Arizona's Haunted Walls of Silence

The story of the Pleasant Valley War in the turbulent Eighties when Arizona was ". . . a lonesome land in which men went 'wringy' in the pungent humidity of perspiration, tobacco, cattle and sheep dip, horse linament, whiskey and blood."

Prevailing longevity in the open spaces of the West and linger-ing animosities engendered on a once blazing frontier still challenge time's too slowly persuasive bid to forget Arizona's most frightful range tragedy of territorial days. Public records from time to time identify an appreciable number of guests of the Pioneers' Home or old age pensioners in various localities as individuals who actively participated in or were passively neutral during the main course of blood curdling feudism in the 1880 decade, when the laws of God and man were derided and consistently honored in the breach rather than the observance, with a single exception instituted ages ago by Moses “an eye for an eye.” Some of those hoary-headed old-timers played spectacular parts when all sorts of episodes were staged in the unparalleled environ-ment of the last frontier, but none of them will talk. According to their frigid philosophy, the things they claimed they were obliged to do with matters of self preservation were only parts of the day's work, and the dead past, with God's help, must bury its own dead. No apologies to man or God. It is more than likely that newer factual revelations and clearer comprehensions of current evasions will continue through succeeding generations to crowd the Arizona bookshelf, already flooded with Notes Mr. Gregory died November 29, 1946, before completing his manuscript. It was finished by Earle R. Forrest, author of ARIZONA'S DARK AND BLOODY GROUND, the full story of the Pleasant Valley War.

PAGE FOUR OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS FOR OCTOBER, 1947 such indicative titles as: Maverick Basin, The Man Killers, To The Last Man, The Flame of Terrible Valley, Arizona's Dark and Bloody Ground.

The plot weaving influence of red years tempted only brave and indomitable men and women to undergo pioneering in Arizona's long ago, with weirdly forbidding natural hazards which still sus-tain its oft repeated characterization as a man-made country fashioned out of the land that God forgot; a trail-blazing land in which settlers blazed Apache Indians and trailed and blazed one another at times; a lonesome land in which men went "wringy" in the pun-gent humidity of perspiration, tobacco juice, cattle and sheep dip, horse linament, whiskey and blood.

Raw nature was largely responsible for the elements which featured what is variously called the Pleasant Valley War, the Tonto Basin War, the war between the sheepmen and cattlemen, and the Graham-Tewksbury feud. This affair of long ago engaged strange partisanships, flung devastating influences afar, and brought a heavy toll of life in the brief period of six weeks during 1887. Most of the active participants died with their boots on, leaving lone heads of feudistic factions to nurse smouldering hatreds for five years until the last Tewksbury killed the last Graham a long distance from Pleasant Valley.

Most of the belligerents were wiped out at the peak of the sanguinary affair, and survivors and neutrals during their lives refused to disclose particulars. This is in keeping with the general disposition of typical Westerners to lapse into discreet silence, anl and posterity has been left with the problem of attempting to separate truth from fiction. Nevertheless, six decades after the fearful events in what was once one of Arizona's most isolated communities, pathetic tales begin to unravel from the mantle of silence which has draped an unsolved mystery.

Many who could have cleared up much of the mystery went to their graves, and dead men tell no tales. Living men who might clarify contradictory accounts are still tight lipped.

Infested by Apache Indians, bandits and outlaws of all description, the Arizona of the 1880's was as tough a spot as could be found in the entire world. Tombstone, the town that was too tough to die, was in the spotlight. Echoes of the gunfire reached Washington and in his message to Congress in 1881, President Arthur appealed for authority to put down the lawlessness with force of arms, but Congress seems to have had other interests than the wild Arizona frontier.

Fort Whipple was established to protect Prescott, the capital and first settlement between the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers. The "Governor's Mansion" was a log house. From 1864 to 1886 not more than two thousand troops were engaged at one time in subjugation of the Apaches, not enough to stop the torture and murder of white settlers.

The Pleasant Valley of 1887 was buried in the most remote section of this wild land. It was then the farthest southeastern section of Yavapai County, which was larger than many an eastern state. One hundred miles to the north was the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, not the Santa Fe, and still farther to the west was Prescott, the county seat. The only law in this remote valley was dispensed by Judge Colt. At Payson, fifty miles away, was a justice of the peace, who had jurisdiction over Pleasant Valley, but it was an empty authority, for he had no means of enforcing law and order. His principal work was in holding coroner's inquests. This was Pleasant Valley in 1887, a well nigh impregnable bandit stronghold.

Trails led from the valley across Tonto Basin and generally along the route of today's Apache Trail to Tempe, where Daggs Brothers, "Sheep Kings of Arizona," conducted a country bank.

