A historical sketch of the life of Orson Pratt Brown, born May 22, 1863, in Ogden City, Utah. Son of Captain James Brown of Company "C" of the Mormon Battalion and founder of Brownsville, now known as Ogden, Weber, Utah. His mother was Phebe [Abigail] Abbott Brown, a pioneer of Utah, Arizona and Mexico.
The first incident worthy of note was the testimony I received of the Gospel and the fact that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. It was given to me by Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, in the Ogden Tabernacle in 1870. He bore a powerful testimony explaining the visitation of the Angel and the presentation of the Gold plates from which was translated the Book of Mormon, together with the fact that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.
The next testimony that I received was from Apostle John Taylor. He told me of the conditions pertaining to the prophet Joseph returning to Nauvoo after having crossed the river, and gave himself up to the authorities of the law and was taken to Carthage jail and locked up. He also related the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph and Patriarch Hyrum as well as himself being wounded in the incident, and he bore a powerful testimony to the fact of Joseph Smith being a Prophet of God and the Book of Mormon being an inspired record.
The next incident was a powerful sermon and testimony of the Prophet Brigham Young in which he held the people spellbound in the Ogden Tabernacle; bearing testimony of the wonderful blessings that had come to him through obedience to the Gospel and that the Prophet Joseph was in very deed a prophet of God who had sealed his testimony with his blood; and also testified with great power to the fact that the Book of Mormon was a record of the inhabitants of the continent of America and the word of the Lord to us.
The testimonies of these men have always inspired me and have been a great help in the guiding of my life.
The next incident in my life was in the November of 1880. I started with my mother and step-father [William Nicol Fife] to Arizona. We had three wagons and three teams. When we arrived on top of the Buckskin Mountain it snowed and we lost one of our teams, a pair of mules. I returned to a little village by the name of Johnson, in Southern Utah and there found some people who were also traveling to Arizona and they had extra animals and they came on top of Buckskin Mountain and loaned us a pair of horses and we continued our journey crossing the Big Colorado river at Lee’s ferry and while we were at the ferry some people traveling to Arizona overtook us and advised us that our mules would be found at a little village called Pahrea. We borrowed a pony and saddle and I crossed the river to hunt the mules and the company moved south.
I arrived at the Pahrea the next day and found that the mules had been taken by the man that found them, north to a village called Hillsdale. This was late in December and it began snowing and the roads were practically impassable. I received word from Ellsdale that the mules would be at a town by the name of Kanab. On Christmas morning I went to Kanab from the little village of Johnson and there found the mules in the corral of the sheriff of the county. I went into the house and the wife of the sheriff asked me who I was and when I told her who I was and where from, tears came into her eyes and she came and embraced me and kissed me and sent for her husband; and when he arrived she said to him:
"See who is here! This is the son of Captain James Brown of Ogden."
And he, too, embraced me and said, "Your father and mother saved the lives of our fathers and mothers and our families when they were in dire need and starvation.
And notwithstanding, the man who had taken the mules demanded twenty dollars, and I not having only three dollars in my pocket, the sheriff said:
"Take the mules, my boy, and while you are going I will put the man who Stowell the mules in jail."
They put me up a fine lunch, gave me a Christmas dinner, and I started on the road rejoicing."
I encountered severe stormy weather and nearly froze. My mother and her husband and family did not get word from me and as they had traveled some two-hundred miles from Johnson south. My mother saw me coming in a dream and said I would be there for New Year’s dinner. She prepared that dinner and sure enough I arrived for New Year’s dinner, at noon, fulfilling the dream of my mother at the place called Willow Springs.
The next day we started on south arriving at Sunset, Arizona, on the Little Colorado; staying there a couple of days and then up the Little Colorado passing through at Fort Apache. The military officers advised us that we had better not proceed farther south as the Indians Apache chief and about fifty Apache warriors were on the warpath. But my step-father, after we had a consultation, decided to proceed on south and after passing the south fork of the Salt River and climbing out of the canyon starting down the dugway we saw an ambulance and two dead horses that had rolled down the dugway that the Indians having attacked the ambulance killing three soldiers only a few hours previous to our arrival. The Indians had gone on to the east and we arrived at Pima, Arizona unmolested.
While at Pima we heard of some freighting to be done of lumber from the Chiricahua mountains to Tombstone, Arizona; and so we proceeded on to a camp of Mormon freighters at Oak Creek at the foot of the Chiricahua mountains and there began to freight lumber to the big mining camp of Tombstone.
After hauling lumber for about six months I went to work herding work oxen at the logging camp of the Major Downing saw mill for a man by the name of Ed Elwood who had the logging contract for the saw mill. After working for Elwood for about three months I had lost two of the oxen. A man came into our camp and stayed one night, calling himself Buckskin Joe. He was armed to the teeth, as the saying is, carrying two pistols and a Winchester rifle.
And in the morning when he got ready to leave I asked him if he had seen anything of these two oxen, one of them having had a bell on; and with an oath he replied, yes. He had driven them off to a little mining camp by the name of Galey Vill where he said he had butchered them and sold them to the miners.
In his talk the evening before he spoke of many incidents of valor and said he was one of those who said they would never surrender to any officer.
Just about a month previous to this we had heard of an escapade where he and a man by the name of Dave Estus went into Tombstone and held up the superintendent of Grand Central mine and took his horses and money and watch and told him if he wanted his horses back to send a man with 300 dollars to a ranch about twenty miles from there and he would deliver the horses, but that if he made any noise about the matter they would come back and kill him.
My boss, Mr. Elwood was not in camp the night this man stayed there and when we told him of the conversation of this man and what he had said he said:
"This is the man who held me up about twenty miles east of Galey Vill and took away from me my horses and saddles with my pack outfit and arms, ammunition and money; even to my tobacco. He set me afoot and kicked me and told me to beat it."
Elwood said the Buckskin Joe had two companions with him; a Dave Estus and Jeff Lewis; big face Jeff Lewis. Then Mr. Ed Elwood related this circumstance: He said that in southern Utah in a little town north of Saint George he had a pardner by the name of Petersen who was a Mormon; but Petersen stayed on the ranch and he worked in the mines to supply the necessary means to keep the ranch going. But while Petersen was looking after stock an outlaw and bandit by the name of Ben Taskel shot him down in cold blood; Petersen had only been defending his own interests. The outlaw had left the country and Elwood had been following Taskel’s trail when he was held up by these bandits and robbed, and he said:
"Now is my time. I shall not sleep till I get Buckskin Joe. I shall not rest till I get Ben Taskel." And he said to me, "Look out for Buckskin Joe and when you see him, come and let me know."
About three days later I had climbed to the top of a mountain and saw coming up the trail from the eastern side of the mountain a man, horse-back; and from my field glasses I saw there was Buckskin Joe coming. I immediately put spurs to my mule and went to camp and told Elwood that Joe was coming and he said to me:
"You go over and meet him and we will meet you at the old saw mill setting and we will take care of him."
So I rode back to the other canyon and sure enough, Joe came up while my mules was drinking water.
He said, "You must have been in a terrible hurry. Did you get scared of somebody?"
And I told him no. I was just trying out my mule to see how fast he could run. So we rode down the canyon together and he asked me if I had seen a hobbled horse and I said I had, and where I had seen him. So we went out and found the horse and unhobbled him and put a rope on his neck and we rode along together talking.
He said, "Let me sell you this horse. You can ride him in Tombstone if you want to but don’t show him off too much; he was stolen ten miles below there in a place called Contention."
Then he said he would sell me four mules cheap. When I asked him where the mules were, he said the people still had them but he would fetch them for me. Just before we got to the place where my companions were to have met me, we met two men going up the canyon to a little mining camp and they called Tip Top, about fives miles from there; and then we proceeded on and when we arrived at the place designated there did not seem to be anybody in sight so I slipped off my mule while he was trying to untie the rope on his horses neck. I pulled my rifle down on him, told him to throw up his hands; he smilingly threw up his hands, thinking it was a joke, but when he tried to put them down I told him not to put them down or I would shoot him, and his face went pallid and while we were talking the very men we had met down in the brush arrive with Elwood in lead.
Immediately we disarmed Buckskin Joe and started him across the creek to a big juniper tree and there in the most profane and vile language he cursed us who had him disarmed. When we asked him the question if he wasn’t the man who had murdered a man at this same place he said yes.
About six months previous to this time the cowboy had been found, his head nearly chopped off and a fine herd of about 150 cattle had been driven off. Then Elwood accused him of being the man who had held him up.
Bucksin Joe said, "I was the man who held you up and took your guns away."
Then they put a rope around his neck and hanged him to the juniper tree; and I looked down the road and saw a dust coming and in a little while I saw there was two men on horseback coming towards us and I shouted to my companions to hide and as the men rode up they saw this man dangling from the tree, his legs still moving. They recognized him and rode on.
These two men, one of them being the deputy sheriff of the mining camp of Galey Vill whom this same Buckskin Joe had driven out of the town a few days before and he had gone to Tombstone to get a nephew of his to come and help him to get Buckskin Joe.
They went up to this Tip Top mining camp and brought down a number of men to bury the corpse; but before the Vigilante committee left they nailed a board up above Joe’s head and wrote on it, "The end of Buckskin Joe," and "Don’t cut him down until tomorrow." Vigilantes.
When the deputy sheriff and his party returned to where the man was hanging they returned to the mining camp and left him hanging; and the next morning they came down and buried him. Buckskin Joe was reported to have been hanged by unknown parties. It was found out later that this same Buckskin Joe had been educated as a lawyer and while pleading the case of the outlaw in south-western Texas near Brownsville the prosecuting attorney very severely accused the outlaw as well as the methods he used; but Buckskin Joe became enraged and pulling his pistol he killed the prosecuting attorney, judge and deputy sheriff. He got on the deputy’s horse and escaped.
About three months later I was in the employ of a man by the name of Chris Grower when one evening a man by the name of Tom Keef, reputed to be a carpenter came to the home of Chris Grower where I was working. He having come with a team of mules from Tombstone. Chris Grower was building a house and together Keef and I began working on it. After a few days Keef began talking about the hanging of Buckskin Joe and my suspicions were immediately aroused that he was there as a detective, and I had nothing to say. I knew nothing about the matter. One night in talking he began telling me about his experiences as a deputy U.S. Marshall and of arresting John D. Lee of the Mountain Meadow Massacre; also of him following the trail of President Brigham Young and arresting a number of polygamists in Utah; and that he, in his braggadocio way, was a very big gun man. The next evening, we having been working together, we were sitting at the table just after supper and he pulled out his forty-five double action pistol and slapped it down on the table and said with an oath, "You haven’t talked any yet but I’ll make you talk. You are my prisoner."
I looked at him, never having for a moment been without my own pistol; and he held his hand on his pistol and commenced cursing me with it pointed towards me. An incident that I had heard of my brother, Sheriff Bill Brown of Ogden, using, came to my mind like a flash and I took my eyes off of him and looked towards the open door of the tent so he turned his head thinking there was someone coming in. I pulled my pistol on him and told him to throw up his hands and turn his back. I went over and got his pistol, putting it in my belt, and picking up my Winchester rifle I saw Chris Gower come to the door having his pistol on. He asked what was happening. I made him unbuckle his belt and drop his pistol. I drove them both outside where the light wagon was waiting that was to have taken me to Tombstone.
