D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
October
2008
HIKING APACHERIA O Pioneers!
Grant County pioneer James K. Metcalfe and his family homesteaded in the heart of what had been Apache country — the birthplace of Mangas Coloradas.
by Jerry Eagan
According to historian Edwin Sweeney, the great Chiricahua Apache chief Mangas Coloradas was born near a place the Spanish called Agua de Santa Lucia. Today, we call the spot Mangas Springs, and maps show it near Hwy. 180 West midway between Silver City and Cliff. As much as Mangas Springs is imbued with Apache history (see "Tugging on Red Sleeve," August 2008), it also has a parallel story to tell of its incarnation as Mangas Creek Ranch, owned by the Metcalfes and Fosters.
 |
Grant County pioneer James K. Metcalfe
and his family. (Photo courtesy Larry Foster) |
In handwritten notes, Mollie Metcalfe recalls her family's arrival as among the first pioneers in the area: "On January 1, 1871, my father, James K. Metcalfe, and his nephew, Charles M. Shackleford, arrived by stage at Silver City, the town consisting of three log huts. I do not know when the Mangas Springs was taken as a ranch but probably in the fall of '72 or the spring of '73. Alex Holloway took up land below us in the creek, Jack Donaldson above. Halloween, 1873, my grandfather, James L. Shackleford, his wife [and] his youngest daughter Annie arrived, and my mother with her three children."
James Metcalfe's first home on Mangas Creek Ranch was a single-room, rock-floored, dirt-roofed rock cabin. His daughter wrote: "Another room was built on the east side of the same materials, and a jacal-built corral on the north side for the horses. At night we could hear them chewing and stomping." She learned to sleep with various pots and pans near her bed, in an upstairs bedroom, to catch the persistent drips from a leaky roof.
As for the horses, "A heavy chain was always padlocked across the door to keep the Indians from stealing them." The family later learned that this precaution was unnecessary, "as the Indians had some superstition concerning the Mangas [Springs], and never molested us."
For several years James Metcalfe sold meat: "Wild meat, ducks and pheasant were plentiful," his daughter noted. But there was no milk, butter or flour, and sugar and coffee were expensive. The Metcalfes ate dried corn, which was used in a "most delightful chili hash," and "had common squash the first winter, raised by irrigation ditch still running through the center of the ranch on what we called 'Montezuma's Dam,' built by and used by the Indians."
We like to think we're the mobile generation, but the men and women of the latter half of the 19th century did plenty of traveling, too. James K. Metcalfe's coming by wagon to Silver City in 1871 would have been sufficient bona fides to claim pioneer status, but that trip wasn't even the first he and his brother, Robert, had made west. Along with his father and brothers, in two separate groups, James Metcalfe had made an even more arduous and impressive journey — to the California gold fields in 1850.
In accounts later published in Silver City newspapers, James Metcalfe (aka "Uncle Jim/Jimmy"), described taking a wagon train from Weston, Mo., with 70 others ("mostly Southerners"). They trekked to "Denver City," then Santa Fe, and on to Socorro. By that point, only about 35 were still walking south and west. Metcalfe said "friendly Indians" guided them southwest from Socorro, through what we'd call the Black Range and on "to the Meinbres [sic] River." (These "friendly Indians" may have been the Coppermine or Gila Apaches of Mangas Coloradas.) The party continued past the Santa Rita del Cobre mines, following an old Indian trail: "From there we passed on down the Whitewater [Creek] to Hudson's Springs, where we camped for two weeks." The water at what's now Faywood Hot Springs was then so warm that rabbits could be prepared, then thrown "into the water and in about an hour it would be well cooked. The 'boys' never built a fire and coffee and tea were always hot enough to satisfy."
