D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
May 2010
(Part One)
Silver City — Another Lost History
Everybody knows that Silver City was originally named "La Cienega de San Vicente," right? "Everybody is wrong," about that and much more of the town's early days.
By Erica and Jim Parson
"Cities, like people, must know where they came from to be able to understand who they are."
— C.L. Sonnichsen
In a previous article on Pinos Altos ("The Lost History of Pinos Altos," February 2010), we stated that not only was much of the accepted history of that settlement full of errors and omissions, but that the same could be said of the histories of other towns in this immediate area, not least among them the county seat itself — Silver City. We felt that we could not make that bold statement without presenting the evidence to qualify it.
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Detail of the 1864
"Map of The Military Department of New Mexico," drawn by Captain Allen
Anderson. |
Here we follow the same pattern of that article on Pinos Altos: presenting the main points of the accepted history of Silver City, examining the origins of that history and presenting documentary evidence to contradict and/or add new information to it. Again we focus on the very early history, taking it up to the enumeration of the 1870 federal census at Silver City on August 17 of that year.
Over time, and with countless retellings, differing versions of Silver City's early history have developed. In some cases even the most basic of facts are reported incorrectly: for example, who was involved in the first land preemptions in the valley, how that land was divided, when the first mining locations were made, who made them and how many locations were made, how and when Silver City came to be so named and by whom.
Here are the main points of the accepted early history:
- Silver City developed from an earlier settlement known as "La Cienega de San Vicente."
- La Cienega de San Vicente was the name given to that marshy area of land around the spring, or number of springs, which rose near the south end of the valley just below present-day Broadway, near to where Spring and Main Streets would have converged. It was named by the Spanish who "discovered" the Santa Rita del Cobre copper mines as they further explored the area in the early 19th century.
- There was a Spanish or Mexican settlement at La Cienega de San Vicente; it was a "summer adobe settlement for woodcutters, sheepherders and Indian traders," and a chapel was built at the site.
- General Stephen Watts Kearney stopped at "San Vicente" in 1846.
- After the gold strike at Pinos Altos in 1860, Mexican goat and sheep herders located at the San Vicente Cienega supplied meat to Pinos Altos, a practice that ceased during, but recommenced after, the Civil War.
- In 1869 two groups of men, including John and James Bullard, preempted 640 acres of land in the valley in order to begin farming.
- Sometime in 1869, Andrew Hurlburt's wife and child were killed when Apaches attacked them in their home at the Cienega while Hurlburt was working his land there. Hurlburt was unable to save them, but heroically ran the nine miles to Pinos Altos to get help.
- In May 1870 the first three mining claims were located in the area: the "Legal Tender," the "Twin Lode No. 1" and the "Twin Lode No. 2."
- These locations were made after some of the men farming at the Cienega were drawn to Ralston City (today's Shakespeare ghost town near Lordsburg) after hearing of the recent silver strike there.
- The strikes in the area of the Cienega generated a large and rapid influx of miners and prospectors to La Cienega de San Vicente and to what would become known as the "Silver Flat Mining District."
- In early summer of 1870 the residents of the new mining camp held a meeting in order to decide upon a name for the rapidly growing settlement.
- Many "old timers" wished to retain the original name of "La Cienega de San Vicente" but were defeated when the name "Silver City" won out. Some accounts state that it was the Mexican population that fought hardest to retain the old Spanish name. Some accounts — in particular those that have more modern origins — refer to it as "San Vicente de la Cienega."
Early Histories
The most popular, well-known and most often referred to histories of early Silver City are those written by Mrs. S.M. (Nettie Bennett) Ashenfelter, Dan Rose, Conrad Keeler Naegle and the Reverend F. Stanley.
Rose's work, heavily reliant on interviews of old timers, was published as a series of articles in the Silver City Independent under the title "Early Days of The Great Southwest"; these appeared between May 29 and July 3, 1917.
Ashenfelter's essay, also published in the Independent, appeared in 1933, although it had originally been presented by Ashenfelter at a meeting of the local Jacob Bennett Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1904.
Naegle's work was his 1943 University of New Mexico Master's Thesis in history. It frequently cites the works of Rose and Ashenfelter, which form much of the basis of Naegle's section on early Silver City, as they continue to do for many other writers. We must also include ourselves in this group; we too relied on them when we wrote a short piece on the history of Silver City for a local website several years ago. Suffice to say that, at the time, we were guilty of having carried out an insufficient level of research into that history.
Stanley's account appeared in a 1974 pamphlet published to commemorate the centennial celebration of Silver City's St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church. Stanley wrote brief histories of several townships in old Grant County, including Silver City, Deming and Shakespeare. With scrutiny, however, these prove to be little more than collections of local folklore and unsubstantiated tales, presented as authentic history. In many instances what Stanley writes is very easily refuted.
Comparing these popular accounts of the origins of Silver City to official records and documents, a clearer and much more accurate picture of the origins and birth of Silver City emerges.
Searching for "San Vicente"
For starters, the town of Silver City was never known as "La Cienega de San Vicente." The name "Cienega de San Vicente" was used, but this was in reference to a topographic feature of the landscape, and that feature was not even a cienega (swamp or marsh) in its literal sense. The name was never attached to any kind of previous settlement in the valley; there was no such settlement. There were no "old-timers" here when Silver City was named, neither was there a Mexican population.
Unfortunately, there is no basis to the story that the "old name" for Silver City was La Cienega de San Vicente, just as there is no basis for other claims that it was San Vicente de la Cienega. Both names are 20th century in origin, and both have their roots not in fact, but only in folklore. In fact, use of the word "cienega" in relation to the valley here did not begin until the late 19th century.
(Although almost always spelled "cienega," according to Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola — Real Academia Espaola the correct spelling is "cinaga." We use the most commonly found spelling.)