The Bloody Tragedies at Dragoon Station: The Attack on the Butterfield Employees

 I've got a lengthy Arizona historical bucket list, and one location that has long been on it is Dragoon Station. At long last, I checked it off the list today (although it won't be the last time I visit). Just two miles south of the hamlet of Dragoon, near the site of pioneer Billy Fourr's historically significant Buena Vista Ranch, are the rock wall ruins of what was once a stagecoach swing station on the Butterfield Overland Route. It was here on a moonless night in September, 1858 that a gruesome attack on the Butterfield employees building the stage station near Dragoon Springs occurred. 

The Butterfield construction crew was headed by a young, capable and experienced 24-year-old New York native named Silas St. John. Just a few months prior, St. John had been a ticket agent in Folsom, California, where he spent leisure time acting in local plays. Before that, he'd worked on construction of the first railroad in California. Accompanying  St. John on the construction project in Arizona were James Burr, James Laing, William Cunningham, and three Mexican laborers - Guadalupe and Chino Ramaiva of Sonora, and Bonifacio Miranda of Chihuahua.  

By Wednesday, September 8th, the crew had already formed the 10-foot high walls and the attached stock pen of the station, but had yet to construct a roof. Due to the Apache predations throughout the region, the group assigned lookouts to stand guard throughout the night. At midnight, St. John awakened to change the guard, relieving James Laing with the assignment of Guadalupe who was to stand watch until dawn. James Burr, disliking the sleeping conditions within the rock walls because of the mules sharing the quarters with them, slept outside with the other two Mexican workers. Within the walls were small "rooms" against the east side, still visible today. Laing slept in the center between the two corner rooms; Cunningham occupied the room on the southeast corner; and St. John took the room on the northeast corner nearest the entrance. 

By "room," I'm referring to rudimentary sections of the stacked rock corral no larger than 9 by 10 feet. The livestock corral was attached on the west side. Comfort wasn't an option, but with the cool September weather and the hard physical work the men had been doing, they likely slept well most nights. 

At about one a.m., St. John again awakened, roused by the stirring of the mules and a whistle that was clearly a signal, followed by the sound of blows and the murmured cries of the victims. As St. John got to his feet, he could see the three Mexicans, armed with axes and a stone sledge, confronting him. All three attacked him, aiming for his head: Guadalupe armed with a broad axe, Bonifacio with a sharp-edged chopping axe, and Chino with the dull but heavy stone sledge. St. John fought a hard battle, deflecting one of Bonifacio's first axe blows downward so it missed his head and lodged in his thigh below his right hip. Two more blows, this time from Guadalupe's broad axe, made contact with St. John's hand and arm as he tried to defend himself. As St. John tried to grab his rifle that was leaning against the wall, Guadalupe hit him again, severing the bone of his left arm between the elbow and shoulder. Incredibly, despite his injuries St. John was able to use the Sharps rifle as an impact weapon, swinging it at Guadalupe and knocking the axe from his hands. The Mexicans retreated; St. John was able to get his pistol from the holster on his saddle (which he'd been using as a pillow) and drive them away from the corral. He could not pursue them due to the wound to his hip, but was able to use what was within reach to tie off his wounds and take a defensive position to wait for daylight.

In the darkness, St. John could hear the anguished moans of Laing and Cunningham. As light finally came to the scene on Thursday morning, he could see the horrible wounds inflicted upon the others: Laing, still clinging to life, had suffered a blow from the edged axe to the top of his head that cleft it right down the middle, and St. John could see the man's brains spilling from it. Cunningham's head had three wounds, apparently from the broad axe; he, too, clung to life. Burr, lying outside, was mercifully already dead, his head completely crushed from the stone sledge. Moving had caused St. John's wounds to bleed freely, and he tied off the flow to his arm with his handkerchief and tried to remain still to keep his hip from bleeding out. He could do nothing to assist Laing and Cunningham, nor to tend the thirsty and hungry livestock; neither did he have any water at hand for himself, so he hunkered down and waited and hoped for help to come.

The ruins of the station's walls. The Dragoons are in the background.

The spring that provided water for the station was a half mile of wagon road to the south, and may as well have been miles away. All three men soon suffered horribly with thirst as well as from their severe wounds. The smell of blood drew in wolves (some accounts say coyotes, but wolves are more likely and were a menace in the Chiricahuas throughout the early 20th century), and St. John listened to their yipping in the darkness. 

