorado, at Boulder, Colorado, where he pursued his law course. He is secretary to the New Mexico Bar Association, and is a capable lawyer with a large clientage. He was made a Mason in Boulder and is now senior warden of Montezuma Lodge, No. I, A. F. & A. M. He is like- wise connected with the Elks. His father, Isaac B. Hanna, who came to New Mexico from Kankakee, Illinois, in 1900, as superintendent of the United States Forest Reserve in New Mexico and Arizona, died in Janu- ary, 1905, while holding that office.
Colonel Albert J. Fountain, deceased, was for many years one of the notable figures of the bar of New Mexico. He stood fearlessly for jus- tice and wise and impartial interpretation of the laws, his thorough under- standing of the principles of jurisprudence making him one of the ablest practitioners in the Territory, while his ability caused him to be connected with much important litigation that was dramatic in its character.
Born on Staten Island, New York, in 1838, Colonel Fountain was de- scended from French Huguenot ancestors, who came to America upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His education was acquired in New York city and after completing a course in Columbia College he further broadened his knowledge by visiting Europe, India and China. He was arrested in China, together with many other Americans, but through in- tervention of the United States consul was released. He had been edu- cated for the Episcopal ministry, but gave up the idea of taking holy orders. In his youth he went to California, where he engaged in news- paper work, and in that period devoted his leisure hours to the study of law. During the progress of the Civil war he enlisted in the First Cali- fornia Volunteers at Sacramento on the 26th of August, 1862, and was made corporal of Company E. On the 5th of May, 1863, he was pro- moted to the rank of second lieutenant of Company G at Fort Craig, New Mexico, and was mustered out there with his company on the 3Ist of Au- gust, 1864.
In 1865 Colonel Fountain settled in El Paso, Texas, and the follow- ing year was elected surveyor of the Bexar district. He afterward served as probate judge and United States inspector of customs at El Paso, and was further honored with political office by election to the lower house of the Texas legislature. Following his service in that office he was chosen to the state senate, where he served from 1868 until 1874. In 1871, when partisan feeling ran very highi, an attempt was made to take his life in El Paso because of political troubles, seven shots being fired at him from an old-fashioned "pepper box" pistol, one shot striking him on the fore-
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head and one in the leg, but he was not seriously injured. While engaged in framing the laws of the state as a member of the legislature, he also engaged in the active practice of law, and was the author of the Texas ranger law. He was appointed by Governor Davis a colonel of the state rangers, and the frontiersmen of Texas presented to him a gem with gold mountings, inscribed "The frontiersmen of Texas, to their friend and defender," and he was likewise given a gold watch and chain simi- larly inscribed, a handsome cane and a six-shooter with pearl handle. To those at all familiar with the history of the southwest during its pioneer epoch it is unnecessary to state that it required men of the utmost personal bravery and of unquestioned fidelity to duty to announce and maintain a political attitude and position as Colonel Fountain did. Party feeling ran very high and there were lawless elements in the state who did not con- sider life sacred. About 1869 he was arrested at the behest of a political clique on the charge of misappropriating United States customs moneys, but on trial was acquitted and the approval of popular opinion came to him in his later election to the senate.
In 1875 Colonel Fountain removed to Mesilla, New Mexico, where he soon had a large law practice and took an active interest in political affairs and movements in the Territory as a Republican leader. He founded the Independent at Mesilla, beginning its publication June 23, 1877, with John S. Crouch and Thomas Casad as editors in collaboration with Colonel Fountain under the name of the Mesilla Valley Publishing Company. The paper vigorously opposed the organized band of cattle and horse thieves operating in Doña Ana county. In 1879 he was commissioned captain of the Mesilla scouts and took the field against Victorio, the Apache chief. In 1881 he was appointed major of cavalry, and in 1883 was ordered by Governor Sheldon to suppress lawlessness in southern New Mexico. He entered resolutely upon the task, which he accom- plished in two months. A number of the "rustlers" were killed and many others sent to the penitentiary. For this work he was presented with a service of silver plate by the citizens of Doña Ana county. Having been commissioned colonel of the First New Mexico Cavalry, he took the field against Geronimo in 1885. The following year he was elected to the New Mexico legislature and made speaker of the house of representatives. Later he was appointed special council for the United States government by President Cleveland in his first administration, and afterward was ap- pointed assistant United States district attorney by President Benjamin Harrison. In the later years of his life he was counsel for the New Mex- ico Stock Association. Thus he figured prominently in military, political and professional circles, leaving the impress of his individuality for good upon all the movements with which he was connected. He stood for reform, progress and improvement, maintaining his position fearlessly in the face of personal danger, and as the years go by and a inore unbiased judg- ment is obtained the value of his services will be more largely recognized.
