This is my grandfather, grandson of Jacob Hamblin
LIFE ON THE ARIZONA FRONTIER
AS LIVED BY
MR. JOE WINSOR
SON OF ABRAM WINSOR AND SARAH OLIVE HAMBLIN
JUNE 27, 1938
R. D. Box 862, Glendale, Arizona
MY FELLOW SOULCASTERS IF YOU WANT A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF A TRUE WEST ARIZONA RANGER WITH OUTLAWS, COWBOYS & INDIANS THEN READ THIS
Written For The Arizona Museum
By
Elvia R. Odom
My father left Utah in 1879, and came to a little town called Bush Valley, Arizona. There were two other families with us who had located in this place; they were Uncle Fred Hamblin and a man by the name of Bush, for whom Bush Valley was named. They call this valley Alpine now.
My grandfather, Jacob Hamblin, and a man by the name of Joe Scott, came in the wagon train that came on this colonization expedition. My grandfather had been here before, on the first exploration expedition, and when he went back to Utah he brought the colonization party.
While we were living in Bush Valley, Aunt Ellie and Uncle Ed Chesley lived with us. While we lived there my father had trouble with his eyes and he had to return to Utah for treatment. This eye trouble had been contracted when he was a soldier during the Civil War. He enlisted in the Seventh Calvary Company A at Springfield, Illinois when he was the age of 14 years.
One night while my father was away on this trip, the Apache Indians came in and stole all of our horses. There were two of us children then, and we had the whooping cough, so that is why my mother was up with us during the night. When she heard the bells ringing and the horses running, we awakened Uncle Ed and told him there was something wrong with the horses. Uncle Ed got up, and because it was a pretty moon lit night, he saw them driving the horses off down the clear little valley. The next day he followed them and met one noted horse, old Charlie, the horse Father had ridden during the Civil War, coming back. This horse was the only one they ever got back.
The first thing I can remember was when my father came to Fort Apache to put up hay for the government. There were two other men with him by the name of Morlan, Alred and Milton, who were brothers. After we were finished there, we went on to Smithville in Graham County, on the Gila River. From Smithville we went to Tombstone, then later to Fort Thomas.
I remember four or five families who were living in Smithville. They were John Nettle (Nuttle), J. K. Rogers, and Thurstons. These families were all that I now remember, although there may have been others. We lived in little brush sheds and wagon boxes.
While on our way to Fort Apache, on the Gila, a man by the name of Henderson fell in with us, and came to the Gila. This village to which we came was later called Smithville. Here, Henderson became excited about some silver mines on the Colorado, and went back to look after them. While on his way back, the Apache Indians killed him on top of the Seven Mile Hill, just south of Fort Apache at the place where he had a fight with them. We found that he had killed seven Indians before they got him. They made a bon-fire of his wagon, but took the horses. The dog was still there when his body was found, and it would hardly let anybody near him.
Mr. Barns, who wrote Barns' history, was in the party of soldiers who first discovered Mr. Henderson's body and that of the other man, just after they were killed. He mentioned this incident in his history, but he did not know who they were. I knew Mr. Henderson, as he was in my father's company when they were moving down here from Fort Apache. There were just two men in his party and they were both killed.
We went on from Smithville to Tombstone, this was in 1881. During the time while we were living in Smithville, my brother, Lon Winsor, was born in a little wagon box. When we children returned from the home of the Thurstons where we had been sent, I was told that there was a baby brother and that I could see him. I went to the bed to look when a racer lizard, which was about a foot long, darted out from the foot of the bed and frightened me so badly that my first impression was of a lizard, instead of the baby.
While we were living in Tombstone, my father hauled lumber from the Cherichuahua Mountains into Tombstone. On one of these trips, about eight miles out from Tombstone, the horse rustlers, known as the Clanton Brothers, stole all of our horses and left us afoot. Little George Adair who was working for my father at the time, went with my father into Tombstone to get help to follow the rustlers. Wayne Erp was the sheriff there then, but they refused to help Father follow the Clantons.
Why did they refuse to go after the Clantons? My father always thought they were afraid of the Clantons. He bought a buckskin mule and a bay horse, and followed them. On their way out, while on their trail one morning, they came upon the rustler's fire which was still warm, and showed we were pretty close to them. My father picked up a pipe and as he did so he made this remark, "Well, I'll take the son-of-a-bitch's pipe to him anyhow."
