Traveling Over Forgotten Trails

IMPROVEMENT ERA Vol. XXV JULY, 1922 No. 9 Traveling Over Forgotten Trails By President Anthony W. Ivins On the Trail of the Mormon Battalion This is not a story of the Mormon Battalion. The mustering in of the five hundred men who made up this detachment of United States soldiers, their remarkable march across a con- tinent, said to be the longest ever made by an army composed exclusively of infantry, the difficulties encountered and over- come, the suffering endured, and heroism displayed are matters of history. This is a story of the trail over which they marched; the purpose of its telling being to connect that trail with existing landmarks, that the ground hallowed by the feet of these valiant men be not forgotten. Roads made by men thread the world. We pass over them now on bands of steel, in luxurious motor cars, or through the air. Only yesterday these roads were trails, blazed by intrepid, fearless men, through unknown forests, across trackless deserts, and over snow-clad mountains. The lure of gold, ambition of conquest, the uncontrollable desire of man to go on to unexplored fields for new discovery, the devotion of a Jesuit Priest, or Friar of the order of San Francisco, to carry the cross to the unbelieving heathen, re- gardless of the sacrifice involved, each played its part in blazing the trail over which the Mormon Battalion marched. The romance and tragedy of that trail will never be told. On it men perished from thirst, were massacred by savages, fought and killed one another for the precious fluid contained in its water holes, and murdered for the gold which had been gathered from the hills through which it passed. Young men and maidens plighted their love and faith as they traveled over it, mothers gave birth to children, and holy men gave their lives

768 IMPROVEMENT ERA for religion's sake. Who can tell the story as time and fate have recorded it? In 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez sailed away from Spain, his destination being Florida, where he hoped to discover the foun- tain of perpetual youth, for which the ill-fated Ponce de Leon had searched in vain. He reached his destination but ill for- tune pursued him until but four members of his expedition remained. These men, of whom one was a negro, Esteben, in the hope they might reach Mexico, turned their faces westward, and after a long period of infinite toil and suffering, under the Old Pigeon Ranch, on Santa Fe Trail, near Santa Fe. New Mexico. ^Wf*»t«fc«*-::-. Old Pigeon Ranch, on the Santa Fe Trail. It was at this ranch that the important battle of Glorietta was fought between Federal and Confederate troops, 1862. M. Valle, the Mexican owner of the ranch, hurried to Santa Fe and made the following report of the battle: "Goovermen mans vas at my ranch and fill his cahnteen viz mi visky, and goovernment mans nevare pay me for zat visky. Texas mans coom up an soorpriz aem man zey foight six hour by my vach, an my vach vas silow." leadership of Cabeza de Vaca, reached the Pacific coast at a point in what is now the state of Sonora, in Mexico. Sonora, and the territory now known as Arizona, was at that time called Papagueria, the name being derived from the Papago Indians who occupied the country. As they crossed the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions came in contact withj many different Indian tribes. As usual they made inquiry for gold and were told by Indians that thirty days' travel to the north there lived a numerous people, who occupied

TRAVELING OVER FORGOTTEN TRAILS 769 The Old San Miguel Church at Santa Fe, built about 1540. Religious services were held in this church nearly a century before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. houses of stone, and possessed great wealth. They governed seven cities, which were called the seven cities of Cibola. When the exaggerated report of the wealth possessed by the Indians of the north reached Antonio de Mendoza, the Spanish Viceroy, at Mexico, the latter ordered an expedition sent to Cibola to spy out the land. Marcos de Niza, a Friar of the church, was placed in charge of the expedition, and Esteben, the negro, was sent as guide. Niza led his party north from Sonora to the San Pedro river, near the present town of Naco, Arizona, and followed down that stream to near its junction with the Gila. Here Esteben left the expedition and hurried on. He reached Cibola, supposed tobethe present Zuni, where he was killed by the Indians. Upon hear- ing of his fate, Father Marcos, on the 9th of May, took possession of the San Pedro and surrounding country in the name of the King of Spain, and returned to Sonora. This first expedition into what is now Sonora, resulted in the establishment, at a later date, of the Missions of Guavavi, Tumacacori and San Xavier del Bac. In 1540 Coronado headed an expedition having for its purpose the seven cities of Cibola. He effected the subjugation of the Indians of New Mexico as far north as Zuni, but his expectations were not realized, for he found no gold. The city of Santa Fe was founded in 1605, and the Spaniard