The group's Indian guides refused to show them the trail farther southwest to Ojo de Vaca ("Cow Spring"), and because the country had been cut up with myriad wild cattle trails the gold-seekers missed the turn. Metcalfe and the others traveled two days and nights without water and suffered an "extreme torture of thirst." By the time they'd arrived at Santa Dominga ranch, near present-day Cloverdale, on the Mexican border, "two men and 37 head of horses had perished." They didn't reach water again until Santa Cruz, near Tucson. From there the group marched to Yuma, then San Diego, where they boarded a steamship, The Panama, bound for San Francisco. The steamers sailing from San Diego charged $350 for a ticket.
The California gold fields could not, however, compete with "Dixie" once the Civil War broke out. Like all his relatives, Metcalfe returned home — to Texas, in his case, Mississippi for other kin — to serve the Confederacy. He had developed lung problems, and so never served in a military capacity, but instead ran a cotton mill in Texas during the war.
The Civil War also prevented the land that the Metcalfes would later settle from being dedicated instead to a reservation for the Gila or Coppermine Apaches. from coming into being. Prior to the war, Mangas Coloradas had one staunch American friend named Dr. Michael Steck. A Pennsylvania physician and humanist, Steck spent much of the last five years of the 1850s working as Indian Agent for the Southern Apaches, ultimately serving for a time as the New Mexico Superintendent of Indian Affairs. While Steck felt all Apaches should be "concentrated" on one or more reservations, he maintained good relations with not only Mangas, but even the Chiricahuas later led by Cochise. In 1860, Steck ordered a survey to map a reservation for the Southern Apaches.
Mangas Creek Ranch was, in its earliest configuration, watered by four sources. To the south was Mangas Creek, running north and then west to the Gila, through a magnificent gorge. To the east — today, mostly obscured by brush on the east side of Hwy. 180 — is Agua de Santa Lucia. This small spring feeds, in turn, the cienega on the west side of the highway, near the sign that reads "Mangus." Also, entering from the east, are the waters of Blacksmith and Sheep Corral Canyons. Combined with the numerous mountains surrounding the entire area, it's no wonder Mangas Coloradas felt secure in this area. If the Apache chief — assassinated in 1863 — been alive in 1871, the Metcalfes might not have survived their settlement plans.
Steck's government survey set the boundaries for his proposed reservation, commencing "about one mile & a quarter South East of Santa Lucia Spring, running N. 15 miles W. 15 miles S. 15 miles E. 15 miles to the place of the beginning. The corners are marked with stone monuments and the lines where the nature of the country permitted are well marked each mile, and since regularity was impracticable on account of the mountainous character, a monument was placed upon the summit of each prominence hoping that when connected with the lines of said reservation those surveys would have been deemed respectable."
Early ranchers and miners from Pinos Altos strenuously objected to the survey, desirous of every scrap of land they could control. It was clear to Steck that a fight would commence, but the Civil War took precedence.
By the time the war was over, Mangas had been killed, the boundaries of the reservation were swarmed by miners and ranchers, and Apaches were viewed as nuisances so troublesome that many whites felt the Indians should be moved as expeditiously as possible — or exterminated. Steck, the greatest champion for the Gila Apaches, was no longer New Mexico Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and had no say in the outcome.
As for the Metcalfes, a full two decades before they came to Silver City, they had already experienced a great deal about the desert Southwest. They knew something about the availability of water, Indians, quick mineral strikes and investment gains and losses, and decided they had to return to New Mexico Territory. While the sign at Mangas Creek Ranch says it was founded in 1866, it wasn't until 1873 that James K. Metcalfe filed a homestead claim for the first quarter-section of 160 acres.
By then, the Mangas group of Apaches had been heavily engaged in combat more than once with Americans and Mexicans. There may not have been many of these Apaches left by the time the Mangas Creek Ranch was settled. The ranch's current owner, Larry Foster, says he'd heard some of the Mangas group were still "around" and that some may have been employed doing ranch work.
James K., Robert and James' son, Orrick, never lost their fascination for precious minerals, although they weren't overwhelmed by greed. James K., John and Robert Metcalfe (the latter two names appear on the 1870 Silver City census) would later be involved in the first significant find of copper in Morenci, Ariz.
