The Peralta Grant; James Addison Reavis and the Barony of Arizona [1 ed.]

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JAMES ADDISON REAVIS AND THE BARONY OF ARIZONA

by Donald M. Powell

, Norman University of Oklahoma Press

The part-title drawings appearing in this book were made by Joe Beeler.

'San FranciJco Public Librat1,

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER:

00-8753

Copyright 1960 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Publishing Division of the University. Composed and printed at Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A., by the University of Oklahoma Press. First edition.

For Mother and Dad and for Rosemary Taylor

Foreword

in the Sonthwest has heard of the Peralta Grant and of the Baron of Arizona, James Addison Reavis, but very few have any accurate knowledge of the story. Into what little has been written has crept much misinformation and even more legend. Legends about the Peralta Grant range from the preposterous yarn that Mrs. Reavis was originaIIy a slavey on the John Slaughter ranch in southeastern Arizona to the seemingly plausible tale that Reavis and his family lived in Arizona in regal elegance, traveling around the territory in a black coach emblazoned with the Peralta arms and drawn by four perfectly matched black horses. The former is too ridiculous to deserve further consideration. The latter fails to convince when we learn that Reavis was in Arizona for not more than five months altogether foIIowing his hasty departure in 1885, and at that time he was in no position to afford a coach, let alone horses. I have tried to set down here-I believe for the first timea fuII-length account of this almost incredible facet of the history of the Southwest. In doing so, I have gone to the original documents wherever possible. Only when these failed NEARLY EVERYONE

VII

THE PERALTA GRANT have I drawn-and then very rarely-on secondary sources. Even so I have had to simplify and to omit much detail; for to summarize all the documents, the hundreds of pages of depositions of witnesses, and all the days of testimony at the final trial would be unbearably tedious for the reader, no matter how fascinating for the investigator. I am unendingly grateful to Rosemary Taylor of Tucson, who generously placed at my disposal notes she had made and materials she had gathered as a result of many months of study of the story of the Peralta Grant. Some of this material has been invaluable; some of it pointed my way to further sources of information and places for examination and saved me great time and effort. It is a pleasure to acknowledge a debt which cannot be fully repaid. Fellow librarians everywhere have gone to great lengths to help me locate material. To librarians at the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, the Museum of New Mexico, the Colorado Historical Society, the California State Library, the University of New Mexico Library, and the Department of Library and Archives in Phoenix, as well as to the officials at the United States land offices in Santa Fe and in Phoenix, go my heartfelt thanks. The University of Arizona Library generously supplied me with microfilm copies of documents in Washington and elsewhere. The Southern Pacific Company willingly searched their files and located for me a copy of Reavis' contract with the company. Through the providential auspices of Mr. Max Money of Tucson and Mrs. Deveaux Money Ackley of Jackson, Mississippi, I was able to obtain the photograph of what may well be the only certificate of stock in the Casa Grande Company in existence. My gratitude is also great to those people-particularly Enid Johnson, Anne Merriman Peck, and my sister Lola Vlll

Foreword

Tilley-who discussed the book with me and read portions or all of the manuscript. A semester's sabbatical leave from the University of Arizona made possible the completion in relatively short time of work which might otherwise have stretched over years. By assuming the burden of duty as acting head of the Reference Department of the University Library, my good friend and colleague Mrs. Lutie Higley made it possible for me to be away. To her and to the other members of my staff I am deeply grateful. DONALD M. POWELL Tucson, Arizona fanuary 3, 1960

IX

Contents page FOREWORD

1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 1 3.

Vll

I. James Addison Reavis: THE FIRST CLAIM Reavis Comes to Arizona 3 The Peralta Grant Takes Shape 13 The First and Second Barons of Arizona 29 The Public Is Credulous and Indignant 37 II. The Third Baroness of Arizona: THE SECOND CLAIM A New Claim Is Filed 61 Reavis Makes Plans to Develop Arizona 75 The Surveyor General Investigates the Claim 85 Reavis Prepares for the Trial 102 III. Exposure The Government Completes I ts Case 117 The Trial Begins without Reavis 1 34 Reavis Takes the Stand 141 The Court Makes I ts Decision 1 54 The End of a Conspiracy 172

BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

178 183

Illustrations

The First Baron of Arizona Wife of the First Baron of Arizona The Second Baron of Arizona Mr. and Mrs. James Addison Peralta-Reavis Sophia Reavis y Peralta, photographed at the "Inicial Monument" The Forged Cedula to the Grant Casa Grande Company Stock Certificate A Forged Proclamation of the King

facing page 18 19 34 35

Maps page

The Peralta Claim La Baronia de Arizonac

10

&

11

73

Xlll

I

James Addison Reavis THE FIRST CLAIM

1.

