Ruins Of Old Fort BuchananRUINS OF OLD FORT BUCHANAN, DECEMBER 7, 1914ToList
RUINS OF OLD FORT BUCHANAN, DECEMBER 7, 1914ToList
Tucson's Military Plaza, it may be mentioned here, was, as stated, cleared by Company C, First United States Cavalry, and that body of troops was the only lot of soldiery that ever camped on that spot, which is now historic. In after years it was known as Camp Lowell, and that name is still applied to a fort some seven miles east of Tucson.
Captain Dean had not come with us to Arizona, having been taken ill in California and invalided home. Lieutenant Vail, or, as he was entitled to be called, Brevet-Major Vail, commanded Company C in his absence, and he had under him as fearless a set of men as could have been found anywhere in the country in those days. Vail himself was the highest type of officer—stern and unbending where discipline was concerned, and eminently courageous. Second Lieutenant Winters was a man of the same stamp, and both men became well known in the Territory within a few months after their arrival because of their numerous and successful forays against marauding Indians. Vail is alive yet, or was a short time ago.
After some weeks in Tucson, which was then a typical western town peopled by miners, assayers, surveyors, tradespeople, a stray banker or two and, last but not least by any means, gamblers, we weremoved to old Camp Grant, which was situated several hundred yards downstream from the point where the Aravaipa Creek runs into the San Pedro.
Among others whom I remember as living in Tucson or near neighborhood in 1866 were:
Henry Glassman,Tom Yerkes,Lord & Williams,Pete Kitchen,—— Tongue,The Kelsey boys,Sandy McClatchy,Green Rusk,Frank Hodge,Alex. Levin,Bob Crandall,—— Wheat,Smith Turner,"Old" Pike.
Glassman lived most of the time at Tubac. Yerkes owned the Settlers Store in Tubac. Lord and Williams owned the chief store in Tucson and were agents for the United States Mail. Pete Kitchen was at Potrero Ranch; but Pete, who was more feared by the Indians than any white man in the Territory, deserves a whole chapter to himself. Tongue was a storekeeper. Green Rusk owned a popular dance house. Hodge and Levin had a saloon. Wheat owned a saloon and afterwards a ranch near Florence. The remainder were mostly gamblers, good fellows, every one of them. "Old Pike" especially was a character whose memory is now fondly cherished by every pioneer who knew him. He could win or lose with the same perpetual joviality, but he generally won. The principal gambling game in those days was Mexican monte, played with forty cards. Poker was also played agreat deal. Keno, faro and roulette were not introduced until later, and the same may be said of pangingi, the Scandinavian game.
There were several tribes of Apaches wintering at Camp Grant the winter we went there, if I remember correctly, among them being the Tontos and Aravaipas. All of them, however, were under the authority of one chief—Old Eskiminzin, one of the most blood-thirsty and vindictive of all the old Apache leaders. The Government fed these Apaches well during the winter in return for pledges they made to keep the peace. This was due to the altruism of some mistaken gentlemen in the councils of authority in the East, who knew nothing of conditions in the Territory and who wrongly believed that the word of an Apache Indian would hold good. We, who knew the Indian, understood differently, but we were obliged to obey orders, even though these were responsible in part for the many Indian tragedies that followed.
The Apache was a curious character. By nature a nomad, by temperament a fighter, and from birth a hater of the white man, he saw nothing good in the ways of civilization except that which fed him, and he took that only as a means to an end. Often an Indian chief would solemnly swear to keep the peace with his "white brethren" for a period of months, and the next day go forth on a marauding expedition and kill as many of his beloved "brethren" as he could lay his hands on. Every deadwhite man was a feather in some Apache's headdress, for so they regarded it.
One day Chief Eskiminzin appeared with a protest from the tribes against the quality of the rations they were receiving. It was early spring and the protest, as we well knew, was merely his way of saying that the Indians were no longer dependent on what the government offered but could now hunt their own meat. Our commanding officer endeavored to placate the old chief, who went back for a conference with his men. Then he re-appeared, threw down his rations, the others doing the same, and in a few minutes the entire encampment of Apaches was in the saddle.
Some little time after they had gone Lieutenant Vail, suspecting trouble, sent a man down the trail to investigate. A few miles away was a ranch owned by a man named Israels. The scout found the ranch devastated, with Israels, his wife and family brutally slain and all the stock driven off. He reported to Vail, who headed an expedition of retaliation—the first I ever set forth on. We trailed the Indians several days, finally coming up with them and in a pitched battle killing many of them.