770 IMPROVEMENT ERA held possession of the territory which constitutes the present state of New Mexico, until 1680, when the Indians, under the Leadership of the chief Popi besieged and captured Santa Fe, put all of the Spaniards, including the priests, to death, and held New Mexico for a period of thirteen years, defeating many ex- peditions sent against them. The final conquest was effected by Diego de Vargas, in 1693. Thus it will be seen that more than one hundred years before the Declaration of Independence was framed, cities were built by the Spaniards in what is now a part of the United States. The mines of New Mexico and Arizona were developed, and roads were constructed connecting these outposts with the City of Mexico and the port of Vera Cruz, from which point all foreign supplies were obtained. A main road, known as the Camino Real, The Royal Road, or King's Highway, was constructed from Santa Fe to Vera Cruz, a distance cf about two thousand miles. Over these roads trains of mules and donkeys passed carrying their heavy packs the entire distance. Long trains of two-wheeled ox carts creaked and screamed, as they slowly moved onward, to their destination. Where the road was crooked, or through hilly country, the writer has often heard the creaking of these carts on their un- greased axels, long before the train came in sight. This main road pas?ed down the Rio Grande from Santa Fe Mexican Ox Team, and Cnrrcla. Jf ith these carts, often drawn by Twelve oxen, merchandise was hauled from Mexico City to Santa Fe when the site of New York was still a wilderness.

TRAVELING OVER FORGOTTEN TRAILS 771 to Albuquerque, Paso del Norte, Chihuahua, and on to the City of Mexico. In 1806 Lieut. Zebulon Pike, of the 6th U. S. Infantry, was sent to explore the western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. At a point in what is now Colorado, near the present town of Alamosa, he was met by Lieut. Salcedo, from the garrison of Santa Fe, who placed him under arrest, and took, him to that city. He was sent from there to Chihuahua, where he was de- tained for a^ number of months. It was one year from the time he left his home in the United States before he finally was re- leased and permitted to return. In the report made by Lieut. Pike he says it requires five months to make the trip from Santa Fe to Mexico and return, and urges that trade be established between the United States and northern Mexico. He also devotes considerable space to a The Battalion passed by many homes like this as they marched down the valley of the Rio Grande. discussion of the methods employed by the people of the Rio Grande Valley in the application of artificial irrigation, as he observed it. In 1811, an organized effort was made to open up trade between Missouri River points and Santa Fe, but the promoters were arrested and some of them kept in jail for a period of ten years. In 1821 another effort was made, and the following year a road was opened from Independence, Mo., to Santa Fe, and wagons loaded with merchandise taken to the latter point. Trade grew until in 1843 it amounted to about one million dollars. The road over which this trade was carried was known as the