Early the next day, George Adair, who was riding in the lead, stopped and said, "Abe, there are a couple of fellows there under the tree, what shall we do?" "We will ride straight to them," said Father, "But don't pull your guns." They rode up to these men, who were asleep under a cedar tree. George wanted to kill them. But my father said no, because they might be innocent men.
Father spoke to them, and they jumped up with their Winchesters in their hands. They talked for a while, and in order to throw them off their guard, my father said they were hunting bulls. They used lots of bull teams in those days you know. The rustlers told my father they had better go over to their camp, which he showed them, and that they would be over after a-while. And on their way over, about a mile from where they had started, they ran onto two more fellows.
When they saw them, George said to Father, "Abe, there comes two fellows riding up through the sand wash and they have got their guns on us, what shall we do?" "We will ride right up to them, but don't pull your guns," Father answered. After they got pretty close to them, the men took their guns down. They talked with these men awhile and the men eventually invited them over to camp, and they all rode into camp together, where these men invited them to stay all night.
During supper time, when they were in camp and eating supper, one of them made the remark, "I wish this man would come in, I haven't had a smoke since I lost my pipe." They had been stationed all around in these hills where they had been guarding horses. Dad says, "I've got two pipes, I'll give you one." My father then pulled out his own pipe, and the other one, and told him to take his choice, so he picked his own pipe.
When he saw his own pipe he said, "I lost that and didn't know just where I lost it. I lost it yesterday."
During a little conversation which George and my father had held aside they agreed to pretend to be hunting oxen, just to throw the rustlers off their guard. During this time the rustlers had been stealing horses and cattle from the Mormons and driving them down to southern Arizona and selling them, then they would do the same thing in the northern part of the state, where they would take stolen live stock and sell them to the Mormons.
During this time there had been several occasions when they had been brought into court on different charges. Little George Adair had been summoned as witness against them, so some of them recognized him and told him he had better get out of there. My father decided they had better leave, and they went back to Tombstone. He soon learned it was useless to try to get any assistance in the matter of bringing these rustlers to justice, so he decided to leave Tombstone, then he decided to beat them.
He bought a pair of mules and a pair of oxen, his credit was good at every store so he bought the needed articles, loading his wagon down with beans, flour and bacon. He took George Adair's family and his own and pulled out of there. He went to Springerville which was then called Round Valley. That was where my grandfather, Mr. Jacob Hamblin, lived at the time.
Leaving his family at Springerville, he went off to Flagstaff where he worked on the railroad hauling ties and supplies. My father fell in with a fellow by the name of Ted Adams, and a man by the name of John Kenny. In the meantime, he had acquired some more teams, and Mr. Kenny was driving one of them. Ted Adams had his own team and it was loaded with dynamite, for some of the sub-contractors on the railroad.
The freighters had been having trouble getting their pay, and Father wouldn't unload until he got his money. On their way back, Father said: "We had better put this money in one of these water barrels, the rustlers are pretty bad and they are holding them up along here, every day." So they hadn't gone far, until some fellows came out from behind some pine trees and held them up. They searched my father first, took five or ten dollars away and Ted Adams the same, but when they came to John Kenny they booted him and gave his money back. John Kenny was a hare-lip and couldn't talk plain, so he said, "Well by God, if a man can't have more than two and a half, he had better get his face half soled."
When they got into camp they thought they had better see about the money in the barrel so Father said to Ted, "Let's take that barrel down and get our money out of it." When they were taking the barrel off the wagon they did not hear any money rattling. Father looked at Ted and Ted looked at Father. They shook it and listened, expecting to hear the rattling of silver pieces. Dad says to Ted, "Do you think they saw us put that money in there and they took it out last night?" They got an ax and decided to bust the barrel open, so they finally jarred the money loose, which was in about a foot of mud in the bottom of the barrel. During those days they used to have five or six fifty-gallon barrels to haul water for their horses, and they had to drive up to holes on the desert to fill them lots of times, and in this way they had accumulated a lot of mud in the bottom of the barrel. They got their money out of the mud and divided it amongst themselves, then Father paid off his men. You see, in those days, on leaving town for a journey which would take them from between forty or fifty miles between watering places, we had to have plenty of water for our mules, and in lots of places the holes would fill up after a rain. We would drive up to the water holes and fill up our barrels out of them, so that is why the mud settled so deep at the bottom of the barrel.