Colonel Fountain was married at Mesilla, New Mexico, October 27, 1862, by Father Ruferio Donato, to Mariana Perez de Ovante, whose father was a prominent man in Mexican affairs. Mrs. Fountain still sur- vives. Their children are Albert Jennings, Mariana J., the wife of Charles Clausen ; Edward J., who was killed at Pinos Altos, New Mexico, in 1891; Maggie, the wife of Howard F. Ginon; Thomas A. J., of Mexico; John
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J., Fannie and Henry, twins, both deceased; Catarina, Henry J., who disappeared with his father in his ninth year; and two who died in in- fancy.
The mystery attending the disappearance of Colonel Fountain on Saturday, February 1, 1896, and the complications which followed form one of the most tragic incidents in the history of the Territory during re- cent years. Colonel Fountain had been employed by a number of cattle- men to prosecute cattle thieves, against whom he had waged a relentless warfare in the courts. He had been attending the March term of court in Lincoln county in the trial of cases of this character. Threats had re- peatedly been made against his life and his son, Albert J., apprehending danger, warned him not to make the trip overland in either direction. He admitted that he feared the fate that befell him, but remarked that if the cattle thieves had determined to kill him they would succeed sooner or later and he did not intend to show the white feather. On the 3Ist of March, 1896, he and his young son started overland with a team and wagon, spent the first night at Tularosa, and on the next morning resumed their journey toward Las Cruces. Their route took them over a barren plain in which are the famous white sands. Soon after leaving Tularosa Colonel Fountain found that they were being shadowed by three men. He met the mail carrier, who begged him to go back and resume the journey the next day, but he continued on his way to Chalk Hill, where the road was cut down until the banks are high. Coming out of this cut, the buggy was evidently stopped and the horses backed. The buggy was driven rapidly along the road for a short distance and turned out to the left four or five miles beyond, where it was found. The tracks of three horses either preceded or followed Colonel Fountain's team from the place where he had been stopped by the men to the place where the team was taken away by the murderers. One by one the three tracks disappeard, although at one time a horse was afterward found with blood stains upon him. The tracks led in the direction of ranches owned by Oliver Lee, and in fact were followed to within a short distance of Lee's home ranch. When the posse came up they found a herd of Lee's cattle being driven over the trail and this partly obliterated the traces left by the men who did the villainous deed, and who are supposed to have kidnapped him. Three men were indicted-Oliver Lee, James F. Gilliland and William McNew. These men had been indicted for cattle stealing. McNew, however, was never tried. Lee and Gilliland fled and remained in hiding for a year, but finally voluntarily gave themselves up. Pat Garrett, then sheriff of the county, made one unsuccessful attempt to arrest both of them on top of an adobe house on one of Lee's ranches, but they resisted and killed the dep- uty sheriff named Kearny, and the sheriff and his posse abandoned the attempt, as Garrett wanted help for the deputy, who was fatally shot. Finally both men surrendered to Judge Parker personally and were com- mitted to the Socorro jail. By a change of venue the trial was held in Sierra county before Judge Parker. The defense attempted to prove an alibi, showing that the men were at Dog Canon ranch, belonging to Lee, on the day of the capture of Colonel Fountain and his son, this ranch being a distance of fifty miles from where the murder occurred. The men were acquitted because of the lack of convincing evidence. and the bodies of Colonel Fountain and his son were never found. There have been
O.M. Foraker
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many newspaper accounts during the past ten years of a man answering the description of Colonel Fountain and a boy with him who were being held as prisoners in the mountains of Old Mexico, but no sane man places any faith in these stories. While there is no absolute evidence that they were killed, the belief is practically unanimous that they met their death at the hands of certain cattle thieves, and thus perished one of the dis- tinguished citizens of New Mexico, whose life displayed many noble traits of character and whose memory is yet enshrined in the hearts of those who stand for law and order.
