Gunsmoke: The True Story of Old Tombstone

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Text originally published in 1954 under the same title.

© Borodino Books 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

GUNSMOKE

THE TRUE STORY OF OLD TOMBSTONE

BY

SARAH GRACE BAKARICH

(Grace McCool)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

APPRECIATION 4

CHAPTER I—SILVER IN THE HILLS 5

CHAPTER II—DUELS ON ALLEN STREET 9

CHAPTER III—TOMBSTONE’S FIRST MARSHAL 13

CHAPTER IV—WYATT EARP 15

CHAPTER V—THE CLANTONS AND McCLAUGHRYS 19

CHAPTER VI—A STOLEN HORSE 23

CHAPTER VII—DEATH IN GUADALOUPE CANYON 27

CHAPTER VIII—SHERIFF’S POSSE 30

CHAPTER IX—GUN THUNDER AT THE OK CORRAL 35

CHAPTER X—TWO MORE NOTCHES-FOR THE EARPS 40

CHAPTER XI—LAWMAN AND OUTLAW 43

CHAPTER XII—POSSE GUNSMOKE 54

CHAPTER XIII—THIRTEEN STEPS 57

CHAPTER XIV—THREE DESERT RIDERS 60

CHAPTER XV—SILVER CAMP CHINATOWN 67

CHAPTER XVI—THE WRONG SIDE OF ALLEN STREET 70

CHAPTER XVII—APACHES 73

CHAPTER XVIII—RENEGADE LAW DOG 81

CHAPTER XIX—TEACHER MADE US CHECK OUR PISTOLS 85

CHAPTER XX—TOMBSTONE SUBURBS 100

CHAPTER XXI—LIFE IN A FRONTIER SILVER CAMP 103

CHAPTER XXII—TOMBSTONE SHERIFFS 108

CHAPTER XXIII—THE LAST RIDER 115

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 117

APPRECIATION

I am under obligation for kind and patient help with the material used in this book to the following pioneers and sons and daughters of pioneers:

Columbus Stolz, F. R. Shearer, Jim Wolfe, Mrs. Pearl Christiansen, Mrs. Nellie Dalgleish, Mrs. Myrtle Street, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Thomas, Mr. and Mrs. Bob Fourr, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hughes, Mrs. France Conyers, Betty Shumaker, Harriet Heister, John Larrieu, F. B. Moson, Frank Crane, Morris Sheppard, Major John Healy, Sam Foster, Arthur Lamb, Charlie Blackburn, John Sebring, Mr. and Mrs, S. T. Lindly. Sr., Ed Brown, Ernest Escapule, P. W. Newbury, Dan Kitchel, R. N. Mullen, Mrs. J. E. Larson, Wallace Haverty, Mrs. T. L. Herrick and Mrs. Charles P. Fuller.

Thanks, friends,

Sarah Grace Bakarich

CHAPTER I—SILVER IN THE HILLS

The ox road came out of the north from Tucson, and wound across the black-brush covered ridges and through gramma-grass blanketed draws studded with big mesquite trees and giant yuccas; it crossed the San Pedro on a gravel bottomed ford and wandered south toward the mines at Nacozari. West, the dark, heavily forested Huachuca Mountains frowned, the Thunder Mountains, in the language of the Apaches. North were the sharp peaks of the Whetstones and east the Mule Mountains, so named because they teemed with mule deer. South, ahead of the freight wagon, loomed the San Jose Mountains, and they were across the border in Old Mexico. Northeast rose the chalky ramparts of the Dragoons, named for the first United States troops in Arizona, and the stronghold of the fiercely war-hungry Apaches. Smoke signals bloomed above the foothills, puffs that spelled out the war talk of the savages. And the smoke talk said, Stranger in the valley.

The ox driver had a smart outfit, huge canvas sheeted wagon and six yoke of big sleek oxen; he plodded beside the wagon as is the custom of ox-drivers. A sassy vermillion fly-catcher spiraled into the air warbling his cheery little song, swooped down after a fly buzzing around the oxen, and came to rest on a greasewood shrub, a bright splash of color.

A herd of antelope moved across the desert like a cloud shadow, but behind the antelope came a mounted war-party of Apaches. The teamster didn’t have a chance.

The war-party came on gobbling their hideous war-cry. There were twenty white-turbaned braves, their faces streaked with black and white war paint. Two of them had fresh scalps dangling at their waists, their chests were streaked with human blood. The freighter was game enough. He sighted his Sharps rifle, it crashed and a spotted pony tumbled, wildly kicking just as the rider leaped free. He fired again. A savage tried to slip to the far side of his pony too late. The unseated rider sprang to the riderless horse, there were too many Indians. One of the oxen went down, the white man took an arrow in the shoulder and the Indians came on gloating for the sport, torture, death and loot. The year was 1867.

