by Al Bates

By 1874, a single regiment of cavalry at Whipple handled routine patrols, Indian chases and police duty on the reservations. The Army in the next decade was a combination of a constabulary keeping order on the Indian reservations, and a corps of laborers engaged in building military posts and roads, and stringing telegraph wire.

At that time there were still die-hard Native American groups and Crook dealt with them harshly. Crook’s policy was that Indians were required to stay on the assigned reservation; off the reservation, every Indian male old enough to string a bow was considered as hostile and a target. He forbade any liquor on the reservation; no whiskey and no manufacture of the Apache moonshine called tizwin, which became a key factor in Geronimo’s breakout a few years later.

In 1872, the original buildings and stockade of Fort Whipple were demolished and more permanent frame buildings were erected on higher ground about 70-feet above Granite Creek. The official guide to posts, camps and stations declared them to be excellent quarters "in all respects." By early 1875, the fort had taken the configuration it would keep for the next 30 years.

By 1873, a military telegraph line connected Fort Whipple with San Diego, Yuma, Phoenix and Tucson, and by 1880, the military telegraph was carrying extensive civilian traffic between the state’s major communities. In mid-September of 1874, Martha Summerhayes arrived after an arduous seven weeks journey from San Francisco on her way to her husband’s post at Fort Apache. She spent three days at "a gay and hospitable post" where she was "most kindly entertained," by Mrs. Crook at dinner. Mrs. Summerhayes then became the first woman to travel to Fort Apache over the General Crook trail that ran from Fort Whipple through Camp Verde and along the Mogollon Rim to Fort Apache, a distance of about 220 miles. In 1875, she again passed through Whipple, this time on the way to a posting at Eherenberg.

The military roads connecting Fort Whipple to the Indian reservations at camp Verde and Fort McDowell formed the basis for the original Black Canyon highway. This alternative to the established but longer Skull Valley and Wickenburg route provided Prescott residents an improved way to reach Phoenix and was established as a stagecoach route by 1878.

In the fall of 1874, General August V. Kautz arrived to become Whipple’s post commander. His young wife, Fannie, a musician, painter and aspiring actress, accompanied him. Nearly every week brought a social event for officers and ladies of the post. By the spring of 1877, the weekly "hops" (in West Point lingo) held each Wednesday had become a Prescott institution, frequently open to the enlisted men and to townspeople.

Fannie Kautz formed the Fort Whipple Theater in 1877 composed of the ladies and some officers. They produced epics with titles like "Dead Shot," and "Regular Fix," as well as Shakespearean dramas. An early production titled "The Two Orphans" was performed as a benefit for the Sisters of Charity who then were establishing Prescott’s first civilian hospital. Meanwhile, some residents of southern Arizona were feuding with General Kautz over alleged Indian dangers, and there was criticism of Fort Whipple theatricals "in the midst of a war." When the general and his wife departed from the territory a year later, the Tucson Citizen sarcastically referred to the departure of the "Fort Whipple theatrical troupe."

Although the Indians were relatively quiet during those years, Ellen Biddle, one of the military wives, wrote of two incidents, once at a "hop" and once at a play, when the "Assembly Call" sounded and the officers had to leave the evening’s entertainment to rush off with their troops in pursuit of renegade Apaches. Mrs. Biddle credited watchful care by a young Whipple doctor named Frederick C. Ainsworth with saving the life of her sickly infant son. Ainsworth later left the Medical Corps to take over the Army’s Record and Pension Bureau and by 1907, he was the very influential Adjutant General of the Army. In 1910, he came in conflict with the new Army Chief of Staff, General Leonard Wood, over control of the Army. Two years later his distinguished military career came to a sad end when General Ainsworth was forced to retire.

In November 1878, Territorial Governor John Fremont and his family arrived in Prescott. The famed "Pathfinder," Civil War general and sometime presidential candidate had fallen on hard times due to failed railroad investments, and the Arizona assignment was looked on as a way to recoup the family fortunes through speculation in mining ventures. The governor made extensive use of the Fort’s military telegraph for his official and personal communications because it provided greater privacy than the commercial line.

