My descent from Paradise brought me to San Simon, where I’d rejoin the Butterfield at perhaps one of the most exciting regions of the trail. For starters, it was home to one of the most renowned stations, San Simon as it signified entry into Arizona territory.
The reason it was such a relief to reach Arizona was because that meant you had successfully navigated through what is considered to be the most volatile crossing of the entire Butterfield Overland Mail Route, Doubtful Canyon Pass.
The canyon itself is place that would makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, as it is the perfect ambush spot. Often, as evident from Ormsby’s crossing in 1858, the stagecoaches would maneuver through the pass with zero percent illumination in the early hours following midnight. I’d be doing it in the early evening, but the threat has subsided and the locals are friendly these days. Following the Bascom affair in February of 1861 [[and which I cover in Day 9, Pt. 2., I will link at end of this video.]], a soldier wrote,
“tread on a worm and it will turn – disturb a hornets nest, and they will sting you. – so with savage Indians: misuse them and you make them revengeful foes.”
This was the case when this area was the epicenter of what was basically a war of Vengence waged by Cochise, who’s effect on this land is ever-present. In Cochise’s own words, he tried for peace “once and they broke the treaty first,” and thus “retaliated with all his might”. With John Cremony of the California Volunteers recalling that Cochise “lost no opportunity to destroy life and property,”.
Along the Overland Mail route, there was a growing imminent danger and increased Chiricahua presence. The town of San Simon was raided, livestock trains plundered, and by Mid-March, a Butterfield Stage reported that they had seen a Chiricahua raiding party hoist a black flag for no quarter. Interestingly enough, Butterfield ceased operation at this time and was absolved into a company called the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line, often called the “Jackass Mail”(2:35), and later the ‘Overland Mail Company’, which included the Pony Express.
As I reached the entrance to Doubtful Canyon Pass, I paused to look back, reflect on all of the places I’d seen on my journey this far along across Arizona and California on the Butterfield. I thought of the brave settlers who blazed this trail before me. Cochise’s enragement over the Bascom affair’s extended into a prolonged war; Coincidentally, a decade after Cochise died, Felix Tellez–the boy whose kidnapping had started the war–resurfaced as an Apache-speaking scout for the U.S. Army. He reported that a group of Western Apache, not Cochise, had kidnapped him. Bascom’s folly cost hundreds of lives; one tale of his revenge brings us back to Doubtful Canyon.
In late April, Cochise and his war party killed nine men on a Jackass Mail train attempting to breach the canyon. Among them, J. J. Giddings, Superintendent and brother of the owner of the Overland Mail Company was on board; he and Road Agent Michael McNies, who was once friends with Cochise, were ambushed and tortured with their feet bound to trees, and heads placed over slow-burning fires. Here, in the Shadow of Stein’s peak. It is unknown if Cochise had credible intelligence of who his victims were, and how big of a blow this execution dealt to the Mail, or if this was an act of passion. The Apache ultimately resulted in ceasing operations of the line.
And then, after thousands of miles of public land, freedom of movement anywhere I pleased, lay a fence, almost as if to say, “Welcome to New Mexico”, as I was located precisely on the state borderline. What’s odd to me is that this rancher erected the fence only about a hundred yards or so in either direction of the road, and with absolutely zero signage, a setting sun, and not caring for the trek back to San Simon, through Doubtful Canyon… I decided to put the Landy to work.
Just like the jackrabbit, I decided I must be on my way. The fence, the sun, and a forthcoming Spring turkey hunt were omens that it would be best to skip past the New Mexican portion of the Butterfield, and save an entire, new, expedition for that purpose someday in the future. I sped alongside the Animas Playa Lake Bed with the setting sun, and stopped alongside the same thoroughfare I’d started my journey on, US Interstate 10, still paralleling the main artery of John Butterfield and Company’s Overland Mail line.. I aired up my tires, for a short push to another critical area within the Butterfield History.. the Guadalupe Mountains.
Sources:
• Butterfield Overland Mail – Ormsby
• Butterfield Trail and Overland MailCompany in Arizona – Gerald T. Ahnert
• Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief – Edwin R. Sweeney
• Tom Jeffords: Friend of Cochise – Doug Hocking