By Parker Anderson 

One of the most prominent and wealthy miners in 19th century Yavapai County was Barney Martin, who had mining claims on Rich Hill and all around the Weaver Mining District in the Antelope area of southern Yavapai. Martin's mining activities regularly made news in the newspapers of Prescott and all around northern Arizona.

In August of 1886, Barney Martin's friends reported that he and his entire family were missing. Three weeks earlier, they had departed the bustling mining town of Weaver in a wagon heading for Phoenix. Martin had an appointment with the Goldman & Co. organization and then he and his wife and children were catching a train east for a vacation. Martin was carrying $4000.00 in gold coins and gold dust and made no secret of it when they left. When they failed to arrive in Phoenix, his acquaintances began to worry. 

Maricopa County authorities investigated and found a teamster who had seen Martin alive while passing near the Seymour and Agua Fria River crossing. That was the last reported sighting of Barney Martin alive. 

The inevitable news finally came. Barney Martin and his wife and two children were found massacred near Black Tanks, not far from where the teamster had seen them alive. A search party led by Charles Genung had found the bloody site. The murderers had set the bodies afire to burn them, and had also cut the throat of one of Martin's horses. The butchers apparently made off with the remaining horses. Sheriff Broadway of Maricopa County sent a telegram to Yavapai County Sheriff William J. "Billy" Mulvenon, who immediately set out for the site. Sheriff Mulvenon offered a reward of $250.00 for the murderers, while Maricopa County offered a $500.00 reward. Acting Arizona Territorial Governor J.A. Bayard offered a $1000.00 reward. Yavapai County Coroner Patrick Ford offered an additional $500.00 reward. Ford also set out for the site to take charge of the remains and what was left of Martin's belongings at his home in Weaver. 

But it wasn't that easy. By the time the charred bodies had been found, they had been dead about 20 days, and there was grave concern the trail had grown cold. Nevertheless, Sheriff Mulvenon dutifully formed a posse and set out to try and strike the trail of the killers. Lawmen from Maricopa County did the same. Word eventually came that the authorities had arrested an unidentified Mexican in connection with the massacre, but the big news came shortly after that. Maricopa County authorities had crossed the county line into Yavapai and arrested Charles P. Stanton for complicity in the murders of Barney Martin and his family. 

Charles P. Stanton is fabled in Yavapai County history as the "town boss" in the mining town of Stanton (named after himself, obviously). Legend and folklore contends to this day that he had arranged a number of mysterious deaths and disappearances in the Weaver Mining District and the Antelope Hill area. He was a miner and businessman who owned much of the property in the town that bore his name. 

After being arrested in the Martin case, Stanton's attorney, A. C. Baker, announced his client was cooperating fully and that he was looking forward to being cleared in the case. But while all of this was going on, Stanton was on the opposite side in a different case in Yavapai County. Two Mexicans, Pedro Lucero and Demetrio Narbaro, were arrested for attempted murder, having made a failed attempt to kill Charles P. Stanton several weeks earlier. Lucero was also charged with assaulting a law officer, Yavapai County Deputy Michael Hickey, who had taken him into custody. Both men were later released without trial. 

The Prescott Courier, which was a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party in 1886, gleefully crowed that Stanton was a Republican, and that it demonstrated the character of Republicans in general. The Republican-themed Journal-Miner and Phoenix Herald angrily responded in kind, with the Herald proclaiming (perhaps facetiously) that D. W. Dilda, a murderer who had been hanged early in the year, was a Democrat. Politics hasn't changed too much, has it? 

But nothing came of it. After his initial court appearances, Charles P. Stanton was freed on the grounds of no evidence connecting him to the Martin massacre. He returned home to his name sake town, no worse for the wear, with the Phoenix Herald suggesting that he had been framed by the New York Stock and Water Company, which allegedly wished to acquire a spring owned by Stanton that he refused to sell. 

Today, legions of Arizona historians believe that Charles P. Stanton was, indeed, responsible for arranging the massacre of Barney Martin and his family. Perhaps he was, but Stanton, who had numerous arrests for crimes ranging from petty to serious, was never convicted of any crime in his lifetime. 

The unidentified Mexican who was arrested for participating in the Martin massacre reportedly confessed, but at this time, I have no information on what became of him. This author is planning further research into this. The investigation into the massacre was never resolved to anyone's satisfaction. 

An assistant of Coroner Patrick Ford, George Wallace, was also arrested for stealing valuable items from Barney Martin's estate. 

As an epilogue: Stanton himself died only weeks later. On November 13, 1886, Charles P. Stanton was in his store visiting with a friend named Kelly, when three Mexicans entered and opened fire with a fusillade of bullets. Stanton was killed instantly, while Kelly, who was also shot in the attack, managed to shoot one of the assailants. 

When Sheriff Mulvenon investigated the incident, he got nowhere. The area's beleaguered and downtrodden Mexican community was not about to surrender their brothers to "white man's justice," and so the case was never solved. The dead assailant was believed to be Cisto Lucero, the son of Stanton's earlier attacker, Pedro Lucero, but this was never proven. 

The name of Charles P. Stanton remains notorious to this day, for crimes he may have committed, and perhaps, even for some he didn't. One thing was noticeable, though. Once he was gone, the crime rate dropped in the Weaver Mining District! 

(Parker Anderson is an active member of Sharlot Hall Museum's Blue Rose Theater.) 

 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bub8097p)
Reuse only by permission.
Mr. Charles P. Stanton, once accused of arranging the massacre of the Barney Martin family, stands in the doorway of the Stanton Store in Weaver, Arizona, in southern Yavapai County c.1880