Army doctors from Fort Whipple treated Fremont family members for various illnesses, including the recurrent headaches suffered by the Fremont’s daughter Elizabeth Benton Fremont (Lily). Lily, when well, was a regular attendee at the Whipple "hops." Since the once wealthy Fremonts were at that time too poor to keep a horse, it was a special treat for Lily to ride Army horses in company with young officers and General Wilcox’s older daughter, Marie. The general, a widower, was especially attentive to Lily until territorial politics pitted the general against her father and any thought of a courtship ended.

By 1881, Whipple housed 136 officers and enlisted men, and there was much social interaction with the townspeople. Supplies for the Fort brought hard cash, a rare commodity at that time, to farmers and ranchers. The Fort dispatched its fire company to help extinguish major town fires. Military "ambulances" (lightweight covered wagons) were loaned for funerals and to transport military offspring to school in town. Often rumored but never proven was the existence of a lively black market run by the Fort’s quartermasters. The scam consisted of classifying sound military equipment as condemned and then, instead of destroying it, selling it to local businessmen.

In the 1880s, Fort Whipple again became prominent in settling Indian "troubles." Because of inconsistent government policies and dishonest Indian agents, the Indians were seething with resentment and outlaw Apache bands were on the loose. General Crook returned in 1882, restored order and honesty to the agencies, and by December 1883, all the outlaw Indians (including Geronimo) were back at San Carlos. The Battle of Big Dry wash in July 1882 was the last major action fought by troops against Indians in Arizona.

In May of 1885, Geronimo and 35 warriors fled the reservation in the aftermath of a drunken tizwin party, thus beginning the 14-month "Geronimo war." In March 1886, the Indians almost gave up but Geronimo and 20 others bolted back to Mexico after getting drunk on whiskey provided by white man.

In June 1885, a fresh graduate of Harvard Medical School reported to Fort Whipple as a contract surgeon and was immediately assigned to join in the hunt for Geronimo. Leonard Wood soon found that he preferred leading troops to doctoring them. Wood was present at Geronimo’s final surrender and was awarded the Congressional Medal for his exploits in this campaign.

This was the beginning of another long and distinguished military career. Thirteen years later he was Colonel (and later General) Leonard Wood, commander of the Rough Rider Regiment and close friend of Teddy Roosevelt, his second in command. Wood’s later military assignments included: Governor General of Cuba, Army Chief of Staff (and nemesis of General Ainsworth as previously noted), and Governor General of the Philippines. Going into the 1920 national convention, Wood was the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. General Nelson A. Miles, generally credited for introducing the heliograph system (solar telegraph) to connect the Army outposts of Arizona and New Mexico, replaced General Crook during the last months before Geronimo’s final surrender on September 3, 1886.

(Al Bates is an avid researcher of topics from Fort Whipple to the 1864 census of Arizona. There will be one more installment of Bates’ article on Fort Whipple.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(mil115pa)
Reuse only by permission.

General Crook’s Troops standing in their dress uniform at Camp Whipple about 1878. Crook had worked out of Whipple for many years during the end of the Indian Wars in Arizona.

by Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

In 1998, the Sharlot Hall Museum’s San Juan River float trip enjoyed the adventures and the stunning scenery of Southeastern Utah. Several adventuresome travelers gathered at Bluff and journeyed down to Mexican Hat. Some continued on through the stratified wonders of the Goosenecks to Clay Hills. It was an easy-going trip on that User Friendly River. No heart-stopping cataracts, no boat-dunking rapids. Rich colorful high desert scenery and gentle river meanders led them, with just enough white water here and there to add a bit of excitement.

Everyone slept on hard, unyielding rock at least one night, but they were treated to a "gourmet breakfast" in the morning (something fancy like fruit, eggs, toast and jam)

The Museum provided days of exploring Anasazi ruins and many rare and puzzling displays of rock art. Some may have seen a desert critter or two crossing their paths. In the evening, around the campfire, someone probably pointed out the stars of the big and little dippers, the sickle of Leo’s head, and the brilliant Venus and Mars. The crystals that wily Coyote stole from Black God and scattered across the sky seemed near enough to touch. Guides told stories of pioneer river rats who traveled this way years ago.