Cunningham died at midnight on Thursday night. By Friday morning, buzzards and corvids descended upon them, mutilating Burr's face as St. John sat by helplessly. St. John kept the coyotes outside the rock walls by firing pistol shots. The thirsty mules brayed in their own misery, and still Laing lived, now motionless but moaning dreadfully. 

On Saturday night, the coyotes set upon Burr's body, said to be just ten feet from the entrance to the rock structure where St. John and Laing lay. It was not until the next morning help miraculously arrived: a Memphis Avalanche journalist named Archibald and his traveling companion. Headed from Tucson to the Rio Grande, approached on horseback. The station had a flagstaff in the center of the structure, positioned against the dividing wall to the corral, and from a distance Archibald observed the flag was not up. Leery, he waited about a half mile off until deciding to approach on foot while his friend stayed behind with the horses. Gun in hand, he made his way to the station. Shocked and horrified at what he found, Archibald made his way to the spring to get water for the gravely injured St. John, who was now unable to even speak due to thirst, and whose wounds were covered with maggots (which possibly saved his life).

A view of the terrain toward the spring to the south of the station.

As luck would have it, as Archibald headed for the spring, three wagons of soldiers arrived in the area. They, too, waited cautiously nearby when they saw the flag had not been hoisted, and then they, too, crept in carefully on foot. Headed by Colonel James B. Leach, the party included Lt. Sylvester Mowry, Captain Hutton, and others. The soldiers tended St. John's wounds and did what they could (which was not much) for the dying Laing.  They buried the remains of Cunningham and Burr in a single unmarked grave west of the corral. Laing died the next day, on Monday, and apparently shared the same grave.

The party sent two men to Fort Buchanan via Tucson, to collect the post doctor, Dr. B. J. Irwin. They arrived on Wednesday. (Despite a direct route being available, it was not considered a safe route for just the two men due to the Apache threat.) On Friday, Dr. Irwin and his escort arrived at Dragoon - a 115-mile journey. It was now nine days since St. John had been so brutally assaulted. In his report, Dr. Irwin, describing the condition of St. John as he found him on Friday, said he was "weak and pallid from the loss of blood, sleep, and constant  mental and physical suffering; his disposition was cheerful, and he evinced much pleasure at the prospect of having his wounds attended to. A deep, incised wound about eight inches in length, extending from the point of the acromion process, passing inwards, downwards, and backwards, laid open the shoulder point, passed through the external portion of the head of the humerus, and thence downward, splintering the bone through about four inches of its course. The wound in the thigh proved to only be a severe lesion of the soft part about eight inches long and three deep." 

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Irwin deemed it impossible to save the injured arm and there, in that roofless stone corral in that remote setting (which Dr. Irwin himself described as a "rude hovel"), he amputated the arm at the shoulder socket. In his report, Dr. Irwin said St. John "never complained or flinched for a moment; calm and resigned, he bore his torments with the fortitude of a martyr." The "good left arm," as described by St. John, was buried between the other victims of the massacre.

After the surgery, Dr. Irwin and escort transported St. John to the fort, a two day journey covering sixty miles of rough road. The trip caused the ligatures on his thigh to come open, and the doctor said they "protruded" at the site of the amputation. Only on arrival at the fort was the injured man given morphine, a bed, and lodging under a roof. Dr. Irwin described St. John as suffering horrible dreams, phantom pain due to the amputation, and fevers as he convalesced, yet 24 days after the amputation he was walking and within three more weeks he was again traveling, headed back to the east coast. 

St. John's incredible strength, vigor, and determination not only carried him back to his home state of New York, but brought him back to Arizona Territory after his recuperation. The one-armed man served as a Pony Express rider; married; and farmed in Yavapai County. In his later years, both St. John and his wife worked at the Pioneer's Home in Prescott. St. John died in San Diego in 1919 at the age of 84. The three Mexicans who attacked St. John, Laing, Cunningham, and Burr were never brought to justice, having fled across the border. By the account of a Butterfield man named Buckley, who was the nephew of one of the murdered men, the motive for the attacks was robbery of a great deal of valuable goods stored at the corral.