A. J. Fountain of Mesilla, son of Colonel Fountain, was born at Las Lunas, New Mexico, December 6, 1863, and was educated in the public schools of El Paso and of Mesilla, attending in the latter city for a short time. He worked with his father in the printing office of the Independent published at Mesilla, and in 1880 and 1881 engaged in prospecting. In 1882 he made his first campaign in his father's company against the out- laws who rendered life and property unsafe in southern New Mexico. They chased them into Old Mexico, where the party were kept for eight days by the Mexican authorities. A. J. Fountain also served in the ter- ritorial militia until 1885. He was made captain of Company B and by re-appointment thus served until the Spanish-American war, when he re- signed the captaincy in order to meet his duty toward his family. In 1896 he was elected probate judge and has been twice re-elected, serving for three terms in that office. In 1902 and again in 1904 he was chosen by popular suffrage to the office of county school superintendent. In politics he is a stalwart Republican, inflexible in his support of the prin- ciples of the party. His religious faith is that of the Catholic church. He gives his attention to farming and stock raising and his business is care- fully, systematically, ably and successfully conducted.
A. J. Fountain was married May 12, 1883, to Teresa Garcia, a daughter of Antonio and Soledad (Bermudez) Garcia. Their living children are Albert J., Edward J., Erminda J., Eliza J., Henry J. and Cleo- tilda J. Fountain.
Creighton M. Foraker, United States marshal for the district of New Mexico, will enjoy the distinction, upon the expiration of his term, of having filled that important post longer than any other man. Mr. Foraker is possibly personally known to more people in the territory than any other citizen. He was born and reared in Highland county, Ohio, a son of Henry S. Foraker and a brother of J. B. Foraker, former governor of Ohio and for many years United States senator from that state.
Coming to New Mexico in 1882 with no more money than enough to enable him to reach his destination, he went to work in the mines in the Burro mountains and vicinity in Grant county. Two years later, with about one thousand dollars he had saved, he engaged in the cattle industry on a small scale, maintaining this business until 1903. His ranches and cattle were located in Grant county. Two years later he resumed the cat- tle business on ranches he had purchased near Engle in Sierra county. He is one of the successful cattlemen of the territory and his financial standing is owing entirely to his industry and energy, and is most credit- able, his name being an honored one on commercial paper.
Mr. Foraker has always been a stanch Republican and it is due to him to state that he enjoys great personal popularity throughout the Ter-
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ritory with people of opposing political faith as well as among those who hold views similar to his own. On the 23d of July, 1897, President Mc- Kinley commissioned him United States marshal for New Mexico and re- appointed him on the 24th of July, 1901. On the 17th of December, 1901, President Roosevelt commissioned him to the same office, and December 19, 1905. again appointed him. His record in this office has been an ex- ceptionally fine one and through his efforts and those of the men directly under his charge lawlessness in the territory. so far as it comes under the official jurisdiction of the Federal authorities, has been reduced to the minimum.
Mr. Foraker was made a member of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks at Santa Fe and is now a member of the lodge at Albuquer- que.
A. M. Bergère, who is at present, and has been clerk of the district court of the first judicial district, with headquarters at Santa Fe, since 1898, is a native of England, of Italian parentage. He came to the United States in 1872, and since 1878 has been a resident of New Mexico. For several years he was engaged in stock-raising in Valencia county, where he has always exhibited a keen interest in public affairs. He served as chairman of the board of county commissioners of that county, was as- sessor of Valencia county for two years and county treasurer six years. He has also been active in the work of the Republican central committee. He is a member of the Elks, K. of P. and Woodmen. Mr. Bergère has become widely known throughout New Mexico, and has won and retained the unqualified respect of his associates.