Reavis Comes to Arizona

IT WAS SEPTEMBER 3, 1882. Tucson baked in the heat of the late summer sun. By midmorning it was almost one hundred degrees in the shade of the tin awnings along the Calle de Alegria, more prosily known as Congress Street. At the depot only a handful of Sunday loungers watched, without any particular interest, as a half-dozen passengers got off the sooty Southern Pacific limited from California. Among them was a tall, slender fellow with a marked aquiline nose and a shock of reddish hair. After a quick glance around, he picked up his bag and went down the dusty street toward the center of the town. James Addison Reavis had arrived on the Arizona scene. Tuesday morning's paper took notice of his arrival in a curious little item: His Royal Nibbs, J. A. Reavis, who lays claim to nine-tenths of Arizona ... arrived in Tucson Sunday morning. On Monday, as early as business hours would warrant, he was placed under arrest for having, while en route to this city, attempted to occupy the sleeping car berth of a domestic in the family of a prominent citizen of this city, who was returning by the same train. He avoided incarceration by paying a fine and apol3

THE PERALTA GRANT ogizing to the young lady, and it is truly hoped that he is as penitent as his apology would indicate him to be. On the trip down, Mr. Reavis took occasion to pour into the ears of the passengers who preferred to kill time listening to him rather than in viewing the dreary desert landscape, the story of his acquisition of the Spanish grant and his future course when it is fully confirmed by Congress. Mr. Reavis is in no hurry to effect a settlement with those who occupy his broad acres. 1

Months earlier Arizonans had begun to hear of this man Reavis and his Peralta Grant from stories in California papers. It appeared that the fellow claimed ownership of the whole Salt River Valley in central Arizona, and heaven only knew how much of the territory besides. At first the extent of the claim was not clear, but slowly it became known that the grant-supposedly given some Spanish nobleman named Peralta by the King of Spain-included not only the great valley around the growing city of Phoenix but a vast stretch of country way eastward into New Mexico. To support his tale, Reavis showed California reporters a roll of aged and impressive Spanish documents that one of them estimated was forty feet long. Such a yarn was too preposterous to be true. Spanish, or more often Mexican, land grants were not unknown in the Southwest, particularly in New Mexico, but one of this im~ mense size was unheard-of. Surely if such a grant had ever been made, everyone would know all about it. Arizonans shrugged their shoulders and went about their business; one could not believe half the tales that came out of California, anyhow. 1

Arizona Gazette (Phoenix), September 7, 1882.

4

Reavis Comes to Arizona

Business was good and Arizona was experiencing a mild boom in 1882. There had been a time following withdrawal of federal troops at the beginning of the Civil War when panic had almost depopulated the territory. Then the Apaches, believing they had finally terrified the white devils into retreat, swarmed out of the hills-burning, plundering, and killing. That was in the past. Settlers came in increasing numbers by 1870, and during the next few years General George Crook forced the fierce Apaches on to reservations. While an occasional raiding party still disappeared from the reservation, later to sweep down on an isolated ranch or a promising freight wagon, central Arizona had become a relatively safe place in which to live. Indian raids never prevented a roaring town from springing to life wherever a rich mining strike was made. In such Arizona spots as Pinal, Clifton, Bisbee, and the notorious Tombstone, saloon doors kept a steady swing, and faro and poker went on around the clock. From time to time the more sober business of drinking and gambling was enlivened by the sound of gunfire from excitable cowboys. In October, 1881, only a few months before the first news of the Peralta Grant, the Earps and the Clantons had shot it out in the 0.K. Corral at Tombstone in one of the wild West's last legendary gun battles. These gaudy aspects of frontier existence overshadow the steady, undramatic economic and social growth. Not all the men and women who came across the Great Divide into Arizona's dry and sunny reaches were headed for the mirages of gold and silver beckoning from the distant blue mountains. Not all dreamed of loping through the creosote bush and mesquite, chasing cattle or whooping it up along Toughnut Street and vVhiskey Row. The majority sought farms

5

THE PERALTA GRANT and ranches where they might live at peace, raising crops, cattle, and children. They found that the desert produced abundantly where water was available, and they began to take up government land in the broad river valleys. Others, sensing the need, went to the villages and towns to establish sound businesses-dry-goods shops, hotels, banks, mills, newspapers, livery stables, and even bookshops. On the great level plain west of the Superstitions, where the Salt River joins the fabled Gila in its winding course across the desert to the Colorado, an almost phenomenal development of agriculture was taking place. The earliest settlement had been made in 1868. In October, 1870, when the citizens gathered to choose a townsite, Darrell Duppa pointed to the nearby Indian ruins and declared that "a new city would spring Phoenix-like upon the ruins of a former civilization"; and the town had its name. By 1880 it was surrounded by ten thousand acres of farm land planted to wheat, barley, and alfalfa; and more lands were being developed around Tempe and Mesa to the east. Fifteen miles of canals brought water from the rivers, and boosters confidently proclaimed that there was plenty for half a million acres. Phoenix, which was to see so much of Reavis in the next few years, was the sober commercial hub of the valley. Its location assured steady growth, even though the Southern Pacific, building across Arizona in 1879 and 1880, had come no closer than Maricopa thirty miles to the south. In 1882 it was a town of between two and three thousand inhabitants, with comfortable adobe houses and tree-shaded streets. From the beginning it had been a solid, industrious trading center-proud of its schools, lodges, and churches. It boasted 6

Reavis Comes to Arizona

good hotels, shops, two newspapers, the Gazette and the Herald, and an ice plant. One editor wrote: The tone of society which even during our frontier days was not bad is now of a high order and improving every year. There is propably no more social place in Arizona. Scarcely a week passes without bringing a private or public entertainment of some kind. 2