While visiting that bloody site today, I made the short hike to the springs, easily accessible by dirt road. 

This time of year, the sycamore trees are just beginning to color. The spring itself, to the left as you continue south from the station ruins, is currently dry, but the lichens on the rock and the moisture if you scuff the dirt below are evidence of recent moisture. I do not know if the spring still flows seasonally, but judging from the amount of water in the bottom of a nearby mine shaft, I suspect so.

The trail to the spring

It's a beautiful location, as quiet as any you'll find, and even on a Sunday we only encountered two other parties of visitors and an unoccupied truck. Interpretive signs are refreshingly sparse and buildings are far in the distance, allowing you to get a feel for what it was like to be in this remote place at a time when a badly injured man might lie for five days before help might wander up the road.

The low rock wall at right marks the site of the spring.

The moist dirt at center is the spring.

The vertical mineshaft. It's protected by a loose wire fence, but be cautious. 

A rock showing evidence of being used as a grinding stone by native dwellers.

A slag heap of stone removed from the mine shaft. 

If you go: the road back to Dragoon Station is unpaved but doable without 4WD. You'll go through two gates (state land permit required). The site is clearly marked. Unmarked parking is available not far from the site. Watch for snakes, and please respect the site and its history. There are no services in the area, so take water and make sure you're good on fuel. If you continue on to the springs by car, you'll see a small area where you can pull off and park on the right, but you'll still need to hike to the springs themselves (there's no turnaround close to them). The terrain is uneven and rocky but flat, but I made it even with recent injury to my hip and knees. Heck, no way was I going to miss a chance to see it.

Source material for the above narrative includes contemporary news accounts and Dr. Irwin's report; site visit; books and maps. I relied heavily on newspaper reports and paraphrased much of the chronicle, in order, from an account that appeared in multiple newspapers. Direct quotations are indicated by quotation marks.  For an excellent book on the history of the Dragoon Mountains, I recommend Lynn R. Bailey's thorough "Mines, Camps, Ranches, and Characters of the Dragoon Mountains." You can buy a copy here (affiliate link): The Dragoon Mountains 

Look! It's me!

Copyright (c) 2024 by MJ Miller * All rights reserved * No part of this content, including photographs, may be reproduced without the express permission of the author * Links to this page may be freely shared, and are appreciated * Thank you for stopping by!

The Confederate State of Arizona

The ruins of Fort Bowie, Arizona, not far from the site of the Bascom Affair.

 It may come as surprise to most Arizona residents that the lower portion of the state, including Tucson, was once a part of the Confederacy during the Civil War. That brief period in the state's history involved a strange set of dynamics including the influence of the Apache wars, political moves by the Union military leaders, a lone wolf decision by an ambitious Confederate general, and a grudge held by residents of Mexican descent who'd become Americans by virtue of the 1854 Gadsden Purchase. For those who aren't avid history buffs, I'm going to offer a concise and condensed narration gleaned from detail-laden documents, books, and newspaper accounts of the time. It's all fascinating reading, but so is a brief synopsis. For ardent history buffs, forgive me the necessity of leaving out the thousands of pertinent details for the purpose of brevity. I acknowledge this is a gross oversimplification of events.

Since 1858, the Butterfield Overland Mail had run mail and passenger services between St. Louis and San Francisco on their stage route (known as the "Oxbow Route") across southern Arizona Territory.  The station keepers for some time interacted and traded with the Apache, with occasional conflicts. In February, 1861, a momentous and notorious event known as the Bascom Affair occurred in the Apache Pass area of the Chiricahuas (in what is now Cochise County). It became the match that ignited a tinderbox of festering hostility. In the fallout, Butterfield employees, members of Cochise's Apache band, and US Cavalry soldiers all suffered casualties. The Apache wars continued with renewed tension. Nearly all of the Butterfield employees along the Arizona route were killed.

For other business reasons of their own as well as being plagued by attacks by Apache on their stations and carriers, the Butterfield Overland Mail opted to shift their route north and shut down the route that extended through southern Arizona. In the opinion of those who wrote for Arizona papers in the latter 1860s, the Apache were emboldened by the move and, seeing the route abruptly altered, credited themselves for the route's discontinuation. 

