Legends of the Lost

Confusion Reigns When the Facts Refuse to Agree with the Myth

Arizona Territory evidently was a tough place to make a living. Criminal records of the time make that clear. Prior to 1912, the year the territory became a state, a person might make a living as a rancher, miner, farmer, shopkeeper, or freighter, but if honest work was not available, there was always a stagecoach waiting to be robbed. I've never done a statistical analysis, but after years of looking into rumors of loot just waiting to be found, it became easy to believe that roughly one-third of the territory's population was getting by on theft. Today, with many towns and cities here still separated by vast stretches of wild terrain, it's possible that the landscape hides a million unsolved mysteries, many of them involving stagecoach robberies. One week in February, I set out to solve one of these particularly vexing mysteries. As usual the basic information was sketchy, and - as with other such tales - the chief lure was the possibility of finding a strongbox filled with loot that vanished after a robbery. The impetus for this search was a single paragraph buried in the back of a book called Throw Down the Box, by George A. Thompson. The book deals with the Gilmer, Salisbury & Co. stagecoach line, an outfit with routes across roughly 6,000 miles of the untamed West. The coaches carried passengers, mail, and Wells Fargo Express, both money and bullion. The paragraph in the book mentioned that on November 19, 1879, a Gilmer & Salisbury stage was stopped by two bandits at a point on the Salt River seven miles south of Phoenix.

One of them ordered the driver, "Throw down the box." Bill Blankenship, the guard on the stage, opened fire with a double-barreled shotgun. One of the bandits swore when he was hit, but he or his accomplice returned Blankenship's fire. At least one shot hit Blankenship in the head and knocked him off his seat on the coach, but he survived. The book's account continues: "The treasure box was taken, and the stage was allowed to proceed without any of the passengers being bothered. Wells Fargo offered a reward of $1,500-so the take must have been considerable." The next day, a posse cornered the bandits somewhere south of the Salt River. The bandits opened fire, and one of them, Tom Francis, was killed. The second bandit, William Morgan, alias Dave Williams or Jenkins, was taken into custody, convicted, and three weeks later began serving a life sentence in Yuma Territorial Prison. The Gilmer & Salisbury book says there is no indication the stage's strongbox was ever found. I decided to begin my search by looking at microfilmed copies of the Prescott Miner, a major newspaper in territorial Arizona. On November 25, 1879, The Miner ran a story on its front page under the headline "Stage Robbers Captured! One Killed, the Other Alive Good Work." Naturally I felt like I'd found a treasure of sorts. The gist of the story was that two men had robbed a stagecoach and were located the following day. Tom Francis ran for his horse, trying to get at his revolver at the same time, and was shot dead. William Morgan, "taking in the situation concluded to surrender and slowly raised his hands heavenward, and allowed the sheriff to dis-arm him."

The Prescott Miner added that Morgan, "was ornamented with jail jewelry and brought to town and lodged in prison at 2 o'clock this morning. There is no doubt about these gents being the right ones, and the authorities who went out and captured the 'birds' deserve much credit."

All of this was very interesting, but The Miner story both clarified and confused the situation. Why? Because it placed the robbery in Skull Valley, a short distance west of Prescott and easily 100 miles north-west of the spot mentioned in the book on the Gilmer & Salisbury stage operations.

So which account was accurate? Was Morgan, alias Dave Williams, alias Jenkins, arrested for a robbery on the Salt River or one in Skull Valley? Fortunately the Arizona State Archives, on the fourth floor of the State Capitol, contains the records of inmates who served time in the territorial prison at Yuma. I wondered if they'd have anything on a William Morgan who would have begun a life sentence in December, 1879.

Two men robbed the stage and were located the next day; one was killed, and the other sentenced to life imprisonment.

There were two major differences, however. The most obvious was the location, Skull Valley instead of the Salt River near Phoenix. In addition there never was any mention in the trial record that Morgan and Tom Francis had stolen a strongbox. In fact, the "loot" was so minor that everyone, from the lawyer who prosecuted the case to the sheriff who had arrested Morgan, was outraged that the convicted man received a life sentence.

Morgan, the indictment said, had stolen a carpenter's plane valued at $4 and a sack of ore valued at $2. After serving five years of his life term, Morgan, then 44 years old, applied for a pardon.

A number of officials pitied Morgan. A letter sent to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, signed by several including the arresting sheriff, said: "We believe that Morgan wasthe dupe of a designing villain, who was killed by the arresting officers because of his resistance, while attempting to be arrested, while Morgan made none. Morgan's companion was an old offender, known so to be by the officers, while so far as known this was the first offense ever committed by Morgan. Morgan is now in the prime of life and manhood... with a family living in Utah, when we last heard from them, who need his protection and support."

Murat Masterson, the lawyer who prosecuted Morgan, said in recommending his pardon, "It is simply an outrage that this man was sent up for life." He said, "The proof [against Morgan] as the record will show was by no means clear and the verdict was rendered under much excitement..."

Morgan was pardoned on July 25, 1885, and released from prison on August 7.

After all this digging around, I accidentally discovered an article from the Salt River Herald that ran July 16, 1879. All of the events described in the Gilmer & Salisbury history book coincided with the unfolding of a stagecoach robbery on the Salt River in July, 1879, four months earlier than the date referred to in the book. The strongbox in that case "contained several hundred dollars," and whether it was ever found is a big question. If you want to search for it, be prepared to dig up a major freeway adjacent to Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. If in fact a strongbox was stolen, we can say for certain poor William Morgan didn't take it. At the time, he would have been up in Yavapai County talking to a bad apple who would eventually persuade him to help rob a different stage-coach in Skull Valley.