Stanley C. BrownCopyright 1994

MURDER OF AN UNSUNG HERO

Arizona's Andres Moreno

by Stan Brown

I. THE PLACE

From almost any place in central Arizona's Tonto Basin, and from the area around

Payson, one can see the conical hill named "Baker Butte." It is the highest point on the

Mogollon Rim. If you are up there in season, you can drive to the top of the Butte from

Forest Road 300, park your car and then climb the zigzag steps of the fire-watch tower.

At the top Barbara Dalton opens the trap door and greets you with a friendly

welcome. She seems glad for company, and willingly shows you how she keeps track of

fires in the Coconino Forest. Then she points out the San Francisco Peaks, which can be

seen to the north. In fact, if it is a clear day you will glimpse the red rocks of the Petrified

Forest and Monument Valley.

The view is so spectacular you may readily miss the fascinating pioneer history

that lies at your feet. At the base of Baker Butte is the junction of two old wagon roads,

one being the Crook Military Road built from 1872 to 1874 to connect Ft. Whipple and Ft.

Verde with Camp Apache. The other road comes up from Strawberry, and in pioneer

days joined the Military Road south-west of Baker Butte. Together they proceeded

eastward over the north side of the Butte, and then separated again. The Military Road

continued along the edge of the Rim, and the other headed north to Flagstaff.

It is along the confluence of these two wagon roads that three murders took place,

and two of the murdered men's graves can be seen today. The third has not yet been

found.

The first murder was in 1868. It happened like this:

The commander of the United States military forces in this region was Thomas

Devin, who led a scouting party against the Apache Indians, out of Ft. Whipple and into

the Tonto Basin. His route took him past the yet unnamed Baker Butte, following old

Indian trails, and then down the canyon of the East Verde River. In order to get over the

steep edge of the Mogollon Rim, Col. Devin had to construct a switch-back trail. In fact,

this trail can still be walked today, and is rightly called "The Col. Devin Trail."

Several miles down the East Verde River, he turned east along a well defined

Indian trail, and reached Tonto Creek. There Col. Devin realized he was short of supplies,

and camped while sending a detachment of his mule train back to Ft. Whipple for

provisions. As the mule train reached the base of Baker Butte they were ambushed by

Tonto Apache Indians. John Baker, the chief packer, was killed, and the small cavalry

escort buried his body on the spot. [1]

Four years later, in 1872, as General Crook's men were constructing the military

road along the Rim, it is said that a laborer in the crew, who happened to be a black man

named Baker, was murdered by a fellow worker in an argument. [2]

Still a third man named Baker is connected to the place.

In Platt Cline's book about the history of Flagstaff

we read, "While sheep had been driven through northern Arizona between California and

New Mexico from very early times, the first permanent sheep ranch in the northern part of

Arizona was established in 1868 by James Baker near the butte which is named for him

in the Mogollon Rim Country, about sixty miles south of Flagstaff." [3]

At this point one is free to choose who gave his name to the highest point on the

Mogollon Rim.

What we want to focus on here is the another mystery connected to Baker Butte. It

is a murder mystery; a murder that took place on a rainy day in July of 1887, when a man

named Andres Moreno was shot as he stooped beside his camp fire at the base of the

butte.

His grave is marked, but beneath his head stone may actually lie the body of John

Baker, that packer with Col. Devin's cavalry unit. The real grave of Andres Moreno may,

instead, be under a neat pile of stones one half mile west along Crook's trail, at the foot of

Baker Butte. The grave is on the south side of the original military road.

The mystery of who is buried in each of these early graves begs to be solved, but it

should not interrupt the fascinating story of the Mexican vaquero who became an

American Indian fighter, and then a pioneer freighter in the beginning days of Gila

County. Why was he murdered, leaving a thirty five year old widow and seven children to

struggle for a livelihood?

II. The Arizona Volunteers

The story begins with a little known but heroic event in the history of the Arizona

Territory.

Except for two miner skirmishes, America's Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, raged

across Arizona with words and political infighting. The Confederate Army occupied

Tucson for a few weeks, but promptly retreated in the face of General Carlton's advance

from the west with a brigade of California Regulars. The Union flag flew once again over

Southern Arizona, and the hearts of the people were divided.

The thing that troubled settlers more than civil war was the lack of law and order,

and the increasing attacks by Apache Indians on ranches and freight trains.

The Apache lands were being invaded by Americans, and a guerilla-type war was

ongoing between the two sides. At first United States troops held the Apaches at bay, but

the War forced the government to pull most of the regular troops back East. To the

Indians this signaled that they were winning the war against the whites, so they stepped

up their victorious rampages.

Indians were not the only threat, however. In a letter of the time, one Major

Theodore Coult referred to "hoards of treacherous and thieving Mexicans (and) bands of

Californians whose avowed purpose is highway robbery." [4]

As soon as Arizona was declared a Territory apart from New Mexico, February

1864, Governor Goodwin began appealing to the War Department in Washington for

authority to raise companies of Volunteer Infantry to fight the Indian menace. That

permission was granted in April, but because the money was lacking no action was taken

until June of 1865.

The interesting thing is that very few the European-American men were willing to

sign up. It was easier to use the natural enemies of the Apaches, who were Mexicans and

the "friendly Indians" of the Pima and Maricopa Tribes.

The Governor appointed a surveyor and mercantile businessman, named Hiram S.

Washburn, to recruit several units of the Volunteer Infantry. [5]

Washburn found a man of his own liking by the name of Manuel Gallegos, who

would be just the one to recruit and command Mexicans. Gallegos was born in New

Mexico Territory at a time when it was still old Mexico. After the Southwest became part

of the United States, Gallegos elected to remain and become a citizen, serving in a

regiment of the New Mexico Volunteers.