772 IMPROVEMENT ERA Santa Fe trail. It led through a country infested with the most war-like of our plains Indians as well as white and Mexican out- laws, and many tragedies were enacted along its course. Some of the expeditions which left the Missouri river were entirely lost. Their fate, and the mystery of their disappearance, will never be known. While the Spaniards were effecting the conquest and colo- nization of New Mexico their countrymen were pressing north from Sonora into Arizona, and from there overland to California. The route usually traveled was by way of the missions of Guev- avi, Tumacacori, San Xavier del Bac and Tucson. From Tucson to the Gila River and on to the Colorado, near the present site of Uma, Arizona. This latter trail was called by many El Camino de los Muertos (the Road of Dead Men). Men perished from thirst on its sandy deserts. Many crosses were laid in the sand with volcanic rocks, or crossed sticks placed in monuments of stone which marked the place where an unfortunate traveler had yielded up his life. Many of these crosses are to be seen along the old trails today. It was along this route, the Old Santa Fe Trail, and the Camino de los Muertos, that the Mormon Battalion marched the greater part of the distance from Fort Leavenworth to California. From Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, and from that point down the Rio Grande to Mesilla Park, and west to Mbmbres, and on to Ojo de la Vaca, the command marched over a road where wagons, or carts had gone before them. From Ojo de la Vaca to the San Bernardino Ranch they blazed their own trail, and from that point west followed well defined bridle paths, over which pack trains had passed for many years. From the point where the Battalion left the Rio Grande, and turned west, through the present states of New Mexico and Arizona, Pauline Weaver, and Leroux were the principal guides who led the way over the desert wastes through which the army marched. Of Leroux little is known, he appears to have been one of those restless men lured by love of adventure and hope of gain into the then unexplored west. Pauline Weaver is said to have been the first white American settler in Arizona. He was a Tenneseean, and was in Arizona as early of 1832. Re- ferring to him in his History of Arizona, Farrish says: "There was hardly a foot of the territory of Arizona he was not familiar with. Differing entirely from the majority of trappers of that day, he had no difficulties with the Indians, but was always free to enter their camps. He was never known to engage in any hostile expedition against them, but was frecraently a peace messenger, arranging, as far as possible, any difficul- ties between the whites and Indians, without resort to arms."

TRAVELING OVER FORGOTTEN TRAIL9 773 He was the discoverer of the La Paz placer mines, near the junction of the Gila with the Colorado River, on the trail over which the Battalion marched. He led the party which discov- ered the gold placers on Weaver Creek, the Arroyo de la Tinaja, Antelope Peak and other mines which have yielded millions in placer gold. On the Arroyo de la Tinaja (Tank Gulch) Jose M. Redondo, going to a spot pointed out by Weaver, took from the first pan of gravel which he washed, more than forty dollars worth of gold. Juan Ferra found a single nugget which weighed nine hundred and forty six dollars. Many other nuggets were found weighing from forty to five hundred and fifty dollars each. Of all the discoveries made by Weaver and associates that at Ante- This house, said to be the oldest in the United States, was built in Santa Fe, N. M., about 1530, and was occupied by Governor Onate, as early as 1598. lope Peak, or Rich Hill, was undoubtedly the most important. A single man, with only a jack knife as tool, collected four thousand dollars worth of nuggets in a single day. These mines are still producers of large quantities of gold, and many millions of dollars have been taken from them in the aggregate. The march of the Battalion from Council Bluffs to Fort Leavenworth, and from that point on to the Arkansas River and Santa Fe was over a well defined wagon road. Reaching the Arkansas the command followed on up the stream to Bents Fort, and from there bore south through the Raton Pass, and Wagon Mound, while the Battalion took the Cimmeron route, connecting with Kearny's trail at Wagon Mound, from which