Charles P. Downs, clerk of the sixth judicial district of New Mexico, living in Alamogordo, is among the most highly regarded of the younger members of the southern part of the Territory. He is a native of Indiana and came to New Mexico in 1900 with the Las Vegas Record. After spending two years in Las Vegas he became connected with the Silver City Enterprise, devoting one year to that paper, after which he secured a situation on the Las Cruces Progress. On the Ist of July, 1904, he came to Alamogordo to accept the position of deputy clerk of the sixth judicial district, acting in that capacity until he succeeded Captain D. J. Leahy in the position of clerk, which is his present incumbency.
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NEW MEXICO'S INDIAN TRIBES
At the time of the first appearance of Europeans in New Mexico, this Territory was but thinly inhabited. Including the Moquis of Ari- zona and the Navajos, the total number dwelling in or roaming over the region now included in New Mexico and the northern part of Arizona did not reach 70,000. Of these about 25,000 were sedentary Indians or "pueblos." The remainder were Navajos and thin outlying bands, called Apaches, the Mansos (in the lower Rio Grande valley), the Jumados, the Utes or Yutes, the Hava-Supay or Havasupai, and other tribes of central Arizona, then included in the kingdom. The pueblos therefore constituted a minority in comparison with the wild tribes. Furthermore, they lived in groups isolated from each other; whereas, the roaming Indians per- vaded the country in every direction, harassing the pueblos, trading with them occasionally, but mostly preying upon them. Had the Navajos alone possessed any coherence in their social or military organization, they might have exterminated the pueblos in the course of a very few years.
Of the distribution and location of the sedentary Indians at the time of the conquest, Woodbury Lowery in "The Spanish Settlements" writes : "The remaining pueblo Indians (beside the Moqui) formed three linguistic groups, the Zunian, the Keresan and the Tanoan, which with the Moquis in the first half of the 16th century until the uprising against the Spaniards in 1680, were irregularly dispersed in villages at intervals of from 20 to 70 miles apart, over a territory extending from Taos in northern New Mexico as far south along Rio Grande as present location of San Mar- cial, a length of nearly 230 miles, and from east to west from about longitude 105° 30' to nearly 110° 30'. In the open desert between the villages roamed the Apaches.
The northern cluster of the Tanoan occupied a series of villages along the Rio Grande and its tributaries. The northernmost of these was Taos, the Braba of Castañeda, and southwest of it was the Pueblo of Picuries; both settlements spoke the Tigue idiom and were situated east of the Rio Grande in side valleys whose water courses are tributaries of that stream. Below them, along the river itself, were the villages of the Northern Tehuas, and below them came the villages of the southern group of Tehuas, the Tanos. The Jemes constituted the most westerly group of the Tancan : They inhabited a number of pueblos along the upper course of the river of the same name and the mesas about its headwaters lying nearly 30 miles west of Rio Grande and southeast of the present site of Santa Fé. Forty miles east of the river was the pueblo of the Pecos. The most east- erly villages of the Keresan or Queres family were scattered on the banks of the Rio Grande parallel with the Tanos and along the lower source of the Jemes, below the tribe of the same name. To them belonged the rocky
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fastness of Acoma which so impressed the early explorers, scaled only by steps cut in the side of its precipitous cliff, and where the inhabitants gathered the rain in tanks. It was the most westerly of their villages. Along the Salines and in the most fertile part of the valley of the Rio Grande below the Tueres were the southern Tiguas, the "Tiguex" of Casta- ñeda. "Seventy miles west of Acoma, clustered around the base of a mesa, now called Thunder Mount, were the celebrated '7 cities of Tibola' or Zuñi, who represented the linguistic family of the same name. Casta- ñeda has enumerated 71 villages inhabited at the time of the conquest with a population ranging from 200 souls, in the smaller towns, to 800 or 1,000 in the largest ; and Onate, who was in the same region at the close of the century, increased the number to 100."
"While these are all the town Indians of whom contemporary rec- ords remain," says Mr. Lowery, "it is improbable that they were the only ones" since ruins have been discovered in San Juan Valley and elsewhere which were probably inhabited at the time of the Spanish occupation.