My father freighted there for about a year, and then came on down to Maricopa, and hauled supplies from the Maricopa Wells to Humbolt, and to the Tip-Top Mines near Globe. This MacMullen was a noted silver mine in the early days, which was being worked at the same time as the silver mine which is so well known, the Silver King. He also hauled several loads of supplies into Fort Apache from Maricopa, also to the old Pioneer Mine on the south side of the Pinals, the other side of Globe.
He went back to Springerville, got his family, came to Fort Thomas and left them there. He then started hauling coke to the O.D. (Old Dominion) Mine in Globe.
FATHER RUNS AUNT MALICIA'S BEAU
OFF WITH SIX-SHOOTERS
When the family came down to Fort Thomas from Springerville, Aunt Malicia Hamblin, Mother's sister, came with us. I remember when she was working in the home of a family by the name of Moor, and while she was there, she fell in love with a soldier. My father did not approve of this match, so he buckled on a six-shooter and went down and run the soldier off and brought Aunt Malicia home.
On one of our return trips home from Globe we found Ed Chesley, my father's old friend, who had been reported killed by the Indians, when my father drove up his twelve mule team, which he drove with a jerk line, up in front of the house. I was setting up on the driver's seat, and saw him hop off his mule and run to meet his friend, Ed Chesley. He put his arm around Ed and hugged him. He had thought he was dead all this time, and he was so glad to see him that they hugged just like two women.
When they were little kids, Aunt Malicia and Ed had been playmates, so they fell in love when they met this time at our house, and decided to get married. My father hooked up a team to a hack and took Uncle Ed and Aunt Malicia to Smithville, a little town just a little way out of Fort Thomas, where they were married. They decided to have a supper and dance in the old log schoolhouse, which they had built there. The reason I remember this so well is because I wanted to go to the dance with them and my father didn't approve it, and when I insisted, he gave me a spanking and put me to bed. He seldom did anything like that so it almost broke my heart.
While my father was freighting there, my grandfather, Jacob Hamblin, decided to move from Springerville to a little town called Williams Valley then, and later it was changed to Pleasant Valley. It was on the Frisco between Cooney Camp and Silver City. My grandfather, while on one of his trips, visited my father at Fort Thomas and persuaded him to go on into that country, which was having quite a mining boom then because they had just started up the silver mine. My father decided to move to this little town called Williams Valley so he loaded up his family and started.
We had to go by the way of Duncan, which was on the Gila River, and Carlyle, a mining camp, and during this time we were building the Narrow Gage Railroad from the Gila River to Duncan.
At this time the Apache Indians were pretty bad in this country; old Geronimo was on the rampage and the country was full of renegades, Mexican horse thieves, and Indians. My father was riding his near horse and I was riding in the wagon seat, where he had placed me and cautioned me to look out for Indians. I had to look out for him because his eyes were bad. He always had his Winchester buckled on the front of his wagon, and a pearl handled six-shooter buckled around him. I remember that old six-shooter -- so he advised me to watch for anybody riding ahead; I discovered some men who had ridden out of the road into the brush one day, and told my father about it. He unbuckled his Winchester and laid it across his lap. We drove up to those fellows and they wanted a drink of water. They got their water and sized us up, and evidently decided we were not worth holding up, so decided to let us go. A little while after we passed these fellows, a man came along riding a mule. The mule looked awfully tired, as though he had been ridden hard. After he had gone on, two men came along and asked if we had seen a man riding a mule. They talked with Father a little bit, I couldn't catch their words just exactly, but from what I could understand they left this fellow out in the brush and brought the mule back.
My father went to Williams Valley and stopped at my grandfather's house. Grandfather Hamblin's house consisted of two big log rooms and a hallway between them. We all ate at the same table where a long bench was made, and all of us children sat on the same bench. About all we had to eat most of the time was corn bread and molasses, the corn which was raised there, and ground on old man Worden's gristmill, and the molasses was made of sugar cane and ground and cooked there in big vats.
