An Arizona 'Royal'

Chapter from An Arizona 'Royal'

On to Yuma…

   Woolsey arrived at the frontier town of Yuma in the early 1860s. At that time, the town was known alternately as Colorado City or Arizona City, depending upon who you asked, most preferring Colorado City. The population consisted of several hundred ‘Whites’ and an untold number of Cocopah and Quechan Indians living in and around the steamy, desert town. Yuma, a virtual kiln for a good part of the year, is located at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. Yuma had been an important spot for many years prior to Woolsey’s arrival. Known as Yuma Crossing for centuries, it was an ideal spot for people to cross or ferry the broad Colorado River. Spaniards Hernando de Alcaron and Melchior Diaz wandered upon the spot in 1540, and immediately understood the strategic importance of the location. The Spanish missionary/explorer Father Kino crossed the river here in the late 1600s, proving that Baja California was in fact a peninsula and not an island as previously believed. Cognizant of the newly gleaned information, travelers coming up from Mexico now had a portal in which to enter California proper. Father Garces, like Father Kino, also gathered extensive knowledge on the American Southwest. He established a mission called La Purisma Concepcion in the late 1700s on the west bank of the Colorado River. Unfortunately, he met his untimely demise at the hands of the Quechan Indians he was trying to convert. But I suppose this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a priest, as he was considered a martyr after being murdered. Other famous crossing expeditions include Juan Bautista de Anza in 1774, the Mormon Battalion in 1848, and the California Column in 1862.

   The United States Army arrived on the scene in 1849, setting up various posts in the area on both sides of what is now the California/Arizona border. Eventually the Yuma Quartermaster Depot was established on the Arizona side of the Colorado River in 1864. As you can imagine, ferry operations were both an important and prominent business undertaking in Yuma. A man named Louis John Frederick Jaeger was a prominent and well-known ferryman in the area. In addition to running a ferry service, Jaeger also raised cattle, grew hay, and dabbled in both blacksmithing and mining. At one time, Jaeger was worth over a million dollars (think about how much money that was in the mid-1800s). Unfortunately, Jaeger’s wealth deteriorated after he became involved in an ill-fated irrigation project downstream from Yuma on the California side.

   Another ‘big wheel’ (no pun intended) in the area was George Alonzo Johnson, a former seaman on Lake Erie who had come west in search of gold. Johnson made his money (and a lot of it) not by moving people and goods across the mighty Colorado, but by transporting them up and downstream the river via steamship. His baptism into the steamboat business through a hauling contract with the army didn’t go too well to say the least. While fighting off a band of hostile Indians, one of his barges sunk to the bottom of the river, the cargo with it. Although his career began inauspiciously, he soon bankrolled a fortune before the railroad put him out of business years later, but by then he was a very wealthy man, retiring comfortably to San Diego with his vast earnings.

   Another major development involving Yuma and its river crossing occurred in September 1857, just a few scant years before Woolsey set foot in the area. John Butterfield and Associates signed a contract with the federal government to transport mail (along with passengers and freight) from St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco, California. The highly successful Butterfield venture instilled growth all along the route, where of course people, livestock, and food supplies were necessary to properly operate the line. Butterfield’s line took the place of a short-lived service between San Antonio, Texas and San Diego, California known widely as the ”Jackass Mail”, because passengers were forced to ride mules between San Diego and Fort Yuma. I’m sorry to say that I don’t envy those passengers, nor their backsides.

   I apologize for the digression…Now back to King S. Woolsey and his arrival in Yuma.