I made them get into the wagon and drive. My horse was tied close by and I saddled him and followed them for ten miles telling Keef if he ever came back to that country there would be another neck-tied party as bad off as Buckskin Joe. He never came back.
The hanging of Buckskin Joe was the beginning of a new era in that whole section of country as it was infested with bands of outlaws and Indians, and one never knew when he stepped out of the door whether he was going to be shot down or not. When you saw an Indian you knew what to do but when you saw a white man you did not know whether he was a friend or foe.
I immediately took my pack horse and loaded him with provisions, and my saddle horse and went into the mountains and stayed there for more than a month, just me and my dog Jeff. When I returned from the mountains I got the information that Keef had left for San Francisco, and it appeared that the incident was closed; but I thought it best to leave that section on the country for a short time. So in the company of two friends we started for Prescott Arizona. We went on to the Sand Pedro river and followed down that river and just before we got to the mouth of the river we were encamped across the river from the Apache Indian tribe know as "Skimizeenses".
We arrived at this camp at about ten o’clock in the morning and as there was good pasture we decided to stay for a while. Several of the Indians visited us and tried to trade for our rifles and cartridges but I said to my companions:
"These fellows look mighty suspicious to me. We must keep our guns in our hands."
During the night they were having a great war dance and we moved our camp about a half mile into some mesquite bushes and left one companion in camp and two slipped off to see what the Indians were doing making such a terrible noise.
They were having a war dance. I said to my companions:
"Let’s saddle up and go immediately."
So we left about one o’clock in the morning passing by the mouth of the San Pedro river where it empties into the Gila River and there traveling down the Gila river about five miles taking off to the north over the road going to the mining camp called Tip Top; and while we were climbing up the dugway we saw somebody coming on the run behind us and it was the mail carrier. He said as he passed the trading post he had found that the Indians had murdered the two brothers who had had the post. They were on the war path and they were now on our trail. He said he had seen then and past them on a cut-off. His horse was all of a lather with sweat.
I said to one of my companions, "You and him go on with the pack animals and we will stay here and see what happens; so we waited in a little gully. Soon we saw six Indians coming in sight riding very fast. We waited till they arrived at about one hundred yards from where we had tied our horses. We opened fire on them, killing two of their horses and some of them.
We proceeded on up the road arriving at the mining camp called Tip Top at about eight o’clock that evening, [to] find it all in excitement and expecting an attack from the Indians at any time. The next morning all the women and children in the camp, together with a scout went over to Globe, Arizona, about twenty-five miles distant.
On arriving at Globe we found that they were guarding the town on all sides fearing an attack by the Indians. They said that the sheriff with a posse of fifty men had come over north onto the Tonto Basin to bring in some families and that the Indians had massacred about twenty people; and the sheriff and party had turned their horses into a pasture but the Indians had stolen all the horses, leaving them afoot. A man had come afoot during the night wanting wagons and horses to bring the rest of the people in. When they arrived they brought news of the terrible massacre of about twenty persons.
My companions and I remained in Globe for about one month working. Then we proceeded west till we arrived at Mesa, Arizona where I found an uncle, Edward Bunker. They (his family and he) insisted on my remaining with them, so after counsel with my companions I decided to remain there with them.
I stayed there about six months, but one day just after I had gotten there I was asked to follow a trail of some stolen horses and while I was on this trail I met a man by the name of Morris who was an apostate Mormon and renegade; and he, thinking that I had just stolen these horses and that I was an outlaw, he began to tell me things that would be of mutual interest to both of us. He incidentally told me about the outlaw bandit, and murderer, Ben Tasker, saying that he was a great friend of his and was still ready to do business. I made as if I would be glad to combine with them. But as he was telling me this I remembered what my old employer, Elwood, had told me regarding Ben Tasker, and as I knew Elwood’s location I immediately wrote him, giving him the news and telling him to come here. He took the trail and came.
I let him take my horse and saddle and told him where Tasker was. He came back the third night and later on it was reported that the Utah and Nevada bandit, Ben Tasker had been found dead at a certain little ranch near the mountains east of Mesa, Arizona, closing some very interesting incidents, and thereby proving the great law of retribution that came upon Buckskin Joe, Ben Tasker and Tom Keef, the great detective from San Francisco.
After remaining in Mesa for a short time, I accompanied my uncle Edward Bunker and family to Saint David and after being there a short time Apostle Erastus Snow and Moses Thatcher came and visited the colony and they found that the people there were very much in need of repentance. The bishop was given to drinking of liquor and the patriarch was not living as he should; the community at large had been living lives not worthy of Latter Day Saints. After a meeting they concluded to re-baptize the whole community for the remission of sins. So we all went down to the San Pedro river, with the exception of a very few and there were re-baptized by Apostle Moses Thatcher. And in a meeting held immediately after Apostle Erastus Snow gave a very powerful testimony and severely rebuked the people for the manner in which they had been living; then prophesied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that if they did not repent and mend their ways and live the lives of Latter Day Saints that there would not be one thing left to recognize that town of Saint David by.
This was in the year 1882. And in the year 1886 a severe earthquake came and shook down the houses; and a flood came down one of the big washes and completely destroyed the old town of Saint David, bringing to pass literally and absolutely the prophecy made by the prophet, Apostle Erastus Snow.
On Christmas morning of 1882 I started for my home in Sulphur Springs Valley, riding my horse, White Cloud, and having with me my faithful dog Jeff. As I rode over the top of the mountains to the east of Saint David down into the center of the Sulphur Spring Valley, I became sleepy and drowsy. I got off my horse and tied the rope to a bush; I lay down and went to sleep. Then I felt something pawing at my face and on awakening my dog Jeff was growling and scratching at me to wake my up. I immediately jumped up, saddled my horse and then I could see six horsemen coming and three of the had come on one side and three on the other.
I paused for a moment to get my bearings and decided there was only one thing to do and that was to go straight ahead, confronting the three in front of me, for I thought that they would probably not shoot for fear of shooting one of the others. They were Apache Indians. As I neared the ones who were fronting me I opened fire with my six shooter, shooting down a horse and wounding an Indian. The other two gave way and let me pass. The others were following me but my horse White Cloud was of Arabian stock and outdistanced them and I passed beyond a little ledge. Here I stopped and dismounted and returned the fire from the Indians. I shot down another horse and the others immediately gave way and returned to the west.
These Indians had early in the morning attacked three Americans who were hauling hay; killed all three of them on top of the load of hay. They had cut the ham’s strings and loosed the horses from the wagon; set the hay on fire and burned the hay with the men on top of the load.
These Indians continued their raiding to the southeast when at a point know as Rucker’s canyon they ran into the Hunt brothers. The older Hunt brother had belonged to a gang of outlaws and murderers. One or two of the men there in a fight with the sheriff’s party had gotten Hunt; and while there Billy the Kid, No.2, was killed.
Hunt was placed in the hospital. His brother came down from eastern Texas and got him out of the hospital, got him into Rucker canyon and was tending his wounds so that he could take him on home.
They were attacked by these Indians. Hunt being an expert shot, raised up from the bed in the tent and shot one of the Indians and his brother escaped on a horse to a military camp on the east. They sent an escort of twenty-five American soldiers who killed all five Indians and found that two of them had been wounded a few days previous; another evidence of the justice of the law of retribution, both in the case of the Indians and this man Hunt who was a murderer and outlaw.
I arrived at my home in Sulphur Spring Valley about ten o’clock. Our dogs began barking at me.
"I know that is Orson coming, because last night I saw him coming home," my mother said, even before I had spoken.
In April 1883 in the full of the moon, an Indian Chief by the name of Loco, with about eighty warriors broke out from the San Carlos reservation and they made their way south up the San Simon valley, murdering and destroying ranches and property along the way. At the point known as "The Three Irish Friends" ranch, one-hundred and fifteen of these Indians crossed over the Chiricahua and that morning John Fife, Tom Fornay and a man by the name of Lobley started from a ranch with four mule teams, two wagons, to bring a load of mining timbers to take to Tombstone Arizona.
While they were going up the Pinery canyon they were attacked by this band of Indians. They killed Tom Fornay and Lobely and wounded John Fife in two places but he got away from them, running through the brush, arriving at a little mining camp some four miles from where they were attacked, by the name of Tip Top. A messenger came to our ranch and told of the killing.
There were only two more of us at the ranch and the information having come that probably the whole band of blood thirsty Indians were on their way we took my mother and Diana Fife and the girls and went across the trail to Riggs's ranch that night. It was about six miles distant. And in the morning at daylight with Mr. Thomas Riggs driving a light wagon and myself as a guide we drove up into the Pinery canyon and before we got to the mining camp we met about fifty men on their way, leaving the camp.
They advised us that they had left six men behind to guard and protect John Fife until we came. His wounds were of such a nature that it was impossible for him to ride on a horse. We lifted him on the wagon on a mattress we had taken and at Riggs's ranch he soon received medical aid. In the afternoon we formed a small posse of five and went up the canyon to bury the bodies of Fornay and Lobeley. As I knew the country well I was in the lead and about a mile before we got to the dead bodies it had sprinkled on us. Just then I saw in the road tracks of 3 Indians who had crossed the road leaving their tracks fresh on the trail. I stopped and said to the men:
"There are their tracks, fresh on the trail; they are going to lay for us."
I suggested to them that we separate; three going up the road and two on each side flanking the road, looking out for the Indians. This whole country was covered with Oak brush; in places so thick you could hardly get thru it. So one of the boys went on one side of the canyon and I went on the other and the other three men went along and up the road. They found the two bodies. One was about one-hundred yards from the other. They carried the one to where the other was, dug a grave and placed the bodies in the grave while we too were standing guard on each side of the canyon. And when the burial was finished. I suggested to the boys that these fellows were going to be laying for us and we had better cross into a divide in the next canyon instead of going down the canyon the way we had come. We decided to do this. It will be remembered that a lot of these Apache Indians had received an education in government schools and could speak English. Undoubtedly some of these understood English for when we went over the top of the Divide I saw some fresh signs. The five of us were riding about twenty...five steps apart and I hollared back,
"Here they are! Here are the fresh signs again!"
I was the only one who had a pistol. All at once an Indian raised up from behind a stump and we fired simultaneously and just at my left another Indian raised to fire at the man who was following me, and I fired at him, he not being more than ten steps from me. The second one jumped up, throwing his rifle over his head and yelling like a wild animal fell over backwards. I yelled to my companions who were the farthest away to come, and I fired the rest of the cartridges. I rode down the canyon and stopped to wait for my companions and I felt a trickle of blood down my left breast and stuck my hand into my shirt and pulled out a bullet. The wound was directly over my heart; the bullet was flattened and we wondered how it was that it had not penetrated and passed through my body.