My father went to Silver City after supplies, and on this trip there was a family who wanted him to move them to Cooney Camp. Their name was Shoemaker. He moved this family from Silver City to Cooney Camp. I remember after he left Cooney Camp, Captain Cooney overtook us a little way out, and stopped my father and talked to him under a big cedar tree for a long time, two or three hours. My father took a contract to haul all the supplies and machinery to this camp, and concentrates back to Silver City. Captain Cooney owned these mines.
The Indians were awfully bad on these roads between Silver City and Cooney Camp. On one of our first trips I remember, on what is called Duck Creek Flat, my father camped. This was an awful pretty moon-lit night, and the coyotes were howling, they used to be awful to howl at night. This night I did not sleep much, for I was listening to them. Along about midnight, our horses had been hobbled out to grass; they began running, and their bells were jingling, and my father said: "Josie, there is something wrong with those horses, we will have to get up and tighten them up." We got the horses and brought them into camp and tied them up.
It was about two days journey from there to Silver City. When we got into Silver City, we learned that Judge McComis, and his family had been killed, and his little boy and little girl had been taken captive. The Apache Indians did the killing and they passed right along by our camp the night the horses were acting so excited. Many years later, this little boy became a well known scout, and he was called Apache Bob.
While we camped at the Elephant Corral in Silver City the soldiers brought the bodies in. I remember the soldiers bringing them, they had a big Government team which were four big black mules and the bodies were covered with those big blue blankets that the soldiers used then. I remember the crowds gathered around the wagons, viewing the bodies. My father loaded up his supplies and there was a man in Silver City by the name of Wheeler, who wanted to go back with us. He was running a store in Williams Valley and had been on a shopping trip. He wanted to go back to Willams Valley with us, so on the way back at this certain Duck Creek Flat, we camped along a little before sundown, and while we were camped we saw a big dust down the road. Wheeler looked at it and said to my father: "Indians are coming." Father looked and called me up and said: "Josie, can you see anything down the road?" He always relied on me, and never took much stock in anybody else. I told him: "Yes, I see something that looks like stock or cattle." But Wheeler declared he could see men and pack horses with packs on the horses. We waited a long time, until they came closer, and my father kept asking at different times what I thought of it. I said: "Dad, I think it is a bunch of cattle coming to water." Wheeler declared that one of them was a pack horse, with a pack a dragging. My father then asked, "Well Josie, what do you think of it by now?" I answered, "It looks to me like a bunch of cattle coming in, with a little calf behind a cow." When they finally came up close enough, they were a bunch of cattle.
EYES FOR HIS FATHER
Of course I didn't realize the danger during those days, but I knew by watching my father that he was always on a tension and was awfully nervous. I know that those Indians were awfully close, and we were liable to be killed at any time. We hobbled the horses out that night and went to bed. Every once in a while during the night, Father would say, "Josie, do you hear those bells?" I think along about twelve o'clock the bells got out of hearing, so we got up awfully early the next morning, and Father and I started out to hunt our horses. Wheeler said, "You ain't a going to take that kid with you, are you?" Father said: "You damned right! Any place I go, that kid goes. I wouldn't be able to find them horses if it wasn't for him." So we followed the horses about five miles down the road to where they had come back and gone in the road, and we finally got them back to the wagons, got our breakfast, harnessed them up and started on our road.
A stage driver by the name of Ladderboy came by, and my father sent word to Williams Valley to my Uncle Jake Hamblin to get some men and come out to meet him, that the Indians were pretty bad. Uncle Jake gathered up Bill Maxwell, a Navajo boy whom they had raised, and old man Maxwell. They met us on the top of Siggins Hill. My father got off his horse and pulled Uncle Jake off his, and he said, "Kid, I would rather see you than a whole regiment of soldiers, I knew you would come just as soon as you got the message!"
We went on into home and laid over a few days. During the trip we did not have an encounter with the Indians. Afterwards, Father got the contract for hauling this ore from Cooney Camp to Silver City, where they developed the mines, and with more hauling, they had to put on bigger freight outfits. During this time, Geronimo and his gang were awfully bad in this country. He had about twenty men with him then, this was in 1882 or 1883 when he was at his worst. My father kept about twenty men with him all the time and ordered them all to stay together. Some of these men who had their own teams sometimes did as they pleased, but he tried to keep them all together.