Gallegos became Captain Washburn's lieutenant, and went into the villages south

of the border where he recruited what was known as "Company E, First Arizona

Volunteer Infantry." Three additional Mexican men were from north of the border, one of

them a vaquero named Andres Moreno.

Andres was born in the mission town of Bacadehuachi, Sonora, in July 1840,

among a large settlement of the Moreno family which had originated near Madrid, Spain.

Constant attacks by Apaches had caused a number of local silver mines to close, and

several Moreno cattle ranches to be abandoned. [6]

Andres' father, Pablo Moreno [7], moved his family north to Tucson, and soon the

Gadsden Purchase of 1853 incorporated them into the United States. Andres would later

be identified as "naturalized by the Gadsden Purchase." [8]

Of course the family did not escape the trouble from Apache raids by moving to

Arizona. As he grew up, Andres Moreno was a cowboy, and part of that job was to be

ready to chase marauding Indians.

In 1865, when he was twenty five years old, Moreno met Lt. Gallegos, who was

recruiting for the Arizona Volunteer Infantry around the Patagonia mines. He went with

Gallegos and the other recruits to Tubac, where two companies of the California Cavalry

had been posted.

On August 3, 1865 Andres Moreno was enlisted in Company E of the Arizona

Volunteer Infantry. Within weeks the California Cavalry and Arizona Volunteers were

moved to the newly established post at Fort Mason, in the community of Calabasas, eight

miles from the Mexican border. There was fear that the French armies invading Mexico

might have designs on the territory given up in the war with Mexico, and it would be well

to have troops close to the border. Captain Washburn wrote his assurances to

Governor Goodwin, August 15, 1865, The Mexican recruits "are in my judgement equal if

not superior to any others for Apache campaigning, and next they would be most

desireable auxiliaries in checking French aspirations and intentions which have

progressed as far as Hermosillo with nothing to obstruct the progress to the line and

cutting off our supply of provisions, although I have assured those enlisting under me that

they would be ordered against no enemy except the Apache. It has long been openly

asserted among the Mexicans that the French intend as soon as they have put down all

opposition in Sonora to cross the line and capture all the country ceded to the U.S. byu

Santa Ana... I do not think there are ant enlisting with me who would refuse or be

opposed to crossing the line and help restore Sonora to the Republic, but what we want

first is to whip the Apaches and restore our own Arizona to that condition wherein

emigrants and capitalists of all professions can come here and mine, manufacture and

cultivate the soil in security."

Washburn's great problem was that he could not get material or financial support

from the government. Arms and clothing, even adequate food, were not forthcoming for

his men. He could not take to the field because the mustering in officer, with his official

papers, did not arrive from California. It was one thing to enlist, but they also had to be

officially mustered in before they could perform.

While they waited the Volunteers were put to work making adobe bricks and

building quarters for the new Fort Mason. Washburn was personally buying food and

medicine for his men, for which he was never reimbursed.

"I have no cooking utensils," he wrote, "but six mess pans, four axes and two

spades to build shelters from the rains. No clothing and no arms."

He had recruited his full number of 96 men by August 21st, and was trying to keep

up their morale. He wrote to the governor, "There has been a great deal of sickness

among my men, fever in every instance, caused by eating crude fruit and sleeping on the

wet ground without blankets..." [9]

Moreno was sick like the rest. They were a sorry lot, and the misery was increased

by the summer monsoons which brought torrents of rain and steamy days upon the

poorly housed and ill clad men.

Finally, on November 2nd, the mustering officer arrived, and inducted Company E

into Federal Service the next day. In addition to Washburn, there were two lieutenants,

five sergeants, eight corporals, one bugler, and eighty-five privates, one of whom was

Andres Moreno. The 1st lieutenant, on loan from General Mason's headquarters, left to

return. This made Washburn and Gallegos the only officers for the Company.

On the same day, Company F was inducted, also made up of Mexicans, and a

month later, on December 4th, they had their orders to march to Fort Whipple. Six men

promptly deserted.

When they moved out, one third of the men were on the sick list, and two of them

died on the way. Moreno may have been one of the few who rode a horse, since he

was a cowboy by trade and Washburn reported that twelve of his men were able to

"mount themselves," meaning they had their own horses.

Washburn wrote at the close of one letter to the governor, "The Mexicans have

never had such a chance before to revenge themselves on the Apache. I could raise one

or two regiments in three months easily, which would be ample to wipe out that race in

one year."

One wonders if Moreno had such thoughts of racial cleansing as others did when

speaking of the native Americans. The time would come when Moreno, too, would face

prejudice from white men who considered him nothing but "an old Mexican," one who

could readily be murdered and the killer let go free.

When the Volunteers arrived at Fort Whipple, December 19th, the weather

continued bitterly cold, and there were no quarters available for them. They had to

construct make-shift shelters, and their Captain described them as "truly pitiable."

In the meantime, two Arizona Volunteer companies of Pima and Maricopa Indians

were working out of Ft. McDowell, seeing action against the Apaches in the Tonto Basin.

On Sept. 8, 1865, they surprised an Apache camp, in what is today called Star Valley,

killing one Indian, wounding several, and burning their crops and houses to the ground.

It was the beginning of a rough year for the Tonto Apache people, in which

hundreds of Indians were killed and even more wounded or captured. Their villages and

camps were burned.

By December, 1865, Company A from Prescott had already arrived at Camp

Lincoln, the forerunner of Camp Verde in the Verde River Valley. Moreno arrived there

with Company E on January 16th, in the rain, snow and mud.

They immediately began a series of campaigns against the Tonto and Yavapai

Apaches, which brought praise and medals from the Governor, the newspapers, and the

Third Territorial Congress.