It was a cattle rustlers' paradise. James Stinson, owner of the largest and most heavily depleted herd, was unable to cope with the situation, and transferred his outfit east of the Mogollon Rim to a safer range in the country of the peaceful Mormon settlements.

Historians have wondered why sheepmen and cattlemen supported each other in some instances when feudism resulted. The answer is simple. Cross purposes jangled a song of hate with hell on a ram page in Pleasant Valley.

One of the most bitter feuds that ever ravaged any section of the United States finally broke out with terrific intensity in that summer of 1887, when the Graham boys, reared on a peaceful Iowa farm, were pitted in a death grapple with the half-breed, frontier bred Tewksburys.

Governor Zulick vainly sought help from Uncle Sam, but Washington ignored the situation The feudists appealed to Chief Dazin's band of renegade Apaches for partisan help, but the only common sense and straight talk in the whole affair came from the Indians: "It is not our fight. White man must settle his own trouble. It is none of our business."

In February a band of Daggs' sheep, driven over the rim of the Mogollons under the protection of the Tewksbury guns, was halted and hurled back by the cattlemen and cowboys led by Tom Graham. The lead herder was ambushed, but that mattered little to anyone, for he was only a Navajo Indian, and no official action was taken. Buried just where he fell, modern road machinery wrecked the pile of stones that once protected the corpse from wild beasts and buzzards, and the reduced pile now sprawls beside a branch road only a mile from the modern highway which leads through the valley towards the Mogollon Rim.

Admittedly the most sinister character to instigate reprisals and to go on record as the confessed perpetrator of at least one assassination, was himself a sheepman and a squaw man the herder was his brother-in-law.

This account of the first battle was related to the writer forty years afterwards, when "40 YEARS AGO" columns in Arizona newspapers reprinted contemporaneous stories which revived long standing controversies.

George F. Wilson, owner of the Flying V Ranch, Globe business executive and president of a chain banking system, told his eye witness version of the fight battle. Like many frontier youths who gained business experience in their juvenile years, Mr. Wilson had accumulated some livestock and was the founder of the Flying V brand. While still a student and under legal age, his ranch business was under the management of his brother-in-law, Geo. Newton Seventeen-year-old George Wilson decided to spend his vacation on the ranch that summer of 1887, and he arrived just a couple of hours before the battle. He was advised immediately that a "grapevine" message had warned all settlers to get out of the valley by noon. He decided to stick it out with the crowd, and prepared for eventualities.

The principal Grahamites were the Blevins boys who lived on Canyon Creek, about thirty miles away. "Old Man" Mark Blevins, the father, disappeared while looking for stray horses in July. Hampton Blevins organized a searching party which left the Hash Knife Ranch near Winslow in August. This party stopped at the Flying V. where the search ended very abruptly.

However, survivors agreed that the members rapped at the ranch house door and asked for something to eat, but they were refused very curtly and fired upon as they were leaving. Whether any of them actually dismounted or were afforded the opportunity to make their wishes known is as doubtful as their story.

Barricaded inside of that cabin were John, James and Ed Tewksbury and several companions. Hamp Blevins was blasted from his horse and landed face down with a bullet between his eyes, exactly where Jim Tewksbury had remarked earlier that he was going to plug "that long-connected Hamp." John Paine and his horse went down together in death. Tom Tucker, clipped on one ear by a bullet, wheeled his horse to make his getaway, and a bullet struck him in one armpit, passed through the other side. His horse dropped dead and Tucker crawled into the brush. Bob Glasspie rode away with a bullet in his thigh. Tom Carrington and Tom Bonner managed to escape without a scratch.

According to the story often repeated to friends in Globe, young Wilson was speechless. He could not move a muscle. His feet seemed glued to the floor and his gun never left its rigid hold in his hands until relaxation came after the murderous reality was over.

In discussing the origin, Mr. Wilson said that the Blevins crowd actually "walked into" something that was intended for somebody else; that the undercover warning mentioned did not come from either Graham or Daggs sources. The Tewksburys were there to help their Flying V friends. Complicated trouble, he stated, was such that nobody took chances on the other fellow. Dispossession of all settlers was the object of a conspiracy entered into by land grabbing interests in collusion with politicians in high office who aided and abetted the feud which possibly could have been instigated by and actually was encouraged by them.

