Monthly Archives: March 2013

The Legend of Kissin’ Jenny

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By Fred Veil

It is not unusual for bits and pieces of Western lore to find their way into the historical record of the Old West. The story of Kissin’ Jenny, a Prescott prostitute, and the role she purportedly played in influencing the decision of the Fifteenth Legislature of the Arizona Territory to relocate the territorial capital from Prescott to Phoenix in 1889 is a case in point.

When the Fifteenth Legislature convened in Prescott in January, 1889 the first order of business taken up by the Assembly was a bill to permanently relocate the territorial capital from Prescott, where it had again resided since 1877, to Phoenix, that burgeoning city to the south that had by then surpassed both Prescott and Tucson in population, commerce and, most importantly, political influence. The location of the capital had for some years been a matter of contention, but in this instance the delegates from Maricopa County had rounded up the necessary votes and the bill was passed in the two houses (the Council and the House of Representatives) that comprised the Legislative Assembly, and immediately signed into law by Governor C. Myer Zulick. Within days, the Legislature reconvened in Phoenix to finish the business of the legislative session.

The legendary Jenny may have worked out of one of the cribs shown to the left of the Union Saloon (Courtesy of the Sharlot Hall Museum Call Number BU-B-8069pa).

The roots of the story of Kissin’ Jenny are unknown, but over time at least two versions have become part of our Western lore. The most popular account is that in anticipation of a close vote on the bill, the delegates from Maricopa County engaged Jenny to help them ensure the absence a certain Yavapai County delegate when the call was made for the vote on the bill. This delegate, a regular customer of Jenny’s, had a glass eye of which he was very proud. As the story goes, the delegate spent the night before the vote was to be taken in Jenny’s boudoir and before retiring removed his glass eye and placed it in a water glass next to the bed. When he awoke the next morning the glass eye was missing, purportedly swallowed by Jenny who, becoming thirsty during the night, picked up the water glass and consumed its contents. Vanity would not permit the delegate to be seen in public without his glass eye and as a consequence he missed the important vote on the capital relocation bill. According to legend, the bill passed by a single vote.

This narration of the story of Kissin’ Jenny has been eloquently captured in verse by Cowboy Poet Dee Strickland (Buckshot Dot). Her poem, entitled, appropriately, Kissin’ Jenny, was republished in the May 2012 edition of the Prescott Corral’s Territorial Times.

A second version of the Kissin’ Jenny story is that the delegate with the glass eye was actually a supporter of the bill, and when his eye turned up missing it was the Maricopa County delegates who rounded up a substitute glass eye, which allowed for him to show up at the very last minute to cast the deciding vote in favor of its passage.

A recent article in this newspaper, after recounting the most popular version of the Kissin’ Jenny story, suggested that historians have long tried but have been unable to disprove its veracity. The fact is, the story, which relies on the representation that the vote was lost (or won, depending on the version recounted) by a single vote, is easily disproved. According to the historical record of the Fifteenth Legislative Assembly, the vote was not even close. The Council voted 9 to 2 in favor of the bill and the House approved it by a vote of 14 to 10. Further, all of the Yavapai County delegates were present at the session and voted against the bill. The only member whose vote was not recorded was a Councilman from Apache County who, according to contemporary reports had remained at home to care for a sick child. In any event, his vote would have made no difference since the Council vote was so overwhelmingly in favor of the bill.

Nevertheless, the legend of Kissin’ Jenny will undoubtedly live on in Western lore––as well it should, because, after all, it does make a great story!

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International. This and other Days Past articles are available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Assistant Archivist, Scott Anderson, at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlot.org for information.)

 

Yavapai Storyteller – Mike Burns, Part 2

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By John Langellier

In last Sunday’s article Dr. Langellier told of a young Yavapai boy captured by U.S. Army soldiers, his adoption and education, and the beginnings of his efforts to tell the Indian side of events during the settling of Arizona Territory.

While Burns’s primary objective was to tell the Yavapai version of a history so dominated by white accounts, he broadened his scope to include traditional Indian oral history and ethnological information. Furthermore, he served as a principal informant for scholars who studied the Southeastern Yavapai and the Northeastern and Western Yavapai.

Burns’ search for a publisher was unsuccessful. Although he was never able to see the entire memoir published, he did succeed in seeing a partial account published in T. E. Farish’s History of Arizona.