Phoenix had had one brush with the wild West and had not liked it. While the railroad was being surveyed, a number of undesirable characters had found their way into town. In one violent week in the summer of 1877 six men were shot to death. A Mexican suspected of one of the shootings was himself killed while attempting to escape from jail. This caused a threatened uprising of the Mexican population. The situation was ugly. A hurried call went out to vigilantes in the valley. Two malefactors were taken from the jail and promptly hanged on the fourth and fifth cottonwoods from Montezuma Street on Washington. The Mexicans who had preached a crusade against the gringos were invited to witness the ceremony and bluntly warned of their fate, should more incendiary speeches cross their lips. They were then released, and Phoenix returned to its customary placid ways. One hundred and twenty-five miles southeast was Tucson, the only large city in Arizona and the only one of consequence between El Paso and California on the newly completed Southern Pacific railroad. Politics had moved the capital from Tucson back to Prescott in 1882, but it was still the metropolis of the territory. It was a livelier, rougher 2

Phoenix Herald, January 6, ,

1882.

7

THE PERALTA GRANT place than Phoenix, as much Mexican as American in appearance. Its streets were crowded with heavy freight wagons. Cowboys, ranchers, and soldiers from nearby Fort Lowell pushed in and out of its stores, stables, and saloons. Papago women with burden baskets on their backs hawked firewood, hay, and pottery from door to door and paused to gazt impassively into the dark interiors of shops where almost all of the 1uxuries of the East and the West were displayed.

James Addison Reavis went to Tucson because, sooner or later, he had to file his claim there in the office of the U. S. Surveyor General for Arizona, Joseph W. Robbins. Yet, oddly enough, he seemed in no hurry. The first round in.the battle for confirmation of the Peralta Grant took place neither in Tucson nor in Phoenix but in remote Graham County to the east. At the beginning of October, Reavis went to Safford, the county seat; and in the probate court he filed papers which showed that the lands he claimed had formerly been in the possession of one George M. Willing and that by a series of complex deeds and conveyances they had come into his possession. Very little of this was clear. Arizonans only knew that he had asked the court to order Willing's estate sold for his benefit as creditor. A correspondent for the Arizona Daily Star of Tucson wrote from Safford that the case was causing considerable uneasiness among the settlers of that delightful valley, which was well within the boundaries of the supposed grant. The general impression was that should the court order the sale, Reavis could readily buy the estate as creditor for a nominal sum, the probability being that but few bidders would attend a sale in such an out-of-the-way place. 8

Reavis Comes to Arizona

The Star correspondent did not share the general alarm. He wrote: I think from appearances there is but little danger of the sale being effected within a very short time. Every disposition is being shown to have as many representatives of the [Willing] heirs present as possible, and it is likely a continuance will be had ... or possibly the petition will be refused at once. Reavis is determined to fight every inch of ground to obtain the land, and doubtless has some powerful backing behind him. He is not purchasing a law suit for the mere gratification of a whim ... but is systematically working to obtain proper and lawful title to his old Spanish grant.3

It is hard to see just what Reavis hoped to gain by this maneuver, save possibly the legal recognition of his interest in the grant by a lower court, which might prove a talking point in dealings with the settlers and with the Surveyor General. But no ruling by the probate court would bring him any closer to his real goal. Only the United States government could declare his claim valid. In any event, the court refused to order the sale, and Reavis returned to Tucson and then shortly left for California. In March, 1883, after having spent some weeks in San Francisco, Reavis once more stepped down from the Southern Pacific overland at Tucson. This time he carried all the deeds, wills, photographs of old documents written or printed on brittle paper-all the papers which he had painstakingly been collecting for years-and set out for the office of the Surveyor General. There, on March 27, before Joseph W. Robbins, he formally made his claim against the United States for the Peralta Grant. a Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), October

9

21, 1882.

'.RVATION

~mbstone

The extent of the Peralta claim-approximate boundaries imposed on present-day map.

THE PERALTA GRANT Now, for the first time, the true extent of the claim was clear. As Robbins turned over the papers one by one, his astonishment grew. This was no ordinary land claim. The Peralta Grant was an empire-2 35 miles east and west, 75 miles north and south. The Maxwell and Baca Grants in New Mexico would have been swallowed up in its vast area. It was larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. If this princely domain was a gift of gratitude from the King of Spain to Don Miguel Peralta, as the documents declared, the King's obligation must indeed have been heavy. The city of Phoenix was just inside the west boundary of the grant; its eastern boundary just missed including Silver City, New Mexico, and the Santa Rita copper mines. Its southern boundary was about twenty-five miles north of Tucson. It contained seventy-five hundred square miles, twelve million acres of land. Besides Phoenix it included the towns of Maricopa, Casa Grande, Mesa, Florence, Safford, Globe, and Clifton. The Southern Pacific Railroad crossed its southwest corner. The Salt River Valley; the fabulous wealth of the Silver King mine; dozens of small silver camps; the yet little-exploited copper deposits of Globe, Miami, Ray, and Morenci-all were within its bounds. Across the grant, from east to west, in this land where water was life itself, flowed the Gila. It embraced wooded mountains, waving grasslands, thousands of acres of potential farm lands. 4 Little wonder that the news had ereated some "uneasiness." Worst of all, the claim to the Peralta Grant threatened the titles to land which the hard working farmers and ranchers had acquired from the federal government. If it were 4 For a final description of the boundaries see Part 2, sec. v. and the Petition of Claimants filed in the U. S. Court of Claims, 1890.