We returned to the Riggs's ranch where we had a consultation and remained there over night. We got two more men to accompany us and started back on the trail after these Indians at daylight the next morning. On arriving at the point where we had the skirmish we found blood stains where these two Indians had lain. The mules had been taken from the wagon but the trail was easy to follow.
We crossed the canyon, following the trail, and went up over some cliffs where there were some small caves and found that they had deposited the two bodies in one of these crevices and piled in rock tight so that the animals could not get into them. We took out these rocks and took out the bodies and found one of them had been shot just under the left eye, the bullet coming out at the base of his brain; the other was shot just below the arm pit, bullet coming out just above the hip bone. We saw the Indian signal fires and following them until about two o'clock we arrived at a small saw mill about five miles from where the first encounter had been. We got some more men and left our horses there. We climbed a steep mountain that night to attack the camp in the early morning but when we arrived we found that the Indians had set fire to the whole mountain country. We made our way back to where our horses were and that night went back to the Riggs's ranch, making two days of very hard work.
Again proving the law of retribution to those who willfully take lives, in September of this same year, 1883, I was living on a little ranch that I had taken up about four miles from where the family lived. My aunt Diana Fife, the wife of William Fife, who was my step-father, had come from Utah. My mother and sister, Cynthia, had gone with my uncle, Edward Bunker and family to do work in the Saint George Temple and while aunt Diana and Agnes were on the ranch alone with a Mexican hired man (my uncle William having gone to Wilcox, Arizona for provisions) a Mexican who had deserted the Mexican army in Sonora came to the house and asked for a watermelon. They gave him a watermelon and his dinner.
He seemed to be acquainted with the Mexican who was working on the ranch; and while aunt Diana was ironing in the center room he pulled out a pistol and shot her, the bullet passing through the cords of the arm just above the wrist, then passed through her stomach just above her hip bone. Her daughter Agnes was in the kitchen, and on hearing the shot ran out of the back door. At this the man who was working ran to the door and this man that had the pistol shot at him, missing. Then the hired Mexican grabbed hold of the other and wrestled for the pistol. Both became bloody from the blood of aunt Diana.
In the meantime Agnes had run around the house into the front room and got her mother by the shoulder and dragged her into the front room. The hired man had taken the pistol and thrown it to one side and asked Agnes for a rope but she fearing treachery did not give him one. There the Mexican murderer got away; the other picked up a pistol and fired a shot but missed. The Mexican laborer went around to the window and asked Agnes what she wanted.
She wrote a note to a ranch about six miles distant. The Mexican got on a horse and rode to the ranch with the note. This was the White Ranch. Mr. White, the president, immediately sent a man back with the Mexican and he himself, rode to Tombstone to where one of the county commissioners stayed and there started a search for the murderer. About ten o'clock that night Charles who had been employed in the hayfields at the ranch came to my little cabin and told me what had happened. I got up and saddled my horse and we immediately started searching, going to the north.
The night was very dark and as we passed a ranch known as "Italian Joe's ranch" we found that the Mexican had been there and got his supper. He had gone on his way toward a ranch north near Fort Bowie. On the way our horses became frightened and shied and I said to my brother Charles that I believed the fellow would be along here somewhere. The country was a prairie country so we rode up to the Pass and waited for daylight. We guarded the pass to see whether the man would come through. But just at daylight we saw what appeared to be, in the distance, Italian Joe coming with his horse and buggy taking vegetables, as was his custom, to Fort Bowie. We decided we had better go down toward camp as the Mexican might have gone through the pass before we had arrived there. We searched out a little camp near there and then went to a mining camp called
Dos Cabezas where we met Deputy Sheriff Ward with another man. They had come from Wilcox Arizona in obedience to a telegram sent them asking them to help in the search for the murderer. Together we returned to the ranch to be present at the burial of my aunt. These two rode directly towards the ranch but I went around by Italian Joe's and he told me that they had caught the murderer and had taken him to the home ranch. Just before I got to the home ranch I saw hanging from a big oak tree the murderer of my aunt. I rode down to the ranch and encountered the Deputy sheriff Ward and his companion. They asked me if I had seen or heard anything. I said yes. That I had heard something and had seen the biggest acorn I had ever seen hanging from an oak tree.
We went back to the ranch and held the funeral of my aunt. It was a very sad affair. Little Agnes was inconsolable. She was only thirteen hears old. Then I heard from the Mexican who had defended Agnes what the murderer had proposed to him; that they rob the house, take the horses and girl and escape to Sonora. I heard from Agnes how much the Mexican had done in defending her life.
By this time a great many frontiersmen had gathered and we proceeded up the valley to where the murderer was hanging. The mob spirit took hold of the crowd and they wanted the hired Mexican hanged too. This was seconded by all with a shout. I was the only one who was there horse back; I pulled my rifle from the scabbard and backed the Mexican up against a tree. I told them if there was going to be any hanging done they would have to hang me first; that I would put a bullet through the first man who laid hands on the Mexican. I stated the injustice of hanging the man just because he was a Mexican. The mob spirit immediately vanished. We buried the Mexican and in three days the coyotes had dug him up and gnawed the flesh off his bones; another incident where the law of retribution was brought to pass.
Going back to the year 1881 I desire to relate some incidents that happened to show the conditions that existed in that section of the country. There was a number of men whose names were: Old Man Ike Clenton, and his son Ike; Billy and Jim, the two McDaniels brothers, big head Jeff Lewis and Rattle Snake Jack Wilson. They attacked a Mexican caravan from Basaricia and Bavaspia, Sonora; mortally wounding the head of the caravan and killing the two mules that were loaded with Mexican silver dollars. These Mexicans were on their way to Las Cruces, New Mexico to purchase merchandise.
Rattle Snake Jack Wilson came to our home with Jeff Lewis a few days after the assault on the Mexicans, having a saddle and bridle. Their pants pockets were full of Mexican silver pesos.
These men said to me, "Kid, come and join us. This is the way to make money!"
I replied that it was only a matter of time till they would find its termination and their extermination but they only laughed. Rattle Snake Jack was born and raised a Mormon boy at Wilson's Lane just west of Ogden city and my mother tried very hard to get him to stop his mode of living but all in vain for only a few days later he was at Clifton, Arizona and had been drinking and carousing all night and as he rode out of town towards Duncan he met a Chinaman with a load of vegetables taking it into Clifton. He shot the Chinaman, got into the wagon, tying his horse behind, and began to peddle vegetables. He raised the Chinaman’s head up every once in a while and laughed.
When the sheriff was notified and went to arrest him, Jack reached for his pistol but the sheriff shot him all to pieces with a double-barreled shot gun; another incident of swift justice and retribution.
A little later Old Man Ike Clenton, his son Billy, the two McDaniels brothers, Jeff Lewis and James Clenton made a raid on the Carretas ranch, driving off about five-hundred head of cattle, and killing one of the cow boys. Another member of the ranch went to Basaracia and Bavaspa for help. They followed these cattle rustlers and bandits and when they got across the U.S. line they lay down and slept, thinking they were safe. The Mexicans came on to them and killed four of them and wounded the other two, but supposed they had killed them all. They drove their cattle back to Carretas then took their equipment and went back to Sonora. But two of the men, Lewis and Billy Clenton, were only severely wounded. But they pretended that they were dead when they were being examined by the Mexicans. Later on, Billy Clenton was killed in Tombstone while Lewis was killed by his own companion; thus ending another incident of swift justice and the law of retribution being satisfied.
There was another band of outlaws and bad men going around under a man called Curly Bill, and he had as his allies, Billy the Kid, No.2, John Hunt, and Bud Moore. This man, John Hunt, had sold his freight teams and joined the outlaws. He and Bud Moore and the Kid Stowell about two hundred head of cattle at a little ranch they called "Stockton's Ranch," twelve miles from Tombstone.
As I was coming around east of our ranch I met these men driving this herd of cattle, and as I had passed by the ranch where these cattle belonged many times I knew the brand. Bud Moore rode up to me and said:
"Kid, turn your head the other way and keep your mouth shut or it will cost your life."
I said nothing but went immediately to the ranch and sent by a teamster who was hauling lumber, a note to Mr. Edmunds and Jack Chandler, the owners of the ranch. When this incident happened Mr. Edmunds and Chandler refuted a $1600 note that they had given to Hunt as a balance due on his freight teams. Published in the local newspaper was the fact that they refused to pay the note because of the cattle theft. Edmunds followed the cattle alone, getting about one-half of them. When John Hunt and Billy the Kid went to Stockton's ranch to kill Stockton and Edmunds, Stockton's wife got her little girl three years old out of the back door on the way to get her father who was on his way from Tombstone. They went back to Tombstone and notified the officers and the sheriff with a posse of five men came out to the ranch and had a battle royal, wounding John Hunt and killing Billy the Kid while Bud Moore was laying to catch me. But the sheriff's party soon caused him to leave. This same Hunt was killed by the Indians later, thus closing another incident.
Curly Bill and Jim and Tom MacLowrey and John Ringold who was an own cousin to the famous outlaws of Missouri, Jesse and Frank James, went west of Tombstone to hold up the stage that was coming from Benson. While they were there in waiting, another band of outlaws who were officers, the Erpe brothers, Wyatt, Jim Virgil and Tom together with an outlaw by the name of Doc Holiday also were in waiting to hold up the stage. Wyatt Erpe was marshall of Tombstone; Jim was chief of police; Virgil, Tom and Doc were police officers. The two parties came together and had an understanding; they held up the stage and divided the spoils.
Later, Bill Clenton was on a drunk in Tombstone and also shot up the town and these men, the Erpe brothers with Tom Holiday, shot him down. The MacLowrey brothers were with Curly Bill and the bunch who were holding up the stage. The ranch had just been sold for $13,000 and they had the money on their person, expecting to leave Tombstone the next morning for Benson to take the train into Texas. The Erpe brothers knew this and opened up with their shot guns and murdered them both in the street, robbed their bodies of the money, went into court and with their evidence proved self-justification.
A little later, Curly Bill, John Ringold, and Pat Burns (a man whom I had ridden the range with and slept with) at night opened fire on these Erpe brothers, killing Jim and shooting an arm off Virgil. They wounded Tom. Pat Burns came about two o'clock in the morning and said, "Come, and take me into the mountains please."
He did not tell me why but after being in the mountains with him for a month he told me the whole circumstance. A little later the two Erpe brothers and Doc Holiday started on the hunt for Curly Bill and his pardner. In the lower part of Sulphur Spring Valley they came on Curly Bill and killed him and later followed John Ringold into the Chiricahua mountains and while he was sitting in a tree, shot him in the head. Later, my friend, Pat Burns, was made deputy warden at Yuma, Arizona.
The Erpe brothers that were still living and Doc Holiday went to Dodge City, Kansas, where Doc Holiday and one of the Erpes was killed, leaving only Wyatt Erpe who went to San Francisco, closing another very interesting incident of swift justice and the law of retribution being complied with.