As the hostilities again flared up, the US military also had to contend with the early stages of secession and civil war in the nation's southeast. Later in 1861, the US military leaders, headed by Secretary of War Simon Cameron, pulled the vast majority of troops deployed in Arizona Territory (AT). The troops had been charged with quelling Apache depradations on settlers, stage station keepers, postal carriers, and those who traveled the region. When some 3,400 regular troops were suddenly removed from the lower part of the state, bitter settlers were left to fend for themselves without advance warning. The military, destroying their own supplies and equipment as they withdrew, further left the settlers at risk of starvation.

The Apache, seeing the troops suddenly vanished after years of skirmishes and battles, could be forgiven for reasoning they'd won the wars and had driven the military from the land. Attacks on whites in the territory mushroomed. With the increased hostilities, the Confederate leaders in the Arizona / New Mexico territory rightly viewed Arizona as a lawless land. They quickly sought to fill and exploit the void. 

As the Apache had been emboldened by the withdrawal of the troops, so had the Confederacy been emboldened by the actions of Union General David E. Twiggs, who surrendered all the troops in Texas. Not only did the CSA gain confidence, but they gained the spoils of Twiggs' treason: the ample supplies and military equipment left behind. Enter Henry Sibley, an experienced veteran of the Indian campaigns in New Mexico Territory, and now a commanding officer in the CSA. Sibley's grand plans (made on his own, without the direction or approval of the Confederate powers-that-be) included taking NM and Arizona before conquering Colorado and Utah. From there, he expected to take California.

On August, 1, 1861, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor, the Confederate commander assigned to the territory, wrote:

    "The social and political condition of Arizona being little short of general anarchy, and the people being literally destitute of law, order, and protection, the said Territory from the date hereof, is hereby declared temporarily organized as a military government, until such time as Congress may otherwise provide. I, John R. Baylor, Lieut. Col. commanding the Confederate Army in the Territory of Arizona, hereby take possession of the said Territory in the name and behalf of the Confederate States of America. For all the purposes herein specified, and until otherwise decreed or provided, the Territory of Arizona shall comprise all that portion of the recent Territory of New Mexico lying south of the 34th parallel of north latitude." 

In early February, 1862, Confederate President Jefferson Davis announced the newly-minted Confederate entity would be known as the Confederate Territory of Arizona. 

Devoid of the usual contingent of regulars, it fell upon a group of volunteer troops to rise to the defense of the southwest. The California Column, headed by experienced old-school campaigner General James H. Carleton, moved toward the Confederate line. A skirmish at Picacho Peak, that iconic landmark midway between Phoenix and Tucson, in March of 1862 encouraged Union leaders to reinforce Carleton's force. With 2,350 troops, he moved upon Tucson, where the city was easily and bloodlessly retaken. From there, after a month of recovery in Tucson, he was to advance toward the Rio Grande to fight the Confederacy's strong grip on Texas.

Ruins of Fort Lowell, Tucson.

By June of 1862, the Union government had established the federal Territory of Arizona. Carleton declared himself the new military governor of Arizona and took it upon himself to provide citizens with protection from lawbreakers both domestic and foreign. 

Carleton's mission against the Confederates, despite being challenged in several bloody engagements with the Apache, was made easier by the underwhelming support residents of the territories gave to the Confederate cause. The majority of citizens, former Mexican nationals, had a grudge against Texans for the events of twenty years prior. In Tucson itself, not even 100 residents voted to join secession. However, the Apache depredations soon sidetracked Carleton's California Column from their intended mission of fighting the Confederacy. They were redirected to return peace to the Apache lands in southeastern Arizona. 

Carleton did, though, dedicate troops under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Eyre to retake Fort Thorn on the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico Territory. On July 4th, 1862, Eyre was successfully able to reach the river just three miles near the fort. There, honoring the republic's birthday, he held a flag-raising ceremony. It served as the official announcement the Confederate presence in Arizona and nearly all of New Mexico had fallen. Arizona was thereby restored to the union, well in advance of the April 8, 1865, surrender at Appomattox which ended the larger conflict. 

For further reading, you may enjoy the excellent volume on Fort Bowie's history by Douglas C. McChristian, Fort Bowie, Arizona: Combat Post of the Southwest, 1858 - 1894. You can get it here: Fort Bowie, Arizona  Please note this is an affiliate link, and I may receive a commission for items purchased through this link. (Also, thank you!) 