12

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

valid, all land titles were clouded and water development would be retarded. And the entire area would be subject to exploitation by one man, about whom almost nothing was known or could be learned.

z.

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

WHO WAS REAVIS?

Surveyor General Robbins, slowly examining the Peralta papers in his Tucson office, would have liked to know. Reavis, always reticent about his personal affairs, told little. According to the record, James Addison Reavis was born in Henry County, Missouri, in 184 3, the second of five children of Fenton G. and Mary Dixon Reavis. His father, a farmer and tanner, came from a solid Scotch-Welsh family. Very little is known of the childhood of the man who was to be called the "Baron of Arizona." He must have had what rural schooling was offered and profited by it, for he later developed great facility with words and a rather grandiose style of writing. In 1857, Fenton Reavis moved the family to the town of Montevallo, where he established a store which was destroyed during the Civil War. When the war broke out, James Addison was a tall, rangy eighteen years of age. Everyone was joining, and young Reavis enlisted in Hunter's Regiment of the Confederate Army, 8th Division of the Missouri State Guard. The following year he re-enlisted at Springfield in Captain Lowe's , company. It was during his army career that Reavis discovered, quite

THE PERALTA GRANT by accident, that he could imitate his commanding officer's signature almost to perfection. With his new-found ability he forged several passes. After this he successfully produced bogus furlough papers, and before these expired he surrendered himself to the Union Forces. 1 His loyalty to the South may not have been strong, for Thomas Catron, later senator from New Mexico, recalled that Reavis served for a short time in his, Catron's, artillery regiment and that the young man obtained leave to be married-it was, perhaps, a better reason than the death of an aged grandmother-and did not return. After the war Reavis spent a year in Brazil, where he gained a fair knowledge of Portuguese which may have been the basis for his later fluent but faulty Spanish. He then returned to St. Louis and had a succession of jobs, none of which held his interest long. For a time he was a streetcar conductor on the Olive Street line. He was a clerk in a clothing store, then a traveling salesman, first for a wholesale saddler and later for a dry-goods and clothing firm. He was happy with none of these. His true calling was real estate. As he drifted from one job to another, he began to invest all his spare earnings in St. Louis properties. These became more important to him than his work as a salesman, and before long he quit to devote full time to their management and development. He opened a little office on Olive Street and began to prosper in a small way. He was a shrewd dealer, observant and calculating. His spare, six-foot figure, his bush of reddish hair, and his long nose commanded attention. He liked to talk, and he spoke easily and convincingly. When 1 Newton A. Johnson, "James Addison Reavis and the Peralta Claim," Appendix A; and James Addison Reavis, "Confession of Peralta-Reavis, the King of Forgers," The Call ( San Francisco), March 26, 1899.

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

he held forth, as he often did, on the future values of St. Louis real estate, there was an almost fanatical gleam in his gray eyes. One day he discovered that he had unwittingly purchased an imperfect title to some valuable land. With courage inspired by his success at forgery in the army, he carefully altered the papers-a word here, a phrase there. As he expected, no one questioned them. Sometime during 1871, Reavis received a visit from a stranger who inquired for him by name. "My name is George M. Willing Jr," he said and held out his hand. "Ah, are you a brother, or are you a relation of Captain Willing?" "I am a brother." "Then, that is good enough; state your business." Reavis later recalled Willing as a man of medium stature and "nervous build," who somehow suggested enterprise. Elsewhere he had a reputation for being somewhat wild and reckless. Educated as a physician, he had given up his practice and left his family to follow the lure of gold in Colorado and other parts of the West. There were great opportunities for the right men in the West, Willing told Reavis, and especially in that little-known area, the Southwest. He knew all about it, for he had been all over the country in the past few years. He had made some money in the Colorado mines and had been a territorial delegate to Congress. He had explored for mines in Arizona and had formed the Willing Mining and Exploring Company there. It was doing well. Yes, he repeated, there were opportunities in the land. Right at the moment, he went on, he was extremely inter-

THE PERALTA GRANT ested in the possibility of developing a large land claim in Arizona to which he had recently acquired title. There was almost certainly great mineral wealth on it-gold and silver -and it had splendid farming and grazing land. It was about this claim that he had come. "Colonel Byser recommended that I call on you, Mr. Reavis. He says if there is a man in St. Louis who can bring anything out of the property, it is you." Willing described the circumstances of his purchase of the great tract of Arizona land. He had learned of its existence through vague talk around campfires, and he had sought out the Peralta family at a primitive mining location in the Black Canyon southeast of Prescott. There he had negotiated the purchase of the grant from a Miguel Peralta in the presence of Peralta's aged father who was the legal owner. "When the trade was made," Willing said, "I had no paper on which to write the deed, so I scoured the camp and found a sheet of greasy, pencil-marked camp paper upon which I wrote ... and as there were no justices or notaries present I had it acknowledged before witnesses." The price was $20,000 paid in gold dust, saddle mules and other prospecting equipment. 2 All this had taken place four years before the day he walked into the little office on Olive Street.3 From the Black Canyon, Willing returned to Prescott, the three-year-old capital of the territory and seat of Yavapai County. Prescott was frontier, a cluster of shacks and log 2 James Addison Reavis, "Account of Incidents Connected with the Peralta Grant," apparently written to James 0. Broadhead in November, 1894. 3 The date on the deed is actually October 20, 1864. This date not-

withstanding, Willing must have made the purchase of the deed-if, indeed, he ever did purchase it-in 1867. See the story of James D. Monihon which

follows. Monihon was not operating a livery stable in Prescott in 1864; probably he was not even resident in Prescott that early.

