By Dave Lewis

Last week:  The United States was at war with Mexico.  General Stephen Kearny took the Mexican capital at Santa Fe and headed across Arizona to take California.  Kit Carson led the way. Carson had been in California with John C. Fremont a month earlier and told Kearny that Fremont had already taken California.  Nonetheless, California was Kearny’s responsibility and he was bound to go.  By mid-October they entered Arizona near the present-day town of Clifton and began struggling down the Gila River.

Oral History
Interviewee:  Ken Ashby (b. xx/xx/xxxx)
Interviewer:  Sylvia Neely
Audio Number:  1621
Duration: 01:00:37
Date:  March 18, 2016
Topics Discussed:  Peeples Valley, Truck Stop Cafe, Ranching, Hays Ranch, Coughlin Ranch & Family, Peeple Valley School and his days in the Coast Guard

Elizabeth B. (Gray) Porter Whisman was born July 14, 1879 in Jack County, Texas to James Wilson and Amirintha "Minnie" Clinton (Graves) Gray. The family moved to Nutrioso, Apache County, Arizona Territory in 1885 in a covered wagon.

Jane Williams Roberts was born in Traymodic, Wales, on August 4, 1840. Nothing is known of her parentage and childhood. “Jenny,” as Jane was familiarly known, became a milliner and married Edward Isaac Roberts (b. June 20, 1834, in Traymodic, Wales), a wagon maker and carpenter, on September 30, 1868, in Wales. Edward, a widower, had in early life emigrated to Australia, where around 1857 he married Nancy Jane Adams. Nancy bore him four children: Hannah Roberts Hartin (b. 1857), John (b. 1859), Edward (b. 1863), and Joseph (b. 1865). Jenny Roberts became the stepmother of Edward’s four children.

Nellie Grace (Marshall) Prince was born December 7, 1893, to Orlando Beaufort and Wilhelmina (Mickle) Marshall in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory. The family resided at 431 Beech Avenue, and her father was a carpenter. Nellie attended grade school in Prescott and graduated from Prescott High School in May 1914. By 1916 Nellie was working as a court stenographer.

Ola Gertrude (Henry) Pitchford, the daughter of George Samuel and Anna Maria (Bartlett) Henry, was born in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, on June 14, 1899. Her father was a carpenter. Following graduation from Prescott High School in May 1917, she attended the Northern Arizona Normal School at Flagstaff and the Tempe Normal School, where she received her lifetime teaching certificate on June 20, 1919. She taught in the Prescott schools and in Clemenceau, Yavapai County, before and after her marriage.

Fannie M. Perkins was born on April 7, 1897, at Fort Davis, Jeff Davis County, Texas, the daughter of Marion Alexander and Harriet Annie (York) Perkins. She was the first of three surviving sisters and three surviving brothers. Her family came to the Arizona Territory in November 1900 and settled on a group of ranches that later became the town of Perkinsville, Yavapai County. She was tutored at home and studied at area grade schools until she went to Temple Normal School, from which she graduated in 1917.

Evelyn Edith (Duncan) Perkins, the daughter of Joseph Thomas and Josephine (Cowdrey) Duncan, was born on February 12, 1894, in Excelsior Springs, Clay and Ray Counties, Missouri. Her father was a cattle dealer and her mother a school teacher. She attended Drake University (1915) and later Kansas University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1917.

Annie Elizabeth (Randall) Fuller was born to Alfred Jason and Ruth (Campkin) Randall on August 21, 1868, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. From 1870 to 1880 the family resided in Harrisburg, Washington County, Utah, where Mr. Randall farmed for a living. By the year 1881 the family had moved to Pine (Pine Creek), Gila County, Arizona Territory, where Annie spent her adolescent years. The Randalls were of the Mormon faith.

By Dave Lewis

Thus far in our series of occasional articles, we have discussed the Spanish entradas, missions and settlements south of the Gila River, Mexico’s independence from Spain, and a few of the mountain men who crossed this land -- all against the backdrop of the area’s challenging terrain and the lives and cultures of Natives who predated the arrival of Europeans by 10,000 years.  By the 1840s, Mexico had population and governmental centers at Santa Fe and several places in Southern California; the small settlements at Tubac and Tucson were the only Mexican presence in what would become Arizona.  The rest of Arizona was left to the Indians.