   Legend has it that Woolsey met a man named Henry Grinnell, who ran a Butterfield station (Grinnell Station) in the area. The man purportedly rounded up work as a mule driver for Woolsey, who took quickly to his new trade, eventually purchasing his own team. Grinnell, who, several years later, would join the Walker Party along with Woolsey, was well known in the region for rescuing Olive Oatman from the Mohave Indians. I’d be a tad remiss if I didn’t at least briefly share the Oatman massacre story with you here…

   On August 9th, 1850, a group of excommunicated Mormons known as Brewsterites (named for their leader James Collins Brewster), set off from Independence, Missouri for “the promised land” which supposedly lay at the mouth of the Colorado River. There were 52, well-equipped emigrants in all. Near Las Vegas, New Mexico, the party began feuding and a split occurred; with Brewster going on to California via a northern route and Royse Oatman and several other families heading southwestwardly toward the mouth of the Colorado River via Socorro, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona. The settlers were strongly encouraged to stay in both Tubac and in Tucson, as the citizens there desired added protection against the dreaded Apaches. Some settlers eventually agreed to stay the winter in Tucson, while Oatman and what was left of his group headed north and then west toward their objective of the promised land. As the wagon train (now whittled down to three families) led by Oatman approached Maricopa Wells, south of modern-day Phoenix, they were informed that hostile Indians lay to the west, blocking the forward progress of the wagon train. The settlers having already lost supplies to Indians along the way, decided to stay at Maricopa Wells. Royse Oatman, however, decided he’d take his chances by going it alone with his family in two wagons on to the mouth of the Colorado. It proved to be a bad decision. On the afternoon of March 18th, 1851 a band of approximately fifteen armed Yavapai warriors with deadly intent, arrived at the Oatman camp which was situated on a bluff above the Gila River. The Indians asked for tobacco, which was granted; then bread, then anything else they could get their hands on. The requests were duly handed over until Royse Oatman could afford to give no more away. The family packed up their wagon as the Indians hung around discussing things a short distance away. After conferring, the Yavapai warriors viciously attacked the Oatman family with clubs, knives, and lances. Royse Oatman was immediately killed along with his pregnant wife. Even the baby was run through with a lance. The Indians didn’t stop at just killing the defenseless family…They mutilated them For some reason the Indians spared two of the girls, seven year-old Mary Ann and 13 year-old Olive, who were forced to march barefoot away with the Indians after they finished bludgeoning their families’ skulls. Fifteen year-old Lorenzo Oatman was rendered unconscious and left for dead after rolling down an embankment. He somehow managed to make it back to civilization with the assistance of several Maricopa Indians, who took him back to Maricopa Wells where he joined the two other families (the Wilders and the Kelleys) who were by then preparing to pull out toward Yuma. Lorenzo spent a full two months in a Yuma hospital healing from his wounds.

   The girls were taken back to the Yavapai rancheria along Date Creek in the Bradshaw Mountains, where they were put to work as slaves for the tribe. The girls led a miserable existence in which they were routinely beaten. Approximately a year went by before the girls were traded to a band of Mohave Indians for two horses, three blankets, and some beads and vegetables. The girls were happy to go anywhere else in hopes that their lot might improve. The 11-day westward journey took them to a Mohave camp on the Colorado River near where the Bill Williams River joins the Colorado. Although still captive slaves, the girls did receive better treatment at the hands of the Mohaves. They were afforded a piece of land in which to grow their own crops and were treated decently by most of the tribal women. At one point during their first year as captives to the Mohave tribe, the girls received tattoos on their chins resembling other Mohave women. The blue-black tattoos were placed horizontally down the girl’s chins, applied with sharp sticks dipped in a juicy mixture from a weed and blue mineral. The tattoos were very painful and completely irreversible.

   The second year with the Mohaves proved extremely hard, as a drought struck the land and eventually Mary Ann died, leaving Olive alone with her captives.  Lorenzo, meanwhile, never gave up hope of finding his two sisters. He made several acquaintances at Fort Yuma, one being Henry Grinnell, Woolsey’s future friend. Grinnell promised to let Lorenzo Oatman know if he should hear any news about his sisters before Lorenzo departed for California.