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

cabins set in a natural bowl surrounded by pine-clad hills. Apaches still roved freely in the near-by forests and created regular alarms among the inhabitants. These, however, were busy with politics and mines and left the care of the raiding Indians to the soldiers at near-by Fort Whipple. Merchants were doing a thriving business outfitting and supplying miners. Wagon trains rolled in from south and west bringing food, clothing, hardware, and other merchandise, while strings of mules and burros loaded with the same food and equipment daily jogged down the dusty streets and off into the hills. The excitement of rich gold and silver strikes was a heady current in the clear, bracing air. "Doc" Willing, as he was known in the West, in from the Black Canyon, turned his horses toward James D. Manihon's livery stable, which at that time of scarce lodgings bedded down both mounts and their riders. Monihon recognized Willing as the fellow who had been in and out of Prescott the winter before and had made particular inquiries for a family of Peraltas who were engaged in mining and in conducting a merchandise business at Wickenburg. Willing approached Monihon after two or three days and was told that his livery bill amounted to $30.00 or $40.00. He then confided to Monihon that he needed to make a very important business trip to St. Louis and asked Monihon to trust him to send the money later. His request was promptly refused. The following morning he was in the stable again. This time he said that he had obtained possession of a floating Mexican land grant, a concession of lands with no specified location and no specified boundaries. For $250 and the amount of his bill he offered to sell a half-interest in this grant; and he suggested that, as partners, he and Monihon

THE PERALTA GRANT

could lay the grant-that is, fix its boundaries-on the countryside around Prescott in some area where there were mines and abundant grass. Then, having established their claim, they could sell the mines back to their owners, who would pay the partners as the ore was produced. In the valleys they could stock and graze beef herds to sell to the settlers who were already flocking into Prescott looking for good ranch sites. It was a scheme guaranteed to make them both a good deal of money. Monihon was indignant. He informed Doc in short, sharp phrases that he would have nothing to do with any scheme to take land away from his friends and neighbors and grow rich at their expense. He had heard before of these floating Mexican grants and considered them all highly suspicious. Furthermore, he warned, if the people of Prescott got wind of this grant being floated on their lands they would probably hang the Doc from a convenient pine tree. And, he concluded, he wanted the cash for the livery bill before Doc left town. Willing apparently did not heed this sound advice. The news of his purchase got around. As Monihon had predicted, the citizens of Prescott were quite unsympathetic-"hostile" is the word he later used. Willing, alarmed for his personal safety, sold his horses, paid his bill,·and left for New Mexico with a government party which was headed in that direction. 4 Doc did not tell Reavis all of these details the first day, but his talk of vast lands in the West caught Reavis' interest as did any talk of real estate. A few days later Doc 4 Walter B. Stevens, Scrapbook of Articles by Stevens written for the St. Louis Globe Democrat in 1894 and 189 5, p. 17. U. S. Court of Private Land Claims [Translations Presented by the Government ... Testimony Taken in Behalf of the Government, etc.], 886. (The latter will hereafter be cited as Translations and Testimony.)

Dou ~1 igucl N crnccio Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba, the first Baron of Arizona, at thirty years of age.

Dona Ave l\faria Sanchez, wife of the first Baron of Arizona, at age sixty. Courtes)' Phoenix Public Librar)'

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

returned and brought with him an elderly, sly-looking man whom he introduced as W. W. Gitt, an expert in Spanish land titles. Reavis had heard of Gitt but had never met him. He was known in certain St. Louis circles as the "Old Spanish Land Title Lawyer." It was not a title of respect. He had been involved in a number of very questionable land deals in Missouri and Illinois and was then back in the city after an absence of more than ten years. Willing had brought to the second meeting a packet of worn but authentic-looking Spanish documents. Gitt explained that they constituted an expediente, or copy of legal proceedings in relation to the Peralta Grant, accompanied by a letter from the President of Mexico, Santa Anna, which assured Miguel Peralta that a diligent search had been made in the archives of Mexico and that all papers which could be found relating to the concession to his father were being forwarded. This letter was dated 1853, prior to the final negotiations on the Gadsden Purchase, which filled out the southern Arizona boundary. It assured Peralta that with the accompanying documents he would be secure in his title to that portion of the grant then lying within the boundaries of Mexico and that he would probably be equally secure in the portion lying within the United States. 5 Reavis pored over the old documents with deepening interest. Although he had no personal knowledge of the region, he realized that the claim covered an enormous area and that it must be worth a princely fortune. He met Willing again and spent several hours discussing possible development of lands in Arizona. He continued his acquaintance 5 Royal A. Johnson, Adverse Report of the Surveyor General . . . upon the Alleged "Peralta Grant," a Complete Expose of Its Fraudulent Character, 20.