The San Juan wasn’t always user friendly. . . .

W. E. Mendenhall, one of those early San Juan sojourners, passed this way in the 1890′s and told about it 45 years later in a KYCA radio broadcast. Mendenhall, his brother, and five other men spent weeks rowing, pulling, and polling three boats up the Colorado River prospecting. Their tales include raging floods, rattle snake invasions, and mule-breaking rock slides. To vary their diet, they caught fish with their hands and once talked a Navajo woman out of a hind quarter of mutton for twenty-five cents. With characteristic old-timer modesty Mendenhall told the "most thrilling" story of their trip down the San Juan:

"In the Fall of 1894, after the placer diggings on the San Juan river in Utah . . . had been pretty well worked out, it was decided by a group of men who had been working in these placers to undertake a boating exploration and prospecting trip down the San Juan river. . . .It can be stated that this navigation of the San Juan was the first boating journey ever made down that river from Bluff to the river’s junction with the Colorado, despite the claims to that distinction by a National Geographic Magazine party making the trip many years later."

No warm sleeping bags, no gourmet breakfasts for these intrepid pioneers. Read on.

"One night the boats were tied up to bank shrubs . . .. The high wind caused the boats to bump and thump against each other, a sound plainly noticeable to us after getting into our beds. About ten o’clock a seeming second-sense awakened me, with reality that the thumping of the boats had ceased, though the wind was still blowing hard. This made me uneasy and going out in my stocking feet it was disclosed that the big boat [the one with all their food] had come lose and was gone."

In the light of the rising moon Mendenhall began searching but finally decided nothing could be done at night. The next morning he started out on foot, investigating a trail along the way which finally led to a small square cabin.

"Something caused me to glance to the right, and there, with one end attached to an oak tree and the other end resting on the ground, was a platform apparently loaded with something and covered with a heavy canvas sheet. . . .lifting the canvas up, behold there were seven 50-lb. sacks of flour stacked on the platform. . . .Here was salvation for us."

The rest of the crew arrived amid great rejoicing. There would be bread for breakfast!

They continued prospecting down the river and eventually found the missing boat stalled on a sand bar, dry and undamaged. Still wondering about the stashed flour, they made their way down the river:

"Though inquiry was made at Lee’s Ferry and up in Utah, no clue was ever found as to the cache of flour, except a report that a bunch of horse thieves were reported to have wintered their stolen stock along this section of the river a few years before. . . ."

Stories are told of cowboys with long ropes who carried on a lucrative business, stealing horses in Utah, driving them down across the Colorado River, and selling them in Arizona. Later, they would steal some Arizona horses and reverse the process, turning a reasonable profit.

Our Sharlot Hall Museum expedition did not see horse rustlers on the trip, but they probably saw the remains of cabins and mining gear left there these hundred years. . . .And they especially appreciated those "gourmet " breakfasts.

(Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright, retired librarian from Yavapai College, is active in Prescott Art Docents and Sharlot Hall Museum. She enjoys investigating the historic confluences of the arts and sciences.)

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by Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

Mark your calendar for June 8, 2004-just four years from now. That’s when our sister planet, Venus, will dance across the face of the sun for all the world to see.

Last June we talked about Sharlot Hall’s trip to Congress, Arizona to see an occultation of Venus, a rare event. Even rarer will be the coming transit when Venus slowly moves across the face of the sun. Transits come along every 122 years, in pairs, eight years apart. The last pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. Sharlot Hall was a four-year old child, living on the banks of Prosser Creek in Kansas in 1874. By December 1882 her family had traveled the Santa Fe trail and settled along Lynx Creek in Arizona Territory.

In 1882, Arizona politicians were arguing about where to locate-relocated the Territorial Capitol, and Governor Tritle was, "determined to enforce the law" so that "ruffianism was coming to a terminus and that a few months more would see the most remote corners of Arizona as free from violence as her sister states and territories." (Prescott Weekly Courier, 4-21-1882). How about that! Word of a phenomenal celestial event had no doubt failed to reach remote mining camps of the West, but scientists around the world were watching closely.