Just after the hanging of Buckskin Joe there were two notorious highwaymen; one by the name of "Shoot ‘em up Dick" and Sandy King. This Dick was a son of a Russian general from Russia; he had come out to participate in the things of the wild west. They had made a raid on a ranch in New Mexico and come out into Arizona and when they were camping east of Tombstone a man who was an uncle to the champion prize fighter of the day came into their camp, as it was a rainy night. He brought a saddle and bridle with him, also some scotch whisky. Dick and Sandy shot through the old man's head, took his horse, bridle and blankets and left, going back into New Mexico where a sheriff's party surrounded them and after capturing them, put them in jail. After
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the hanging of Buckskin Joe a posse gathered, took them out of the jail and into an old adobe Mexican house; strapped them and hung them to the rafters.
I was once hauling lumber from the Chiricahua mountains to Bisbee with my companion, a man by the name of Dan Dowd. He had a record behind him of being a remarkable shot. He was continuously practicing with 8 pair of six shooters that he always carried. He could throw up a can and fill it full of holes before it came down. One day two men came into our camp while we were camping at noon and began talking to Dan. He seemed to have known them formerly and they traveled along until we camped at night; I was curious to know what it was all about so I eavesdropped them and heard one of their names was Johnny Heath and the other was Delaney. They formed a plot of highway robbery and my companion became a party to it. When we returned from Bisbee to the saw mill he got his horse and saddle ready and said to me:
"Kid, this old world owes me a living and I am not going to work any more."
I asked him if he was going on the highway and he said yes. A little later Delaney who had previously talked with Dowd, Curly, Red, and Texas met Dowd at a ranch called White Water; and my new companion, whose name was John Hall, and I, saw these men and I said to him:
"This looks mighty bad."
But he said he thought they were all right. But as we were driving out teams to Bisbee we met Delaney and another man coming out of Bisbee in the very early morning. They advised us that there was a hold up in Bisbee. I immediately said to Hall:
"That is Dan Dowd and his bunch and I believe your pardner, Frank, knows all about it."
Then Hall became very much enraged and we had a rough and tumble fight over the matter. I was the stronger and choked him until he promised to be good. When we got in Bisbee we found that what this man had said was true. I found Sheriff Daniel's and told him what I knew about this man Heath coming to our camp and consulting with Dan Dowd, and he immediately sent two men following Heath's trail. They went to Tombstone and Daniels scoured the country.
It seems that five men rode to the suburbs of Bisbee and left one holding the horses then Red and Tex went into town to the Copper Queen Co. store, the only banking institute in that section of the country; Dowd and Delaney stayed out side and when a man came out of the store door carrying a hand full of bills they told him to stop but he did not so they shot him down. Then the firing began. Heath had rented a place for a dance hall right close by the Copper Queen store and it seems that he opened fire on the citizens of the town. A woman opened a door and they shot her down. They took some watches and jewelry and about $3000 in cash and bills, some of them marked. The next morning a horse of one of the party gave out so he got on a freight train at San Simon station and was taken off by the train at Lordsburg as a tramp. When they examined him they found a large amount of money and jewelry and a pistol on him.
Red and Tex rode into Clifton. Red had a sweetheart in one of the sporting houses and gave her a watch and some money and left town. The sheriff, seeing that this man had come into town, was suspicious and went to this woman and she gave him the information that he wanted. He deputized a number of men and they encountered Red coming into town the next morning. They surrounded him and took him without a shot. They followed his trail back and found Tex in a little camp cleaning his pistol and rifle and they took him also without firing.
Sheriff Daniels followed the trail of Dan Dowd to Corralitos ranch [in Chiricahua] and he was found staying with the blacksmith on the ranch, who was an American. Daniels went into the house where Dowd was. Dowd's pistols were hanging on the wall and he made Dowd surrender, buckling Dowd's pistols on himself. He made the blacksmith make some leg irons; then he put these and handcuffs on the prisoner. He made a Mexican drive them in a buckboard to Deming, New Mexico. The next day they went to Tombstone. Daniels later followed Delaney into a little town called Fronteres, Sonora.
Delaney had been on a drunk and shot up the town and they had him in jail. As soon as he saw Daniels coming he shouted that he was glad a gringo had come to his rescue. Daniels had a picture and asked Delaney if he recognized it.
"Is that the picture my mother gave you for you to come and get me with?" he shouted.
The sheriff told him yes, and the officers turned him over. He was taken to Tombstone. A jury was formed to try these six men. Heath was the first man tried, and his sentence was life imprisonment at the penitentiary in Yuma. The other five men, Dowd, Delaney, Curly, Red and Tex were found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. Just the day before Heath was to have been taken to the penitentiary, about fifty miners from Bisbee came over to Tombstone and took Heath out of jail and hanged him to a telegraph pole. Just previous to this Heath sent a band of five men who stopped the train at Stein's pass in New Mexico. They had robbed the passengers and express car and gone into the north to the Black Range. Heath had gone to the Bowie station himself and asked the operator if there had been news of any hold up. Just twenty minutes later the operator received word of it. This all came out in the testimony against Heath. These five men that had robbed the train at Stein's pass were followed by a sheriff's party who took them in the Black Range mountains, killing two and wounding another one. They put the other two in jail in Silver City. A little later they broke jail but the sheriff's party killed the remaining three, closing another incident of justice and the law of retribution again being satisfied.
In the fall of 1884 I was working as a cowboy for the 3C Cattle Co. in Sulphur Springs Valley and while engaged in this work it was the custom for the ranch hands to all cut and haul hay. My brother Charles and I with four [others? – torn page] were hauling hay from the White Water section to the Sulphur Springs, a distance of about fifty miles, taking four days to make a trip. The [? - torn page] previous I had been over home and returned. My brother and I camped at [a? – torn page] little ranch about half way from White Water to Sulphur Springs and as it was chilly the next morning I put on my coat. While I was sitting on the hay [I? – torn page] found something in my pocket and saw that it was a hymn book mother had given to me. I opened it and read and the tears fell down my cheeks. I began to remember the things that had happened in my childhood and the testimonies of President Brigham Young, John Taylor, Martin Harris and many others, among them the wonderful testimony that was always borne to me by my mother. I had been wild and wayward but never an Idea had come into my head of being a robber or bandit. On the other hand the inheritance of Justice to everything contrary to banditry that I had received from my birthright from my father and mother had always stayed with me and the reading of these hymn[s] was a turning point in my life for it awakened in me a desire and determination to find out what there was in Mormonism for me.
On arriving at the ranch that evening I said to my brother Charles, "I am through with this kind of a life. I am going to find out for myself what there is in Mormonism and try to live the life of a Latter Day Saint. I am going to quit this kind of a life now and go down to the Gila River among the Mormon people and try to get a piece of land and settledown! Charley said he would go with me.
So we went and saw Mr. White, the manager, and asked for our time. He called me to one side.
"Orson, what is the trouble? Are you dissatisfied?" he said.
I told him no; not with him but with the kind of a life I had been living. He asked what I was going to do and when I told him, he said that was right. He was glad I had seen the light for he had thought many time what a shame it was that a young man like me was wasting his life in that kind of business.
Mr. White was a refined person, an engineer by profession. There was also another young man there from Ogden City who had been our neighbor when we were boys.
"That is right, Orson," he said. "You and Charley go over and get a place if you can. Count me in on it and I'll stay here and keep up expenses."
Charley and I went over and bought three forty-acre fields from a man and there began living a new life.
In the spring of 1885 we were visited by Apostle Lyman and John Henry Smith; and the president of the seven presidents of the Seventy's, Seymour B. Young. And while we held a fine meeting at Safford, my brother Charley and William Nelson and the two Wright brothers after the meeting had a fine talk at about twelve o'clock at night. And previous to our talk the two brothers and myself were ordained as Seventies, my brother and Nelson not desiring to take upon themselves the obligation.
About two in the morning a bunch of Apache Indians rode through the outskirts of Safford driving off a number of horses. The two Wright brothers, together with Robert Welker followed the Indians. The Indians fired on them, killing the two Wright brothers and Robert Welker, but his companions were saved and they returned to Safford. We went out and brought the bodies home and it was one of the saddest funerals I have ever witnessed. The husbands and fathers of two small families being dead at the same time. Apostle Lyman, Smith and Young advised us not to follow them further. My real work and experience in the Gospel began here.
I labored in the Mutual and Sunday School and did everything that I could to make myself worthy of service among my fellows and in the Gospel.
In March 1887 Apostle Moses Thatcher returned from the colonies in Mexico and told how the conditions financially were so distressing with the people in Mexico, and asked for volunteers of young men who were willing to serve and labor and build roads and dig ditches and become members of the colonies in Mexico.
There were as I remember, about twelve or fifteen young men who volunteered to come to these colonies, along with them, myself. When I asked Apostle Thatcher how soon he wanted us to leave he laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Just as soon as you can arrange your affairs," he said. "Get ready and go; and I promise you in the name of Israel's God that his blessing and Spirit and protection will be with you and that this will be the greatest blessing that could ever come to you to have volunteered this service for it is a service in the work of the Lord." And he sent me on the way rejoicing.
I began to dispose of what little I had and came to Sulphur Springs Valley where my mother was. She desired to come with me and together we journeyed to the colonies, arriving there on the thirtieth day of May, 1887.
Just before getting into the little colony of Juárez our wagon broke down and in the work of reloading and moving the malaria fever came back on me; I having had it once before. I was in bed for about three weeks, nigh unto death.
I remember especially this incident: My mother had gone from our little tent and sent Brother MacDonald to come and administer to me. He brought a man who was a doctor, by the name of Metz. I remember after they had administered to me they stepped outside of the door of the tent.
Brother MacDonald said to his companion, "What do you think about this case?"
Metz said, "Poor woman! She is going to be left alone very soon."
On hearing these words, I raised from my bed and called Brother MacDonald to come in and Metz followed.
"I will live yet to perform the work that has been promised me I should; I will see this man buried and live many years."
Brother MacDonald clasped my hand and said he felt also that I was going to live.
As soon as I was well enough I got up and went and saw Apostle Teasdale and he told me to go to Brother George Seavey who was Bishop of the ward. I went to him. I asked him what he wanted me to do.
"Can you make adobes?" he asked.
"I never have, but I can try," I replied.
I immediately went and laid out an adobe yard and began making adobes. Although my health wasn’t the best I continued making adobes into the rest of the year, making the adobes for the first school house.
This was the beginning of my work and service in Colonia Juárez.
On refreshing my memory I desire to refer to an incident that happened in the fall of 1885. Our dancing parties that were being held throughout the St. Joseph Stake were opened to all the public and in consequence of this there were coming into our dances the worst kind of characters, some of them being drunk and having their own way to a great extent. At a Stake priesthood meeting held in Safford this question of allowing everyone into our dances was discussed and a decision was made that they would bar all of those who were not members of the church. After this meeting the Stake presidency, president Layton, Martineau and Johnson, called Brother Arvel Allen and myself into a private counsel and asked us if we would take charge of the dances that were being given at Safford.
There were no school houses either at the Layton ward or Thatcher, and all of the people in these two wards came to the parties at Safford and Brother Allen and I asked for specific instructions. President Layton came to see us.
"We want you to keep them out and not allow them to participate in dances," he told us.
After a consultation between Brother Allen and myself, we decided that there might be serious trouble and we went to those parties prepared for any emergency.