774 IMPROVEMENT ERA point they marched to Las Vegas, through the Glorrietta Mountains, passed the old Pigeon Ranch and on to Santa Fe. Leaving Santa Fe the Camino Real, over which the com- mand marched, bore south, down the Rio Grande to the point where the Battalion left the river, and began its real march west to California. Difficult and trying as had been the march up to this point, it was as nothing compared with that which was to come. | The point at which the Battalion left the Rio Grande and turned west is not definitely established. Tyler, however, states that the following four days' march brought the command to the Mimbres and the Santa Rita copper mine road which led to the old Mexican town of Janos, (not Yanos, the latter word, llanos, meaning a level plain) makes the route traveled practi- cally certain. The notes made by the writer, in his journal, shows that he and his party camped at Mimbres on the 30th of Decem- ber, 1875, and traveled from that point to the Rio Grande, a dis- tance of seventy-six miles, reaching the river at Mesilla Park, thirty miles above El Paso, Texas. This was the only road, at that time, leading from Mimbres to the Rio Grande, and was without doubt the one traveled by the Battalion. From Mimbres the Janos road was followed to Ojo de la Vaca (Cow Spring). This road passed to the west of Florida Mountain, and crossed the present line of the Southern Pacific Railroad a little west of the town of Demming, New Mexico. As you travel east over the S. P. the train will stop at Demming, and the traveler will know that a few moments before, he has crossed the trail of the Mormon battalion. Now look off to the North about fifteen miles and you will see a sharp peak rising from the Mimbres range, which has been thrust up through the plain. It is Cooke's Peak, an eternal monument to the Battalion com- mander. When the writer traveled through Arizona and New Mexico, in 1875, many times crossing the trail of the Battalion, the old landmarks had been little changed. The roads followed were those which had been traveled from the earliest times, many of them by the Indians before Columbus landed at the Bahamas. Arizona was still a country of untamed Indians, unreliable Mexicans, and outlaw white men, with many honorable excep- tions, of course, to each of these various classes, and New Mex- ico was no farther advanced. For a period of nine months, during which time a distance of about three thousand miles was covered, he did not sleep in a bed which was not carried en a horse, and ate scarcely a meal that was not cooked over a camp fire.

TRAVELING OVER FORGOTTEN TRAILS 775 On the 19th of May, 1876, on the return from the interior of Mexico, we camped at Ojo de la Vaca, a point which Tyler says the Battalion reached Nov. 19, 1846. In 1833 an edict was promulgated by the Mexican officials at Chihuahua declaring a war of extinction against the Apache Indians. The state offered a bonus of one hundred dollars for the scalp of an Apache warrior, fifty dollars for the scalp of a squaw, and twenty five dollars for the scalp of a child. A certain trapper, known as Johnson, and his associates, under pretense of friendship, invited the Mimbreno Apaches to a council. After the pow wow was finished a sack of flour was brought out and the Indians told to divide it among themselves. A howitzer had been concealed, loaded to the muzzle with slugs, The Government Palace, at Santa Fe. This building was occupied by the governors of New Mexico as early as 1598. It tvas the headquarters, of General Doniphan in 1862, and ivas occupied by Lew Wallace while he was Governor of New Mexico. In the room on the end he is said to have wfitten "The Fair God." nails and balls, and trained on the spot where the sack of flour stood. As the Indians gathered to divide the flour, Johnson, with his lighted cigarette touched the vent, and the howitzer was discharged with terrible effect. The trappers then fell upon the remaining Indians with their guns and knives, and a goodly num- ber of scalps were taken. Among the killed was Juan Jose, the Apache chief. This atrocious act was committed either at Ojo de la Vaca, or at Mimbres, opinion being divided in regard to the exact location.