It would take the white invaders ten years of constant harassment to destroy

Apache power in Central Arizona, and clear the way for mining and ranching. The tactic

was to keep the Indians on the run, burn and destroy their food supplies and shelter, and

kill with hunger and disease those they could not shoot.

The siege had really begun in 1864 when rancher King Woolsey led three

expeditions of civilian Indian hunters into the area from Prescott. Then came the bloody

months of January to August, 1866, with the Arizona Volunteers. Finally General Crook's

all out military campaign, from 1872 to 1874, ended Tonto Apache resistance, except for

occasional renegade outbreaks.

It would soon be forgotten that Mexicans, like Andres Moreno, and friendly Indians

had sacrificed so much to clear the way for white American settlers.

At Camp Lincoln life for Andres Moreno and the others was primitive and difficult.

There were few permanent buildings. The men lived in brush shelters made of poles and

willow branches covered with earth. Their rations were limited, and two of the men, trying

to supplement their diet by fishing, were killed by Indians along the Verde River close to

camp.

The plan of Captain Washburn was to keep these volunteers constantly on the

move after the Indians. They returned to the post only to refit themselves. European-

American soldiers would not have put up with this, but the officers took advantage of their

Mexican and Indian charges.

Mutiny was threatened once, in February, because there was not enough food, no

shoes, little clothing and they were cold! They said they were thought of as "scum," and

resented that. But food came, and they settled down, making themselves moccasins out

of untanned rawhide. [11]

The Territorial Legislature could not convince the War Department to pay for the

Arizona Volunteers, and the Territory had no money, so when their one year enlistment

was up in August, 1866, they were released. Moreno, like the others, was given only a

few dollars in pay, and they never saw the bonus of $100 each they had been promised.

He purchased the old 1841 musket he had carried, and across his discharge papers it

was written that he had been paid in full. He still carried that musket when he was

murdered twenty-one years later. [12]

III. A FRONTIER FAMILY

Penniless and unemployed, Andres Moreno took up the suggestion of his

commander, Manuel Gallegos, to find employment at his home town in New Mexico

Territory as a vaquero.

Gallegos' ancestors had been colonists for Spain and the Church, sent from

Mexico to the northern frontier to establish a foothold among the native people. Their

village, called "The Tender Onion," or Cebolleta, became part of the United States and

Gallegos elected to become an American citizen. [13] Cebolleta is located north and east

of today's city of Grants, New Mexico, and north of the Laguna Indian Reservation.

Now that Gallegos' enlistment with the Arizona Volunteers was over, he decided to

stay in Arizona with his wife, and two sons who had been in Company F of the Arizona

Volunteers. He became an army packer and scout in the southern part of the Territory.

When Andres Moreno went to Cebolleta, he met Delfina Mason. She was

fourteen; he was twenty six. A year later they were married.

Delfina had been born in a Sonoran town named Oposura, and her family moved

to Cebolleta when she was an infant. If they moved to avoid Apache deprivations in

Sonora, they found themselves in the way of frequent Navajo attacks in New Mexico.

Delfina was familiar with Indian depredations, and was undoubtedly attracted to

this young Indian fighter so recently returned from battle. Her granddaughter, Ysabel

Rennie of Sedona, Arizona, writes, "(My grandmother) described a trip that was to take

the local schoolchildren to Albuquerque to attend a convent school. The wagon train went

in two sections. While her second section was up on the plateau, they looked down and

saw the first group attacked by Navahos. The children and the drivers were all killed, and

the others returned post haste to Seboyeta, where they were then isolated by marauding

Indians." [14]

Outrage over such an atrocity is tempered when we read the following about

Cebolleta's early history, "The young men of the town would go out on raids and steal

Navaho boys and girls for slaves. It was the custom when a marriage was arranged in

the town to give the Cebolletenos an order for one or two Navaho boys or girls as a

wedding present." [15]

Andres and Delfina were soon married, but there is no evidence they received

Navaho slaves as a wedding gift.

Their first child, Felecita, was born in 1868, when her mother was 16. Agustina

was born in 1871, and Manuela in 1873.

By the time of the Arizona Territorial Census of July 3, 1876, they were living in

Round Valley near the future site of St. John's in Arizona Territory. Andres was enticed

by a man named Solomon Barth and his brothers, who were developing the land around

the future St. John's, and hiring Mexican laborers from New Mexico to come and help

construct a dam and irrigation system on the Little Colorado River. [16] Cowboys were

also needed to manage the growing herds of cattle, and the Moreno family decided it was

time to try this new adventure.

It was a harrowing move. Their granddaughter, Mrs. Rennie, states [17], "He

transported his young and growing family by covered wagon to St. Johns, driving his

cattle with them. They were three days behind Geronimo and his Apache war party, and

came upon the sites of grisly massacres which my mother vividly remembered, though

she was only four at the time, and which she described in stomach-turning detail. As she

put it, `It's lucky we were three days behind, and not three days ahead of Geronimo's

party, or we might not have survived.'"

Soon after the family arrived in the vicinity of St. Johns, Angelita was born. They

remained in this area only a few years, because late in 1879 Solomon Barth's interests

were bought by the Mormons, and the work he had sponsored came to an end.

The Federal Census of 1880 records them living in a new "boom town" to the

south called "McMillenville." [18] There would have been a demand for beef to feed the

miners, or perhaps Andres tried his hand as a laborer in the mines. It is also possible that

this is where he developed a new profession as a freighter, bringing supplies into the

growing town. [19]

A fifth girl, Jesusita, was born in 1878 or 1879, either in Round Valley or

McMillanville.

The silver soon ran out and the Moreno family moved on to Globe City, where they

appear in the Gila County Census of 1882. Their sixth child, and only son, Francisco, was

born in 1881, either before they left McMillenville or soon after they arrived in Globe.