The first party given after these instructions was a very large one, filling the hall and after we began dancing two men came in and sat down close to the door. We knew them to be murderers and outlaws; one by the name of Frank Morris who had just been released from the penitentiary for killing a man; the other a man by the name of Alkalide Dick who boasted of three notches on his gun for three men he had killed.
We were dancing the Scotch reel at the time the incident I am going to relate happened and Brother Allen said I had better go down by those fellows and he would look after the dance. I went down close to where they were and listened to what they had to say. While everybody was dancing and enjoying themselves, Alkalide Dick said to his companion:
"Now is the time to shoot out the lights."
As he started to rise I brought them to a halt by poking a six shooter in their faces and told them the first lights to go out would be theirs and for them to beat it. They went out of the door and I followed close against them, my pistol in my hand. When they had crossed the street they let out a yell and began shooting but I returned the fire and they beat it, so we had no more trouble with those bandits and outlaws.
Another incident in Colonia Juárez: After I had been making adobes and serving as counselor in the Mutual Improvement Association in Colonia Juárez, in the month of November I was married to Mattie D. Romney, daughter of Miles P. Romney and together with my mother we passed an enjoyable winter. In the spring of 1888 the Mexicans began stealing the horses and cattle from the Colonies and Apostle Teasdale who was president of the Mexican Mission, together with his counselors, A.F. MacDonald, Henry Iring, together with the Bishop and his counselors asked me after a priesthood meeting at which these matters were discussed, to look after the horses and cattle on the range and protect them from the thieves and I accepted the request. The stealing soon ceased.
Later on, I took the church sheep herd on shares. These sheep had been brought from Arizona to save them from being confiscated and while I was looking after these sheep and cattle and interests in general of the people, we were having a round-up on the Tinaja Wash, north of Colonia Juárez. Five Americans came into where we had our round-up and said they had been trailing some thieves that might be Indians, from the San Pedro ranch over to this point. We immediately turned the cattle loose that we had rounded up and took the trail and as we were riding down the wash I picked up the discarded piece of a shirt and smelled of it.
"It is Apache Indians," I said.
As we rode a little farther on the trail I picked up some rawhide horse shoes that Indians had made and I told them there was no question about it being Apache Indians. We followed them nearly to the San Diego ranch where the Indians had crossed the river at the Bocilla, just below the ranch, and gone into the mountains east and south of San Diego. I came back and reported to the colonies that they were Apache Indians and that the ranchers should be called in, especially those in the mountains, for protection. I remember when I told that I could tell they were Apaches by the smell that brother Romney especially, laughed at me.
At this time I was getting ready to go to Chihuahua with several loads of wool we had sheared from the sheep that I had in charge. Before going I again told Apostle Teasdale and the brethren that the people in the mountains should be called in. They formed a posse under the direction of Brother Helaman Pratt. We were informed that the Indians had just passed by a little ranch that was occupied by Charles Whipple at some springs south-west of the colonies. We followed their trail and found they had gone into the mountains, then returned to the colony and reported there was nothing farther to be done.
I went to Chihuahua with the wool with a number of wagons and on my return trip I met Brother Henry Martineau going to Gallego after merchandise and he told me of the killing of the Thompson family. On my return home I proposed that we form a posse of men and try and run down the Indians but I could get no support.
A few weeks later, three Americans came into Juárez; one by the name of Quigley with his two companions and as I had known him in Ogden City when he was a boy I talked to him.
"You are going into very dangerous country where there a lot of Apache Indians." I warned him.
He and his companions said, "Do you see these guns, six-shooters and ammunition? What do you think we have them for?"
I said, "You might have them with the intention of using them but you might not get the chance."
About eight or ten days later he and his two companions came straggling into Juárez one by one and reported they had been attacked by Indians in Apache Valley at the head of the Hole country and that the Indians had taken everything they owned except the guns that they were carrying. They related this incident; As they went into the Apache Valley they saw an Indian standing watching them then he immediately disappeared. For their safety they climbed up onto the mountain to the north and there on the rim of the mountain they made their camp and guarded it all night. One stood guard in the early morning while the other two ate breakfast, and after eating, instead of continuing their guard, they stood around the fire discussing what they were going to do when all at once three Indians sprang up from behind their own barricade and fired on them. They ran, no two of them staying together, leaving everything in the hands of the Indians except the guns they were carrying. It took them three days to get to Juárez.
A little later after this happened there was an Indian raid on Pacheco where they had driven off some of the stock and Apostle Teasdale and his counselors asked me to go to Pacheco and organize a posse and go out and see what I could do. On arriving at Pacheco with a letter for Bishop Smith, as he had asked previously for instructions as to what to do, we formed a posse consisting of Bishop Smith, John T. Whetten, Sam Jarvis, George Naegle and Robert Beecroft and left Pacheco going to the west to the country described by Quigley and his party. We found where they had made their camp and one of their burros and the trail of the Indians they had seen was going down over the canyon into the Hole country. We camped there and during the night it began storming and when we got on top of the mountain there was five or six inches of snow and it was impossible to follow the trail any farther so we started back for Pacheco. The snow was falling and the fog was so heavy that we could not see any land marks and did not know which way we were going as we had no compass.
I remember Sam Jarvis saying, "I can lead you to Pacheco blindfolded."
We told him to take the trail and we would follow. After traveling for about an hour we had made a complete circle and come back upon our own trail. There we decided to camp till next morning when we returned to Pacheco then I went to Juárez.
I had taken a severe cold and when I got home I had to go to bed and remain there for a couple of weeks and while not yet able to get out and ride, David Hawkins came to me one morning and said he had sighted a bunch of Mexicans on the Tinaja Wash that morning driving a bunch of horses and among them some of the colony horses. I immediately asked him to go and call Brigham Stowell [Stowell] and David Stevens and to get me a horse from Brother Taylor.
They saddled the horse for me and we took a couple of blankets a piece and started out hunting these Mexicans. The trail led us into the Tapasitas where we found their camp and some of the horses but no men. We stayed there that night and guarded the camp and as the trail of part of the horses went up the canyon, next morning we went up the canyon to see what we could find and on returning we saw the Mexicans, seven of them in their camp saddling horses and as we rode toward them they began to run.
One of them shouted, "There comes Brown. He will kill the whole bunch of us."
We captured three of them, four of them getting away. We brought them down to Colonia Juárez. The man who had this band of thieves in charge was Tiofelo Hermosilo. On arriving at Colonia Juárez we decided to guard them there that night, taking them to Casas Grandes the next morning but on our way to Juárez we met a Mexican who rode to Casas Grandes and told them of our having captured these men. We put a guard over these Mexicans in a little lumber butcher shop that belonged to Brother Harper on the corner of his lot where his house now stands. During the night, I having gone home to bed, not being well, James Skousen, one of the guards, came and said several men had been there armed, demanding the prisoners and he could hear men coming over the dugway. I told him to return and tell the boys to get ready and protect the prisoners and not let them go.
I got dressed and went down to where the prisoner was as soon as I could carrying my rifle in my hand. As I neared the men in the middle of the street a man by the name of Colonel Omobono Reyes was shouting that if Brown, the one who was responsible for this, would only present himself they would hang him and take the prisoners. He had about thirty men with him and take the town. When I had listened to his boast as I could, he not recognizing me because of the dark, I threw my rifle down on him and told him who I was and said if he did not shut up I would shoot the top of his head off, and silence reigned.
Then two men came from Casas Grandes and brother Iring being the Comisario of Juárez, they said they had an order for the prisoners from the presidente at Casas Grandes who was then Manuel Hernandez. We turned the prisoners over to them and the next morning we went to Casas Grandes and found they had accused us of capturing them while in their camp eating breakfast and that the horses of ours we had found among theirs had only been drinking with their horses and they had not stolen them. We all had to go to jail, Brothers Stowell, Stevens Hawkins and myself. We remained there until Brother Helaman Pratt and Miles Romney went to Ciudad Juárez and got an order for our release, we having been there eighteen days. We then had to begin a fight for our recognition. I went to Ciudad Juárez and accused the judge of using his office to protect thieves and the judge lost his office and we began to get some protection from courts and officers of the law.
In the meantime there had been a new election and a new Presidente of Casas Grandes was elected and there was a notice put up that any one desiring to hunt any straying animals on lands belonging to the colonies would need to come and get permission, and advised the Presidente, that anyone of his people found riding the range without permission would be severely dealt with.
But a short time later I was going from Casas Grandes by Ojo de Motino north west of Casas Grandes on the Tinaja and just after passing over the Divide about at the springs, I saw four men coming driving a bunch of horses. From the distance I recognized that some of the horses were those belonging to the colonies. The men recognized me and as they were all armed they separated leaving the horses to surround me. I got off my horse and threw my gun down on them and motioned them to beat it and hollered to them that if they came any nearer there would [be] serious trouble. They took fright and went as fast as their horses could go to the north and I went on up to the bunch of horses and cut out those belonging to the colonies and drove them home. The next day I went down to Casas Grandes and had these men summoned before the Presidente and there again I advised them that if a like condition occurred I would leave their bones bleaching on the prairie for the coyotes. They took me at my word and we were not bothered for a good many years.
Another incident: (of the Tomoche raid of which I desire to give a short history)
The Tomoche Indians mixed with some Mexicans lived in a little town, western Chihuahua, by the name of Tomoche. There had some two or three years before been a girl who claimed to have visitations and spiritual instructions. The messenger visiting her, she claimed, had told her that the catholics priests were not supposed to sell the sacrament nor charge people for sermons pertaining to the church, and that they had no connection with the church of the Master. That they were all wrong.
And these people in the surrounding towns and countries of the mountains, believing what they had heard of her, visited her at her home in a little mountain village by the name of Cabora in Northeastern Sinaloa; among them, the Presidente of Tomoche, Cruz Chavez with several of the people of Tomoche. They returned home very much impressed with the things they had heard and seen at Cabora in regard to the manifestations claimed to have been given to Santa Teresa.
When the priest from Guerrero came down to visit them in Tomoche and was holding services in the church the people, instead of going to these services, went to the house of the Presidente, Cruz Chavez. He had erected an altar in his parlor where they were having the services. This infuriated very much the priest of Guerrero and he went to the house of Cruz Chavez and started to tear down the altar and destroy the images that had been erected there. Cruz Chavez in return, entered and drove the priest out of his house and told him to leave his house and the town also. The priest immediately went to Guerrero and informed his brother that was Jefe Politico, of the fact that he had been driven out of this town and abused. The Jefe sent an escort of seventy-five men to Tomoche with instructions to arrest all of the men and bring them to Guerrero.
Cruz Chavez and his men anticipated this happening, and had made preparations for their reception and sent out a messenger to meet the escort and tell them not to come into Tomoche because there would be blood shed. The men, instead of heeding Chavez's announcement, started on into the town. Chavez and his men met them with a battle cry of liberty and in defense of their lives and home they killed about thirty of the men coming down to capture them. The balance of the men returned to Guerrero and reported the conditions. The government then sent three hundred soldiers to Tomoche to subdue the Tomoches. In a like manner, Cruz Chavez and his men, scattering in bunches of five men hid in the bushes around the villages and as the men advanced they shot down their officers first then played havoc with the soldiers killing over one hundred at the first battle.
