By Andrew Wallace

The story of white settlement in northern Arizona is littered with tales of Indian ambush and white retaliation, mostly exaggerated.  This is especially so in the Prescott region where pioneer settlers indeed regarded the placers of Lynx Creek, ranches in Skull Valley and the whole wide Chino Valley as dangerous on account of “hostile” Indians.  Nothing, however, like a war occurred in these places, much less in Prescott.  Indians did occasionally take food and stray cattle and always mistrusted—with good reason—the approach of heavily armed prospectors.  Miners, in turn, despised “Yampays” and sometimes shot at them in “self protection.”

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in Days Past during this coming year regarding historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

On October 11, 1863, Governor John Goodwin and his party of territorial officials and their military escort passed the Pawnee Rock landmark near where their route joined the Santa Fe Trail.  Later in the day they reached Fort Larned, Kansas where they camped about a mile east of the fort.

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

The arrival of the United States Army in Territorial Arizona brought some of the first medical doctors to the region, and resulted in the establishment of a number of pioneer military hospitals such as the facility at Fort Whipple.  Founded during the American Civil War, the hospital was staffed by a series of surgeons including Medal of Honor winner Joseph K. Corson, MD, who had placed his life in jeopardy near Bristoe Station, Virginia.  On October 14, 1863, he and a comrade returned under heavy Confederate artillery fire to rescue a wounded soldier left behind as their regiment retreated.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

Once past their embarrassing start from Leavenworth, Kansas, and finding their way back to the army’s supply road to the west, as told in last week’s article, Governor John Goodwin’s party of territorial officials and their military escort fell into a military style travel routine as Judge Joseph Allyn wrote from Fort Riley in his October 4, 1863 letter:

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

In the afternoon of Saturday, September 25, 1863, after a two-hour delay to complete packing, the party of Governor John Goodwin and other Arizona Territorial officers left Leavenworth, Kansas, on the first leg of their wagon train trek to the wilds of the southwest.  Soon afterwards, they, and their military escort, were completely lost.

By Fred Veil

It was very dangerous to travel within many parts of the Arizona Territory in the early 1870s, as the Indians, especially the Apaches, remained hostile to the ever-increasing encroachment of the white settlers on their native lands. The newspapers of the day, and the memoirs and reminiscences of our pioneers, are replete with stories of men and women killed or captured by marauding Indians while traveling within the Territory.

By Robert S. Birchard

Cowboy star Tom Mix was not the first filmmaker to set up shop in Prescott, Arizona.  The flamboyant ersatz Corsican, Romaine Fielding (born William Grant Blandin in Riceville, Iowa), blazed that trail in mid-July 1912 with the Southwestern unit of the Philadelphia-based Lubin Mfg Co.  But, unlike Fielding, Tom Mix would often make Prescott a home away from Hollywood during his movie career.

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

Martha Durham lived a comfortable life on her native Nantucket Island.  All that was to change when a young United States Army officer named John Wyer Summerhayes appeared with the shinny buttons and handsome dark blue uniform.  “Jack” as Martha came to call him, won the fair New England lass’s hand.  After they wed, the young lieutenant groom received orders that took them to Fort D.A. Russell in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but soon they would be sent on to “the wilds of Arizona” which in her mind “was that dreaded and then unknown land.”  Thus, in 1874, the newlyweds set off across the continent for their first adventure as husband and wife.

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

In 1864 local residents came together to establish the City of Prescott.  In June of that year the need arose to bury one of their fellow pioneers, Joel Woods, in what would become Citizens Cemetery (also known as the Town Cemetery, Prescott Cemetery, City Cemetery, County Cemetery and Citizens Burying Ground) as the first of many men and women who would be laid to rest there.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

As stated in a previous article in this series, General James H. Carleton at Santa Fe reacted favorably to reports of gold findings in the central Arizona highlands in the spring of 1863 by the prospecting parties led by Joseph R. Walker and Paulino Weaver.  He made plans to establish a military presence in the area, but first he dispatched New Mexico Territory’s Surveyor General John A. Clark to the “diggings” for first-hand verification.