This was just a sample of the many similar incidents that occurred from time to time throughout the Territory. Invariably the Military attempted to find the raiders, and sometimes they were successful. But it seemed impossible to teach the Apaches their lesson, and even now there are sometimessimmerings of discontent among the surviving Apaches on their reservation. They find it difficult to believe that their day and the day of the remainder of the savage Indian race is gone forever.
It was during this stay at Fort Grant that Company C was ordered to escort the first Southern Pacific survey from Apache Pass, which was a government fort, to Sacaton, in the Pima Indian country. The route abounded with hostile Apaches and was considered extremely dangerous. I have mentioned this as the "first Southern Pacific survey," but this does not mean that there were not before that other surveys of a similar character, looking to the establishment of a transcontinental railroad route through the Territory. As early as 1851 a survey was made across Northern Arizona by Captain L. Sitgreaves, approximating nearly the present route of the Santa Fe Railway. A year or two later Lieutenant A. W. Whipple made a survey along the line of the 35th degree parallel. Still later Lieutenant J. G. Parke surveyed a line nearly on that of the Southern Pacific survey. At that time, just before the Gadsden treaty, the territory surveyed was in the republic of Mexico. These surveys were all made by order of the then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, who aroused a storm of protest in the East against his "misguided attention to the desolate West." But few statesmen and fewer of the outside public in that day possessed the prophetic vision to perceive the future greatness of what were termed the "aridwastes" of Arizona and California. This was shown by the perfect hail of protest that swept to the White House when the terms of the Gadsden Treaty, drawn up by a man who as minister to a great minor republic had had ample opportunities to study at his leisure the nature of the country and the people with whom he dealt, became known.
This Southern Pacific survey party was under the superintendence of Chief Engineer Iego—I believe that is the way he spelled his name—who was recognized as one of the foremost men in his line in the country. The size of our party, which included thirty surveyors and surveyors' helpers in addition to the soldier escort, served to deter the Indians, and we had no trouble that I remember. It is perhaps worthy of note that the railroad, as it was afterwards built—it reached Tucson in 1880—did not exactly follow the line of this survey, not touching at Sacaton. It passed a few miles south of that point, near the famous Casa Grande, where now is a considerable town.
Railroad and all other surveying then was an exceedingly hazardous job, especially in Arizona, where so many Indian massacres had already occurred and were still to occur. In fact, any kind of a venture that involved traveling, even for a short distance, whether it was a small prospecting or emigrant's outfit or whether it was a long "train on hoofs," laden with goods of the utmost value, had to be escorted by a squad of soldiers, and often by anentire company. Even thus protected, frequent and daring raids were made by the cruel and fearless savages, whose only dread seemed to be starvation and the on-coming of the white man, and who would go to any lengths to get food.
Looking back in the light of present day reasoning, I am bound to say that it would be wrong to blame the Apaches for something their savage and untutored natures could not help. Before the "paleface" came to the Territory the Indian was lord of all he surveyed, from the peaks of the mountains down to the distant line of the silvery horizon. He was monarch of the desert and could roam over his demesne without interference save from hostile tribes; and into his very being there was born naturally a spirit of freedom which the white man with all his weapons could never kill. He knew the best hunting grounds, he knew where grew excellent fodder for his horses, he knew where water ran the year around, and in the rainy season he knew where the waterholes were to be found. In his wild life there was only the religion of living, and the divinity of Freedom.
When the white man came he, too, found the fertile places, the running water and the hunting grounds, and he confiscated them in the name of a higher civilization of which the savage knew nothing and desired to know less. Could the Indian then be blamed for his overwhelming hatred of the white man? His was the inferior, the barbaric race, to besure, but could he be blamed for not believing so? His was a fight against civilization, true, and it was a losing fight as all such are bound to be, but the Indian did not know what civilization was except that it meant that he was to be robbed of his hunting grounds and stripped of his heritage of freedom. Therefore he fought tirelessly, savagely, demoniacally, the inroads of the white man into his territory. All that he knew, all that he wished to understand, was that he had been free and happy before the white man had come with his thunder-weapons, his fire-water and his mad, mad passion for yellow gold. The Indian could not understand or admit that the White was the superior, all-conquering race, and, not understanding, he became hostile and a battling demon.
So intense was the hatred of the white man among the Apaches of the period of which I speak that it was their custom to cut off the noses of any one of their women caught in illegal intercourse with a white man. This done, she was driven from her tribe, declared an outcast from her people, and frequently starved to death. I can remember many instances of this exact kind.