In the meantime, he gave a copy of his manuscript to Colonel W. H. Corbusier, a retired army surgeon who had known Burns since shortly after his capture. The two men worked together to prepare the document for publishing. By 1922 Burns had provided Dr. Corbusier with elements of his manuscript so that the latter could present it to publishers. The work was rejected, as it was felt there was little interest in Indian history.

Comparison of Burns’ and Corbusier’s versions of the manuscript shows significant differences. Sometimes one has significantly more detail than the other concerning an incident. Also, the Corbusier copy does not contain segments about Burns’ experiences in Montana, his going to South Dakota with Crook’s troops, or his time in the East. Moreover, Corbusier’s editing excluded some of the more poignant elements, probably driven by the doctor’s Victorian sensibilities. Thus, the harsh treatment—at times, cruelty—toward Indians by whites is addressed in a somewhat less straightforward fashion by Corbusier than is evident in Burns’ more candid account.

Regardless of their differences, neither manuscript found favor with a publisher. The same situation continued to be true after the doctor’s death in 1930, when his son, William T. Corbusier, also attempted to interest publishers without success.

Even as efforts relative to the Corbusiers did not bear fruit, Burns attempts to pursue other avenues likewise failed. For example, in the spring of 1923, he once more contacted Sharlot M. Hall, asking, “[Who shall] I . . . get to publish my manuscript?” The following month Burns acknowledged Miss Hall’s reply and related, “I have about 247 copies [pages] already typewritten and only awaiting publication.” While the document evidently appealed to Sharlot Hall, there are no copies of her replies. Yet she retained the manuscript, which has been held in the Sharlot Hall Museum for more than eighty years. Unfortunately, Burns’ incredible account went almost unnoticed for generations. While a few researchers and scholars drew on Burns’ typescript, the memoir in its entirety remained unknown to a broader public.

Mike Burns (Hoomothya) in 1921 while residing at Ft. McDowell. Photo taken by Dr. William H. Corbuiser (Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum – Call Number MS-8-i003).

One can argue that Burns never would have been able to produce his rich, detailed story were it not for his reintroduction to the Yavapai people after his days as an army scout ended. In fact, his marriage to Che-ha-ta resulted in more than the couple having a large family. This union with the daughter of a leader of the Apache Yuma, or Tolkapaya (western), division of the Yavapai tribe also in many ways helped him to reclaim his stolen past. Later, he said he received much of his information about historic events and preservation of Yavapai customs from his father-in-law and his father-in-law’s friends among the older generation.

It was this reintroduction to his people that allowed him to add to his incredibly rich recounting of a time that has been lost with the passing of Burns and those who came before him. His is not an easy story to follow given that English was not his first language, and despite certain educational advantages punctuation, grammar, and spelling were not his strong suit. These obstacles and the difficult, and often heart wrenching events he describes makes for a difficult “read”.  Nonetheless, at long last Sharlot Hall Museum’s press prepared Burn’s saga for publication and in 2010 released the poignant story under the title All My People Were Killed: The Memoir of Mike Burns (Hoomothya) A Captive Indian.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International. This and other Days Past articles are available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Assistant Archivist, Scott Anderson, at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlot.org for information.)

Yavapai Storyteller – Mike Burns, Part 1

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By John Langellier

In December 1872 a young Yavapai named Hoomothya was present as his father, siblings, grandparents, and other members of his extended family were killed by U.S. Army troops with the support of Indian scouts. There, in a remote cave that even today is isolated and difficult to locate, he was orphaned.

The lad may have been no more than seven or eight years old when the only world he knew was swept away as part of the government’s efforts to conquer Arizona Territory for white settlement. This tragic event had unexpected consequences, because the boy was taken in by his army captors and given a new name, Mike Burns. He remained with various military men for many years as ward, servant, mascot, and eventually as an Indian scout.

His path crossed with numerous western figures, from General George Crook to William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Burns’ life during these years reads much like a dime novel of the era but with more pathos than romance. At a tender age he was present at many events that have become part of western lore, including the 1876 campaign on the Great Plains where George Custer’s Seventh Cavalry met its fate at Little Bighorn, and later he played a role in the campaign that finally brought Geronimo to bay. These and other travels exposed him to experiences far beyond that of the typical post–Civil War American.

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Mike Burns as a young adult in uniform as an Indian Scout (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum – Call Number: MS-8-002).

Additionally, Burns’ odyssey led him to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as one of the first students to attend that renowned Indian school, and to Highland University in Kansas. In the process Burns acquired more education than many Americans of the era by the time he returned to his homeland nearly a decade and a half later. This exposure to the white man’s school should have served him well. Regrettably, his thirst to learn did not bring the future he wanted for himself and his family. Yet through it all Burns was proud of his Indian heritage as well as his military service.