THE PERALTA GRANT with Gitt, questioning the old man on Spanish and Mexican land documents and the procedures used in making and validating grants. He even purchased titles to several small pieces of property from Gitt and made a good profit from them, although he later admitted, "I knew that when I bought a Spanish title from him I had to take it without any guarantee, for whatever it might turn out to be worth." 6 During the next few months he even became an intimate of the Willing house. Mrs. Willing took a liking to the tall, sober young man, darned his socks, mended his shirts, and acted as a second mother to him. All this time the Peralta Grant was never long out of Reavis' mind. At Willing's request he finally agreed to undertake the management of the claim. Soon thereafter he disposed of all his local holdings, including farms in Illinois and Missouri and over a thousand feet of frontage of city property in St. Louis. He was ready for a new adventure. 7 Sometime in 1872, Reavis and Willing determined to go to Arizona to promote the claim. Willing was to go overland by way of Albuquerque. Reavis was to go by way of Panama and California, where it would be his job to obtain possession of a power of attorney and a deed to certain Arizona mines which Willing had given to Florin Massol of Sacramento in return for a heavy debt. Willing, taking with him all the documents relating to the Peralta Grant, must have left St. Louis sometime in the last half of 1873. He arrived once more in Prescott on a chill, mid-March day in 1874 and went at once to the Yavapai County Courthouse where, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he recorded a deed, executed October 20, 1864, conveying 6

7

Translations and Testimony, 605. Reavis, "Account." 20

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

a certain grant of land from a Miguel Peralta to himself. The next morning he was found at his lodgings lying face down across the bed-dead. The Prescott Miner observed: This sad event occurred at the lodging house of Mr. R. E. Elliott ... and was ... brought on by exposure and privation. We stated in yesterday's paper, that the Dr. arrived here from the States, via New Mexico, on the previous evening. Soon after his arrival he made haste to visit us, when we learned that his object in again visiting the Territory was to secure title to some mines claimed by the Willing mining and exploring company in the vicinity of Black Canon creek, and a Spanish grant on the Gila river. ... Dr. Willing first came here ... in 1864, at the head of a well appointed prospecting party.... A year or more later, he departed for the States ... was attacked by Indians and lost most of his property. The next time we heard of him was in 1867, when he accompanied the Stimpson party.... He then returned to the East, where he remained until a few months ago. He had his faults, not the least of which was the habit of stretching the truth, but was, on the whole a bold adventurer and intelligent man. He leaves a wife in the East. 8 No one knew the trouble the vague grant on the Gila was to bring, and the "sad event" caused scarcely a ripple in the feverish talk of new gold discoveries around such Prescott bars as the Nifty, where the thirsty could get good whiskey, rum, and brandy, fine wines, and tolerable water. Reavis did not leave Missouri at the same time as Willing, for on May 5, 1874, he married Ada Pope of Montevallo, Missouri. He then departed to promote his fortunes in the s Weekly Arizona Miner (Prescott), March 21

20,

1874.

THE PERALTA GRANT West. Mrs. Reavis did not see her husband again for more than six years, and then only briefly. Apparently she at last grew dissatisfied with the state of affairs, and the couple were divorced in 1883. Somewhere en route to California, Reavis learned that Willing had died. Although he realized that he must get possession of the Peralta papers that had been in Willing's luggage, he did not go at once to Arizona. His health was poor for some months, and he was low on funds. In 1875 and 1876 he taught school in Downey, California. After this he drifted to the northern part of the state, where he tried his hand at journalism. He was more successful as a journalist than as a teacher. In words he found an outlet for his energies and imagination, and he continued to write for various publications for the rest of his life. He was a correspondent for the San Francisco Examiner, for the Call, and for several other papers. Occasionally he contributed to New Yark papers. He even published a short-lived weekly, the Advertiser, in Sacramento, probably in late 1879 or early 1880, just before he set off at last for Arizona. 9 It was a spring day in 1880 when James Addison Reavis climbed down from the stage at Phoenix, Arizona, and took his first good look at the Salt River Valley of which Willing had spoken so glowingly. 10 To see it thoroughly he needed transportation. As if directed by fate, he strode down the street toward a livery stable whose sign declared that it was owned and operated by James D. Monihon. It was the same James D. Monihon who had been in Prescott in 1867 who, seeing more opportunities in the Salt The date is conjectural; no copies appear to have survived. At the trial Reavis could not be sure whether it was 1879 or The latter seems more likely. 9

10

22

1880.

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

River Valley, had moved his business to Phoenix. Reavis introduced himself as a correspondent who wanted to tour growing Arizona and write about it for the California press. He made arrangements for Monihon to drive him out into the valley the following morning. The farms and the cottonwoods were bright green under the warm sun as Reavis and Monihon drove out of the town. In the distance rose the tawny shapes of Camelback Mountain and the Tempe buttes. Reavis looked about and was pleased. As Willing had said, it was a country of rich promise, still waiting for its full potential to be realized by men of ability and energy. Reavis considered himself one of these. As they went they talked of horses, especially of the fine team of which Monihon was particularly proud. Reavis was a good conversationalist and appeared to understand horses. Monihon found himself rather liking the rangy fellow, who looked as if he might be a country schoolteacher or a traveling evangelical preacher.11 He seemed possessed of boundless nervous energy and kept up a continual flow of questions. Monihon recalled later: I think I went down about five or six miles due west. In the meantime I drove into an old canal. Reavis said, "My! this is just what I have been looking for; this is an item." He asked me whereabouts was the forks of the Gila and Salt River. We drove over the valley; there was very few settlers in those days, in that portion of the valley ... and then we turned and went home. He seemed to be very much pleased with the country and talked very freely about it. On our return home we came to an old ruin that was possibly twentyfive feet above the level of the valley, and we got up on a high point, and looking around, he admired it very much. 11

Richard E. Sloan, Memories of an Arizona Judge, 59.