So intense was the hatred of the white man among the Apaches of the period of which I speak that it was their custom to cut off the noses of any one of their women caught in illegal intercourse with a white man. This done, she was driven from her tribe, declared an outcast from her people, and frequently starved to death. I can remember many instances of this exact kind.
"'Twas youth, my friend, and joyfulness besides,That made me breast the treachery of Neptune's fickle tides."
"'Twas youth, my friend, and joyfulness besides,That made me breast the treachery of Neptune's fickle tides."
When Spring came around in the year 1867 we were moved to Tubac, where we were joined by K Company of my regiment and C Company of the Thirty-Second Infantry. Tubac, considered by some to be the oldest town in Arizona, before the consummation of the Gadsden Treaty was a military post at which the republic of Mexico regularly kept a small garrison. It was situated on the Santa Cruz River, which at this point generally had considerable water in it. This was probably the reason for the establishment of the town, for water has always been the controlling factor in a settlement's progress in Arizona. The river is dry at Tubac now, however, except in unusually rainy seasons, irrigation and cattle having robbed the stream of its former volume.
At the time we were quartered there Tubac was a place of no small importance, and after Tucson and Prescott were discounted it was probably the largest settlement in the Territory. Patagonia has now taken the position formerly occupied by the old adobe town as center of the rich mining zone of Southern Arizona, and the glories of Tubac (if theycan be given that name) are, like the glories of Tombstone, gone. Unlike those of Tombstone, however, they are probably gone forever. Tombstone may yet rise from the ashes of her splendid past to a future as one of the important towns of the Southwest, if the stories of untold riches near by her are to be believed.
A little to the east of Tubac and separating that town from Patagonia is Mount Wrightson, one of the highest mountains in Arizona. Nicknamed "Old Baldy" after its famous namesake in California, this mammoth pile of rock and copper was in the old days a landmark for travelers, visible sometimes for days ahead on the wagon trails. It presaged near arrival in Tucson, for in a direct line Old Baldy is probably not further than forty miles from the Old Pueblo.
We camped at Tubac during the summer and part of the winter of 1867 and I remember that while we were there I cooked a reception banquet to Colonel Richard C. McCormick, who was then and until 1869 Governor of the Territory of Arizona. I forget his business in Tubac, but it was either an electioneering trip or one of inspection after his appointment to the office of Governor in 1866.
In the early part of 1868 we moved to Fort Buchanan, which before the war had been a military post of considerable importance. It received its name from the President before Lincoln and was garrisoned by Confederates during the Civil War. Were-built the fort and re-named it Fort Crittenden, in honor of General Thomas L. Crittenden, a son of the Hon. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, who was then in command of the military district embracing that portion of the Territory south of the Gila River. Crittenden was beautifully situated on the Sonoita, about ten miles from where I now live and in the midst of some of the most marvelously beautiful scenery to be found on the American continent. Fort Crittenden is no longer occupied and has not been for some time; but a short distance toward Benson is Fort Huachuaca, where at present a garrison of the Ninth Cavalry is quartered.
During part of 1868 I carried mail from where Calabasas is now—it was then Fort Mason—to Fort Crittenden, a proceeding emphatically not as simple as it may sound. My way lay over a mountainous part of what is now Santa Cruz county, a district which at that time, on account of the excellent fodder and water, abounded with hostile Indians.
On one occasion that I well remember I had reached the waterhole over which is now the first railroad bridge north of Patagonia, about a half mile from the present town, and had stopped there to water my horse. While the animal was drinking I struck a match to light my pipe—and instantly I ducked. A bullet whistled over my head, near enough to give me a strong premonition that a couple of inches closer would have meant my end. I seized the bridle of my horse, leaped on his back,bent low over the saddle and rode for it. I escaped, but it is positive in my mind today that if those Apaches had been better accustomed to the use of the white man's weapons I would not now be alive to tell the story.
I was a great gambler, even in those days. It was the fashion, then, to gamble. Everybody except the priests and parsons gambled, and there was a scarcity of priests and parsons in the sixties. Men would gamble their dust, and when that was gone they would gamble their worldly possessions, and when those had vanished they would gamble their clothes, and if they lost their clothes there were instances where some men even went so far as to gamble their wives! And every one of us, each day, gambled his life, so you see the whole life in the Territory in the early days was one continuous gamble. Nobody save gamblers came out there, because nobody but gamblers would take the chance.