For many years astronomers had looked forward to this opportunity to view the disk of our twin planet silhouetted against the bright light of the sun. They would take measurements to further determine the size of the solar system and gather more information about the atmosphere Venus.

Young Captain Cook witnessed a transit of Venus in 1769, from near Tahiti during his first journey to the South Seas, in fact the main purpose of his first voyage was to observe and take measurements of the transit of Venus. Two hundred years later another poet, a New Zealand balladeer wrote:

Young James Cook was a cabin boy,

He was brave, he was good, he was clever,

He rose to be captain of the king’s navy

And commanded the good ship "Endeavour."

He said to his wife, "You’re the joy of my life

Though oceans roll between us,

But I must be off to the isles of the south

To observe the transit of Venus."

Who says science is all mathematics and experiments? The heart of the poet finds us all. Captain Cook, of course, took the transit very seriously. Worried about the weather, the officers of the Endeavor hardly slept the night before, but with the help of a "magnifying telescope," they observed the event "with great advantage." It took the planet over six hours to complete the transit-long enough for the ship’s crew to get into mischief while the officers were completely absorbed with science (but that’s another story.) Cook reported that they saw a "dusky cloud round the body of the planet, which much disturbed the times of the contact." We know, now, that Venus has an atmosphere-a much denser atmosphere than Earth’s, and not so transparent-which causes a bright ring of light to surround the black disk of the planet during transit.

When you look in 2004, with a #14 welders filter, you will barely see a small black dot with a bright ring around it. Better to view it through a telescope with a solar filter. Best, though, will be to contact your local astronomy club which will be viewing it safely. In any case never look at the sun without a proper filter as it can severely and permanently damage your vision.

With the invention of radar, much has been learned about the surface conditions of Venus. A series of Soviet landings has sent back photographs of its surface. And, in 1990, the U.S. space probe, Magellan, brought us details of Venus’s crust.

Even though a transit of Mercury or Venus no longer has the scientific attraction it did a hundred years ago, it still holds a special fascination for many of us. In just four years we, too, may observe a transit of Venus. If you miss that 2004 event, never fear. The companion transit comes along in 2012. But after that it’s a long dry spell until the next one in 2144.

Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright, retired librarian from Yavapai College, is active in Prescott Art Docents and Sharlot Hall Museum. She enjoys investigating the historic confluences of the arts and sciences. She found useful information on occultations and transits along with the Captain Cook poem, in Guy Ottewell’s Astronomical Almanacs.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (transit drawing). Reuse only by permission.

Mark your millennial calendars now for June 2004 and June 2012. Venus will make a rare transit across our Sun. Using proper filters observers will see a small dot with a bright ring of light – a romantic vision – that happens only once every 122 years.

By Richard Gorby

William Owen (Buckey) O’Neill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 2, 1860. He was a brilliant pupil in college and in law school and developed special gifts and interests in newspaper work, resulting in a job as a law court reporter and stenographer. This led him to Prescott in 1881 as court reporter for Judge DeForest Porter.

His seventeen years in Prescott were crowded with activity — probate judge, sheriff, mayor, and editor. In his early twenties he became drawn to the excitement of card games on Whiskey Row, especially faro, and "bucked the tiger" (went against the odds) with such enthusiasm that he earned the nickname of "Buckey."

As sheriff he became famous by tracking down and bringing to Prescott for trial three men who robbed an Atlantic and Pacific train at Canyon Diablo, between Flagstaff and Winslow. Buckey trailed the outlaws into Utah with a small posse and captured them after a gun battle.

Among his many other activities, he became the editor of the Arizona Miner and held the job until 1884, when he decided to start his own newspaper. With the cattle industry growing (an estimated 625,000 head in 1884) Buckey’s idea was to specialize, giving cattlemen their own

journal. It would provide them a medium for advertising cattle brands, buying and selling, and keeping abreast of the industry in both Arizona and neighboring cattle country.