Copyright (c) 2024 by Marcy J. Miller * All rights reserved * No part of this content, including photographs, may be reproduced without the expression written permission of the author * Thank you for linking, forwarding, sharing, and otherwise helping grow my readership * Most of all, thanks for stopping by!

Heading Out to Dos Cabezas Pioneer Cemetery

 

Nestled into the Dos Cabezas Mountains toward the northeast corner of Cochise County lie the remains of some of Arizona Territory's most rugged, independent pioneers - cattlemen; peace officers; Mexican laborers; veterans of the Indian Wars, both World Wars, and other conflicts; German immigrants; Freemasons; and the gutsy women who accompanied them to this harsh land. 

A few historic adobes still dot Dos Cabezas itself. Just a few miles west of Fort Bowie, and fifteen miles from Willcox, the settlement was originally called Ewell's Station, named for Dragoon Captain Richard S. Ewell. It originally attracted fortune-seekers drawn to the gold and silver in the surrounding mountains. Ranchers, lured by the tall grass- and yucca-covered range lands, brought in livestock. A stagecoach station served the Birch Line (called affectionately the "Jackass Line" due to Birch's dependence on mule teams). Dos Cabezas ("two heads") derived its name as far back as the 1840s for the distinctive pair of bald peaks - two heads - that jut prominently from the surrounding peaks. 

The twin peaks of Dos Cabezas, an instantly recognizable landmark.

Once the territory of Cochise's band of Chiricahua Apache, many of those interred in the Dos Cabezas Cemetery had lives shaped or ended by the Apache. William Maxwell Downing, known as "Major Downing" to locals, was the first white settler in the Chiricahua Mountains to the south. Born in Kentucky in 1825, he lived in the Chiricahuas until 1878, operating a lumber mill. Upon his death on March 3, 1898, the Arizona Republic noted that "The old timers and early residents of Cochise county are one by one being called to their home of rest where they will have no fear of the dreaded Apache as they have had." Downing was buried beside the daughter, Delia, who pre-deceased him. His wife, Ellen, later joined them. 

Downing's lumber enterprise saw him supplying Tombstone with product, and in 1880 he shows up in the federal census as having an address on Allen Street with his wife and daughter. It's likely they stayed in town while he worked (and primarily resided at) the lumber camp, as was often the practice at the time. By the time of his death, however, his wife had relocated to Deming, NM, just across the territorial line.  The 1882 BLM / Government Land Ordinance survey shows him homesteading 80 acres in the Chiricahuas near Pinery Creek and conveniently located by the road to Tombstone.

Downing's wife, Ellen, was originally Ellen C. Willard. It wasn't until the occasion of her husband's death that she was reunited with her brother after 41 years. He made the trek from Prescott down to Tombstone (at the time, the Cochise county seat) to help Ellen with probate matters two weeks after Major Downing's passing.

For fellow Arizona history buffs (and if you're reading this far, you must be one!), note that Major Downing is not the same William Downing who gained notoriety for robbing trains and other nefarious behavior, ultimately ending such activity at the hands of an Arizona Ranger. 

Buried elsewhere in the Dos Cabezas Cemetery is pioneer William Vandewalker, a native of Oneida, New York.  A farmer, Vandewalker was the father of two men who operated mining businesses in Dos Cabezas. He and his son, George, settled in Humboldt County, California, before moving to Arizona Territory; the senior Vandewalker operating a farm while George and family raised cattle. George became a prominent cattleman in Willcox, and operated the Bertha mill-site in Dos Cabezas. The other son, William, owned the Los Star Mine. The patriarch had moved to Dos Cabezas in 1882. By 1894, son George was running French Merino cross sheep in the St. Johns area well north of Cochise County, perhaps as their summer pasture. He also bought his "graded stock cattle" in St. Johns before moving them to his Dos Cabezas-area ranch in 1896. 

Several members of Cochise County's prominent ranching family, the Klump clan, are buried in the Dos Cabezas Cemetery. Not only are the Klumps a significant part of the county's history, but they continue to keep it alive through their contributions to the Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Association and Museum. If you rely on Sulphur Springs Valley Electrical Co-Op for your power, as I do, you'll be familiar with Kathy Klump's excellent articles on local history in each issue of the Co-Op's member magazine. 