As I have stated, I followed the natural trend. I had a name, even in those days, of being one of the most spirited gamblers in the regiment, and that meant the countryside; and I confess it today without shame, although it is some time now since I raised an ante. I remember one occasion when my talents for games of chance turned out rather peculiarly. We had gone to Calabasas to get a load of wheat from a store owned by a man named Richardson, who had been a Colonel in the volunteer service. Richardson had as manager of the storea fellow named Long, who was well known for his passion for gambling. After we had given our order we sought about for some diversion to make the time pass, and Long caught sight of the goatskin chaperejos I was wearing. He stared at them enviously for a minute and then proposed to buy them.
"They're not for sale," said I, "but if you like I'll play you for 'em."
"Done!" said Long, and put up sixteen dollars against the chaps.
Now, Long was a game sport, but that didn't make him lucky. I won his sixteen dollars and then he bet me some whiskey against the lot, and again I won. By the time I had beat him five or six times, had won a good half of the store's contents, and was proposing to play him for his share in the store itself, he cried quits. We loaded our plunder on the wagon. Near Bloxton, or where Bloxton now is, four miles west of Patagonia, we managed to upset the wagon, and half the whiskey and wheat never was retrieved. We had the wherewithal to "fix things" with the officers, however, and went unreproved, even making a tidy profit selling what stuff we had left to the soldiers.
At that time the company maintained gardens on a part of what afterwards was the Sanford Rancho, and at one time during 1868 I was gardening there with three others. The gardens were on a ranch owned by William Morgan, a discharged sergeant of our company. Morgan had one Mexicanworking for him and there were four of us from the Fort stationed there to cultivate the gardens and keep him company—more for the latter reason than the first, I believe. We took turn and turn about of one month at the Fort and one month at the gardens, which were about fourteen miles from the Fort.
One of us was Private White, of Company K. He was a mighty fine young fellow, and we all liked him. Early one morning the five of us were eating breakfast in the cabin, an illustration of which is given, and White went outside for something. Soon afterward we heard several reports, but, figuring that White had shot at some animal or other, we did not even get up from our meal. Finally came another shot, and then another, and Morgan got up and peered from the door. He gave a cry.
"Apaches!" he shouted. "They're all around! Poor White——"
It was nip-and-tuck then. For hours we kept up a steady fire at the Indians, who circled the house with blood-curdling whoops. We killed a number of them before they finally took themselves off. Then we went forth to look for White. We found our comrade lying on his back a short distance away, his eyes staring unseeingly to the sky. He was dead. We carried him to the house and discussed the situation.
"They'll come back," said Morgan, with conviction.
"Then it's up to one of us to ride to the Fort," I said.
But Morgan shook his head.
"There isn't a horse anywhere near," he said.
We had an old army mule working on the gardens and I bethought myself of him.
"There's the mule," I suggested.
My companions were silent. That mule was the slowest creature in Arizona, I firmly believed. It was as much as he could do to walk, let alone gallop.
"Somebody's got to go, or we'll all be killed," I said. "Let's draw lots."
They agreed and we found five straws, one of them shorter than the rest. These we drew, and the short one fell to me.
I look back on that desperate ride now with feelings akin to horror. Surrounded with murderous savages, with only a decrepit mule to ride and fourteen miles to go, it seemed impossible that I could get through safely. My companions said good-bye to me as though I were a scaffold victim about to be executed. But get through I did—how I do not know—and the chillingly weird war-calls of the Indians howling at me from the hills as I rode return to my ears even now with extraordinary vividness.
And, as Morgan had prophesied, the Apaches did "come back." It was a month later, and I had been transferred back to the Fort, when a nephew of Colonel Dunkelberger and William J. Osborn ofTucson were riding near Morgan's ranch. Apaches ambushed them, slew the Colonel's nephew, whose name has slipped my memory, and wounded Osborn. The latter, who was a person of considerable importance in the Territory, escaped to Morgan's ranch. An expedition of retaliation was immediately organized at the Fort and the soldiers pursued the assassins into Mexico, finally coming up with them and killing a number. I did not accompany the troops on this occasion, having been detailed to the Santa Rita range to bring in lumber to be used in building houses.
I returned from the Santa Ritas in July and found an order had been received at the Fort from the War Department that all men whose times had expired or were shortly to expire should be congregated in Tucson and from there marched to California for their discharge. A few weeks later I went to the Old Pueblo and, together with several hundred others from all parts of the Territory, was mustered out and started on the return march to Wilmington where we arrived about October 1. On the twelfth of October I was discharged.