Into this desperate scene a new note was introduced by the notes of cavalry bugle. A patrol of the 4th Cavalry swept into view, out of Camp McDowell at Tucson and fresh from an overnight bivouac at new Camp Wallan on Barbacomari Creek. The troopers were mounted on identical grey geldings and the desert sun high-lighted their blue uniforms with bright yellow trouser outseams and crossed saber insigne on black slouch hats. The Apaches were merciless rawhide and flint, but the troopers were whalebone and steel; now it was the savages who didn’t have a chance. They were swept by fire from army carbines and they chose to run. They got away over the border.

The troopers gave the ox-driver what aid they could. The imbedded arrow had to be cut out and the loss of the ox would slow his outfit. The patrol camped with him overnight. Beside the bright fire of greasewood and mesquite, a tough sergeant mused, There were a couple of prospectors somewhere around here in the valley. They had some pretty rich float. Wonder what happened to them?

The teamster stirred in his blankets and pain etched harsh vertical lines in his cheeks.

One have long yellow hair and the other sorta shorter brown?

Why yes, that’s the two. Firelight lighted up sergeant’s flat cheeks as he swung around, with a rosy glow. Hear any word of them? They sure were lucky cusses.

The teamster turned his head away from the dancing fire-light and groaned. He saw again the Apaches, the two scalp-locks, the bare, dark chests freshly streaked with blood.

Ten years passed, the beautiful valley of the San Pedro still was wracked by Indian murder. A prospector, red flannel shirted, pick in hand and leading a mule, stood in the hot sun, hat in hand before the little mound of silver ore that matched the rich float he’d found a few hours before, so rich it showed the imprint of a pick. On each side of the little pile of ore and facing it lay the sun whitened bones of the two prospectors who had discovered it in the Indian scourged hills.

Ed Schieffelin, whose prospector’s pick unlocked the secret of the barren hills and discovered a treasure that made millions of dollars for himself, his brother Al and their partner, Richard Gird, built a fabulous boomtown and brought wealth to scores of investors, was born in a coal-mining camp in Pennsylvania. When an infant, he moved with his parents to Oregon and he began prospecting seriously when only seventeen. He was thirty years old when he came into the San Pedro valley with a company of scouts recruited in the Hualpai country near the Grand Canyon, where he had been prospecting.

Although the country was infested with Indians it looked good to Schieffelin. He resigned from the scouts and joined a couple of miners doing assessment work on the old Broncho mine. This is the oldest mining claim in Cochise County and had been filed several years before the Civil War by a German geologist, Frederic Broncho. Broncho was killed by his Mexican employees when his shaft was only four feet deep. Schieffelin was working out of the camp at this mine when he staked out his famous claim.

He filed his claim in Tucson, then the county seat, and walked to Signal, Arizona, and invited his brother Al to join in his good fortune. Richard Gird, the assayer at Signal, was so impressed by Schieffelin’s ore samples he offered to finance the three of them for a share in the discovery. They were glad to have him join them.

Tom Horn, an army scout well known in Tombstone, gives this story of the founding of Tombstone:

Horn, Mickey Free, the dead-end kid who caused a war, Frank Leslie, Al Seiber, the great and good chief scout and friend of the Apaches and a group totaling twenty-one, had been laid off by the Indian Service from their work as scouts, packers and interpreters because of a lack of funds. They were in Tucson when Schieffelin and his companions came into town and told them of the new silver strike and invited them to join their party. Six of the Indian Service men were eager to try their luck and when Seiber soberly warned them That is Indian country they laughingly replied, If there are Indians there they better look out for themselves.

Schieffelin, according to Seiber had actually found silver ore several years before this but his partner had been killed and he had left the area. Later, when he came back to do assessment work at the Broncho mine he traced the best ledges and filed his claim. Now he was eager to get to work.

There were about sixty in the party according to Horn and after six days travel out of Tucson they camped on the site of Tombstone. Schieffelin said, Boys we have arrived; for right here was where we were camped when Lennox was killed, and now come on and I will show you where I was digging. The party followed Schieffelin up into the hills about a mile and sure enough there was a shaft twenty-three feet deep with good ore exposed. The frontiersmen went crazy as bats and flew to work staking claims and digging.

Horn and Seiber looked the ground over and staked their claims in the Dragoons, a few days later. These claims were sold a few weeks later for $20,000.

The first night around the camp fire Schieffelin made his friends a talk and told them there were millions to be had for the digging and made a motion to call the camp Tombstone, as the initial monument of his claim was right at the grave of Lennox, who had been killed by the Indians on their first trip to that country.

In 1880 the Schieffelin brothers sold their interests in the Grand Central, Contention, Tough Nut and Lucky Cuss claims and in the Corbin Mill and Mining Company. Later they sold their Graveyard, Ground Hog and Contact claims, they realized millions from their properties and fifty million dollars worth of mineral was removed from the mines in Tombstone during the short boom.