Desperately wounded, Tom Tucker stumbled and crawled nine or ten miles through rain-drenched mountains to Al Rose's ranch, which he reached two days later. Blow flies and maggots had destroyed the festered flesh of his wound, thereby saving his life. The wound finally healed without other attention than crude cleansing and bandaging. His next stop was Haigler's ranch, seventeen miles away. He and Bob Glasspie were riding the Hash Knife range a few weeks later. Glasspie's wounded horse had given out and the lame cowboy made the rest of the way on foot.

The Grahams and Tewksburys had been at odds prior to 1887. A faint hint of the backgrounds may be found from several sources other than Mr. Wilson, particularly when the story of the 1885 Territorial Legislature is taken into account. The personal performances during and after the feud by one member of the most disgraceful aggregation of legislators every knew invite analysis. That character is listed in the personnel of what is known to history by "The Fighting Thirteenth," "Bloody Thirteenth" and "Thieving Thirteenth."

Mr. Wilson's pardonable regrets at the later linking of his name with the story and pride in his personal integrity, caused him to remark: "I had the misfortune to go through a horrifying experiencе which cannot be forgotten. I may be eventually compelled to tell what I know of the truth, but I will do so in a sworn affidavit if necessary. I was raised in this town. My friends and associates have honored me. I have reared my family here and I do not propose to allow my name to be continually associated with characters who have never lived down their unsavory records."

Most attempts to uncover the background through men who should know it have met with similar statements. Nevertheless, the average pioneer declines to further discuss the subject. Fear of late reprisals seem to keep them either uncommunicative or evasively suggestive. Research developments may some day lift the veil of silence.

(Note to Reader: This manuscript was submitted to George Wilson. current manager of the Flying V ranch and son of George F. Wilson. deceased, whose eyewitness account of the first fight is herein detailed, together with explanations supplied by the author. Mr. Wil son approved the account as being without deviation whatever from the one he had repeatedly heard from his father; that he had no fur ther suggestions to offer and that he would verify the account as it stands if questioned about it. Gregory).

Facts concerning other main events are well authenticated and the names of more participants are known. The occupants of many unmarked graves cannot now be identified. Some neutrals disappear ed. Loose tongues were silenced when others who knew too much met a similar fate. Some of these cases are matters of record. Men who played both sides were summarily dealt with. Everybody in the valley was on the spot. Thanks to a manuscript filed with the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society in 1932 some definite records and surprisingly intimate details are clearly set forth.

Owing to limited circulation of the Arizona Historical Review. the general public has not been familiarized with the published reminiscences of Joe T. McKinney, an outstanding peace officer of territorial days, who served as undersheriff of two counties. Apache and Gila. While on the trail of a horse thief, which he had followed for more than a hundred miles from Winslow, he arrived in Pleasant Valley at sundown of the day of the fight at the Flying V. Later he went into the valley with a posse in pursuit of train robbers, but this pursuit was abandoned when they ran into the feud.

Overtaken by darkness while following the horse thief. he spent the night under a tree and dawn found him near one of the Tewks bury places, where he applied for breakfast. Mrs. Tewksbury re garded him with suspicion and said: "We don't know who people are here." However, after he exhibited his credentials and warrant for the horse thief he was given breakfast, and told that the men he wanted had passed there at sundown and would be found at Al Rose' cabin. The credentials and warrant were submitted to Rose, who pointed out the thief, and his arrest was accomplished without effort. A the officer and his prisoner were about to depart Rose said to him "Look here, if you are an officer you had better come and do some thing with them damn Tewksburys. If you don't we are going to kill every damn one of them."

Rose then told McKinney the details of the fight on the previous day in which Hamp Blevins and Paine were killed and Tom Tucker wounded. He said that Bob Glasspie, Tom Carrington and Tom Bonner were still missing. He then declared that Daggs had staked the Tewksburys to "the best guns made."

The officer assured Rose that when he had warrants to serve he would try to do his duty, but he said that he could not afford to take any stock in a private scrap. Turning to his prisoner he said, "If this is the kind of country we have got into. we had better get out of here."

On the way out they met a party of seven men bound for the scene of the tragedy to bury the victims. Later they met the miss ing Bonner and Louis Parker, the latter a nephew of the Grahams. These men told the officer "We thought probable that you were some of the Tewksbury outfit and if you were it would be as good a place to leave you as any."

When he reached Winslow, McKinney sent this telegraphic report to his superior, "Two more killed in Pleasant Valley. Things are looking squally."

Word was hastily sent to Governor Zulick, who put the situa tion squarely up to Sheriff Robert B. Mulvenon. That official hastily gathered a posse of five men and headed into Pleasant Valley. Feud ists of both factions, but not jointly, met him and made it plain that interference by the law would not be tolerated; that they proposed to settle their troubles among themselves.