Each pueblo being autonomous, and having approximately the same loose mode of government as today, a certain unsteadiness of abode pre- vailed, which caused them to abandon their villages sometimes on slight provocation, and to settle elsewhere. This changed only after the promul- gation of the so-called pueblo grants (1689). These grants are, in fact, limitations, compelling the pueblos to confine themselves to a certain speci- fied area and placing a restraint upon their innate tendency to shiftless- ness. As a general rule, no Indian tribe has ever become so sedentary as not to move its abode from time to time, none so nomadic as not to settle at times. Absolute permanence of abode lies not in Indian nature.
The first general division of the aboriginal ruins scattered over New Mexico is into two classes: Ruins of villages that were abandoned under Spanish rule, therefore occupied within the specifically historical period ; and the ruins of settlement, the occupation and the desertion of which took place previous to the sixteenth century.
The former all show clearly the so-called pueblo type of architecture, that is: the many storied large dwellings; sometimes one or two large houses forming the entire village. The round estufa frequently accom- panied this class of ruins, but in some instances it is not visible, probably because (as in some pueblos of today, like Jemez, Acoma, San Juan and Zuñi) the estufa was not subterraneous, but built in with the rooms of the dwellings. The material of construction is very much varied, accord- ing to the natural resources afforded by the sites. Thus Puaray, on the Rio Grande, was built mostly of adobe; Pecos, of stones and abode: Abo, of red sandstone rubble; Tabira, of grey limestone; and so forth. There is no uniformity, the Indian plying himself to the resources and obstacles of the site and vicinity.
The villages, the fate of which is established by Spanish documentary information, are quite numerous. Most of them (like Guypuy, on the Galisteo creek, near Wallace, Tabira, Abo, Chilili, Tajique, the villages of Zuñi plain-in part-and Ahautuyba, in the Moqui country) had been built previous to the coming of the Spaniards. Several others, like the one on the summit of the mesa of the San Felipe and one on the Potrero Viejo. near Cochiti, and several of the Zuñi towns (principally those on top of Thunder Mountain) were built and abandoned during the past two cen-
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turies. The pueblos of today are all comparatively modern. Not one of them dates (so far as their buildings are concerned) from the sixteenth century. Even Acoma is not the Acuco which Coronado saw. It was destroyed in 1599 and rebuilt soon after.
The villages and ruins antedating in abandonment the time of Span- ish discovery are the most numerous. But their number is by no means an evidence of a former large population, and, as a complement to the latter, an indication of more favorable climatological conditions in times long past. In many instances as high as twenty or more pueblos were successively (not contemporaneously ) inhabited by one and the same tribe. Their number is, therefore, but a proof of nomadic proclivities of the so- called sedentary Indian.
From their character, the pre-Spanish ruins can be divided into two classes-the small isolated house villages, and the many storied communal pueblos. The former is manifestly the older, in time of abandonment at least. The "small house ruins" are irregularly scattered throughout the territory where cultivation of the soil became possible. East of the Pecos river and east of the foothills of the high range extending from Taos to Santa Fé no ruins are found, except, perhaps, along the Canadian river. The great plains afforded no great inducement for the land-tilling aborig- mne, and they were too much exposed to inroads from nomadic Indians.
The estufa, that peculiar construction originally destined for the ex- clusive abode for the males, accompanies the small-house village in many places. Some of the best preserved specimens of the type are found at Cebolleta and near Zuñi. Sometimes as many as twenty or thirty isolated dwellings, composed of from two to ten apartments, constitute one village; again the clusters are smaller. These houses are only one-story high. Still in places a marked transition from that type to the large-house pueblo is visible in an agglomeration of numerous rooms and the superposition of an upper tier.
The small house is the type to which the so-called "cliff dwellings" belong. The only difference between the two consists in that the latter is invariably placed on rocky shelves and promontories, and in places diffi- cult of access. Cliff-houses are not very numerous in New Mexico be- cause the rocky formations that make possible this peculiarity of human abodes are localized. They appear more numerous in northern sections in the San Juan region; also in the western portions around Zuñi and north of it: and near Acoma. The northwest contains also that peculiar defensive structure, the round tower. But it is an error to admit that the circular tower is limited to a certain class of architecture or to certain regions or certain periods. Two round towers are seen at Pecos, and they are also found in the Sierra Madre and at Casas Grandes in Chihuahua.
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