We owned a ranch half way between Cooney Camp and Silver City, on the Frisco river, and whenever he would reach this ranch he would often lay over there about two or three days, shoeing up the horses and resting. Some of the men who had their own teams would want to go on sometimes. I remember on one occasion when two of the boys from El Paso, Texas were hauling for my father and were anxious to go on, they did not lay over. My father told them they had better lay over because the Indians were awfully bad there, and they had been seen crossing Cactus Flat but they went on the next day. It being about a two day drive from Williams Valley to Cactus Flat, my father decided to start on the next day. When he arrived at Cactus Flat we found these two boys had been murdered by the Indians. They were camped down by a little wash, and they had broken a king bolt and had their wagon propped up. They were under the wagon trying to fix this, and while they were thus engaged, the Indians slipped up from the top of the ridge and shot one of them under the wagon. The other one of the boys had got out from under the wagon and run down the road a few hundred yards where he was lying in the middle of the road with his face up. They were loaded with fifty pound ore sacks and Indians had smashed their heads in with these ore sacks. My father unloaded one wagon, left some of the men to guard one outfit, loaded these men into the wagon, and took them to Williams Valley and buried them. They were the McKinzie brothers and this happened in 1886.
One time while my father was laying over at home, I herded the horses. We herded them during the day time, and brought them to a big adobe corral at night to keep them from being stolen by the Indians. One time while bringing the horses in, some of the lead horses wanted to go to a ranch called Holt's Ranch, to water. I had watered them there before, and some of them wanted to go the other way to the corral at the Fort to water. I rode out a little way to head the horses off that were going toward the Holt's Ranch, and I saw seven Indians riding down the wash not far from me so I let the horses go and got the ones that were going toward the Fort, and took them from there on into the corrals. I told my Uncle Ed Chesley that I had seen some Indians, Uncle Ed saddled up and rode back out there to see if he could see any Indians and get the horses. When he came back he reported that he couldn't see anything, and said he didn't think I had seen any Indians, but had left the horses. He thought I just didn't want to bother about getting any.
That night the Indians came down and took these horses, cut the wire fence, went into Holt's Ranch and took their saddle horses. Where they cut the wire fence they left a big knife. We had this old butcher knife with us in our mess boxes for years. They followed them but never did get their horses.
About a year after this on one of our trips up to Cooney Camp, a cowboy came along riding one of our horses that had been stolen by the Indians. And as he rode by our camp the horse threw his head up and whinnied. I heard him and told Dad that, "There goes old Sextus." My father had bought this horse from a bunch of Mormons who were going to Old Mexico, from a man by the name of Sextus, and had named him after this man. My father said to this cowboy, "I'll be up town in an hour or two with my freight team; you tie that horse up in front of the saloon and I'll get a bell out and ring it, and if that horse doesn't whinny, then he is your horse."
When my father reached the saloon, there was the horse tied up, and this cowboy had told all the men what was up, about the horse, so there was a big crowd out in front of the saloon. My father goes back in the jockey box, and taking the bell out, he rings it. Old Sextus raised his head and whinnied. The cowboy pulled his saddle off and told Father to take his horse. He said the Indians had come by and stole a lot of their horses and let this one get out. They had followed the Indians a long way, but had found the other horses all killed, and their back bones stripped of their meat, and the sinews stripped off, which they always used to wrap their bows and arrows.
On other trips I remember going into Silver City at the point of the mountain on Duck Creek Flat, we came on a merchant that had been into Silver City for supplies. He was Mr. Sobrien, and he lived in Alma on the Frisco River. We found him after he had been killed by the Indians. He had fallen off his seat, right into the wheel track, and they drove the wagon off the road a ways, and what flour and canned goods they couldn't pack away, they tore up and mashed, and they cut up what harness they couldn't use and took the horses with them. My father had to unload the wagon and take him back to Alma.
My father had a night herder and a day herder, they always traveled a few miles ahead and watched out for moccasin tracks and would always come back to give warning if they found sign of Indians being about. One of them went out on top of a mountain and found a place were it looked like the Indians had been camped for days. It was later reported that the Indians had come down to the point of this mountain to attack my father's freight teams, but they never attempted to attack him.