Theodore Waughtal was a prominent miner and Freemason who moved to the Dos Cabezas area in 1890 and was considered one of the longest-established miners in the county at the time of his death. On July 21, 1908, Waughtal had been inspecting his operations in Cottonwood Canyon when one of our notorious summer monsoon storms kicked in. Waughtal sheltered under a tree when lightning struck, shattering the tree. Waughtal was found "crushed into a bleeding mass" by the bolt of lightning which entered through his head and ran through his entire body. Waughtal's brother, Benjamin, also mined in the area. 

Theodore Waughtal featured prominently in a trail of cattle rustlers after the territory adopted a new law to fight against the rustling epidemic in the region. The first trial resulting from the new legislation occurred in 1903. Billy Speed, an Arizona Ranger who was, at the time, the district livestock inspector, seized 31 calves from a notorious rustling outfit in Dos Cabezas. The calves were motherless and bore the brand  "T-O" used by the Van Winkle brothers. One of the witnesses at the trial was Van Waughtal; another of the  Van Waughtals testified to finding a dead cow branded "X X X", her head caved in by rocks, several days after seeing her with her  unbranded calf in the Cottonwood Canyon area. He later identified the calf as carrying a fresh "T-O" Van Winkle brand. 

Several of Waughtal's relatives share the cemetery as well. 

One of the more poignant features of the Dos Cabezas Cemetery is the presence of rows of semi-marked graves. A simple welded rebar cross marks each otherwise-anonymous site. Fortunately, the community has kindly paid tribute to the souls below ground with a sign to the far rear of the cemetery.  

In contrast, many graves have more elaborate care given them, with protective barriers to keep livestock and wildlife from desecrating the sites, or elegant crosses to mark the memory of the dead.

The Dos Cabezas Pioneer Cemetery is in a lovely location for a desert cemetery, surrounded by gorgeous mountain views.  It's well worth a visit if you enjoy haunting the old haunts as I do. If you do, please leave a comment, and if you're particularly curious about any of the people buried there, let me know and I'll see what I can dig up - not literally. I selected a few of the graves semi-randomly to research, but am often able to do further for those who are interested. 

If you go: Plan on visiting the cemetery in the morning. My afternoon visit made photographing headstones difficult due to the orientation of the graves in the afternoon sun. Wear good shoes or boots with good ankle support; the rodents have done rodent things throughout the cemetery and it is likely you'll have ground crumble beneath your feet. Watch for rattlesnakes! Take plenty of water; although the elevation is about 5100 foot, and it's cooler than the surrounding valleys, the sun will still beat down on you during the summer months. The cemetery is on Rocky Road, an easily-missed turnoff just west of the townsite itself. If you're headed west on Route 186, and you reach the old adobes of Dos Cabezas, you've gone a bit too far. Dos Cabezas is a bit out of the way, so fill your tank and pick up your water / refreshments in Willcox or Bowie before you venture out. 

A few notes on research and references: I used a variety of sources in compiling this blog entry. Books include, but are not limited to: Barnes' Arizona Place Names; The WPA Guide to 1930s Arizona; McChristian's Fort Bowie, Arizona. Newspaper archives include, but are not limited to: The Douglas Daily Dispatch; The Tombstone Epitaph; The Arizona Republic; the St. John's Herald. Online sources include, but are not limited to: The BLM GLO Homestead Records; and Ancestry.com (census records, voter records, etc.)

Recommended reading: (affiliate links! I may receive compensation for purchase of items through this link, and thank you for doing so!)

 Arizona Place Names  This is an essential "backpack" book to throw in your daypack when exploring Arizona. 

Fort Bowie, Arizona Excellent, readable, and well-organized history of nearby Fort Bowie and surrounding key locations.

Historical Atlas of Arizona I cannot survive without this outstanding collection of historical maps of the state. If you're a map nerd as I am, you will quickly tatter the pages of this book. 

Copyright (c) 2024 by Marcy J. Miller * All rights reserved * No part of this content may be reproduced without the express permission of the author * Links to this page, however, may be freely shared and are appreciated * Thank you for sharing, linking, and otherwise helping grow my readership, but most of all, thank you for stopping by!