Cruz Chavez and his men only numbered thirty-seven. Then the government sent five hundred soldiers and the same thing occurred. They killed the officers first then the soldiers that happened to linger. The conditions seemed to be terrible. Then the Federal Government told fifteen hundred soldiers to go in and capture them, dead or alive. The General in command formed an attacking party, sending five-hundred soldiers around to the west to come down the canyon, thus having the town completely surrounded. The men from the west that were coming down the canyon were the first to come near to the village. The Tomoches shot down their officers and disarmed the soldiers and drove them into the church. When the General on top of the mountain demanded that they surrender he was shot and killed instantly by a Tomoche. The battle had raged for some hours when the Federal army fired some shots into the church from a canon, supposing that the Tomoches had taken refuge in the church. The roof of the church was of lumber and immediately began to burn and the soldiers locked in that church were cremated.
The Tomoches escaped to the mountains through the entrance left in the west where these soldier[s] had come down. The army followed them into the mountains and the death rate to the soldiers was terrible. It was estimated that before these Tomoches left the country that they had caused two thousand soldiers to loose their lives during their campaign of two years. The remainder of these Tomoche Indians then went to the United States and were there for a couple of years, then decided to return to their homes and families. They came by appointment to the border at Palomas and in the early morning assaulted the customs house and guards, wounding some of the guards, capturing the customs house and giving the customs administrator a receipt for the money and other things they had taken and came on their way south, having taken six horses and
saddles from the customs guards. They went close to Colonia Diaz and Stowell out of a pasture four horses belonging to W.D. Johnson. Bishop Johnson immediately sent a runner to Juárez advising us what had happened. At Juárez we had previously organized a home guard or militia with Brother Miles Romney as Major in command and myself as Captain of the cavalry.
On receiving this information we began to make preparations. Runners came in from Ramos advising of the fact that these Tomoches had passed by Ramos coming towards Juárez and they had taken four mules from a wagon belonging to the San Pedro ranch, which was loaded with provisions. They had carried all the provisions they could on the mules.
I got Brother Amos Cox and started to go up north of the colony when we met Brother Carl Nielson who said he wanted to go with us. We went up the eastside of the river to the north of the colony. At the first crossing we met Brother Seavey who said there were three suspicious looking characters up at the Seavey farm about four miles north of the colony and that in talking to Loona Baker who spoke Spanish fluently they had asked many questions in regard to the store in the colony and as to whether the people in the colonies were well armed.
I dispatched Neilson up the river to get the brethren together and try and capture these three men. I sent Seavey down to advise Brother Romney of the situation and for him to send me some men; and that I was satisfied these Tomoches were on the Tinaja. To determine their exact location I went with Cox and as we were scouting along the south rim of the Tinaja wash three men raised up behind the rocks, threw their rifles down on us and demanded that we surrender. Cox and I jerked our guns down on them in return and demanded that they surrender, and there we were for some moments. The man in charge of their party and the man who had his gun on Cox lowered their guns but there was an Indian who never lowered his gun at all and asked the question if we were going to surrender.
When I accused them of being bandits and thieves the man in charge spoke up.
"No, we are not. We have another mission."
When I asked him what his mission was he said they were going back to their homes and families. I said I knew that they were Tomoches and had stolen horses from Colonia Diaz and they did not deny it. I warned them not to steal anything from these colonies for if they did I would follow them even into the sea. Finally I asked them where their companions were and they said close by. Just then I saw one of their men going out from their camp for water with a bucket, being about five hundred yards from where we were, down over the hill.
This Indian who had never lowered his gun said to the man in charge, "Why not send our other companion down to the camp to tell the others to come up here?"
And at that the man turned around to go. I told him to stop or I would put a bullet through him even though they put two through me, as I was in command there.
The man in charge said, "You let us go to our camp and we will let you go to yours."
We agreed but the Indian never lowered his gun until I suggested that if he did not, he would be shot and anyway he would have to because they were going to their camp, so he did.
As we turned toward the colony the chief said, "There are three of our men gone down there and we recommend that nothing happens to them."
As Brother Cox and I rode we came to where we had met Brother Seavey that morning and saw him coming again. He advised that three men had come down the river and talked with Sister Baker. Brother Nielson had met and followed them. When they had seen they were being watched they went into the mesa east of the colony with Nielson in pursuit.
I then sent Cox down to tell Brother Romney to send me some men as I felt these men were going to come into the colony. But he had already sent some men to the hills. On my way to this point I met Brother David Johnson coming with some horses and he said he had seen Nielson following three men riding fast towards the north, and fearful for his safety I thought the only thing to do was to follow him but looking down towards the colonies I saw some men coming and waited for them. They were Carlton, Judd, Taylor, Stowell and Dory Cox.
We followed along up the ridge to the north and saw Nielson riding back and forth in front of these three men who were four hundred yards to the north of him who were asking him to come over where they were. And still farther to the north we saw a bunch of twenty-five Tomoches coming up out of the Tinaja wash onto the Mesa. These men wanted to have a parley and it was agreed that one of them who was the second in command of the Tomoches should come out of the bunch and meet me and have a parley. He let down his gun and I mine and we walked within fifty yards of each other.
He said they wanted to come through the colony and go on south and I advised him they would not be permitted to; they would have to go out around the colony. He said if we would not allow them to come by permission they might come any way. I advised him that we had plenty of men well armed and we would clean them out if they did, and I marked the way they should go. He went over to the main body and had a parley and we moved on up and followed along where I had left Brother W.R.R.Stowell and two of the men and had taken Brother Stowell and E.L. Taylor down the canyon and on the ridge there were six men horseback coming to attack us and as I looked down over the ridge I saw ten men coming afoot. They had almost surrounded us and for the moment it appeared the only thing to do was run.
We started to run down the ridge when the thought came to me that they could roll rocks down and kill us and I hollared for my companions to come back, they being in head of me. We all stopped and I had them walk back and forth as if we had a lot of men. Our enemies stopped and went the way we motioned them to go. We followed them the rest of that day and by night had their camp located. It was west of the colony on the top of the mountain to the west of the MacDonald Spring. I had previously sent word to Casas Grandes of the presence of the Tomoches by a Mexican who was working for me and when we got to the colony the commanding officers in Casas Grandes had sent twenty-five soldiers, twenty-five citizen volunteers and ten gendarmes and we had a counsel.
They said they were anxious to capture these fellows dead or live and I marked out a plan by the which we could surround them. They said to wait until the morning and then we had another counsel and they asked me to take the trail and find out which way they were going and when I found out to advise them and they would immediately come and destroy the whole bunch. So at daylight I left with E.L. Taylor, Jerome Judd, Peter C. Wood, Carl Nielson, Cox and Brigham Stowell. We went to the top of the mountain about at MacDonald Spring and found that their trail led us to the south. We followed it until we came to a canyon leading down into the stairs country. Instead of following their trail across the canyon and up the high ground we went right up the canyon but when we neared the pass we saw a horse with a saddle on and a man immediately stepped out and shot his gun as a signal.
I said to Brother Taylor, "You know the trail. Take it."
And as we ran by them they opened up fire on us and when we got down the ridge to a point of defense I told the brothers to stop and we would return the fire. We did so and about twenty minutes kept it up but saw they had the advantage of the ground and decided we had to get away because bullets would soon be coming where we were. We went down the ridge, and sure enough the bullets began falling around us. One hit a rock which Brother Wood was behind and lead sprinkled into his thin hair. I had already sent Brother Nielson to advise the people of Juárez and the soldiers that we had found the Tomoches and to come on. We took a position about five hundred [yards] from the Tomoches and remained there for two or three hours waiting for the Federal soldiers to come and take part and capture the Tomoches but instead of that they seemed to be afraid. The only ones coming were the gendarmes and the brethren decided I should go out and talk with the men while they held a fortified position near the Alameta ranch as the Indians had come through the Tomoche pass and through the low ground.
I could tell these Gendarmes were nervous and wanted to return to Juárez. When I got to Juárez, Nielson recognized me and said, "Here is the Captain."
He called to meet me with Brother Carlton. They were the guides for the Gendarmes. We held a parley and the Lieutenant in command of the Gendarmes said he had instructions to tell us to come on into town. So we rode into Juárez and reported to Major Romney, and he immediately took us up to where Brother Teasdale was.
Everyone in the colony were anxious because Brother Nielson had reported that the Tomoches had us surrounded and probably had killed us all by this time. Brother Teasdale looked upon us and blessed us that wherein we had protected our home town the Lord would bless us and be with us and we would have power, but the enemies would not have power to destroy us.
We later had a parley with the Mexican officials, and instead of being anxious to follow Tomoches, they were the most fearful lot of men I ever saw, to be under arms. They said those Indians had a charmed life and bullets would not harm them; that one Tomoche could whip a hundred other men. As soon as dark came they all disappeared towards Casas Grandes. Some of the brethren were alarmed, fearing the Tomoches would attack the colony during the night. I replied, that with six men we had whipped them the day before and that there was no fear of their attacking for they too were afraid of their lives.
The next morning a small body of men went with us out to the Alameta ranch and up into Tomoche pass where we found that they had killed three beeves and only taken a small part of the meat with them, having left in a hurry after the fight. We followed their trail and found they had gone to the west of San Diego and later saw they had gone to a little Mexican village known as Rusio south of San Diego and continued their way south into the mountains.
I knew that I would always know the Indian who had never lowered his gun. I had arrested a couple of men in Colonia Juárez for drinking and carousing and had handcuffed them and left them under guard with a man by the name of Pablo Soso at the store; While I went home to get my horse and dinner preparatory to taking them to Casas Grande. When I returned I saw the two men sitting under a tree with a man under another tree with my pistol in his hand and I looked at him and knew him to be this Tomoche Indian who was one of the party who held Cox and I up on the mountain. As I shook hands with him I recognized him and he recognized me but said he had never seen me before. He was no other than Juan Soso, the man who had to be killed in Juárez later when they arrested him for stealing. He was a man of exceptional nerve and courage and became a bandit, and was very bitter in his feelings towards the Mormons before he died.
A short time after John Soso came to the Colony I employed him and one day while he was on the top of the mountain finishing up a piece of road I had given him to do, going up the mountains to the saw mill, he in confidence told me this: He said we were the only outfit that had opposed them as strongly as we had; that he wondered why they could not kill us. They had fired about three hundred shots at us and had not hurt any of us. He said that in the fight at Tomoche Pass we had killed two of their men and wounded three others. This makes it evident that we were protected by the power of the Lord or we undoubtedly would have been destroyed by these men who had caused the deaths of so many.
A few months after they passed through the country. Apostle Teasdale and his counselors, Alexander MacDonald and Henry Iring, after having understood the reasons of the uprising of these Tomoches they directed a communication to President Diaz siting forth the reasons of this uprising and asked that these men might be given another chance and that they might be forgiven for their past deeds. This was taken into consideration by the President and his cabinet and these Tomoches were given a reprieve.