It was three years later, in 1884, that Sara, their seventh child, was born. Family

tradition says there were three other children, but perhaps they were still-born or died as

infants between the other births. No other names appear on any of the census records.

So it was that the Moreno family settled in to life in the new and growing Globe

City. There the children took their places in the local schools, and Andres developed a

freighting business. He came to be well thought of as attested by a local merchant,

Alonzo Bailey. The store owner wrote the following to the Territorial Governor in August

1888, during the considerations for pardoning Moreno's murderer. "(Andres Moreno) has

been known to many of our citizens for some ten to twelve years, and not one word, but

praise can or could be said against him. A quiet, unassuming man. Never had a quarrel

with anyone..." [20]

However, he did have one quarrel, and it led to his untimely and tragic death.

= = = = = = =

IV. PRELUDE TO MURDER

They called him "the old Mexican."

Of course his black hair and bushy mustache had turned gray, too soon for his

forty seven years. He had inherited a fair complexion and hazel eyes from his Spanish

grandfather, and was of average height, five feet eight inches tall. [21] He spoke Spanish

and little English. Anyone in Arizona Territory who spoke broken English and fluent

Spanish was called "a Mexican."

Those who labeled him were a mix of European Americans who felt destined to

get rich adventuring in the newly opened central basins and mountains. To them, Indians

and Mexicans were good for killing each other to get them out of the way of white men,

but good for little else. Except that their women, when necessary, made tolerable

mistresses for men who had left wives and girl friends behind. So the mix of culture and

skin color in America's southwest began very early. This was the place where the races

met and intermingled, coming from all directions.

No one seemed to care who Andres Moreno was, or from whence he had come.

At the trial of the man who murdered him, Knox Lee, not one word was mentioned that

this former vaquero turned freight master had been a United States soldier, and had

fought the Indians to make way for these very settlers who now took the side of his killer.

He had even scouted over the very trail where he was murdered twenty one years later.

The Arizona Volunteers earned a "proud name, and (their) praises (were)

everywhere shouted!" So boasted Prescott's newspaper, The Weekly Miner, April 11,

1866. The paper suggested editorially that the methods of warfare adopted by the

Arizona Volunteers should be taken on by the regular army.

The Governor of the Territory could not congratulate them enough on their

victories, saying that the Arizona Volunteers "may do more than all who have preceded

them in the subjugation of the Apaches in this part of the country."

The Third Arizona Territorial Legislature praised the Volunteers in a memorial,

noting how the soldiers had often pursued "the wily and implacable Apache... barefoot

and upon half rations," and had inflicted "greater punishment upon the Apaches than all

other troops in the Territory." They even awarded each of them The Indian Campaign

Medal, which Moreno must have carried with pride the rest of his life. [22]

All of that high praise and thanks had been forgotten now. The case seemed

simple enough. An "old Mexican" had been shot dead by his white passenger. There

must have been a good reason for Knox Lee to do this. Most likely "self defense."

Yet a coroner's inquest had to be held on the spot before they could bury the body,

along the old military road atop of the Mogollon Rim. The body lay as it fell, three days in

the July heat, until they could get a coroner's jury together. They called the deed

"involuntary manslaughter." It was the end of November before his trail was finally held.

The murderer, Knox Lee, was an itinerant lawyer from Uniontown, Alabama, Perry

County, who had only arrived in Globe a few months before. He was suffering from

"bronchitis" and his doctor had advised him to head for the Southwest. He had secured a

teaching position by mail, in Globe City, Arizona Territory, but got there too late to be

given a class. Laying over until July, he had been given the "partial promise" of a

teaching position in Flagstaff. [23]

During Lee's time in Globe he apparently had not made himself very popular.

Globe Merchant Alonzo Bailey, in a letter opposing a pardon for Lee, wrote the governor,

"I will say that Mr. Knox Lee was well known in this county, and since receiving your letter

I have made due inquiry among many who knew him... I can freely say that not in one

instance have I heard a favorable declaration for a commutation of sentence. But on the

other hand, it is the unanimous sentiment that he has been dealt with too much leniency

entirely.... Lee appeared to be of a vexatious disposition, on the bullying order.." [24]

One of Lee's own supporters from Alabama, writing in his defense, also shed light

on his character. "While you have had a roaming disposition and a disposition at times for

too much `red liquor,' you have always managed to get along without difficulties." [25]

This was the man who needed to get from Globe to Flagstaff, and was referred to

freighter Andres Moreno by Dr. W. H. Cook. Cook was a young physician from Illinois,

who, with his wife and sister-in-law, was traveling to Flagstaff where he would pick up the

train to Bakersfield, California, the location of his new practice. He had engaged Andres

Moreno to haul them to Flagstaff.

Knox Lee and Andres Moreno met in E. F. Kellner's store in Globe, as Moreno was

purchasing supplies for the Flagstaff trip. A teamster employed by Moreno, named "Kid"

Reynolds, was also present. He later testified that whenever he spoke with Moreno it was

"mostly in Spanish because he (Moreno) could not talk English enough for me to

understand him."

A clerk in the store named Jimmy Patten, who spoke Spanish, interpreted for

Moreno and Lee as they made a verbal contract about the trip. From that moment on the

two men had a basic disagreement about the way Knox Lee would pay for being hauled

to Flagstaff.

Perhaps it was that Moreno did not understand English well enough to comprehend what

Lee intended. Perhaps Jimmy Patten misinterpreted the exchange between the two

languages. Perhaps Lee purposely defrauded Moreno, but the disagreement focused on

who would provide the food for Andres Moreno during the journey.

"Kid" Reynolds understood them to agree that Lee would furnish his own food and

also the food for Moreno on the trip, as well as helping Moreno along the way with the

mules and equipment.