Indeed, Burns was of two peoples, and he was never completely accepted by either the whites or the Indians. Ironically, this precarious position afforded him an unequalled viewpoint, and in some ways inspired him to seek out the past that was stolen from him. In so doing he became part eyewitness, part oral historian, part ethnographer, and all storyteller. His poignant, personal perspective now comes to life in this transcription of his own memoir.

This last point is pivotal since personal stories of Arizona’s nineteenth-century Indians largely have gone untold, dying with their owners and leaving no record that either ever existed. There has simply been no Indian voice to tell their side of what happened after Arizona Territory was founded in 1863.

Burns’s desire to share his perspective started even while Arizona was still a territory. As early as January 6, 1910, he wrote from Phoenix to Miss Sharlot Hall, a poet, the territorial historian, and later the founder of the Sharlot Hall Museum, in care of Mr. J. P. Dillon, an attorney in Prescott: “I am an Apache Indian of this Territory and received a little education at Carlisle Indian School of Penna. Will you give me the address of a man or a magazine to whom I can send letters about a little history of the Apaches? And including my own history. . . .”

A few years later he wrote to his friend Dr. Carlos Montezuma, a fellow Yavapai Indian educated as a doctor and practicing in Chicago, Illinois. In this January 7, 1913, letter he confided, “I am going to tell the White People that they have heard only one side of the stories about how bad the Apaches were to the whites.” He went on to say, “It will be a long time yet before I can get to that as you call it The Bloody Cave Massacre and I will tell something about my capture.” Yet, he had already been writing for some time when he made this statement to Dr. Montezuma.

Next Sunday: Dr. Langellier tells of Mike Burns’ long struggle to have the Indian point of view published.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International. This and other Days Past articles are available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Assistant Archivist, Scott Anderson, at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlot.org for information.)

 

 

Horse-Powering the 19th Century Farm

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By Russ Sherwin

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, one of the best power sources the small farmer had, or could readily obtain, was horses. If he didn’t have his own, he could borrow or rent some for a short period of time. A horse just requires a little water and some hay for fuel and he’s good to go. And it’s generally scalable: Need more power? Get more horses. Then, because of advances in crop processing machinery, a need developed for stationary rotary power. The problem is, how do you turn a walking horse into a rotating shaft?

One early solution was a treadmill on which a horse simply walks. Power could be taken from these to drive other machinery. Treadmills were designed for a wide variety of animals besides horses and mules, including dogs, sheep and goats. Although simple, compact and practical for small jobs requiring small amounts of power, practical limitations constrained the designs to two horses at most.

A new machine appeared in the form of the multi-horse sweep, a merry-go-round device that would, theoretically, accept as many horses as you had room to harness to the wheel. They went by various names, and there were dozens of manufacturers such as J. I. Case, Woodbury, Pitts-Carey and Dinger-Woodbury, each with variations on the theme.

One common term for the sweep or merry-go-round type of machine was, uniquely enough, a ‘horse-power.’ It was also called a ‘sweep-power’, or simply a ‘power’. Up to eight, twelve or sixteen horses could be harnessed in pairs around the wheel. The horses marched endlessly around the circle, pulling the merry-go-round which drove a smaller gear with a shaft extending out beyond the circle from which power could be obtained. The horses had to step over the shaft every time they came around. The ‘driver’ stood in the middle on a raised platform with a whip to keep the horses moving. There were, of course, practical limitations. You can imagine the mess when, inevitably, one of the horses stumbled, bringing the whole thing to an inglorious halt.

Patent Drawing for a Horse Powered Treadmill (Illustration Courtesy of the Author).

A simple analog of the horse-power is a hand-crank eggbeater. If you lay the eggbeater horizontally and attach a miniature horse to the crank, as he walks around he will turn the beaters. Of course he has to jump over the beater shafts each time he comes around. In place of one of the beaters you affix a pulley with a belt to a threshing machine. A very small threshing machine to be sure; but then, you have a very small horse!

An interesting side note relating to the horse-power machines is how the quantitative unit of ‘horsepower’ was developed in the first place. We all understand that our car’s engine is rated in horsepower, but few of us understand just what that means or how it came to be termed that. It has something to do with horses, probably, but what? Well, typically the average draft horse was considered as having the tractive power to pull 1/8 of its weight for 20 miles traveling at 2.5 miles per hour.  Thus, a typical 1,500-pound draft horse could develop 33,000 foot pounds per minute which became defined as one horsepower (hp.).