776 IMPROVEMENT ERA The Apaches have never forgotten this act of treachery, and it has been paid for in the scalps of white men and women many times over. On the 21st, the command resumed its march south on the Janos road. A few miles south of Ojo de la Vaca this road bears off to the south-east, and had it been followed, the Battalion would have passed the present site of Colonia Diaz, Ascension, Janos, Casas Grandes and El Valle and on to Chihuahua, where General Doniphan had defeated the Mexicans at the battle of Sacramento. The old Mexican breast works are still compara- tively intact, where this great victory was won. It was at this turn in the road that Col. Cooke called a halt, and decided a question which, had it been decided otherwise, would have entirely changed the story which is being told by ordering his bugler to blow the right. The command, leaving a road which would lead them through a well settled country, turned their faces westward, and started across a rolling prairie, without a trail, toward the north end of the Espuelas Moun- tains. The point where this important incident occurred is about fifteen miles southwest from the present town of Demming, New Mexico, and one hundred miles due west from El Paso, Texas. A detached range, extending north from the Sierra Madre, in Mexico, is known as the Espuelas (Spur) Mountain. From the point where Colonel Cooke turned to the west, to the north end of the Espuelas there was no road; from that point to the San Bernardino Ranch a bridle path connected the states of Chi- huahua and Sonora. After the battalion had passed over the trail, constructing a passable wagon road as they went, the road was used as a United States mail route and the San Bernardino Ranch as a mail station. The ascent from Ojo le da, Vaca to the Espuelas is so grad- ual that it is scarcely noticeable, but once the summit is reached the descent to the west, to the lower altitude of Sonora, is very abrupt and difficult. It was at this divide that Tyler says they had reached the back bone of the American Continent. He refers to the locality as being one abounding in wild game; bear, deer and small game being mentioned. These game ani- mals still abound, as the writer knows from personal experience, and to them may be added the wild turkey. It is a veritable hunters' paradise. It was in making the descent from the Espuelas to the Guadaloupe Canyon that a passage was cut through a projecting ledge of rock to enable the wagons to pass. The writer has passed through this cut, which is still so dangerous that no

TRAVELING OVER FORGOTTEN TRAILS 777 modern teamster travels the road, if it can be avoided. Once the Guadaloupe Canyon is reached, a comparatively easy road follows down the canyon past the Embudos (Funnel) Ranch to the San Bernardino Creek. A short march up this creek to the north brought the command to the old| San Bernardino Ranch. At no point on their long march did the Battalion camp at a spot more replete with romance and tragedy than this. It was one of those old grants made by the king of Spain to thd early Spanish Conquistadores, and had been stocked and operat- ed by the original owners, but because of the Apache uprising in the early part of the nineteenth century, had been abandoned; and the cattle and horses, left without herders, had became as wild as deer which ranged over tKe hills. It was these cattle The Old Mission of San Xavier del Bac. Col. Cooke started from Tucson, with a small escort, to visHt this interesting mission, but fearing an ambush, returned to the city without reaching it. which the soldiers found at the ranch, and which served such good purpose as food. In 1877 'the ranch, which consisted of forty thousand acres, was purchased by John Slaughter, a Texan, who came to Arizona to engage in the cattle business. He was one of the most pictur- esque characters that ever operated in the south-west. Always alert and ready to fight, if occasion made battle necessary, he ever stood for law and order and was a terror to the lawless men who infested Arizona at the time to which reference is made. He was elected sheriff of Cochise county, the headquarters of

778 IMPROVEMENT ERA raiding Apaches and outlaw white men. Many efforts were made to take his life, but on every occasion he outgeneraled his enemies, and died peacefully at his home, in Douglas, Arizona, on the 16th of February, 1922. His house at San Bernardino was so constructed that a part was in the United States, and a part in Mexico. He could cross; from one country to another without leaving his house. The writer never saw him, day or night, without his boot?, spurs and gun on, and a horse always stood saddled in his stable. The gateway into Mexico through which the Chiricahua and Coyote-o Apaches passed on their raiding expeditions was b> way of San Bernardino, and many bloody scenes were enacted there. The ranch was the headquarters of General Lawton, in his campaign which resulted in the capture of Geronimo, the noted Apache chief, and the last band of hostiles were wiped out in a battle near that point. To tell the entire story would re- quire a volumn of space. From San Bernardino the trail bore west to Agua Prieta, (Black water) now Douglas, Arizona, and from that point a little north of west, between the present towns of Naco and Bisbee, to the head of the San Pedro River. It was near Hereford, the present ranch which belongs to the estate of the late ^V. C. Green, of Cananea fame, that the Battalion had the celebrated encounter with wild bulls. From Hereford the trail led down the San Pedro north, to a point a few milss below the railroad town of Benson, and from there bore west to Tucson. In 1687 Father Kino, a Jesuit Priest, visited the Indians who occupied the country contiguous to Tucson, and five years later established a mission at San Xavier del Bac, a short distance south of the present city, which at the time was a mere ranch- eria, or Indian camping place. It became a walled Spanish town in 1776. Col. Cooke expected resistance at Tucson, and prepared for it, but the detachment of Mexican soldiers which composed the garrison, withdrew as the Americans approached, retreating toward San Xavier and the army marched into the town without bloodshed. The old mission of San Xavier still stands, as shown in the illustration. Its irrigated fields have been cultivated for a period of nearly two hundred and fifty years, and such is the fertility of the foil, which has never besn fertilized, that it still produces remarkably fine crops of wheat and other crops. This system of irrigation employed by the Indians, and which has been in use since remote times, serves as a fertilizer to the soil.