   During the third year of Mohave captivity, the drought ended and crops were bountiful. The tribe held a huge feast and invited members of other tribes for games and gambling. A Yuma (some accounts say Mohave) Indian named Antonio Francisco won two horses on a wager with a Mohave brave. The brave instead offered a squaw and Olive Oatman in lieu of the two horses. Francisco refused the offer and later boasted about it to soldiers at Fort Yuma. Grinnell soon heard the news and made arrangements to bring Olive to safety. Grinnell along with Lt. Col. Burke gave Francisco two horses, blankets, and beads and told him to attempt to gamble for, or if need be, buy Olive’s freedom. He was also given an official letter that was to be given to Olive stating that she should be freed immediately as so ordered by the U.S. government. A threat which probably held little water at the time. Weeks went by without any word and it appeared the ruse had been useless. The Mohaves deduced that Francisco had stolen the horses from the ‘Whites’ and thus refused to include Olive Oatman in any gambling schemes, nor to sell her outright for the horses. Francisco eventually resorted to informing the Mohaves that the army was prepared to wipe out their entire village if they didn’t release the girl. They released her. She arrived at Fort Yuma on February 22nd, 1856. Her brother Lorenzo was there to meet her. He had been searching for five years. There are several place names dedicated to the Oatman family, notably Oatman Flat and the town of Oatman in western Arizona. As Woolsey was arriving in Yuma, the rest of the nation was already mobilizing for war. Woolsey, a southerner by birth, was naturally sympathetic to the South’s cause. He allegedly joined up with Albert Sidney Johnston’s party of confederate volunteers, which crossed Arizona and marched up the Gila River on their way to Texas in the summer of 1861. Johnston was later killed in battle in 1862. According to legend, Woolsey suddenly became ill (some say with smallpox, which seems unlikely) as the volunteers made their way across the desert, forcing him to halt at Maricopa Wells south of present-day Phoenix. There is no clear record of Woolsey ever actually partaking in the volunteer column.

   What happened next however, can be documented, and is a little bizarre to me to say the least. Woolsey made a contract with the California Column (Union troops) under Colonel James Henry Carleton to supply hay and mesquite beans to the Union troops at Fort Yuma. Perhaps Woolsey’s southern leanings only went so far? Or perhaps Woolsey, like many other Southwesterners, really felt no allegiance deep down to either side, as they lived far, far away from the mainstream battle and strife back east? Either way, Woolsey reportedly racked up thousands of dollars in profit from his dealings with the United States government. But he surely wasn’t alone, as many other businessmen also profited from the Civil War.

   It was during this time that Woolsey had his first run in with the Apaches he would grow to hate. While out harvesting hay to sell to the army, Woolsey along with two other men, were preparing to return to their camp with a wagonload of hay, when a group of Apaches appeared with menacing plans of ambush on their mind. Woolsey instructed one of the men to calmly hand him a double-barreled shotgun (the only firearm the trio possessed), which they did. Woolsey emptied one of the barrels in an attempt to ward off the hostile Apaches, who were busy yelping spine-tingling war cries. The Indians were too far out of range and the buckshot spread harmlessly to the dusty ground. The Indians commenced their horrifying screams as they drew nearer to the trio of hay harvesters who stood near the loaded wagon. Woolsey kept his gaze on a gigantic and menacing-looking man he fingered for the group’s leader. The big man grabbed a war club and ordered the other Apaches to follow him in for the kill. As the giant approached to within twenty paces or so, Woolsey let him have it with the other barrel, toppling the large man to the ground. In the sudden confusion, the other braves panicked and retreated. Woolsey and his two friends quickly unhitched the mules from the wagon and made off toward Burk’s Station, where they recruited some men and armed themselves before heading back to the site of the ambush. When they arrived, the Apaches were long gone and the wagon was still intact and full. The dead giant was also still lying on the ground. In order to make an example out of the marauder, the settlers tied the dead Apache to a mesquite tree, where he hung “for some time”. Other Indians, enemies of the Apaches later took to flinging arrows into the dead Apache’s corpse.

