MURDER ON THE FAR HORIZON

AWFUL EFFORTS to dam the flood of illegal homicides which marked the ceaseless surge and flow of an endless stream of humanity across the terrain known as Arizona, from the dim distances of unrecorded events down to modern times, began when a woman named Dolores Moore was sentenced to be hanged, following her conviction of murder, at an early session of the American court, in Tucson.

A brief, stark record of this sentence to execution the first of its kind in the newly acquired frontier outpost of the United States is contained in the pages of a quaint, hand-written volume, somewhat like a merchandise ledger, labeled: The First Journal, District Court of the First Judicial District of Arizona, May 31, 1864, to April 16, 1874, which this writer unearthed in the basement of the Federal Court building, in Phoenix.

The chronology of this trial begins with December 17, 1868, when Dolores Moore was arraigned and the information gleaned that she was destitute of counsel and the means of procuring such, whereupon the court assigned one J. E. McCaffry to act as her attorney.

On the succeeding day a plea of “not guilty” was entered; thence, it may be presumed, the case went to immediate trial, when the following frontier Arizonans were named as the jurors: P. W. Dooner, W. J. Douglas, Anderson Perkins, J. Collingwood, Thomas Venable, Thomas Deegan, Isaac Archer, James Speedy, R. Shelton, Jeremiah Kinney, D. H. Stickney, and Thomas Barnum.

Four days after being empaneled, the jury returned a verdict of “guilty as charged”; then, after the lapse of one week, the attorney for hapless Dolores made a motion for a new trial, which plea was promptly denied; and, on December 30, the sad sentence was pronounced.

The language of the Court is recorded in the old Journal, as follows: “Dolores Moore, having been duly convicted of the crime of murder by the verdict of twelve jurors good and lawful men of the county of Pima. . . and being in court ready for sentence, it is considered and adjudged by this Court that Dolores Moore be taken from hence to the place from which she came and there be kept in close confinement until the last Friday in the month of February, A. D. 1869, at which time she will be taken to the place of execution and between the hours of 10 and 12 A. M. of that day be hanged by the neck until dead.” The name of the person whom Dolores Moore was convicted of murdering and whether she ever paid the extreme penalty imposed upon her in the foregoing sentence is not revealed in the quaint volume, which, on succeeding pages, records other murders as well as less sanguinary suits.

The very first case in the Journal records what was the first legal action in a court of American jurisdiction in Arizona, in the Village of Tucson, June 3, 1864. This was a civil suit designated as: “Charles T. Hayden versus William S. Grant,” and sought the foreclosure of a mortgage on the Tucson Grist Mill, which is believed to have been what was locally termed “the Jimmy Lee Mill,” situated on the banks of the Santa Cruz river, in the vicinity of the now nonexistent Silver Lake, about two miles south of the courthouse plaza.

Recitation is made by the Plaintiff Hayden that the basis for his action is the unpaid debt of the defendant, to whom he issued several bills of merchandise, on the guaranty of credentials stating that Grant was a duly authorized agent for the purchase of supplies for the United States Army in Arizona.

From a separate document it is learned that at this point John W. (Jack) Swilling ing and James Lee enter the suit as interpleaders, and were allowed time by Judge William T. Howell to file an amended complaint. This instrument of intervention reads: “And now at this day come into court John W. Swilling and James Lee. . . and interpose their claim to the property attached and allege that the mill site on the Santa Cruz River has been regarded from time immemorial as the property of the people of the Town of Tucson, as a right inseparable from their privileges of the water of this river for irrigation purposes.

“That by vote of the people of the Town of Tucson the mill site with the water privilege was granted to one William Rowlett in the year 1856, upon certain conditions, to-wit: that he should build a mill and grind wheat and other grains at a stated price for the people of Tucson, they having preference over all other parties or persons.” This documentary record goes on to relate that Rowlett sold his rights in the mill to Grant under the aforemen-

Two Good Jobs Accomplished

(Continued on Page 7) On reaching the eastern city limits of Flagstaff, the traveller will greet with thanks and surprise the modern new type of approach to towns and cities. Forty-four feet wide, of thick concrete and oil surface, is the new approach to Flagstaff. The old road there is gone forever. Its narrow path that was until this fall the only means across the southwest in a seven hundred mile wide area is hardly visible from the new highway. As the cars rise over the long vertical curve at the top of the hill at the border of Flagstaff, the northern city and its pine tree setting opens up in a fine vista. Dead ahead, across the city and up on a shoulder of the tree clad mesa, a sparkling white building gleams against the dark green of the pines. The Percival Lowell Observatory, where men gaze nightly at worlds beyond worlds, looks down on the everlasting rush of modern traffic, as if in silent wonder at human haste, while above it serenely move other worlds stretching end beyond end. Speed, time or distance fades to a puerile nothingness, to those whose vigil never ceases in the round white building that can be seen from the top of the hill on highway 66 at Flagstaff. The engineers have finished with their work at Canyon Padre and a silver rainbow across the gorge lies silently doing the work it was destined to do. The contractors have folded their tents and have moved to newer scenes of rugged nature's carving, there to make more safe our roads of progress and safety. Two more jobs have been accomplished and two more pathways have been cleared of their hazards. Traffic serenely hums over the ancient Canyon Padre and Highway 66 at Flagstaff.