After ordering his equipment from Phoenix he launched his paper, Hoof and Horn, in July 1885. It was an eight-page, magazine-sized journal, ten by thirteen inches, ten cents a copy. Never a goldmine, the paper would have folded quickly except that through his courthouse cronies, O’Neill had wrangled the status of "official" and thus was assured of a regular bundle of county legal advertising. Shortly after launching Hoof and Horn, he was able to present the Thirteenth Legislature with a $6,500 printing bill (a huge amount for that time) which the Legislature (later called "The Thieving Thirteenth") paid without a whimper.

Although Hoof and Horn was a paper for cattlemen, its editor from the beginning seemed much more interested in horses:

"It never pays:

To whip a horse when it balks.

To work a horse when it is not well.

To use harsh and sharp language when handling horses.

Don’t put a cold bridle bit in your horse’s mouth. If you have no other way of warming them, hold them in your hands a few minutes."

This would seem to back up Buckey’s description in the Old Capitol Notebook: "His courtesy, gentleness, modesty, and quiet manner of speaking, made his personality fit into a background of kindness." And also that in Prescott, as a captain of a militia company in charge of guarding the scaffold where a murderer named Dilda was being hanged, he fainted as the body went down.

Apparently these accounts of his kindness and gentility were directed toward horses, not people; especially Native Americans. From the June 1889 issue of Hoof and Horn:

"The Tucson Star makes a vigorous and logical protest against the return of Geronimo and his band of cut-throats to Arizona. After all, may it not be best to let them come? They can be met at the train by a sufficient force of willing volunteers, and gracefully shot down as they alight from the extreme of Uncle Sam’s imbecility. If the authorities permit these hellish fiends to set their stinking feet in Arizona soil, let their reception be a royal one."

Being unkind to Apaches is acceptable, but to horses? No!

"Don’t abuse your horses. If you cannot be along with them without fussing and fighting them all the time, sell them, or trade them to someone who can."

Horses, but not ministers. In an October 1886 article, Buckey describes a meeting with Mr. Clark Tingly, "A deep theological student" who describes how religion could affect the cowboy: "Instead of cuss words and bad whiskey we would have piety and prayer meetings on our round-ups. When branding or gathering beef cattle, we would do no work on Sundays or late Saturday nights. The development of spiritual life would be deep and pervading. Instead of visiting saloons and spending hard-earned money on liquor and cards, we would have cowboy Sunday school picnics and send any money that might be left over to support foreign missionary societies."

Buckey, who spent some of his spare time drinking and gambling with friends, obviously felt no need to comment. Surprisingly, the major Hoof and Horn editorial attack was not on Apaches but, in 1887, on supposed Compatriots and friends: County Treasurer E.J. Cook and Bank of Arizona cashier W.E. Hazeltine. Cook was charged with defaulting to the sum of $9,000 in his deposits to the Bank of Arizona and was removed from office. Hazeltine was suspected (certainly by Buckey, at least), but was not removed. Cook was tried three times and finally exonerated. He was not exonerated by O’Neill, however. In the March 31, 1887 Hoof and Horn:

"No man ever stood higher in the confidence of his constituents than did E.J. Cook. No man ever betrayed public trust more cruelly than he did. Through the assistance of W.E. Hazeltine, the cashier of the Bank of Arizona, an institution of which he had made the depository of the public funds, he was able to conceal for years his pillaging from the public treasury."

E. J. Cook gave a large dinner party to celebrate his release. There is no evidence that Buckey O’Neill was invited.

Hoof and Horn’s last edition was September 19, 1889, with no mention of its demise. Sheriff O’Neill stated later that he needed more time for his sheriff duties. On of his last editorial comments: "You will never forget to warm the bridle bits of your horses before inserting them into the mouth, if you will try the experiment of putting your tongue to a piece of frosty iron. The result is just the same, only the horse isn’t able to complain."

(Richard Gorby is a volunteer at the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives and Library)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (PO 1112pd ). Reuse only by permission.

"Buckey" O’Neill’s 1880s newspaper Hoof and Horn was meant for cattlemen, but the paper became the official publication of the "thieving thirteenth" legislature and often contained horse care advice and political attacks.