Cady's House on the SonoitaCADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA, NEAR BLOXTON, 1914. BUILT IN 1868ToList
CADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA, NEAR BLOXTON, 1914. BUILT IN 1868ToList
After working as cook for a short time for a company that was constructing a railroad from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I moved to the latter place and obtained employment in the Old Bella Union Hotel as chef. John King was the proprietor of the Bella Union. Until Christmas eve I stayed there, and then Sergeant John Curtis, of my company, who had been working as a saddler for Banning, a capitalist in Wilmington, came back to the kitchen and said:
"John, old sport, let's go to 'Frisco."
"I haven't," I told him, "enough change to set 'em up across the street, let alone go to 'Frisco."
For answer Curtis pulled out a wallet, drew therefrom a roll of bills that amounted to about $1,000, divided the pile into two halves, laid them on the table and indicated them with his forefinger.
"John," he offered, "if you'll come with me you can put one of those piles in your pocket. What do you say?"
Inasmuch as I had had previously little opportunity to really explore San Francisco, the idea appealed to me and we shook hands on the bargain. Christmas morning, fine, cloudless and warm, found us seated on the San Jose stage. San Jose then was nearly as large a place as Tucson is now—about twenty odd thousand, if I remember rightly. The stage route carried us through the mission country now so widely exploited by the railroads. Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey were all towns on the way, Monterey being probably the largest. The country was very thinly occupied, chiefly by Spanish haciendas that had been in the country long before gold was discovered. The few and powerful owners of these estates controlled practically the entire beautiful State of California prior to '49, and at the time I write of still retaineda goodly portion of it. They grew rich and powerful, for their lands were either taken by right of conquest or by grants from the original Mexican government, and they paid no wages to their peons. These Spaniards, with the priests, however, are to be credited with whatever progress civilization made in the early days of California. They built the first passable roads, they completed rough surveys and they first discovered the wonderful fertility of the California soils. The towns they built were built solidly, with an eye to the future ravages of earthquakes and of Time, which is something the modern builder often does not do. There are in many of their pueblos old houses built by the Spaniards in the middle part of the eighteenth century which are still used and occupied.
We arrived in San Francisco a few days after our departure from Los Angeles, and before long the city had done to us what she still does to so many—had broken us on her fickle wheel of fortune. It wasn't many days before we found ourselves, our "good time" a thing of the past, "up against it."
"John," said Curtis, finally, "we're broke. We can't get no work. What'll we do?"
I thought a minute and then suggested the only alternative I could think of. "Let's get a blanket," I offered.
"Getting a blanket" was the phrase commonly in use when men meant to say that they intended to enlist. Curtis met the idea with instant approval, ifnot with acclamation, and, suiting the action to the words, we obtained a hack and drove to the Presidio, where we underwent the examination for artillerymen. Curtis passed easily and was accepted, but I, owing to a wound in my ankle received during the war, was refused.
Curtis obtained the customary three days' leave before joining his company and for that brief space we roamed about the city, finishing our "good time" with such money as Curtis had been able to raise by pawning and selling his belongings. After the three days were over we parted, Curtis to join his regiment; and since then I have neither seen nor heard of him. If he still chances to be living, my best wishes go out to him in his old age.
For some time I hung around San Francisco trying to obtain employment, without any luck. I was not then as skillful a gambler as I became in after years, and, in any case, I had no money with which to gamble. It was, I found, one thing to sit down to a monte deck at a table surrounded with people you knew, where your credit was good, and another to stake your money on a painted wheel in a great hall where nobody cared whether you won or lost.
Trying to make my little stake last as long as possible, I roomed in a cheap hotel—the old What Cheer rooming house, and ate but one "two-bit" meal a day. I was constantly on the lookout for work of some kind, but had no luck until one day as I was passing up Kearney street I saw a sign inone of the store windows calling for volunteers for the Sloop-o'-War Jamestown. After reading the notice a couple of times I decided to enlist, did so, was sent to Mare Island Navy Yard and from there boarded the Jamestown.
It was on that vessel that I performed an action that I have not since regretted, however reprehensible it may seem in the light of present-day ethics. Smallpox broke out on board and I, fearful of contracting the dread disease, planned to desert. This would probably not have been possible today, when the quarantine regulations are so strict, but in those days port authorities were seldom on the alert to prevent vessels with diseases anchoring with other shipping, especially in Mexico, in the waters of which country we were cruising.
When we reached Mazatlan I went ashore in the ordinary course of my duties as ward-room steward to do some marketing and take the officers' laundry to be washed. Instead of bringing the marketing back to the ship I sent it, together with a note telling where the laundry would be found, and saying good-bye forever to my shipmates. The note written and dispatched, I quietly "vamoosed," or, as I believe it is popularly termed in the navy now, I "went over the hill."
