The dread Apache: That early-day scourge of the SouthwestFreeman, Merrill Pingree
History
The dread Apache: That early-day scourge of the Southwest
Freeman, Merrill Pingree
Apache Indians; Apache Kid, approximately 1860-; Indians of North America -- Southwest, New
On July 3, 1885, Frank Peterson, who was carrying the United States
mail between Crittenden and Lochiel, was killed by the Indians while
returning from Lochiel to Crittenden. A sad feature in connection with
this killing was that he had just been married.
Dr. Davis Shot to Death.
On June 3, 1886, Dr. C. H. Davis, a brother of W. C. Davis, of Tucson,
coming from the San Pedro river over the pass between the Catalinas and
the Rincons, with a wagon and span of mules, was waylaid and killed by
a band of these outlaws. J. P. Hohusen and W. H. Wheaton, coming from
their homes on the San Pedro the day before, met Dr. Davis going out,
and warned him against the Indians, but having been in the country but
a short time, he failed to appreciate the danger and made light of the
warning.
It was subsequently learned that Hohusen and Wheaton narrowly escaped
this same band themselves as they were coming in to Tucson. When
Hohusen returned home he learned from his man that the Indians had been
at his place the night before the killing of Davis, and attempted to
drive off some of his horses from the pasture; but the man, seizing his
rifle, jumped into a well which was partly caved in and which naturally
furnished him an excellent defensive position, and from this he fired
at the Indians, but without apparent effect other than to force them
to leave the place. After the killing of Dr. Davis, the Indians,
taking the two mules, went to Walter Vail’s Happy Valley ranch, in the
Rincons, where they left the mules in exchange for a bunch of Vail’s
horses, shooting, but not killing, Cal Mathews, the herder. From Happy
Valley they passed south into the Whetstones, where they shot and
killed Marcus Goldbaum. Edward L. Vail, one of the party going out to
the scene of the killing, found that the Indians had been gone but a
few hours, having also killed a partner of Goldbaum as he was en route
to Benson.
Little Boy Taken From Gastelo Ranch.
It was not long prior to this that a band working back from the
Sierra Madres to the San Carlos reservation attacked the ranch of
Juan Gastelo, not over fifteen miles from Tucson, near Tanque Verde,
and carried off with them a little Mexican boy. The news coming to
town, a volunteer company was immediately formed by M. G. Samaniego
(now dead) and R. N. Leatherwood, our Bob. Samaniego, having had a
brother killed by the Apaches a few years before, was more than keen
for an opportunity to avenge his death. The volunteer company, led
by Leatherwood and Samaniego, came upon the band, encamped in the
neighborhood of Tanque Verde. The Indians, however, being alarmed by
the premature firing of a gun, scattered like a flock of quail and got
away, but the boy, escaping, was recovered by the volunteers.
On another occasion a band, killing a rancher named Lloyd, four miles
north of Pantano, stole the horses of Ed Vail and George Scholefield,
near Rosemont, and passing on south, killed a man named Wimple, near
Greaterville.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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