My first trip to Sonora: As I have previously stated, on my trip to the mountains after the Apache Indians I had become sick and had had an examination by two doctors who said I had Bright's disease and my health was very poor. President
Joseph C. Bentley had gone to El Paso and Mexico City and on his return in a conversation with Max Weber the manager of Ketelsen and Degatau's Banking and Mercantile Institution, arranged to get me to purchase cattle. Brother Guy Taylor and myself started to Sonora and on our way, over at Ojitos, Chihuahua we met an old French doctor who looked at me and said:
"Young man, you are in a very bad condition but you are going to the country where you can get a medicine that will cure you if you will take it as a medicine and not a beverage."
This was Mescal de Cabeza. Just previous to my leaving home I called upon Apostle Teasdale and while talking with him I told him of my anticipatory trip and my bad condition of health. He immediately stood upon his feet and laid his hands upon my head and gave me a blessing in the which he said I would find on this trip to Sonora the medicine that would restore my health; and also that I would encounter people who would oppose the principles of the Gospel.
"I hereby set you apart and give you a mission to preach the truth of the Gospel in this foreign tongue, and I make you the promise that there shall not be any one who shall rise up against these sacred principles that shall have power either to confound you in your language or their own for you will have the gift of tongues. You will be able to confuse and bring to naught those who oppose you."
And sure enough on this trip when I was staying at the little town of Guachinaro, Sonora, there was living at the house I was staying at a Catholic priest. I remained there some eight days awaiting returns from a messenger that had been sent to the pueblos south and west to find about some cattle. I had had a number of conversations with this priest and one Sunday morning he had made an appointment with some of his people of the little town and while we were at breakfast in the large sala of the house the people began to come in and they filled the parlor. The priest with a Bible in his hand and his other books stood up and began to speak, referring to me and my religion. The notes that he had taken, had been taken during his conversations with me. He ridiculed and asked me a number of questions in the presence of these people.
One of the most potent questions was: "The Idea of this man professing to be a follower of the Master when the church that he is a member of was only organized some sixty years ago while our church has come down during the ages from the Master Apostle Peter."
I asked him some questions and said if he would confine himself to the Bible I would be glad to discuss this matter with him and before I knew it I was standing on my feet and preaching the simple principles of the Gospel of the Master in the language of those people and the power of testimony and the Spirit of the Gospel came to me with such power that the Father of the village, Mr. Leonardo Doriella arose.
He said, "Stop! This man is teaching us the pure principles of the Gospel of the Master. We as Catholics are sinning against all of our traditions in listening to a new religion, even if it is the truth."
He went on to say, "My good friend, what you have said is true but I am sorry that we cannot accept it because we are Catholics."
The Catholic priest was confused and confounded and from that time on, during the remainder of my stay he made himself absent from my presence; thus bringing to pass the promises that were given me through the prophet Apostle Teasdale; also I found the medicine that restored my health and became strong and healthy again, thus proving the efficacy of the promises of the servants of the Lord under the inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord.
In 1902 Apostle Teasdale and his wife came to visit us in Colonia Morelos Sonora. There was a terrible drouth throughout all the land and the rivers had ceased running, and to the north and east the San Bernardino river and the Big Bavispe river had no water running in them. The people had planted wheat and barley and it never had had any water on it and it looked very discouraging and the people were desirous of cutting their grain for feed when Brother Teasdale and his wife came and we explained the conditions to him and in the morning I advised Brother Charles W. Lillywhite who was superintendent of the Sunday School, to arrange the children in two rows in front of the door of a building we had made to hold our services in. I advised them to begin singing the favorite hymn or Brother Teasdale, "In our Lovely Deseret."
We all went in and took our seats except Brother Teasdale and as he stood up there before the Sunday School had opened, he spoke as I have never heard mortal man speak.
"I, the Lord your God, declareth unto you that your crops will mature and you will have plenty for your own use and to spare for your neighbors. This is the beginning of the times of the changing of the seasons and you will have the early and late rains if you will serve me and keep my laws and statutes and be united. This will be a land of plenty unto you. But if you cease your obedience to my laws and statutes this will not be a land of Zion unto you. Thus sayeth the Lord, your God. Amen."
The crops did mature, and as the Lord had promised we had plenty for ourselves and sold a great many tons of flour and barley to the neighboring mining camps of El Tigre and others at a good price. But we did not get a drop of rain on those crops and some of the brethren despaired.
"Bishop," they said to me, "we think we had better cut our grain for feed, as there is no water and not a chance in a hundred that we will get any grain."
I replied, "The Lord has promised it unconditionally and He never fails when He makes a promise."
Later the people became disunited because the Devil sent a man among us who sowed the seeds of discontent. This man had been a Latter Day Saint and had apostatized. His name was George Noble. Peace ceased to reign in that colony. On a trip to Salt Lake City to Conference while I was conversing with Brother Helaman Pratt in the railroad station of El Paso, this man, Noble, heard me talking. He was lying in the baggage room on a stretcher with his leg broken. He asked that I go in and see him and Brother Pratt and I went in and he confessed his guilt and said that he taken what means he could from the people and was leaving for his home in Utah when the horse he was driving had kicked him and broken his leg. He asked me my forgiveness for what he had done. Brother Pratt and I administered to him and he went with us on the same train to Salt Lake City. Brother Pratt and I administered two or three times to him on the trip and saw he had something to eat. But he only lived four or five days after arriving in Salt Lake City, and being in the hospital.
A prophecy and fulfillment by Apostle John Taylor: In the year 1898 Apostle John W. Taylor, A.W. Ivins, Brother Helaman Pratt and myself went to Colonia Oajaca, Sonora to try and settle some land difficulties between the brethren living there. After holding two or three meetings we saw it was impossible to bring those people together and Apostle Taylor made this statement in a priesthood meeting: He had had a pair of bull pups that he was very fond of. He bought a piece of venison and gave each pup a piece. They both took hold of their meat and looked at each other and began growling. They dropped their meat, jumped at each others throats and began chewing each other and a strange dog came along and got their meat.
"You people remind me of these bull pups. We came here to feed you on venison but your prefer bull dog. Now I say unto you that unless you repent of your sins and become united this land will become desolate and unfit for Latter Day Saints to live in, and this very house that we are holding this service in will be used as a ranch house and a place for strangers to camp. I say this through the authority of the holy priesthood I hold, and in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
And verily these people did not repent and these very conditions prophesied by Brother Taylor came to pass.
One more wonderful experience in which Apostle Teasdale again manifested the spirit of Prophecy: The people of Colonia Juárez had become very much disunited and because of a gross misunderstanding in regard to an action of President Alexander MacDonald the majority of the brethren got up a petition and sent it to Salt Lake City to have Brother MacDonald released from his office. I was one of the signers of this petition and manifested more zeal than wisdom and more audacity than humility and I remember at conference when the brethren were being sustained in their offices that I alone voted against Brother MacDonald. After one of the conferences Brother Teasdale instructed the Bishop to investigate my case and try and make me see the folly of my presumptuous attitude.
So one day in accordance with these instructions I was called before Bishop Seavey and his counselors, but to no avail. My blindness and stubbornness was such that they gave me no light in the matter. Brother Teasdale had advised them that if they could not reconcile me to my wrongs to send me to him, so immediately on being dismissed from the bishopric they directed me to Apostle Teasdale's home. I knocked at the door of Brother Teasdale's office. He got up and opened the door and told me to come in.
He said to me, "My boy, did the brethren have the right effect upon you?"
I with a spirit of bravado said, "Should one man forgive another when he does not repent?"
Brother Teasdale looked at me and it appeared that his eyes were consuming my very soul for all of the bravado in me left and I bowed my head and tears filled my eyes.
When I could get courage I said to him, "Brother Teasdale, I know my duty now."
He asked what my duty was.
I replied, "It doesn't matter what other people do, it is my duty to forgive them. And if I do not the Lord will not forgive me."
Brother Teasdale said, "As with Peter of old, flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee but our Father which is in Heaven. I have been praying that you might have an understanding and see the light."
As I rose up he came forward and placed his hands on me and blessed me and that spirit of forgiveness has always remained with me even until this day.
Another incident in which Teasdale figured in my life: I was very anxious and prayed to the Lord for a blessing to come to me as I was desirous to enter into the law of plural marriage and the door seemed to have been closed and I could not get any answer to my prayers.
While I was in the company of Apostle Teasdale in Colonia Diaz he said, boy, I want you to come and take a walk with me.
As we walked around the block of Bishop Johnson's lot he had his arm in mine.
But he stopped all at once and faced me and put his hands on my shoulders. It was a beautiful moonlight night and there with the power of the priesthood he blessed me and made me a promise. He said I should have the privilege of entering into the sacred, holy law and to be humble and listen to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit and those blessings would be given to me.
I had found very much opposition with my wife, Mattie. She had repeatedly said that if I ever married another wife she would either commit suicide or would never live with me another day. I was converted to the law and tried to explain and convert her but all to no avail. She was obdurate in her desires and sentiments. But one day in the afternoon while I was in Diaz on business the promptings of the Spirit of the Lord came to me and told me to go out into the brush and pray. I got on my horse and rode out into the Mesquite brush north of the colony and there kneeled down and in a few words poured out my heart's desire. I asked the Lord that if it was His will that I enter into this high and holy law that he should convert by his Spirit my wife because I loved her and wanted her to enjoy the same blessings that I would enjoy in this matter. That if it wasn't his will that it would be made known to me by the lack of her conversion.
On my return to Juárez my wife met me with the baby in her arms and with a sentiment that had been unknown in our home for many months.
As we knelt down to prayers that evening she said to me "Just after a minute I have something to tell you."
She said, "Night before last I had a vision in which I found myself standing in the doorway and just inside of the door was a pulpit and on this pulpit was the largest book that I ever saw and standing beside it was a man dressed in a temple robe, his arms nearly to the elbow and his feet above the ankles were bare, and part of his bosom; he had a white beard. He pointed his finger at me and told me not to oppose my husband in doing what is right or my name would not be written in that book. I knew that it was the Book of Life."
She knew what her opposition had been and her spirit had altogether changed and her ideas and desires in regard to that great and holy law, plural marriage, were also changed.
She said, "Now I am not only willing but anxious, and do not allow an opportunity to pass without entering into this principle."
Some months later she wrote a letter to a young lady that I had spoken to her about and told her that she would be glad to accept her into her home and our family; a wonderful change brought about by the power and Spirit of the Lord, and in succeeding years she never opposed me in that high and holy principle, another evidence that the futile efforts of man without the Spirit of the Lord are vain, but when he has the power and Spirit of the Lord everything is success.
While living in Juárez I had gone into business with E.L. Taylor in the purchasing and disposing of cattle and while we were in this business six years we got along very good. I should like to pay Brother Taylor a compliment, in that we never had a cross word or any disagreement in our whole career of six years of business. I found him upright and honorable in his business dealings and I learned to love him very much. While on one of his trips to Deming, New Mexico, I had been called to El Paso by a telegram from the banking house of Ketelsen and Degetau's. I had expected to return home in two or three days.