TRAVELING OVER FORGOTTEN TRAILS 779 w /I) -it » P wi 0 3 0 l\ z s~-^S^r^ y/ r 7 \ 1 1 > f 0 y 2 y ' || 0 1 — " H O 2 y' C /- ..t«Ar 3 / D /■ — 1 x J j Q,,/ ■■■- ? t lc7!7>^^ — I r > » 3] ^S \ C > ^^ "tr IS 0~N — -J£ ri ) > * | < 0 5 ) 2 2 / H/ »{ 2 ^ > or Mi * 0 0 r 0 3D V > A t (0 O C H ) I / t^— — Z ^ ° P > 0 H > -y I 3) > >>m c c, < <« N ^. jo - o-S 3 t tj» ~5 ^ ^ 5 to im "> 5 a tl ^ £ £ % <» " a J> awj (So m \ ^ ^ / • > [ O r- 1 * / 4 0 H J> O / 5/ J^ r 0 > The Battalion started on their march from Tucson to the Gila River, on the 18th of December, 1846, and reached the Gila on the 21st. This was undoubtedly the most trying and dangerous march on the entire trail. Both men and animals suf- fered greatly from thirst, and the wonder is that none perished. Referring to this portion of the trail the following is copied from the journal of the writer: "December 7, 1875: Left for Gila this morning and crossed a twenty.

780 IMPROVEMENT ERA five mile desert to Picacho (Peak) station, where we paid twenty-five cents per span for watering our animals. 8th: From Pechacho we traveled twenty-five miles, without water, to Desert station, where we again paid for water for our animals. The water is drawn from wells one hundred and fifty feet deep. "9th: Traveled twenty-three miles, and camped three miles from Tuc- son. From this it will be seen that the distance from Tucson to the Gila was seventy-five miles, and that they were three days making the distance on horseback, with no water except that which was drawn from the deep wells which! did not exist when the Battalion crossed this desert waste. Upon arrival at the Gila the army were among friends. Of all the Indian tribes visited by the writer, the Pimas showed the greatest intelligence, and regard for honor. They have occupied their present home on the Gila since early times, and have become successful farmers, applying irrigation to all of their cultivated fields. At this point the Battalion connected with the trail follow- ed by General Kearny, and followed it down the Gila to the Colorado, and from there to California on practically the present route of the Southern Pacific railroad. This latter part of the journey, while not fraught with the dangers and difficulties of gome other parts of the journey, in- volved great hardships, because of the sandy roads, and lack of water, and it was with great rejoicing that the army stood upon the hills overlooking the Pacific, and realized that the long and dangerous journey was finished. The Old Folks God bless the old folks everywhere — The faded brow, the silver hair. Bid all their heartaches, Lord, to cease, And lead them o'er the paths of peace. They come to us through toil and tears, Up the long path-way of the years; And now with step subdued and slow They linger in the sunset glow. They laid the deep foundation stone On which our commonwealth has grown. Through all the bright and blushing lands We see the impress of their hands. Upon their heads of silver gray Pour down thy blessings, Lord. Array Their path-way through the sunset hour With many a fair and fragrant flower. Theo. E. Curtis.