Ed Schieffelin, the millionaire, was still the kindly, simple hearted prospector. He married Mrs. Mary E. Brown and built a mansion in California, and his brother Al died there in 1885. He spent much of his money on charity, traveled extensively and was lionized and honored wherever he went, but in the end, the wilderness with its shimmering rainbow promise called him back. He died all alone in his prospector’s cabin in Oregon in the spring of 1897. His last wish was fulfilled, he was buried in Tombstone and beside him lies his old canteen and the pick that made its print in the ore of his greatest discovery, his tombstone is a prospector’s location marker.

There were sixty frontiersmen in this first group to reach Tombstone. They staked their claims, then traveled to Tucson, the county seat to record them. The word spread of a great mining boom. Newspaper reporters, miners, merchants, speculators, teamsters and men and women with courage, imagination and the will to work thronged to the camp.

Grand Central, Lucky Cuss, Contention and Tough Nut are names known to every mining man. The Poor X shaft was sunk on the corner of Allen and First streets. The Emerald gave its name to Emerald Gulch. Its ore was rich, greenish, horn silver. Ground Hog, Contact, Melzer, Sulphuret, Vizina, Ingersoll, Old Girard, Head Center, Rattlesnake, Flora Morrison and Tip Top were in operation by 1880. State of Maine, Mamie, Silver Thread, Old Guard, West Side, with its shaft within the town, Hidden Treasure, Silver Plume, Wedge, Randolph, Big Comet, Franklin, Independence, and Sea Surge, employed hard rock men whose pay envelopes supported a cosmopolitan business district.

The Brother Johnathan, Silver Bill, Pejon and Defiance mines were in nearby Turquoise, a settlement that received its name from an ancient Indian turquoise mine. Sixteen mule teams hauled hay and grain to Turquoise for the teams hauling ore into Tombstone.

Allen English, Tombstone’s district attorney, made $84,000 from his investment in the Black Diamond mine at Pearce.

Mr. Coffman was manager of the Bunker Hill Mine, Mr. Hines the Telephone Mine, Jim Hart owned the Great Eastern below Ajax Hill. U.S. Marshal Meade owned the Uncle Sam. The Contention shipped 90-100 tons of ore in great high-wheeled ore wagons each day to the smelter at Contention on the river. From the opening of this mine in 1878 to December 10, 1881, $1,475,000 in dividends was paid to stockholders.

Hardrock men, who had mined quartz ore in the camps of the West, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and even Chile were in demand. Miners earned $4.50 an eight hour shift. Many of them were Cornishmen Cousin Jacks or Slavs, and they lived in the town’s comfortable boarding houses or built little cabins 12 ft. by 12 ft. or 12 ft. by 16 ft. of one by 12 planks from the Chiricahua Mountains, and battens, lined with tar paper. Toughnut street was crowded with these cozy, ugly homes.

In 1883 Tom Frenoy and Fred Lobley were killed by Apaches while cutting Laggin—timbers 2x6 by six feet, for Tombstone mines, in the Chiricahua Mountains.

Thomas Forget, a French Canadian miner was arrested for high-grading. He wore a long canvas vest under his coat, made with pockets to carry choice nuggets out of the mine. He broke jail before his trial and was not rearrested.

The Nicolas and Little Giant claims originally filed by Nick Stanton overlapped and a lawsuit by later owners to establish the exact boundary prevented either of them from being worked.

E. W. Brinkman and J. C. Tapeiner operated an independent assay office, assaying color for the prospectors who brought them samples of ore.

Seventeen dollars and fifty cents was allowed in trade by Bisbee merchants for gold, but Tombstone merchants allowed $18.50 for gold, mostly smuggled from Sonora.

CHAPTER II—DUELS ON ALLEN STREET

The scalding August sun beat down on Allen Street. Towering thunderheads were building up over the mountains, lightning crackled, and distant thunder muttered. Charlie Storms waited, lounging in the shade under the wooden awning in front of the Oriental saloon and gambling hall, a little coolness came through the open swinging doors and Storms, the gambler, who had learned his trade in the rough gold camps of the Black Hills stood there at ease. Luke Short dealt faro in the Oriental, a close friend of Wyatt Earp, he had met the gunman in Dodge City and renewed the friendship again in Tombstone. Short had been out to a hearty twelve o’clock dinner; now he came up on the wooden sidewalk into the shade of the awning, his polished boots ringing on the hollow boards of the sidewalk. Although the day was oven hot, and the approaching storm made the atmosphere intolerably humid, both Short and Storms were attired in the habiliments of their profession, well brushed black broadcloth long-tailed coats, brocaded vests, glittering diamond pin in