A Cowboy and Rancher Resting Ground: McNeal Cemetery, Cochise County

 

As the heat has settled in for the season, and I overdid it with my wonky rotator cuff yesterday and didn't have much energy to spare this morning, we opted for a day of visiting desert cemeteries. Just up the road a piece is the McNeal Cemetery, short on shade but long on open vistas across the valley. 

This is a resting place for ranchers and cowboys and prospectors and farmers and early homesteaders, and the grave markers give testimony to the sort of rugged and capable people who are lying below. People such as veteran Captain Augustus Whiting, born in Springfield, Illinois on April 14, 1837, served in the 2nd Illinois Cavalry in the Civil War, and ended up choosing this hot, dusty, windy corner of the country as home for the last years of his life. Capt. Whiting died on November 7, 1915, leaving his widow, Mary, and several children behind.

Ida Katerina Hongo was a homesteader. Local papers carried notices about the mandatory work she was doing on her homestead here in the desert, the "proving up" process necessary to ultimately receive title to the land from the federal government. Born Ida Jaakals in Finland in 1871, she wound up in Arizona Territory with her husband, Frank, whom she divorced in 1912. McNeal apparently attracted a number of Finns to this place so unlike their homeland. Hongo (whose surname appears on various records as "Honga" and "Hanko") farmed on Central Avenue in McNeal. If you haven't been to McNeal, "Central Avenue" conjures up images of a much larger settlement than today's McNeal bears out.

Ade Waisal and Mary Nyholm were among the several Finns who settled nearby. It's always intriguing to me what a truly cosmopolitan place this county was in the 1800s and early 1900s, and to visualize the local general stores being a medley of accents and complexions from such far locales. Mary Nyholm married in Michigan in 1891 before moving south to the Arizona Territory.

Closer to home were the settlers from across the southern border, just a stone's throw away from McNeal, or those who already lived in the region before the 1854 Gadsden Purchase added this part of the state to the union. The frame and gravestone below mark the grave of the child of such residents; although obscured by shadow, the marker merely reads, "Mexican Baby 1918."

Originally from Philadelphia, Anne McCue Murphy married Frank Murphy in 1929. The following year, their daughter was born at Calumet Hospital in Douglas. The Murphys called their place "Murphy Gardens" and at parties at their home in McNeal, they decorated with tulips from their gardens. Their lovely shared headstone is capped with an iron plate depicting rose blossoms and a bit of trellis. It's easy to imagine this family happy among their flowers in this arid place. The second photo shows them in 1934.

Leo Cook and family were clearly ranchers and prospectors still here in a more recent time. Born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, Leo served in the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry in Korea (hence the tribute medal etched onto his marker), returning to Arizona to marry Jane Rae Marshall in 1954. They remained married for 57 years until Jane predeceased Leo in 2011 and left five children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren behind.

Fellow veteran and McNeal resident William Edwin Chafin was born in Indiana on March 25, 1888. William, described as 5'10" with dark hair and blue eyes on his draft card, served as a private with the 105 Ammo Train in World War I. After settling in Cochise County after the war, he worked as a pump man and lived on Hoggard Street, later moving to Van Dyke. When William died in 1965, he left his widow, Bertha, behind. 

Kentucky-born Robert P. Perrin served as a private on the Confederate side during the Civil War. After the war he settled on a farm in Whitewater near McNeal. He lived in Cochise County for the final 14 years of his life, passing in 1923.

One of the things I always appreciate in rural cemeteries is the presence of homemade markers, creatively commemorating the dead, and the small trinkets left behind that give a glimpse not only into the interests or abilities of the deceased but of those who buried them. From small quartz pieces carefully inlaid in adobe mud to simple wooden crosses to crosses of coiled barbed wire that seem to reach upwards in an attempted embrace, it's poignant to me to see these individualized memorials that are disallowed in contemporary urban cemeteries. Often the cemeteries mandate markers must be of flat, uniform marble or granite flush with the surface of the lawn so that lawn mowers can be easily driven across them. Here, there is no lawn, nor often any grass at all; no one mows the scruffy weeds or the persistent yucca. There's dirt, and rock, and unique memento mori lovingly placed by grieving family and friends.

Copyright (c) 2024 by Marcy J. Miller * All rights reserved * No part of this content may be reproduced without the express permission of the author * Links to this page, however, may be freely shared and are appreciated * Thanks for stopping by!