THE PERALTA GRANT He said, "There is a floating grant, and it could be laid on this valley. I am on my way to Prescott in search of the papers of Dr. Willing. If I could get that grant ... I could locate it on this valley." "Well," I said, "if you would lay a grant on this valley the people would hang you." "Why," he said, "I would not interfere with the people; I would see that they have their rights. I would only claim so much as the government had already paid for the lands, and what land they had sold I would claim that money from the government, and the balance would be left to sell to the people." We went to my stable; don't think there was any more said about it; and if I mistake not, he wrote out quite a description at my table. He left for Prescott and I was informed that he could not pay his bill at the hotel in Phoenix to Charles Salari.12

The stage journey from Phoenix to Prescott was tedious and sometimes dangerous. For twenty-four hours Reavis lurched and bumped with the coach, but he scarcely noticed the discomfort; he was approaching his goal. He was on his way to find the Peralta papers and fortune. Like other Arizona towns, Prescott had changed. It was no longer the rough frontier town Willing had first seen. By 1880 it had pleasant residential streets where white wooden houses were surrounded by gardens and shade trees reminding more than one visitor-as indeed it does today-of a New England village. There was something of the East about Prescott, in spite of the noisy nightly celebrations along Whiskey Row. Doc Willing had talked too much in Prescott. In a burst 12 R. A. Johnson, Adverse Report, 73-75; Translations and Testimony, 885-89.

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

of enthusiasm, Reavis had made the same mistake in Phoenix. He did not make it again. He was usually secretive about personal affairs; and acquaintances found that even though he had said much, they had learned little. In Prescott he once more represented himself as a correspondent for California papers, perhaps because people talked more freely to a newspaperman than to other strangers. Even so, his first inquiries were in vain. Prescott folks scarcely remembered the Doc. From the county courthouse Reavis was able to obtain a copy of the deed which Willing had filed, but no one knew what had become of his personal things. Finally Reavis located the man who had been probate judge at the time of Willing's death. He called on him and produced a written authorization from Mrs. Willing, Doc's widow, which gave him the right to search for and take in her behalf any papers and other effects of her deceased husband. At first the old man could recall nothing; then, when pressed, he thought he remembered a gunny sack which had been in Willing's possession and which had contained clothing and other miscellaneous items. The coroner's jury had sat in the house of Judge Fleury across the street. Such keepsakes as Reavis was seeking for the widow might still be there. Fleury recalled the circumstances. Yes, there had been such a sack, and to the best of his knowledge, it was still stored in some comer of his attic. He offered to look for it, if Reavis would care to return the following morning. Reavis would and did. To his great relief, the sack was on the cabin table when he entered the next d~y. From it Fleury produced a few articles of clothing, a pill bag, some miscellaneous papers, and, finally, a long envelope which Reavis immediately rec-

THE PERALTA GRANT ognized as the one in which Willing carried the Peralta Grant papers. Seizing a favorable opportunity, he quietly slipped the envelope into his coat pocket. For the moment he lost interest in the other contents, and as soon as was decently possible, he left the house. He was so agitated he could hardly speak. He could not trust himself to look into the envelope at once. He turned and quickly walked up a hillside where there was a large rock which would conceal him from observation. Stooping down, he drew the envelope from his pocket. His heart pounded and his hands trembled as he opened it. The precious papers were there! 13 With high hopes, Reavis returned to California. His next task was the one he had originally come to California to accomplish. He must obtain the power of attorney and the deeds which Willing had signed over to the Sacramento merchant Florin Massol. The Massol family had once been close friends of Mary Ann Willing. When Doc came West, they agreed to outfit and to lend him money, largely for her sake. It had been a calculated risk; and long before Reavis appeared, Masso! had given up hope of recovering Willing's debt. Reavis was at his most charming when he called at the Masso! home. Once more he produced Mrs. Willing's authorization to locate her husband's effects. He did not mention lands in Arizona; he spoke only of the possibility of developing mines and recovering something from them. After some persuasion, Massol and his son Florin, Jr., agreed to co-operate in the hope that Mary Ann might benefit. In July, 1881, Masso! signed an agreement whereby, in return for the deeds and 13 Reavis, "Account"; Translations and Testimony, 451, 806---807; Ste• vens, Scrapbook, 8.