One story of that visit is still told to the effect that the possemen Thewksbury cabin in Pleasant Valley was once scene of battle. Hewn log walls proved ample fortress. The many bullet marks in the logs and the port holes tell of less placid days. Those who fought here are now gone. Memories remain. (Photos by Maz Kegley.) were left afoot when their horses were stolen by members of one faction. Another rumor that the posse was ambushed and all were killed reached the outside, and this with the story of the horse steal ing was published in newspapers in Arizona and the Pacific coast However, the posse reached Prescott safely, and immediately Mul. venon headed back to the valley, this time with twenty men.

During Mulvenon's absence things happened in the valley, one event after another in rapid succession. On August 17th seventeenyear-old Billy Graham with Joe Ellenwood were riding the Pine Creek trail when he was shot by Jim Houck, a sheepman who posed as an officer of sorts, and a former legislator. Houck held a deputy sheriff badge from Apache County, but he was out of his jurisdiction at this time.

According to his own story after he returned to the county seat. Saint Johns, he concealed himself on the hillside where he could get a good view of the trail without being seen himself. He claimed that he was looking for John Graham, and when he saw a man approaching on horseback he ordered him to surrender. However, when he turned Houck saw that it was Billy Graham, and he told him to go on as he had no warrant for him, but young Graham answered with a shot, which was returned by Houck. The boy made his escape. although dangerously wounded, to die at the Graham ranch three days later. Houck made no mention of Ellenwood's presence.

Another version relates that Ellenwood helped young Grahanı to Haigler's ranch, where he nursed him for two weeks before he died. However, the first account is believed to be more nearly correct. Residents in the valley still point to a tree east of the trail where tradition says Houck lay in wait for his victim. The identity of the slayer would never have been known, but for Houck's propensity for loose and boasting talk.

The killing of Billy Graham turned the war into a bitter feud between the Grahams and Tewksburys. The next fight was one of the most desperate and horrifying in the history of Pleasant Valley. It has been the subject of much fiction built around the feud, but through it all there is nothing to show that Tom Graham, acknowledged leader of that faction ever took an unfair advantage of his enemies. Tom Graham was a fighter and always fought in the open This incident was the attack by Grahamites on the Tewksbury cabin on Cherry Creek. It is generally believed that Andy Blevins known for good and sufficient reason as Andy Cooper, was the leader in the assault on the Tewksbury cabin on the morning of September 2nd, in reprisal for the death of his brother, Hamp Blevins, at the Flying V Ranch.

The cabin was surrounded before daylight. John Tewksbury and William Jacobs left the house to do some chores, but when about a mile away they were suddenly surrounded and killed. Then the besiegers closed in on the cabin, determined to wipe out the entire Tewksbury family, and from the adjacent hillside they opened fire on the building. It is not known definitely who was in the cabin that day, but it is certain that Mrs. John Tewksbury, wife of the man who had just been killed, with his father, John Tewksbury, Sr., were there. It is generally believed that Ed and Jim Tewksbury were there and probably Jim Roberts.

When the battle was at its height, both besiegers and besieged suddenly beheld the half wild hogs on the ranch start to devour the bodies of the two dead men. The claim has been made that the Graham men refused to grant a burial truce. This is probably true. and evidence points to the fact that Andy Cooper led the Grahamites that day in the absence of Tom Graham; for no matter what might he said no one ever accused the latter of taking an unfair advantage When the fighting was at its height and the hogs were rooting the bodies around, the door of the Tewksbury cabin opened and a woman stepped forth with a shovel in her hand. The firing from the besiegers suddenly ceased, for no man in old Arizona would have shot a woman, and with both sides watching, this woman, the wife of John Tewksbury, walked bravely across the flat and buried the bodies of her husband and Bill Jacobs. Then she returned to the house and the battle was resumed more furiously than ever.

After hours of fighting in which there seems to have been casualties, at least none were ever reported, the firing from the besiegers suddenly ceased, and the Tewksburys saw a man ride across the flat towards the cabin. At first they were fearful of a trick: then they recognized John Meadows, justice of the peace from Payson. He had arrived with a posse and lifted the siege. The cattlemen sullenly withdrew, for they well knew that Meadows would as soon fight them as not. Meadows was an able and conscientious man.

Two days later Andy Cooper was in Holbrook, where he told such intimate details of the fight that he gave the impression that he was the leader in the assault.

At this same time a long-haired, baby-faced young man named Commodore Perry Owens was in town. He was the Sheriff of Apache County, and he held warrants for Cooper and others of his gang. on charges of rustling. Cooper was known as a dangerous gunman.(please turn to page twenty-six)