The horse-power machine was a relatively short lived phenomenon due to the increasing power demands of the rapidly developing farm implement industry. Steam tractors, huge, heavy, wheezing, clanking monstrosities became the power source of choice before they were replaced by petroleum based internal combustion tractors.

If you visit even a medium sized farm nowadays, you will find great green, blue, red, orange or yellow machines rolling across hundreds of acres of perfectly groomed and level farmland, planting, harvesting, bailing, threshing, packaging and delivering all manner of farm goods. They are fully enclosed and air conditioned, they follow paths determined by GPS, they are self-propelled by enormous diesel engines, they are equipped with stereo, AM-FM receivers, radio communications, refrigerators for cold drinks and plush leather seats. They are also very likely commanded by 16-year old girls working their first summer jobs between high school classes.

It was not always so easy.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International. This and other Days Past articles are available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Assistant Archivist, Scott Anderson, at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlot.org for information.)

Arizona Becomes a United States Territory, Part 2

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By Al Bates

In last week’s article we traced Arizona’s early days as a neglected part of New Mexico Territory and how the Gadsden Purchase started the concept of a political subdivision by that name.  This week we look at the shaping of Arizona (literally) by the United States Congress and how its first government was formed.

The debate over splitting Arizona from New Mexico Territory included some 18 Congressional bills that produced a variety of proposed shapes.  Some proposals split Arizona from New Mexico Territory along a horizontal line while others called for a vertical split.  It was not until February 20, 1863, that the Senate finally agreed to a bill that had passed in the House over nine months earlier.  President Lincoln signed the statute four days later.  The next step was to appoint a slate of officers for the new territory.  And here’s where Charles Debrile Poston, the self-designated “Father of Arizona”, comes in.

Poston, a colorful self promoter, had been one of the earliest adventurers to inspect the Gadsden Purchase for potential mineral riches (fabled Spanish silver mines) and had, with backing of Eastern financial interests, established a productive mining operation with its headquarters at Tubac.  However, with the coming of the Civil War and the resultant withdrawal of Union troops from New Mexico Territory, the Apache menace forced him and surviving associates to flee to safer climes.

Poston was soon in Washington where he began, by his description, successful efforts to lobby the president and members of Congress in the cause of territorial status for Arizona.  When these efforts appeared to be bearing fruit, he turned his attention to the forming of the new territorial government with, he hoped, a prominent role for himself.  And that brings us to the fabled “Oyster Dinner” with a guest list of congressional “lame ducks” and other politicians eager to gain public appointments in the new territory.

Details of the dinner, such as who organized it and who paid the bills, are not revealed in Poston’s account of the event, but through his presence he was able to get for himself the consolation post of Territorial Indian Agent, but only after all the plum assignments had been doled out.  His contention in later years that his influence on the lame ducks aided in final passage of the creation bill is self serving and probably inaccurate.

This map shows Arizona Territory in its original configuration with its first political subdivisions, the original three judicial and legislative districts. The projection at the northwest corner later became a part of Nevada (Map Courtesy of Author).

Preparations for the journey from Washington D. C. were made with the goal of the newly appointed officers being in Arizona before 1863 ended (thus to ensure that the officers were eligible for that year’s pay), but were delayed by the death of Governor-to-be John A. Gurley.

The final slate of territorial officers included: Governor John N. Goodwin, Secretary Richard C. McCormick, Chief Justice William F. Turner, Associate Justice William T. Howell, Associate Justice Joseph P. Allyn, District Attorney Almon Gage, U. S. Marshal Milton Duffield, Surveyor-General Levi Bashford, Superintendent of Indian Affairs Poston and Postmaster the Reverend Hiram W. Reed.

The bulk of the Governor’s Party traveled west over the Santa Fe Trail, arriving at Santa Fe on November 26.  Poston and Marshal Duffield travelled separately to Tucson (via San Francisco), arriving in January 1864 where they expected to meet the Governor’s Party.  (One proposed version of the Organic Act included a provision that the seat of government be established in Tucson, but that item was removed, thus leaving the location to be selected by the governor.)

Plans had changed and when the Governor’s party left Santa Fe their new destination was to be the new gold diggings in the Central Arizona Highlands and the eventual establishment of Arizona’s first Territorial Capital on the banks of Granite Creek.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International. This and other Days Past articles are available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Assistant Archivist, Scott Anderson, at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlot.org for information.)