By Charles Genung (b. 1839 - d. 1916)

The following article was orignially written by Prescott pioneer Charles Genung.  This artilce has been edited by Parker Anderson and Kathy Krause, Days Past Editors.

On November 5, 1871, a stagecoach was ambushed and robbed about 6 miles west of the Vulture Mine Road near Wickenburg, the driver and most of its passengers slaughtered. The incident, commonly known as the "Wickenburg Massacre" is still debated to this day as to whom the perpetrators were. The case remains officially unsolved. Authorities at the time believed they were Indians, but subsequent historians have had their doubts. Following is a condensed version of the account written by Yavapai County pioneer Charles Genung, who contended it was the work of Mexican bandits. His article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Mining Review of June 17, 1911.

I. M. "Crete" Bryan had the government freight contract from Ehrenberg (near present day Blythe) on the Colorado River to Ft. Whipple, and Camps Wood, Verde, Apache, and McDowell in the early 1870s. His business called him to different posts and he generally traveled by stage from one post to another.

When there was no stage route, he generally used a saddle horse or mule, of which he had several good ones. Wickenburg was a central point for his teams. Bryan had an acquaintance with whom he generally took his meals when in Wickenburg. One day Donna Tomase, a Spanish woman from California whose right name was Mrs. Bouns, called Mr. Bryan into her house and told him not to ride in the Wickenburg/Ehrenberg stage any more. When questioned, she told him that there was a plan laid to rob the stage; that she had overheard some Mexicans talking in a brush shack behind a saloon nearby where she lived, and cautioned him again about going by stage.

He took the advice and did his traveling in the saddle from then on. Not long afterward, Mrs. Bouns’ story was confirmed. The stage left Prescott at night (November 4th) on account of Indians, arriving at Wickenburg before daylight the following morning. On this particular trip there was a woman known as Mollie Shepard, a man named Kruger, who had been the quartermaster’s clerk at Whipple, a man named Adams, who had been running a store in Prescott, and a newspaper man from Boston named Loring, with three more passengers and the driver. The names of the three passengers and the driver I do not recall.

The morning was cold and the curtains in the stagecoach were all down. About a point nine miles from Wickenburg toward Ehrenberg, the road crossed a small sandwash which had scrub oak brush growing on either side. In this wash, hidden by the banks and brush, lay the Mexicans. When the stage was well into the wash, the horses were stopped and the stage riddled with bullets. The driver and two outside passengers on the seat were killed. Adams jumped out of the stage with a 45 Colt in his hand and shot one of the Mexicans through the shoulder just a little too high to hit his heart.

Adams ran with the whole bunch of Mexicans after him, finally succeeding in killing and scalping him. The woman, although badly wounded, jumped out into the sandwash, Kruger following. They ran up the sandwash and kept out of sight until the Mexicans had robbed the six men that had been killed on the stage, and left going toward the small canyon on the Hassayampa about six miles above Wickenburg. They never knew that the woman and Kruger were in the stage and luckily did not notice their tracks in the sand. Kruger and the woman knew that there was a stage due from Ehrenberg that day, so they kept to the road until they met the stage and returned to Wickenburg in it. Miss Shepard was shot across the back, the bullet not going deep enough to touch any bones.

Of course, this was supposed by most people to be the work of the Indians, quite a number of which were, at that time, at Camp Date Creek about twenty-five miles northwest of Wickenburg. The Mexicans had worn moccasins and scalped Adams in order to mislead the public. The scalping of Adams was all right to fool a tenderfoot but we old-timers knew that Apaches never scalped, although they frequently mutilated otherwise.

At that time, I was working from twenty-five to thirty of the Date Creek Indians gathering my crop of corn, beans, and potatoes on my ranch in Peeples Valley, twenty-seven miles north of Wickenburg, and I had some men among them that I knew I could trust. As soon as I heard the news, I sent two Indians across to Date Creek to learn if those Indians knew anything about the matter. They returned the same day and assured me their people knew nothing about the massacre, but that it must be Tonto Apaches from the eastern country.

In a very few days, Bryan ("Crete") came by my place on his way from Wickenburg to Prescott, and told me the story. Among this band of fifteen Mexicans was one who Mrs. Bouns was slightly acquainted with, and whom she called Parenta, his name being the same as her family name. She got him into her house, filled him up with wine, and he told her the whole story–how these men had all stayed at a house out on the road a little west of the town the night before the massacre, and went out to the place before daybreak.

The place had been picked out some days before. This young Mexican claimed that he was sick that night and did not accompany the crowd who did the work but told of Adams shooting one of the party and that they had taken the wounded man to the Agua Callienta springs on the Gila River to get well. The officers went from Phoenix and got the fellow with the hole in his shoulder, brought him to Phoenix, and he was killed in the jail by a man who still lives in Phoenix. John Burger killed one of them in a corral at the station on the Agua Fria near where the S.F.P. & P.R. (Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway) crosses the stream.

The ringleader, a redheaded native of Gibralter named Juaquine Barbe, with another of the band got on the warpath and run amuck in Phoenix, and Joe Tye and Milt Ward, Deputy Sheriffs, chased them out of town and killed both of them. Bryan ("Crete") was very careful who he told the story to, and it was passed among the right men to attend to such matters. They all got what was coming to them, but one. He got wise and left the country.

Note: If you Google ‘Wickenburg Massacre,’ you will find many versions of this event. It makes for interesting reading!

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(mon104pa) Reuse only by permission.

This monument to the Wickenburg Massacre, located along Rte 60 near the airport in Wickenburg, was dedicated in April 1937 to the memory of those on the stage that day. The monument is located about 6 miles from the actual site of the massacre and states the ambush was made by Apache-Mohave Indians.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po1655pa) Reuse only by permission.

Charles Genung, shown here c.1880s, was a pioneer and settler of Peeples Valley in the 1860s. A prospector, rancher, postmaster, Justice of the Peace and deputy sheriff, he was well known in the area of Yarnell, Congress, Wickenburg and small mining towns in the area.