Page 128 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Tevis was one of the early miners to join the original
group. According to Tevis, he had been commis-
sioned by the provisional Governor, Dr. Lewis S.
Owings, to raise a company of Rangers to assist in
defending the settlers from Apache depreda-
172
According to Mills he made two trips to a branch store near present-day Silver City. He did not give the reason for the first trip, but indicated he went alone and on horseback. The second journey was as wagonmaster of an outfit carrying merchandise to
His company was composed of men from the Mesilla Valley, the Mimbres Valley, Tucson, and Sonora. They rendezvoued along the Overland Road at the Mimbres River. The Rangers attacked an Apache rancheria about 25 miles up the river and captured several Indians including a chief named Elias. They held the Apaches at their camp near the Overland crossing of the Mimbres while trying to negotiate a treaty with the tribe. It was at this point that they learned of the new gold discovery in the Pinos Altos Range. The Rangers paroled the
Apaches, giving them provisions and tobacco, and proceeded to the new diggings.
“Jack” Swilling was probably among the Rangers who determined that digging for gold was preferable to chasing Apaches. He had fled Gila City (near Yuma) and the comfortable bed of Sarah Bowman
(The Great Western) the previous year, following the death of a soldier during an argument over the
the branch store. While waiting to return with a
tions.
legal ownership of a Colt repeating rifle.
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Following the death of their Agent and “brother” Dodge, the Navajos became increasingly restive, and with the war faction gaining an upper hand, began attacking civilians, supply trains, and even military installations during 1860. Indeed, the Oc- tober 25 Mesilla Times reported:
A party of Navajos drove off a lot of stock at Fort Thom but were pursued by a party of Apachesandthestockrecovered. However, the 40 some settlers there have abandoned the
place [Santa Barbara] and moved to the 179
Mesilla Valleyforgreaterprotection.
Further proof that the local Apaches were still somewhat friendly toward the Americans at this time had been indicated the previous week. The newspaper reported that Agent Steck, assisted by surveyor J. W. Hager (cousin to Robert P. Kelley, who would later become the editor of the Mesilla Times), had staked out a reservation for Mangas Coloradas and his people. It was located on the Gila River and included the Santa Lucia Spring.
Major Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was ordered to take to the field and put a stop to the activities. In November 1860, Canby commanded one of three
Anson Mills, oldest of the four Mills brothers, was
another one of the men who swarmed to Pinos Altos
because of the gold. A dropout from West Point, he
had moved to Franklin on May 8, 1858, and had been
the surveyor who helped lay out the town of El Paso
aboutsixmonthslater. Forthistwo-monthtask,he
received $100 and four lots valued at $50 each. Mills
claimed to have suggested the new name for the 175
town.
He went to the Pinos Altos mining district
with two tasks to perform: the first, to check on the
mining activities there for a friend in El Paso; the
second, to survey a town site. Mills became involved
in the search for gold and worked a claim for a month
before he became disillusioned and returned to El
176
Paso.
William Wallace Mills was another of the M-ills
brothers that claimed to have been at least on the fringe of the mining in the Pinos Altos Range. His older brother, Anson, had sent for him to come to El Paso in late 1858 or early 1859. Mills clerked for about a year in the sutler’s store at Fort Fillmore, operated by George Haward and William Mc- Grorty, before moving to the El Paso mercantile company owned by Vincent St. Vrain and Henry J. Cuniffe.
The Military, the Indians, and Other Citizens
load of copper, he claimed to have grubstaked Walter Taylor, Jacob Snively, and another prospector, but
indicated no further involvement or restitution. Agent Steck and the military could see that the development of mining activities within the Apaches’ homeland would inevitably cause conflict between the Apaches and the Whites. The army’s answer to the problem was to send Major Isaac Lynde of the Seventh Infantry to establish a post in thevicinity. LyndearrivedonSeptember16,1860, and selected a site near present-day Hurley, 15 miles south of Santa Rita and 20 miles south of Pinos Altos. He named the installation Fort Webster (the same name as the old forts at the copper mines and on the Mimbres), but the name was changed by the Secretary of War John Buchanan Floyd to Fort Mc- Lane for a Captain of the Mounted Rifles who was
r
killed by the Navajos October 13, 1860.
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