My primary excuse for this action was, of course, the outbreak of smallpox, which at that time and in fact until very recently, was as greatly dreaded as bubonic plague is now, and probably more.Vaccination, whatever may be its value in the prevention of the disease, had not been discovered in the sense that it is now understood and was not known at all except in the centers of medical practice in the East.
Smallpox then was a mysterious disease, and certainly a plague. Whole populations had been wiped out by it, doctors had announced that there was practically no cure for it and that its contraction meant almost certain death, and I may thus be excused for my fear of the sickness. I venture to state, moreover, that if all the men aboard the Jamestown had had the same opportunity that I was given to desert, they would have done so in a body.
My second excuse, reader, if one is necessary, is that in the days of the Jamestown and her sister ships, navy life was very different from the navy life of today, when I understand generous paymasters are even giving the jackies ice-cream with their meals. You may be entirely sure that we got nothing of the kind. Our food was bad, our quarters were worse, and the discipline was unbearably severe.
"Know thou the spell of the desert land,Where Life and Love are free?Know thou the lure the sky and sandHath for the man in me?"
"Know thou the spell of the desert land,Where Life and Love are free?Know thou the lure the sky and sandHath for the man in me?"
When I deserted from the sloop-o'-war Jamestown it was with the no uncertain knowledge that it was distinctly to my best advantage to clear out of the city of Mazatlan just as rapidly as I could, for the ships of the free and (presumably) enlightened Republic had not yet swerved altogether from the customs of the King's Navee, one of which said customs was to hang deserters at the yard-arm. Sometimes they shot them, but I do not remember that the gentlemen most concerned had any choice in the matter. At any rate, I know that it was with a distinct feeling of relief that I covered the last few yards that brought me out of the city of Mazatlan and into the open country. In theory, of course, the captain of the sloop-o'-war Jamestown could not have sent a squad of men after me with instructions to bring me back off foreign soil dead or alive, but in practice that is just what he would have done. Theory and practice have a habit of differing, especially in the actions of an irate skipper who sees one of his best ward-room stewards vanishing from his jurisdiction.
Life now opened before me with such a vista of possibilities that I felt my breath taken away. Here was I, a youth twenty-two years old, husky and sound physically, free in a foreign country which I felt an instant liking for, and no longer beholden to the Stars and Stripes for which I was quite ready to fight but not to serve in durance vile on a plague-ship. My spirit bounded at the thought of the liberty that was mine, and I struck northward out of Mazatlan with a light step and a lighter heart. At the edge of the city I paused awhile on a bluff to gaze for the last time on the Bay, on the waters of which rode quietly at anchor the vessel I had a few hours before quit so unceremoniously. There was no regret in my heart as I stood there and looked. I had no particular love for Mexico, but then I had no particular love for the sea, either, and a good deal less for the ships that sailed the sea. So I turned my back very definitely on that part of my life and set my face toward the north, where, had I known it, I was to find my destiny beneath the cloudless turquoise skies of Arizona.
When I left Mazatlan it was with the intention of walking as far as I could before stopping, or until the weight of the small bundle containing my worldly possessions tired my shoulders. But it was not to be so. Only two miles out of the city I came upon a ranch owned by two Americans, the sight of whom was very welcome to me just then. I had no idea that I should find any American ranchers in thenear neighborhood, and considered myself in luck. I found that one of the American's names was Colonel Elliot and I asked him for work. Elliot sized me up, invited me in to rest up, and on talking with him I found him to be an exceedingly congenial soul. He was an old Confederate colonel—was Elliot, but although we had served on opposite sides of the sad war of a few years back, the common bond of nationality that is always strongest beyond the confines of one's own land prevented us from feeling any aloofness toward each other on this account. To me Colonel Elliot was an American, and a mighty decent specimen of an American at that—a friend in need. And to Colonel Elliot also I was an American, and one needing assistance. We seldom spoke of our political differences, partly because our lives speedily became too full and intimate to admit of the petty exchange of divergent views, and partly because I had been a boy during the Civil War and my youthful brain had not been sufficiently mature to assimilate the manifold prejudices, likes, dislikes and opposing theories that were the heritage of nearly all those who lived during that bloody four years' war.
I have said that Colonel Elliot was a friend in need. There is an apt saying that a "friend in need is a friend indeed," and such was Colonel Elliot as I soon found. For I had not been a week at the ranch when I was struck down with smallpox, and throughout that dangerous sickness, lasting severalweeks, the old Colonel, careless of contagion, nursed me like a woman, finally bringing me back to a point where I once again had full possession of all my youthful health and vigor.