"What do you think was the reason they never attempted to attack his freight trains?" "They knew my father always kept his teams too close together, and they could not kill them all at once." When the bucks would return to their stronghold, the squaws would always tantalize them and tell them they were afraid to fight. I remember hearing my mother read an article which was in the newspaper, a story that had been told by a man who had been captured by Geronimo when he was a child, and who was later released. I always thought this man was Judge McComis' boy who had been captured by Geronimo, at the time his parents were murdered by Geronimo, and he was used as his servant for several years. This article in the newspaper stated that the reason why they would never attack my father's freight trains was because he had too many men, and was too well armed. They had come to the point of this mountain, and had lain there waiting behind some big malapai rocks, but they never did fire on him. Then when they would go back to camp the squaws would call them cowards and squaw men, and tell them they dare not fight.
Mr. Barber, a pioneer who's story I have written, told me about a man they called Apache Bob. He had been captured by Geronimo under exactly the circumstances you describe. He had been reared by the Apache and did not know he was a white man until one time when General Miles wanted to trade prisoners with Geronimo. He said that because Geronimo seldom ever took prisoners, he did not have enough white men to exchange for the Indian prisoners, so, although he was very fond of this white boy, he did exchange him for the Indians. "Could this have been this son of Judge McComis?"
"That is very possible."
Mr. Barber also said the government first educated this white man, taught him to speak, read, and thought that since he knew the habits and haunts of Geronimo, he was greatly instrumental in the capture of this Indian outlaw.
On one of our trips, right at the point of this mountain we found that a merchant who was loaded with merchandise, and going down from Silver City, had been killed at this place. They took all the canned goods they could, and flour, then destroyed the rest and burned the wagon.
GENERAL PERSHING IS WOUNDED
BY APACHES
On one of our trips from Cooney Camp to Silver City, we came up on some of the soldiers after they had a fight on Dry Creek Hill. There had been seven or eight of the soldiers killed. Their horses were killed and left in the road and we had to drag them off the road to get by. There were two of the soldiers badly wounded.
The soldiers had come upon the Indians just after they had killed some prospectors. They killed a few of the Indians and took some of their horses, blankets and saddles. The soldiers then came down to their camp, on Siggins Hill in Dry Creek.
The Indians followed them and then got up on a hollow place on a knoll, south of the ranch, and lay in ambush for the soldiers. It was lucky for the Indians, that morning, the soldiers started out that way. They were up on the grade of the hill, while the Indians had crawled down to the right, and hidden in big bunches of baregrass, within about eight or ten feet of where the soldiers had to pass.
When the soldiers came to this place, the Indians were watching and let them get to within eight or ten feet of where they were hiding before they started shooting. They killed the doctor first, as he was riding in the lead. They wounded one soldier and his horse fell against the bank, pinning him between the bank and the horse. The horse was later killed, and this soldier was rescued and taken to camp.
After he and two other soldiers, who had also been wounded, were rescued, they were taken back to camp to be treated, they were brought through Pleasanton. I was in this town when they were brought through that way, and I heard the one who's horse had been killed, telling the story of what had occurred at this point, which was only about seven miles from Pleasanton. He said that when his horse was wounded and fell against the bank, pinning him between the horse and the bank, a big black Indian jumped down from the bank, shot his horse, killed him, then he jerked his carbine rifle from the scabbard, and took his six-shooter off because he thought he was dead.
My Aunt Clara, who is now living in San Diego, told me she knew definitely that this wounded soldier was the man whom the world later knew as General Pershing.
There were about eight or ten families living in that Mormon town at the time. There was a man whom we called Pearson Williams, with his family. He was the man for whom the little town was first named, and for whom Williams Valley was named; but this name was later changed to Peasant Valley. There was a family by the name of Maxwell, and John Goddard, and families by the names of Worden and McClelland, and Jacob Hamblin's family lived there then.
MY WIFE'S FATHER, MR. THURSTON,
IS MURDERED BY GERONIMO
While we were living in New Mexico, during the eighties, we received word that our friend, Mr. Thurston, who had immigrated to Arizona with my father's family, had been ki