James Patten, the interpreter, wrote in his deposition, "Moreno agreed to carry Lee

to Flagstaff for the assistance Lee would give Moreno, and Lee was to furnish his own

grub..."

As for Lee, he insisted that the agreement was for Moreno to furnish his own

"grub," and the payment for carrying Lee, his trunk and blankets would be covered by his

assistance along the way.

It was this fundamental misunderstanding over who was to furnish Moreno's food

that precipitated a growing anger between both men.

The wagon train left Globe on Saturday, July 9th, 1887, and went as far as the

community of Wheatfields, half way to the Salt River. The train included an "ambulance,"

the early name for any wagon that carried people and their goods, in which Dr. Cook, his

wife and his sister-in-law rode. It was driven by "Kid" Reynolds, while the second vehicle

was a freight wagon driven by Andres Moreno. This one included the passenger Knox

Lee and his trunk, as well as a young man named Ed Howell. Howell left the party about

the second or third day out.

On Sunday they reached the river, taking the old wagon road that went down to

the Salt River just west of its confluence with Pinal Creek. By then the lack of provisions

for Moreno was being felt, and the argument between the two men got under way.

Monday night they camped near the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River,

where in later years the Roosevelt Dam was built. Tuesday they reached Watkin's Store

deep into the Tonto Basin, at a location known today as Punkin Center. The quarrelling

between Moreno and Lee was in full swing. Lee was angry that Moreno had "all the while,

up to Watkin's, been eating my supplies." [26]

"Kid" Reynolds testified that on the way to Watkin's that day "they got to arguing

and grumbling, and Lee came to me to interpret for him. I told him that I did not want any

of it... But he came to me several times and wanted me to interpret... Said that he couldn't

understand (Moreno). Andres also wanted me to interpret to this man Lee, that if he didn't

furnish the grub he wanted him to take his things off. He wouldn't haul him any further. I

told him that I didn't want anything to do with it; that he took him on his own hook and they

could arrange things between themselves."

By this time Dr. Cook was getting sick of the disputing, and threatened to dismiss

Moreno when they got to "the Mormon community" of Pine. He said he would hire the

Mormons to take him the rest of the way.

Wednesday evening, July 13th, they went through the Mormon settlement of Pine

Creek and on to Strawberry in the midst of a summer monsoon. There they boarded at

the home of Lafayette Nash. [27]

The argument became subdued because of their preoccupation with the weather.

Lee was about out of flour, and Moreno ordered him to buy some from their host before

they left the next day. Instead, Lee asked Dr. Cook to give Moreno some of his flour,

which the doctor refused to do, saying he had barely enough for his own party.

The next day, Thursday, the rain was so furious that Moreno knew the road to the

top of the Rim would be impassable with mud. So all day the party rested in Strawberry,

and got to know Lafayette Nash, who later would play a major role in the pardoning of

Knox Lee.

Friday morning, Lee did purchase some flour from Nash, but placed it in his own

trunk, and refused to allow Moreno to have any of it. Moreno became extremely angry,

losing his temper and telling Lee that unless he furnished provisions for the rest of the trip

he would put Lee and his trunk off right there.

Moreno then talked privately with Kid Reynolds, in Spanish, venting his anger and

repeating what he had told Lee about putting him off with his trunk. He said to Reynolds

that he was actually afraid to put Lee off because the passenger "had his pistol on."

Reynolds went on ahead with the Cooks, leaving Lee and Moreno "growling" at

each other.

When the freight wagon left with the two men Moreno was reported to be very

sullen. Friday night they got to the top of the Mogollon Rim and camped, arguing the

whole time. Reynolds tried to be a peacemaker between the two men. He offered to pay

Lee for the flour he had purchased from Nash, if he would share it with Moreno the rest of

the way to Flagstaff.

Lee agreed to do that, and it seemed they might complete the trip as planned.

= = = = = = = =

V. THE DEED AND ITS AFTERMATH

The next morning was Saturday, July 16th.

After breakfast, as they prepared to leave, Moreno said to Lee in broken English,

"When this flour all gone, you go too."

With that he reached into the wagon and pulled out his Long Tom musket from

among the freight boxes. It was the one he had carried ever since his days in the Arizona

Volunteers.

He loaded it, and placed it near the front of the wagon, with the breech sticking out

in such a way he could grab it if necessary from his saddle mule.

It was raining again, and when they reached the grade along the side of Baker

Butte, the mules had difficulty pulling the wagons. When Dr. Cook's team could no longer

make it, Moreno unhooked his lead team and attached them to the Cook vehicle, to help

it up the muddy hill. Reynolds was driving and Andres Moreno went along with the Cooks

to bring back his team when they got over the summit.

Lee was left behind and built up the fire they had started, hoping to keep warm in

the rain. He made a pot of coffee and the rain stopped; the clouds cleared away, and the

sun shown.

Moreno ate lunch with the Cooks, and then returned down the trail to his freight

wagon and Knox Lee. It was about 12 o'clock noon. Lee was going back and forth to

some low brush where he was drying his blankets one by one.

Knox Lee and Moreno were alone, and here is Lee's testimony about what

happened next.

"I squatted down on one side of the fire and he was sitting on the opposite side as

he drank (his coffee). The first of his growling commenced about the coffee. He said in

broken English, it was no good, and from that he continued the grumbling until he again

raised the bread question, there being half a loaf only of the bread left. In the quarrel he

for the first time told me that I would have to pay him for going to Flagstaff. This I refused

to do, telling him I did not expect to pay him as I had carried out my agreement. I had

worked 4/5 of the distance... had aided him in harnessing and unharnessing... and I did

not expect to and would not pay him..."

While they talked, Andres Moreno was pulling off his wet boots. He stopped, got

up and went to pull his hatchet out of the tree where it was sticking. Lee testified that as

he did this he muttered "something, part of which I didn't understand, but distinctly

understood the word `sonofabitch.'"