   Woolsey grew various staples on a ranch he had recently purchased with a partner named George Martin. Woolsey had met Martin in Yuma, while Martin worked as a sergeant in the U.S. Army at the fort. The Irishman eventually retired or resigned from the military and opened up a trading post in Gila City. In the early years, Martin spent more time at the ranch than Woolsey, who was often out taking care of outside interests, such as participation in the Walker Party expedition of 1863, led by the famous mountain man Joseph Reddeford Walker. I will address this expedition in the next chapter. After Martin and Woolsey parted ways, Martin opened up a chain of drug stores in Tucson. The ranch, named for its hot springs, was known as the Agua Caliente, and was said to have been acquired for the sum of eighteen hundred dollars in gold from a man named Jacobson. The ranch, located in what is now western Maricopa County, was a traditional stopover spot for centuries. Father Kino and other missionaries took baths in the hot springs there. The area was home to the Maricopa Indians, who in 1775, agreed to a peace treaty with the Pima Indian tribe at the hot springs. The two tribes often fought against rival tribes of the Yuma, Mohave, and Yavapai. Fighting between the factions lasted into the mid-1860s. Juan Chivaria was the leader of the Maricopa tribe at the time Woolsey lived at Agua Caliente. The two men were good friends.

   Martin and Woolsey dug irrigation ditches creating what was perhaps one of the first modern irrigation systems in Arizona. The Gila River, then a free-roaming river nowadays reduced to a trifling trickle, supplied water to an otherwise dusty and desolate landscape. The springs (derived from the Gila and no longer in existence due to a lack of flow) combined with the very fertile soil found in the region helped the ranch prosper agriculturally, where potatoes, barley, and a whole host of vegetables were grown. By 1872, Woolsey began using a threshing machine, the first of its kind in Arizona. In addition, Woolsey also operated the first flour mill in Arizona which was located there at Agua Caliente. He grew wheat near Prescott, and then hauled the crop by mule over to his mill where he sold the flour to the government at a substantial profit. Woolsey and Martin parted ways through mutual consent on June 20th, 1865. Woolsey also purchased Stanwix station, which lay just west of Agua Caliente. The station was once part of the now defunct Butterfield line, which had already ceased existing by the time Woolsey took control of the property. The station became active once more as part of a tri-weekly mail shipment conducted by an operation called the Tucson, Arizona City and San Diego Stage Company. It also boasted telegraph service linking San Diego to Tucson. Woolsey’s wife Mary (who he married in 1871) ran the place. Stanwix was an important and busy stopover point prior to the railroad taking over the mail and passenger duties in the late 1870s. It also spelled the end for the Stanwix telegraph service, as new lines were erected along the Southern Pacific tracks. The station at Stanwix bit the dust about the same time Woolsey did (1879). The next station down the line traveling eastward from Stanwix was called Burk’s (sometimes spelled Burke’s) Station. The station was originally established by Patrick Burk in 1858. It was later owned by Billy Fourr, before he in turn sold the station to a man named G.R. Whistler in July, 1874. Whistler employed a Mexican named Ventura Nunez to clean out his well at the station. After finishing up his work, Nunez was paid his wages. He then came into the store at the station and inquired as to the price of an item behind the counter. As Whistler turned to inspect the price, Nunez shot Whistler in the back, killing him instantly. Nunez then gathered up any cash and valuables before high tailing it toward Mexico. Former station owner Billy Fourr, a colorful character in his own right, was soon in hot pursuit. King Woolsey and a band of his men working at the ranch heard the news and were also soon in pursuit. On July 9th, 1874, Woolsey and Fourr caught up with Nunez, who was on foot, about sixty miles south of Burk’s Station. The men surrounded Nunez as he tried to flee, and a short, one-sided (Nunez possessed only one useless cartridge in his revolver), gun battle ensued with about twenty rounds being fired before one found Nunez’s leg. Nunez begged for his life and was taken back to Burk’s Station where a group of citizen’s quickly determined his guilt. He was taken by wagon to a nearby Mesquite tree, where he was “quietly hung”.    His body was reportedly left hanging in the tree as a warning to others who might have similar notions. Sometime later, the desiccated body was buried by Mexican traders passing through the area. It is not known whether Woolsey was present during the hanging or not.