The Peralta Grant Takes Shape

the power of attorney, Reavis was to repay Willing's debt of slightly over three thousand dollars, plus interest, if he was able to realize anything from the operation or sale of the Arizona mines. The deeds which he handed over to Reavis referred only to mining properties. They were to appear later, however, in a somewhat different form.14 When he had secured the Massol deed, Reavis crossed the continent to Washington, still seeking additional evidence to back his claim. He had heard, from Willing or from Gitt, that there were papers of considerable importance to be found in the record books of the Mission of San Xavier del Bae near Tucson, though why the Peraltas should have deposited important papers at that northern outpost of Christendom was not at all clear. In any event, the record books of the mission had been sent to Philadelphia to be exhibited at the great Centennial Fair. Then, somehow, they had got into the hands of R. C. Hunter of Washington, and Hunter had not yet returned them to Bishop Salpointe of Tucson in whose custody they rightly belonged. Reavis sought and was granted permission to examine the books. When he left Washington he had added to his growing collection the photographs of the documents he had sought and foundthe will of the first Baron of Arizona. Still seeking evidence, Reavis made a journey to Mexico where, he reasoned, there must surely be more documents relating to the grant. From September to November, 1881, he was busy in the archives of Guadalajara and Mexico City. Once more he assumed the role of an American newspaperman who was surveying the country and writing about it for Los Angeles and San, Francisco readers. Mexican officials 14 Letters from Florin Masso] to R. A. Johnson found among the records of the U. S. Land Office in Phoenix.

THE PERALTA GRANT were delighted that the tall American took such keen interest in the development of their estates and cities. They talked freely to him, even asked him to be a guest in their homes. They showed him everything he asked about-particularly their archives. Reavis made it a point to cultivate the friendship of the archivists in both Guadalajara and Mexico City. In return he was given ample opportunity to search through bundles of old records for documents which, he said, would catch the fancy of American readers. When he finally left Guadalajara for California, he carried certified copies of a number of these, and more photographs. By the beginning of 1882 the Peralta Grant was taking shape. 15 Yet, in spite of all the evidence he had gathered, the great tract of land was not wholly his, and he was determined to clear the last barrier in the way of sole possession. He must buy out Mrs. Willing's interest; for, according to his original agreement, he was still acting, in part at least, as Mary Ann Willing' s agent. Once more he traveled east to see his old friend in the Kentucky town to which she had moved., Again he made himself charming and spoke convincingly of the advantages for her of immediate settlement over the risks, which he was willing to take, of trying to establish and validate the claim. Mary Ann agreed. On May 1, 1882, for a consideration of $30,000 she assigned to James Addison Reavis all her interest in the Arizona properties of her late husband. The chain of possession was then complete. 15 The sequence of events is pieced together from evidence brought out at the trial.

3.

The First and Second Barons of Arizona

of the Peralta Grant, according to the papers which Reavis collected, began with the first Baron of Arizona. His full name was Don Miguel Nemecio Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba. He was the son of Don Jose Gaston Silva y Carrillo de Peralta de las Fakes de Mendoza and the Dofia Francisca Maria de Garcia de la Cordoba y Muniz de Perez, and he was born in 1 708. In the course of events young Don Miguel entered the service of the King of Spain and was duly promoted to lieutenant of dragoons. In 1742, when he was thirty-four years of age, Don Miguel's abilities were at last recognized by his sovereign. His Majesty, Philip V of Spain, appointed Peralta business agent of the city of Cadiz and His Majesty's personal inspector, under secret instructions, to the city of Guadalajara in New Spain. The decree which announced Don Miguel's appointment to the King's subjects in the New World designated the young Inspector as Baron of Arizona ca, Knight of the Golden Fleece, and a member of the Order of the Montesa. It further enjoined the King's loyal subjects to THE STORY

... obey and respect him who represents me, and that you favor and support the said my Royal Inspector as one who represents my person, and do whatever may be necessary to do in order to execute that which I have directed in my previous secret instructions and in other things; and I charge you as good and loyal vass~ls . . . that you do that which you ought, and which it is your obligation to do, and I will con-

THE PERALTA GRANT sider myself well served; and on the contrary, if you should do otherwise, it will be very much to my Royal displeasure. 1 Thus armed, Don Miguel sailed for the first time to New Spain. When he presented his royal order to Guadalajara, the officials took the document, "kissed it and put it on their heads" in token of acknowledgment of the royal will, saying, "That to which his Majesty (whom may God preserve) is pleased to order shall be observed, fulfilled, and executed." 2 Search has failed to reveal the secret instructions or any of the results of Peralta's busy months in Mexico. However, it was later claimed that the emissary's investigations had to do with the story which had leaked back to Spain of the discovery in northern Sonora of the rich "bolas de plata," chunks of pure silver, and with the responsibility of the Jesuit fathers for the deficit that had occurred in the royal receipts throughout the Spanish dominions. 3 Philip must have been well pleased with his investigator's report, for he determined to reward his faithful services. In November, 1744, with full court solemnity and by a royal cedula, or decree, and in consideration of the merits and services rendered by his Inspector, the King signified his intention of investing Don Miguel with a grant of lands in New Spain and directed the Commandant General of the Internal Provinces to give the necessary order to initiate the process. Ferdinand VI, who succeeded his father in 1746, before any action had been taken on the grant, also valued the high services of Don Miguel. He appointed Peralta a captain of dragoons. Then, the necessary procedures having 1 Muniments of Title of the Barony of Arizona and Translation into English, by R. C. Hopkins, 9D-. tlnt tht' ,)~1

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