Again Moreno sat near a tree, farther away by four or five feet than before. In a few

minutes he got up again, went over to the wagon and pulled out his musket by the stock.

He came back to his first sitting position, closer to Lee, and leaned the rifle up against the

tree. Then he squatted down by the hatchet.

Lee said "he again repeated that he `no make contract' with me and that I must

pay him for going to Flagstaff. I told him that he did make the contract with me, had

acknowledged it on the road, and that I had worked my way like a negro.

"He said, `You lie!' Upon which I picked up a stone and said to him, `Andres, you

must not call me a liar. I have taken enough of your abuse!'"

Lee pulled his arm back in a gesture to throw the stone at Moreno. Moreno

grabbed for his hatchet and Lee threw the stone. With that Moreno hurled the hatchet at

Lee, and instantly Lee pulled his pistol and fired at Moreno. As far as Lee knew it

apparently missed.

Moreno glanced around at where his rifle leaned against the tree and went for it,

while Lee advanced around the smoke of the fire toward Andres.

"He sprang," said Lee at the Coroner's inquest, "and in a stooping position seized

his gun and came back around the first tree. Before he could get his gun to his shoulder,

but which he was loading, and advancing toward me, I fired the second shot."

Moreno fell forward; Lee stepped backward, across the road, his pistol cocked and

ready again. Soon it was evident Moreno was dead, and Lee ran to find Dr. Cook,

catching up to him about a mile along the road.

Cook, for his part, reported that about a half hour after Moreno had left him to

return to camp, he saw Lee "running towards me. When he came up to me, he said, `I

had to kill the old Mexican. I had to do it in self defense. I want to give myself up;

surrender myself to you.'"

Cook then sent Knox Lee back to wait with the body while he rounded up his party

and returned to the scene.

Lee said, "On the top of the hill above camp I came upon a party of about six

cowboys, told them what had happened, and after much persuasion induced them to go

with me where the shooting had occurred, as I did not wish to go back and be around the

dead body alone, for fear of a suspicion of tampering with the body."

When Cook returned they waited with the blanket covered body of Andres Moreno

until the acting Coroner, W.D. Fuller, and his jury of local citizens from Pine, could

assemble three days later, on Tuesday July 19th. [28]

While they all watched, Dr. Cook conducted a postmortem examination. It was

most unusual for such a thing to take place, but then seldom did a murder scene along

the trail include a qualified medical doctor. The postmortem included taking off the skull

and removing the brain of the dead body. Then Dr. cook traced the route of the fatal

bullet. After that, the body was buried beside the trail.

The postmortem revealed some startling contradictions to Knox Lee's version of

the killing.

The shot had come from above and behind, not from head on as if the two men

were facing each other. The bullet entered the top of the skull and moved forward through

the right eye socket, exiting with unexpected cleanness through the right nostril. From

outside the body one could only notice a blood stain on Moreno's mustache. From inside

the head, the shattered bones clearly traced the path of the projectile.

Furthermore, the first pistol shot reported by Lee had indeed struck Moreno,

blasting through his right hand and leaving powder burns so thick, Dr. Cook reported

"some of the grains of powder (were) forced nearly through the skin." This contradicted

Lee's testimony that he had been seven feet away when the shot was fired.

Our suspicion of Lee is increased when he was so very anxious for the cowboys to

come and witness that he would not tamper with the position of the body.

As one studies over two hundred pages of testimony from the Coroner's Inquest,

the Jury trial, and the campaign of correspondence to free Knox Lee from prison, the truth

seems to point in this direction: Lee did in fact kill Andres Moreno from "above and

behind" as Moreno stooped to pour a cup of coffee at the fire on that damp, muddy day.

Then Lee placed the hatchet, the musket and the body as he wanted them, to

substantiate his story, before leaving to find Dr. Cook.

What began as a simple misunderstanding because of the language barrier, led to

Lee's ego being severely beaten by Moreno's sullenness and anger. Lee often used the

term "abused" when he described the way he felt over Moreno's treatment of him.

Furthermore, Lee was genuinely afraid that Moreno would dump him there in the

wilderness, where grizzly bears and renegade Apache Indians still roamed. So when the

opportunity presented itself to kill Moreno without anyone witnessing it, he acted.

We cannot over look Alonzo Bailey's testimony to Lee's conceitedness and brazen

reputation, and Moreno's peaceableness as a well loved citizen.

After Lee was sentenced for involuntary manslaughter, he spent the next year and

a half in the Yuma Territorial Prison conducting a letter writing campaign for his own

pardon. His correspondence was aggressive, and the repetition of his story became so

ritualized one wonders if fantasy did not replace fact in his mind. He pleaded with

growing anxiety for his release. His persuasive abilities, his educated use of language,

and his friendship with the politician L. P. Nash combined to put terrific pressure on the

prison board and the Governor. The Governor was not popular, and was trying to rescue

the bankrupt Territorial government by cutting back on such expenses as the prison at

Yuma.

Nash, in unveiled threats, suggested the governor's political future would benefit

from releasing Knox Lee because so many people were favoring the lawyer over "the

Mexican."

L. P. Nash saw in this campaign to get Lee released an opportunity to test his own

political clout, and, as a Republican, to tweak the nose of the Democratic governor. At

Lee's behest, Nash launched into a lengthy campaign in which he cajoled members of the

trial jury into signing a petition that called for the pardon of Knox Lee.