In the early 1870s, Robert Metcalfe — brother of James K. — was asked to join a party of men searching for marauding Apaches. Out scouting one day, "Bob" Metcalfe found some rich copper deposits, the locations of which he noted mentally. In 1872, the Metcalfes located the Longfellow and Metcalfe mines, in the Clifton Mining District of Arizona. Bob Metcalfe took some ore samples all the way to Mesilla, where they were assayed. Charles Lesinsky, a storeowner, bought into the mine as the larger supplier of capital. Disagreements soon erupted, and the entire mine was sold to Lesinsky. The Metcalfe brothers would later prove other mines, not just in the Clifton-Morenci area, but also in the Burros.
Ranching alone never sufficed to provide sufficient income for the Metcalfe family. Nonetheless, James K. Metcalfe slowly acquired more land. The original homestead of 160 acres was expanded to include more and more full sections (640 acres) of land. Eventually the spread grew to 2,600 acres.
Mention is made, in the "vertical file" of Grant County notables at the Silver City Public Library, that the Metcalfes were called "truck farmers" at one time by local newspapers. In fact, one item mentions that on the 52 acres of "bottom land" on the Metcalfes' claim, the family owned 1,000 goats, mostly Angora; 1,500 sheep; 600 fruit-bearing trees, mostly apple; and 2,500 grape vines. Beans and potatoes were also grown by irrigation from the manmade lake. By 1876 the Metcalfes' bounty was being sold to customers at Silver City's "Exchange Corner."
James K. Metcalfe also found time for some spelunking. On Aug. 17, 1878, the Grant County Herald reported that he had found a "large cave" above his ranch, which contained "several images representing serpents, human forms... crockery, flint pointed arrows, miniature bows and arrows in a perfect state of preservation." That article, and another on Aug. 31, 1878, stated that the find "would fill two wagon loads." The cave, Metcalfe reported, was three feet deep in "bat excrement." He added that "the implements and crockery show the peculiar characteristics of Aztec workmanship" — speculating that the items were part of a burial in the cave. Metcalfe's find was exhibited at the Herald office, "until it was disposed of by Mr. Morley of the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe R & R."
Times were different then as to how Native American artifacts were treated. Metcalfe was shrewd enough to know that private collectors as well as museums would pay for such items. Nowhere in my research, however, have I found that he did anything illegal in selling those artifacts.
Fishing, too, later became part of the Metcalfe enterprise. The dam that Mollie Metcalfe referred to as "Montezuma's Dam" — a rehabilitated Indian irrigation structure — impounded a good amount of water. By 1882, records show her father had purchased upwards of 300 carp at a penny each, in Denver, and shipped them home for fishing purposes. In August 1894, the Silver City Enterprise reported that "a big rain caused a flood which destroyed Uncle Jim Metcalfe's dam on the Mangas and distributed fish all over the landscape."
The Metcalfes felt that the original homestead, which has been plastered over and added on to, should contain some nice things from their previous residence back east. A few years after James K. Metcalfe had come to "the Mangas," a piano and large chifferobe (a combination of a wardrobe and chest-of-drawers) had been hauled west, at some expense, to add reminders of what "home" had meant.
There were also times when James K. Metcalfe and his wife, Sarah (Sallie), left behind the rough ranch life and lived in Denver. In fact, Sarah was in Denver in 1885, when she died of pneumonia. James K. Metcalfe never remarried.
That same year, in June 1885, the Metcalfes were witness to the last major Apache raid in the area. In a letter, Mollie Metcalfe recalls hiding in the barn for two days waiting for the Apaches to come, but they never did. During that famous 1885 breakout from San Carlos Indian Reservation by Geronimo and his men, the Apaches did chase some relatives of the Metcalfes' — the Shelleys and Shacklefords, among others, some of whom had come west with them back in 1871. The Shelleys, Shacklefords and others sought refuge in a stone cabin, where they "forted up," some 10 to 12 miles north of the Metcalfe ranch.