I do not just now recall the length of time I worked for Elliot and his partner, but the stay, if not long, was most decidedly pleasant. I grew to speak Spanish fluently, haunted the town of Mazatlan (from which the Jamestown had long since departed), and made as good use generally of my temporary employment as was possible. I tried hard to master the patois of the peon as well as the flowery and eloquent language of the aristocracy, for I knew well that should I at any time seek employment as overseer at a rancho either in Mexico or Arizona, a knowledge of the former would be indispensable, while a knowledge of the latter was at all times useful in Mexico, especially in the cities, where the possession of the cultured dialect marked one for special favors and secured better attention at the stores.
The Mexicans I grew to understand and like more and more the longer I knew them. I found the average Mexican gentleman a model of politeness, a Beau Brummel in dress and an artist in the use of the flowery terms with which his splendid language abounds. The peons also I came to know and understand. I found them a simple-minded, uncomplaining class, willingly accepting the burdens which were laid on them by their masters, the rich landlords; and living, loving and playing very much aschildren. They were good-hearted—these Mexicans, and hospitable to the last degree. This, indeed, is a characteristic as truly of the Mexican of today as of the period of which I speak. They would, if needs be, share their last crust with you even if you were an utter stranger, and many the time some lowly peon host of mine would insist on my occupying his rude bed whilst he and his family slept on the roof! Such warm-hearted simplicity is very agreeable, and it was a vast change from the world of the Americans, especially of the West, where the watchword was: "Every man for himsel', and the de'il tak' the hindmost." It may be remarked here that the de'il often took the foremost, too!
When I left the hospitable shelter of Colonel Elliot's home I moved to Rosario, Sinaloa, where was situated the famous Tajo mine which has made the fortunes of the Bradbury family. It was owned then by Don Luis Bradbury, senior, the same Bradbury whose son is now such a prominent figure in the social and commercial life of San Francisco and Los Angeles. I asked for work at the Bradbury mine, obtained it, and started in shoveling refuse like any other common laborer at the munificent wage of ten dollars per week, which was a little less than ten dollars more than the Mexican peons laboring at the same work obtained. I had not been working there long, however, when some suggestions I made to the engineer obtained me recognition and promotion, and at the end of a year, when Iquit, I was earning $150 per month, or nearly four times what my wage had been when I started.
And then—and then, I believe it was the spell of the Arizona plains that gripped the strings of my soul again and caused them to play a different tune.... Or was it the prospect of an exciting and more or less lawless life on the frontier that beckoned with enticing lure? I do not know. But I grew to think more and more of Arizona, the Territory in which I had reached my majority and had found my manhood; and more and more I discovered myself longing to be back shaking hands with my old friends and companions, and shaking, too, dice with Life itself. So one day saw me once more on my way to the wild and free Territory, although this time my road did not lie wholly across a burning and uninhabited desert.
It is a hard enough proposition now to get to the United States from Mazatlan, or any other point in Mexico, when the Sud Pacifico and other railroads are shattered in a dozen places and their schedules, those that have them, are dependent on the magnanimity of the various tribes of bandits that infest the routes; but at the time I write of it was harder.
To strike north overland was possible, though not to be advised, for brigands infested the cedar forests of Sinaloa and southern Sonora; and savage Yaquis, quite as much to be feared as the Apaches of further north, ravaged the desert and mountain country. I solved the difficulty finally by going to Mazatlanand shipping from that port as a deck-hand on a Dutch brigantine, which I remember because of its exceptionally vile quarters and the particularly dirty weather we ran up against on our passage up the Gulf. The Gulf of California, especially the mouth of it, has always had an evil reputation among mariners, and with justness, but I firmly believe the elements out-did themselves in ferocity on the trip I refer to.
Guaymas reached, my troubles were not over, for there was still the long Sonora desert to be crossed before the haven of Hermosillo could be reached. At last I made arrangements with a freighting outfit and went along with them. I had had a little money when I started, but both Mazatlan and Guaymas happened to be chiefly filled with cantinas and gambling-hells, and as I was not averse to frequenting either of these places of first resort to the lonely wanderer, my money-bag was considerably depleted when at last I arrived in the beautiful capital of Sonora. I was, in fact, if a few odd dollars are excepted, broke, and work was a prime necessity. Fortunately, jobs were at that time not very hard to find.