On reaching El Paso he wired to me and said, "Come down here immediately. There is trouble.
When I got there I found he had information that there had been some raids on . . . .
[Page is missing]
[For the subject of this missing page, see pages 30 through 34 of Memories of Orson Pratt Brown, 1863 – 1946, printed by C. Weiler Brown, December 1980.]
We rode into Deming. I felt that my duty was the first thing to perform and felt that I would get the protection of my Heavenly Father in doing my duty. I went to a hotel and secured a room then went down to a store of a man by the name of Bullock, who was my friend and he was surprised to see me. He told me they would sure get me if I remained. He said it was a public affair that if I ever returned to Deming they would kill me. I asked him to go see the sheriff whose name was Pink Peters and who had assisted me previously in running down and putting in jail some of these outlaws. Peters came up to my room.
He said, "Brown, there is no use; they will kill you as sure as the world if you remain here. I will arrange for you to go out in the night on the freight train to El Paso. Do not come down stairs at all. I don't want to be seen in your company because they will kill both of us. See, I have even taken off my gun."
I told him all right. That I would decide what to do. He said he would send a messenger to see whether I decided to go out on the freight train. After he left I kneeled down in the room and prayed.
I said, "I am here on Thy service and for the protection of the interests of Thy people. If it is Thy will I should run away and hide put fear in my heart. If is Thy will that I should stay here and meet these enemies, make me to have the courage of a lion that I may not fear to meet them. Help me in this labor that I have come out to perform."
As I stood upon my feet I felt that with the courage that came to me I could whip a whole regiment of that class of outlaws and people. I walked down into the street and noticed on the corner a man who had bought from others stolen animals belonging to me. While I was talking to him the man who headed the gang of bad men, John Cox, came out a saloon door and started to walk across the street.
This man I was talking to, Jack Gibbons, said, "There is John Cox now. He will kill you on sight."
I said to Gibbons, "You wait here and watch. Something is going to happen now."
I had on an old corduroy vest and I cocked my pistol and put it inside my vest and started for this man. When we got to the middle of the street I had no other thought than that this man would fight. When he turned around I advanced towards him and when within about eight feet of him I stopped.
I said, "Is your name John Cox?"
He said it was.
I said, "Well, my name is Orson Brown, Mormon Brown; and as you said you were going to bury him if he ever came around here I thought I'd like to be present at the funeral. Get your gun, you coyote! We'll see who is going to be buried first!"
He threw up his hands and started to walk backwards and I told him he did not need to run as I could run as fast as he could. I took him to a nearby store and took off his gun and told him to never wear it again. I said I had come here to make a cleaning of his kind.
In the store I met three of four of my friends who had just happened to come in and were trying to decide what they were going to do about these outlaws.
These bandits began to quiet down and after remaining there about three weeks to finish up business affairs in relation to Gruell's sheep I returned home; another evidence of the promises of the servants of the Lord being fulfilled when we are humble and obedient and subject ourselves to the will of the Lord.
[On the] return home I found there had been a new organization in the st[ake presidency, – torn page] A.W. Ivins as President and Henry Eyring and Helaman Pratt as counselors. [I was – torn page] called into counsel by these brethren and asked if I would accept [the calling – torn page] of a High Counselor in the Juárez Stake and was set apart and ordained [? – My – torn page] association with these brethren, both in the council and in visiting the [branches – torn page] and wards was always a joy and satisfaction as well as an inspiration to me. I had the privilege of becoming very intimate with these brethren and found [them – torn page] to be of the highest type of manhood and sincere and devoted Latter Day Saints.
Two years previous to this, when I was in El Paso I was met in my room in the hotel by a man by the name or Captain John Hart and his associate who was afterwards editor of the El Paso Times, by the name of ________.
They came with a proposition to make me. They said that they had an idea and desired to invade the west coast of Mexico and take the two states of Sonora and Sinaloa and form a new republic. They explained the richness and desirability of these two states as both a mining and agricultural and horticultural center and said their object in seeing me was to find out what the attitude of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was towards this kind of an invasion and asked if the church would not be interested and put up part of the finances to finance this expedition; that in return they would allow the Mormons to go in and live their religion together with the principle of polygamy and turn over the civil government to them while they would have in hand the military forces. They felt sure that within a short space of time they could get recognition from the U.S. and other foreign governments. After they laid before me their plans and expectations I spoke.
"In the first place the church to which I belong is not interested in all in any such a program and in the second place I am a Mexican citizen and if you made any invasion into Mexico, with all my power and force I would resist you or any such invasion."
They went away from my room-considerably crestfallen, and their project, not receiving encouragement, fell down.
In the month of November, 1900 I made a trip to Kansas City on business and while there I went down to Independence and was on the temple block on the Sabbath day, strolling around when I felt the spirit of prayer and I kneeled down under a large oak tree just west of the church building belonging to the Josephites and there poured out my soul to the Lord. While in the attitude of prayer a very strong impression came to me that I was going to be called on a mission and I rose up and pondered and thought and wondered what that mission was going to be. I returned home to Juárez and told this to my wives, for in the meantime the Lord had opened up the way and I had married another wife. We had before this time arranged plans for doing some more building.
I said, "We will suspend that for the present for I know that I am going to be called on a mission, just what or where it will be I do not know."
In the early part of 1901 as we came out of a high counsel meeting, President Ivins put his arm into mine and walked over to my gate with me.
When we got there he said, "Orson, every time I think of Colonia Morelos I think of you and I cannot think of it only with you in my mind. I know that it will break you all up financially for you told me of your plans for building but I feel that there is where the Lord wants you to labor."
I said, "If there is where the Lord wants me to labor there is where I will go; I am no better than you or any other servant of the Lord that I should not make any sacrifices." And we both shed tears together and he went over to his home.
I did not sleep much during the night, thinking of the matter and early at day-light I was up and over knocking at President Ivins door; he, having awakened early, let me in.
I said, "Brother Ivins, I have come to tell you that regardless of what sacrifices, financially, it may cause to me, I have come to say to you that I want to go and be where the Lord wants me and where his servants see fit to call me."
And we both shed tears of joy again together.
He said, "Your name has already gone up north. Prepare yourself and make ready to move."
So I began to get ready to move to Morelos, Sonora. Again my wife Mattie was impressed.
She said to me, "Orson, I think you ought to take another wife."
I asked who it should be.
"I heard you speak very complimentary of Bessy MacDonald. I believe she would be glad to join our family."
So before going to Sonora I spoke to her about the matter and also to her father. My wife, Mattie took Bessy by the hand and gave her to me, the sealing being performed by Bessy's father, Alexander MacDonald. Another blessing come to me for in her I found one of the most noble souls I have ever known; a wonderful counselor, splendid mother and a worker in the church. She brought peace and harmony into my home. A few days later in connection with Brother Ivins and Helaman Pratt I went to Diaz and from there to Morelos and was presented to the people and ordained bishop. One of my counselors was the most faithful man I have ever known, Patriarch Alexander Jameson. The other was elder L.S. Huish. I began to move my families over to the colony Morelos.
But previous to this time [about 1895] Brother Ivins had sent me to Colonia Oaxaca to try and arrange a settlement with Colonel Katzerlitzky and Parson G.C. Williams. A runner had come over from Oaxaca stating that Parson Williams had made the announcement that the Colonel was coming with his men and they were going to confiscate all of the interests of the people because they had not made their payments on the land. Presidents Ivins and Pratt were not able to go. On arriving at Oaxaca the next day the Colonel with about twenty men including the Presidente and judge of Bavispe, Sonora came down to Oaxaca and the brethren were all called together to the little school house and the Colonel arose.
He said, "You people have not paid your payments on these lands and we are going to confiscate all of your personal property, together with your improvements and unless these payments are made within ten days time you can walk out of here."
And Parson Williams, in a very rabid and excited manner, abused the people and told them that because they had failed, it had made him fail in payments. I then asked the Colonel what his legal status was and who had given him such executive power to confiscate this property without having given them opportunity to appear in their own defense.
He said, "The judge has the document and is going to execute judgement."
The people were very much excited but I said to the Colonel, "Let the judge read the document and let us see what it contains." I told the judge, "Please read that document that you have."
The judge arose and read the document and when he got thru I found that it was an embargo on the property of Parson Williams, only, and that he was responsible to the Colonel for the deal on the land. Then with considerable emphasis to counteract the audacity of their plans I spoke.
I said to the Colonel, "Apply the confiscation where it belongs but in the name of justice I defy you or Williams or this court who have brought here your plans, to place their hands on any part of this people's property." Then I turned to the people and said, "Brethren, rest on your arms; I am here to help you defend you[r] interests against these imposters who have come to take from you that which is yours."
With cursings, Colonel Kotzerlitzky arose and said to his men, "Vamonos! Vamonos!"
And I followed him to the door and he and Parson Williams went towards the Parson's home and I turned to the brethren and told them to be calm.
I said, "The devils are whipped at their own game. I am going down and prod the lions in their own den."
Some of the brethren were fearful for my safety but I said there was no danger for they were whipped and so I walked down where Parson Williams and the Colonel were with their men who were cursing because their plans had failed. As I walked into the house the Parson turned and ran out of the back door.
The Colonel said, "You have raised H----."
I said, "Yes, that is the way it is. You had H--- in your necks and a desire to raise H--- and I have raised that H--- and put it on your own heads. Don't you dare to touch any of this property or molest these people. They came here under a private contract with Williams and have complied with their part of the contract and it is up to him to make good with them. You have no right to expel them from their lands or homes."
Later, in connection with Brothers Ivins and Helaman Pratt and Bishop Scott, I went to Magdalena, Sonora, where President Ivins received titles to the Oaxaca lands, showing that right will prevail when you have the Spirit of the Lord with you.
Previous to the settling of Morelos I had made two trips into Sonora with Brothers Ivins, Pratt and party hunting for a place to colonize some of the brethren who were coming from the north and on the last one of these trips we had selected the present site of Morelos. On each one of these trips I was very much inspired with the wisdom and sincerity and greatness of Brothers Ivins and Pratt and on a third trip that I was making with them, when we arrived at Ojitos we drove up and there was a lot of men around. I noticed one man ride up to another and he was cursing. I could not hear just what he said but as he rode off the other man, Charles MacDowell, came up to me.
He said, "Mr. Brown, do you see that fellow going off? I think you know who he is; he just said to me that if you had your just dues your head would be shot off."
He also told me that this fellow had said I was going to get mine and for me too look out. I walked into the store and Brother Ivins followed closely as a guard. In the store a man by the name of Barker said to look out because people were after me. I had previously received a letter from an American from Montezuma, Sonora and one from a Mexican in Basaraca, Sonora stating that an outlaw and cattle thief by the name of Henry Ward was going to kill me and was supported by Colonel Kotzerlitzky.
This man Barker who was running the store said, "Henry Ward is due here on the 17th; this is the l4th, and I as a friend am telling you to be careful because he is a bad man and a killer and knows he will get protection from the Colonel."
We journeyed on to Colonia Oaxaca that night and the next morning early I got up and saddled