While that group all survived, the tension was extreme. A man named Mavorcio Guerra, who lived in the Cliff-Gila area, traded shots with the Apaches, who seemed more interested in horse stealing than killing, even though he challenged them.
Since these same Apaches never actually troubled the Metcalfes, the tale the Apache were too superstitious to attack at Mangas Springs bears some consideration.
In his obituary in the Silver City Enterprise on July 1, 1910, James K. Metcalfe was described as well-known as one of the earliest pioneers of Grant County. He was "made famous by the discovery of some of the first copper mines in the Clifton, Arizona, Mining district. He died at the age of 86, and was survived by sons: John, Charles, Robert and Orrick, and one daughter, Mollieare (Mollie)."
By then, most Grant County residents knew the Mangas Creek Ranch was located where Mangas' group had most likely called "home." The obituary also mentioned that Metcalfe was "gifted with considerable literary talent, and articles from his pen were to be seen in a number of the southwest papers in the early days." The obit finally added that "in his death the community loses another of that fast disappearing clan who made it habitable." (Of course, the land had always been habitable to the Apaches, just as it was.)
The current owner of the Mangas Creek Ranch, Larry Foster, told me that the ranch was handed down to the male who showed the greatest interest in keeping the ranch rather than selling it. After James K. Metcalfe died in 1910, his son Orrick became the ranch's owner. (James K.'s brother Bob Metcalfe had died in Kentucky in 1905.) Orrick died in the 1930s in a mining accident. Because Orrick's son had also died in a mining accident, Fred Foster — Larry's father, who'd married into the family when he wed Madeline Eloise Metcalfe on Aug. 16, 1934 — became the owner.
As I've hiked the present-day Mangas Creek Ranch, I've considered how lucky I am to have been led there. A few ranchers know me by now, and have given me permission to hike on their lands, all of which were touched by the Apache. When I walk those rugged hills, I know I've encountered places that whisper of Mogollon or Apache spirits, all as ephemeral as pollen in the wind. Out of respect for them and for James K., Sarah, Mollie and Orrick Metcalfe, Fred and Larry Foster and the Fosters who live there today, I tred lightly. It's important to never forget we're here because they aren't.
Until I sat down and wrote this article, I hadn't felt at all connected with James K., Mollie or the other Metcalfes. They were merely names and, in one instance, images from a photo.
One of the things one often reads about this land in the 1840s, even perhaps to the 1880s, was that the pioneers said the grass was as high as the stirrups on a horse. Several writers described the grass — green, thick, waving — as "luxuriant." I've been here seven summers now. I've seen the grass as dry and brown as an old golden retriever's back. And I've seen it green. This year, the rain has turned practically all the land south of I-40, straight into Mexico, greener than I've ever seen. Some locals tell me they've never seen it this green, either.
But I suspect James K. Metcalfe and his children, who walked or rode these lands so often, saw the grass green and "luxuriant" here in the rough country they made their home.
Now I can say I've seen luxuriant grass bent by the wind and know those old timers didn't lie. Under the crackling blue morning skies of New Mexico, I'm glad I have places to walk, and contemplate: "The wind that blows today has always blown before/ Will always blow/ The wind that blows today has never blown before/ Will never blow again."
Jerry Eagan earned a BS in political science at Indiana University and the University of Oregon, and an MFA in creative writing at the University of Oregon. He describes himself as "a life-long historian and learner, a warrior and spiritual walker many lifetimes over." He is currently teaching a course, "Apacheria and the Apache Wars: 1850-1890," through the Western Institute of Life Long Learning (WILL). This is the 13th article in his "Hiking Apacheria" series; to read the complete series, see www.desertexposure.com/apacheria Extra material relating to this story and Mangas Coloradas, including a map of the proposed Gila Apache Reservation, can be found at www.desertexposure.com/extras