There was at that time in Hermosillo a house named the Casa Marian Para, kept by one who styled himself William Taft. The Casa Marian Para will probably be remembered in Hermosillo by old-timers now—in fact, I have my doubts that it is not still standing. It was the chief stopping-housein Sonora at that time. I obtained employment from Taft as a cook, but stayed with it only long enough to procure myself a "grub-stake," after which I "hit the grit" for Tucson, crossing the border on the Nogales trail a few days later. I arrived in Tucson in the latter part of the year 1870, and obtained work cooking for Charlie Brown and his family.
It was while I was employed as chef in the Brown household that I made—and lost, of course, a fortune. No, it wasn't a very big fortune, but it was a fortune certainly very curiously and originally made. I made it by selling ham sandwiches!
Charlie Brown owned a saloon not far from the Old Church Plaza. It was called Congress Hall, had been completed in 1868 and was one of the most popular places in town. Charlie was fast becoming a plutocrat. One night in the saloon I happened to hear a man come in and complain because there wasn't a restaurant in town that would serve him a light snack at that time of night except at outrageous prices.
"That's right," said another man near me, "if somebody would only have the sense to start a lunch-counter here the way they have them in the East he'd make all kinds of money."
The words suggested a scheme to me. The next day I saw Brown and got his permission to serve a light lunch of sandwiches and coffee in the saloon after I had finished my work at the house. Just at that time there was a big crowd in the town, the firstcattle having arrived in charge of a hungry lot of Texan cowpunchers, and everyone was making money. I set up my little lunch counter, charged seventy-five cents, or "six-bits" in the language of the West, for a lunch consisting of a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and speedily had all the customers I could handle. For forty consecutive nights I made a clear profit of over fifty dollars each night. Those sandwiches were a mint. And they were worth what I charged for them, too, for bacon, ham, coffee and the other things were 'way up, the three mentioned being fifty or sixty cents a pound for a very indifferent quality.
Sometimes I had a long line waiting to buy lunches, and all the time I ran that lunch stand I never had one "kick" at the prices or the grub offered. Those cowboys were well supplied with money, and they were more than willing to spend it. Charlie Brown was making his fortune fast.
After I quit Brown's employ, John McGee—the same man who now is secretary of the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society and a well-known resident of Tucson—hired myself and another man to do assessment work on the old Salero mine, which had been operated before the war. Our conveyance was an old ambulance owned by Lord & Williams, who, as I have said, kept the only store and the post office in Tucson. The outfit was driven by "Old Bill" Sniffen, who will doubtless be remembered by many Arizona pioneers. We picked up on the way "OldMan" Benedict, another familiar character, who kept the stage station and ranch at Sahuarita, where the Twin Buttes Railroad now has a station and branch to some mines, and where a smelter is located. We were paid ten dollars per day for our work and returned safely to Tucson.
I spoke of Lord & Williams' store just now. When in the city of Tucson recently I saw that Mr. Corbett has his tin shop where the old store and post office was once. I recognized only two other buildings as having existed in pioneer days, although there may be more. One was the old church of San Augustine and the other was part of the Orndorff Hotel, where Levin had his saloon. There were more saloons than anything else in Tucson in the old days, and the pueblo richly earned its reputation, spread broadcast all over the world, as being one of the "toughest" places on the American frontier.
Tucson was on the boom just then. Besides the first shipment of cattle, and the influx of cowboys from Texas previously mentioned, the Territorial capital had just been moved to Tucson from Prescott. It was afterwards moved back again to Prescott, and subsequently to the new town of Phoenix; but more of that later.
After successfully concluding the assessment work and returning to Tucson to be paid off by McGee I decided to move again, and this time chose Wickenburg, a little place between Phoenix and Prescott,and one of the pioneer towns of the Territory. West of Wickenburg on the Colorado River was another settlement named Ehrenberg, after a man who deserves a paragraph to himself.
Herman Ehrenberg was a civil engineer and scientist of exceptional talents who engaged in mining in the early days of Arizona following the occupation of the Territory by the Americans. He was of German birth and, coming at an early age to the United States, made his way to New Orleans, where he enlisted in the New Orleans Grays when war broke out between Mexico and Texas. After serving in the battles of Goliad and Fanning's Defeat he returned to Germany and wrote and lectured for some time on Texas and its resources. Soon after the publication of his book on Texas he returned to the United States and at St. Louis, in 1840, he joined a party crossing to Oregon. From that Territory he went to the Sandwich Islands and for some years wandered among the islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, returning to California in time to join General Fremont in the latter's attempt to free California from Mexican rule. After the Gadsden Purchase he moved to Arizona, where, after years of occupation in mining and other industries, he was killed by a Digger Indian at Dos Palmas in Southern California. The town of Ehrenberg was named after him.[1]