In the midst of this move, Nash claimed to have done a bazaar thing, which he

reported at the close of a long letter to Knox Lee in prison. January 3, 1889, Lafayette

Nash writes, in an almost casual way, "Did I tell you? I intended to. I dug the Mexican up

this fall and found the bullet in the back part of his neck. You know the witnesses swore it

came out at his nostril. Think of the idea of a bullet going through a man's skull and

coming out at his nostril and not leaving a scratch! That would not go down with me, and I

dug him up for curiosity, as I was up there hunting cattle." [29]

As one might expect, Lee immediately forwarded the letter to the Governor,

claiming it as proof for the truth of his story and therefore his innocence.

A thinking person can realize that by this time L. P. Nash had his own ego

thoroughly invested in the release of Knox Lee. He may have invented this story about

the location of the bullet, which contradicts other legitimate testimony.

Furthermore, Dr. Cook, the postmortem examiner, had absolutely no vested

interest when he claimed the bullet came from "above and behind." In fact his testimony

shows that he too was aggravated with Moreno for his stubborn attitude, and had

threatened to fire him from the job. Cook was in transit. He knew none of the principals

before this, and had no contact with them after the trial. It is more likely to believe him,

and the jury of Mormons from Pine who witnessed the examination, than to believe the

itinerant, Lee.

Along with all those who insisted on depriving Moreno of a name and labeling him

"the old Mexican," Nash reveals his own prejudice in sneering passages such as the one

that follows from a letter he wrote to the governor on July 16, 1888. It was the first

anniversary of the killing.

"I will say if I had been in Lee's place I would have killed Moreno if he had been the

last Mexican left for seed." (The underline is his own.)

The trial jury had favored a stranger over "an old Mexican," and Knox Lee was

sentenced, not for murder but for involuntary manslaughter. He was given six years in

prison.

This "severe sentence" was cited as reason to be lenient with him in rendering a

pardon. The petition to the governor, gotten up by L. P. Nash, and eventually signed by

ten members of the trial jury, stated, "At the time that Lee was tried, there had been much

killing in the Tonto Basin, and the officers of the law were much enraged and there is no

doubt that this feeling had much to do with the severe sentence passed upon Lee." [30]

Lee waged an unrelenting campaign on his own behalf. He secured a petition from

numerous prominent citizens of his home town in Alabama, attesting to his fine character.

He played a very meek role with the superintendent of the prison, becoming the prison

book-keeper and model prisoner. He won the guards and the prison Board with his

personality, and got them all to write favorably to the Governor on behalf of his release.

None of these people were privy to the facts and testimony of the case. They only

had Lee's word and personality.

It helped that L. P. Nash was a personal friend of J. H. Behan, the superintendent

of the prison, who also interceded and encouraged his employees to support a pardon for

Lee.

Knox Lee had been in the Arizona Territory only a few months when the murder

occurred, yet he had all these people jumping his tune. This says much about his

persuasive powers; an educated man, who practiced as a lawyer and a teacher.

The simple family man and hard working laborer, Andres Moreno, was hardly a

match for the wily Lee.

The death of Andres Moreno left his wife Delfina, then thirty five years old, with

seven children to raise. She rented rooms in their house in Globe until it was destroyed in

a flood in 1916. By then the children were married and on their own, and helped her

beyond the small pension she was granted in 1890. Delfina Moreno died in 1942.

She had a storehouse of memories, that spanned a Conquistador heritage, Indian

massacres, gold rush towns, families moving in covered wagons, and the struggle to

establish new communities on the Southwestern frontier. She cherished the medal her

husband had won in the Indian wars, but when all got quiet and the children were asleep,

she wondered at the injustice of a world where men will kill in an argument over bread.

Ysabel Rennie remembers her grandparents this way, when she writes, "Pioneer

life was not glamorous. However he died, Andres Moreno had a hard life, and his widow,

in many ways, a harder one. I remember her as a spunky little woman, four feet eleven,

with a warm heart and a good sense of humor... Wherever they are, may they both rest in

peace." [31]

= = = = = = = = = = =

FOOTNOTES

[1] Report of Col. Thomas Devin to headquarters, Ft. Whipple, June 1868, reprinted in

Farish, "History of Arizona," Vol 4, page 271f.

[2] From a 1963 memo by Bob Williamson, ranger with the Coconino National Forest, and

found in the archives of the Archaeologist, Dr. Peter Pilles: "I have done a little informed

checking on the grave on Baker Butte, It has been a common knowledge that the spot

mentioned in your latest correspondence is a grave on one known as Mr. Baker. The

report is that he was a colored fellow killed by a soldier with a pick. This was a result of a

misunderstanding during the construction of the old military road..."

[3] Northern Arizona University with Northland Press, 1976, page 209.

[4] Quoted in "Chains of Command," by Constance Altshuler, page 32. Arizona Historical

Society, 1981.

[5] Washburn had come to Arizona by way of Texas and San Francisco, and became a

partner in a mercantile business in Tucson. He continued surveying local mine properties

for developers such as the Poston brothers, Rafael Pumpelly, Samuel Heintzelman and

Sylvester Mowry. See the Arizona Historical Society library, Washburn biographical file;

"Pumpelly's Arizona" by Rafael Pumpelly, Palo Verde Press, Tucson, 1965, page 79.

[6] See "Moreno" files in Arizona Historical Society library, and in Special Collections at

Main Library, University of Arizona, both in Tucson. For Moreno families at

Bacadehuachi, see "Rudo Ensayo, A Description of Sonora and Arizona in 1764," by

Juan Nantig, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1980, page 120-123.

[7] The name is found in the record of Andres Moreno's marriage, September 1867, in the

archives of the Chancellery for the Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Gallup New

Mexico.

[8] "The Great Record of Gila County" for 1886, found in the office of the Gila County

Recorder, GLobe, Arizona.

[9] Correspondence of Washburn to Governor Goodwin, September 1, 1865, printed in

"The Arizona Graphic," March 24, 1900.

[10] Post Returns of Fort Mason

[11] Lonnie Underhill, "A History Of The First Arizona Volunteer Infantry," 1979, Arizona

Historical Society, manuscript, page 67f.

[12] Correspondence from Frank W. Moreno, grandson of Andres, to Malcom Stenhouse

at Fort Verde Museum, October 15, 1963, "I have been given some information I think

you will want for your museum... The Mississippi rifle (`which it is said was used by the

VOlunteers,' letter of 8/1/63) was the 1841 model Yeager .54 calibre, a brass bound rifle

with a brass bound pouch, shorter than most military rifles of the period, manufactured

among others by Eli Whitney, the Ferry Arsenal and Tryon."

[13] Lonnie Underhill, "Genealogy Records of the First Arizona Volunteer Infantry

Regiment," Arizona Historical Society, page 52, states that Gallegos had been born in

"Savoyeta." This is taken from the military record (General Reference Branch of the

National Archives and Records Administration) which adds "Mexico,' since New Mexico

Territory was still old Mexico when he was born. The town is also variously spelled

"Seboyeta" and, more accurately, "Cebolleta."

Captain Washburn, in a letter to Governor Goodwin, dated July 15, 1865, wrote, "I

take the liberty beforehand to recommend Captain Manuel Gallegos for my second

lieutenant. He is a New Mexican by birth, and until after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,

so that he is a citizen of the United States. He is familiar with all the eastern and southern

portion of this territory and has large and successful experience against the Apaches;

speaks their language tolerably well, and has the complete confidence of my company -

two of them being his sons. Indeed, I am guided by him very much in the selection of my

men when I do not know them..." (Reprinted in "The Arizona Graphic," March 24, 1900.)

[14] Letter from Ysabel Rennie to the author, Nov. 23, 1993.

[15] From the WPA "1930s Guide To New Mexico," reprinted by the University of Arizona

Press, 1989. Page 318.

[16] "Mormon Settlement In Arizona," by James McClintock, University of Arizona Press,

1985 (1921), page 178f, states "With (Barth) originated the name St. Johns, at first San

Juan, given in compliment to the first female resident, Senora Maria San Juan Baca de

Padilla. With this conspicuous exception, all saintly names in Arizona were bestowed by

either Catholic missionaries or by Mormons."

[17] Letter to Arizona Republic columnist James E. Cook, June 17, 1989, found in files of

the Fort Verde Museum.

[18] The Stonewall Jackson Mine was located in March of 1876 by Charles McMillen, and

by the next year 300 people had come to seek their fortune in the town named after him.

The year 1880, the same year of the census showing that the Moreno family had moved

to McMillenville (as it was called at first), was the peak year of mining operations there. By

1882 the silver production was in decline, the post office and last businesses closed. BY

then the Moreno family had moved to Globe, where they are recorded in the Gila County

Census of 1882.

[19] Kid Reynolds, the teamster who testified at the Coroner's Inquest, had known

Moreno "about seven years" in 1887. That means their relationship went back to 1880,

the year the Morenos are recorded in McMillenville. (From trial records in Office of the

County Clerk, Yavapai County Courthouse, Prescott, Arizona.)

Furthermore, Alonzo Bailey, in his August 1888 letter to the governor, says

Moreno was known by "many of our citizens for some ten or twelve years." (Letter dated

August 2, 1888 to Governor Zulick, found in Records of the Secretary of the Treasury,

Arizona Territory, Box 27, Division of Library, Archives and Public Records, Phoenix,

Arizona.) That takes it back to 1878, soon after or just as the Morenos moved south from

Round Valley. If Moreno was a miner he would not as likely be known in GLobe as he

would if he were serving the area as a freighter.

[20] Ibid, Bailey to Zulick, August 2, 1888

[21] Information from his enlistment and muster out papers for the Arizona Volunteers,

and correspondence from grandson Frank W. Moreno to the Arizona Historical Society,

dated 8/13/63.

[22] Farish, "History of Arizona," Volume IV, page 192f.

[23] Correspondence from Knox Lee to Governor Zulick, February 19, 1888. Division of

Library, Archives and Public Records, Secretary of the Treasury, Box 27. This box

contains Lee's Yuma Territorial Prison records.

[24] Ibid, Bailey to Zulick, August 2, 1888

[25] Correspondence from J. W. Bush, attorney, Birmingham, Alabama, to Knox Lee,

October 27, 1887. Found in the records of the trial of Knox Lee at Office of Yavapai

County CLerk, Courthouse, Prescott, Arizona.

[26] The account of the murder and the testimonies that follow are gleaned from the 120

pages of testimony and trial records in the microfilm archives of the Yavapai County

Courthouse, Office of the County CLerk, Prescott, Arizona.

[27] Lafayette Philander Nash had been part of a Mormon community that originally

settled near the confluence of Pine Creek and the East Verde River. He had held mining

claims, including the Golden Wonder Mine, just outside the present town of Payson,

before trading it in 1880 and moving to Strawberry in 1992.

[28] Wyllys "Wid" Darwin Fuller was fifty two years old at this time. He had come with his

brother Revilo (Oliver spelled backwards) and five fellow Mormons from St. George, Utah,

to settle in the TOnto Basin. He was of the group of pioneers for whom Moreno had

helped clear the way with the Arizona Volunteers. In 1880 the Fullers and four other

families began developing the town of Pine. (Rim Country History, Northern Gila County

Historical Society, 1984, page 109.)

[29] Division of Library, Archives and Public Records, Arizona State Capital Building,

Phoenix. Record Group: Secretary of the Treasury, Box 27.

[30] This was the summer of violence that began the "Pleasant Valley War," pitting sheep

and cattlemen against each other, their families accusing one another of cattle rustling

and horse-thievery.

-fin-