PETE GABRIEL: Gunfighting Lawman of the Southwestern Frontier

PETE GABRIEL: Gunfighting Lawman of the Southwestern Frontier

Author(s): John Boessenecker

Source: The Journal of Arizona History , spring 2012, Vol. 53, No. 1 (spring 2012), pp. 1-34

Published by: Arizona Historical Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41697403

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms

Arizona Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Arizona History

This content downloaded from ��129.59.122.99 on Wed, 21 Apr 2021 05:18:17 UTC��

All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41697403

PETE GABRIEL

Gunfighting Lawman of the Southwestern Frontier

by

John Boessenecker

It Gabriel was eight rested o'clock his lean, in muscular the evening frame of against May 31, the 1888, mahogany when Pete bar Gabriel rested his lean, muscular frame against the mahogany bar of John Keating's Tunnel Saloon in Florence, Arizona Territory. He nervously fingered the .45 Colt's revolver tucked into his waistband, his wary eyes glancing repeatedly toward the saloon door. Gabriel, once the county's sheriff, knew that Joe Phy, his former deputy and bitter enemy, was looking to kill him. Long years of a rough-and- tumble existence on the frontier, tinged with many close brushes with death, had brought the veteran lawman to the brink of the most dangerous encounter of his adventurous career. What was about to happen would not have surprised anyone who knew his life story. It would also overpower and obscure almost everything else he did in a long, eventful career as a miner, muleskinner, hunter, trailblazer, and remarkable lawman of the southwestern frontier.

John Peter Gabriel was born on November 17, 1838, in Kruft, Germany, the fourth of six children of John and Anna Schlauss Gabriel. In 1848, when the boy was nine, his parents emigrated to the United States, settling with their brood in Grant County, Wisconsin. Two years later, in July 1850, Pete's father died at the age of sixty-two. Anna Gabriel could not support her family. Twelve- year-old Pete was taken in by a kindly and prominent lawyer, Ninian E. Whiteside, who soon joined the gold rush for California. Pete

John Boessenecker is the author of the award-winning Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez and other books on frontier justice. His latest book, When Law Was in the Holster: The Frontier Life of Bob Paul , will be published in 2012 by the Uni- versity of Oklahoma Press. He thanks Judy Pintar, the great-granddaughter of Pete Gabriel, for research assistance in the preparation of this article.

[i]



THE JOURNAL OF ARIZONA HISTORY

and his twenty-one-year-old brother William crossed the plains by covered wagon with Whiteside; Whiteside's wife, Caroline; and their children. It was on this dangerous overland trip that young Pete Gabriel began to acquire the skills in horsemanship, trailbreaking, muleskinning, scouting, hunting, and marksmanship that would serve him well in adult life.1

Once in California, the Whitesides settled at Park's Bar, about sixteen miles above Marysville on the Yuba River. Marysville, then the gateway to the northern mines, was a rowdy, violent new city. Pete Gabriel reached adulthood there and in the rugged mining camps of Yuba County, where he was exposed to the rough-and- tumble life of a gold miner. In those days of wild, masculine society, rudimentary government, and sparse law enforcement, men were expected to "kill their own snakes" - to solve their own problems. Miners carried firearms and were expected to use them, whether confronted by violent attack or even by verbal threats. Pete Gabriel thoroughly absorbed the rough frontier ethic of hard drinking, hard work, and self-redress with a Colt's revolver.

Ninian Whiteside became a judge and well-known politician in Marysville and a state legislator in Sacramento, where he served briefly as speaker of the assembly. On February 6, 1855, sixteen-year- old Pete demonstrated the steely nerve that would be the hallmark of his adult life. That night, Caroline Whiteside went into labor with her fifth child. The Yuba River was raging with winter runoff and there was no way to cross. Pete volunteered to fetch a doctor. He mounted his horse and managed to ford the swirling current. Racing to the doctor's home, Pete brought him to the river bank across from the Whiteside place. Dismounting, he had the doctor climb into the saddle, then plunged into the freezing torrent, lead- ing physician and horse across the surging Yuba. The Whitesides were forever grateful. Their healthy newborn, christened Bolin J. Whiteside, would grow up idolizing Pete Gabriel.2

By 1858, nineteen-year-old Pete struck off on his own. That spring, he was at Fort Bridger on the Oregon Trail. The Utah War, which pitted Mormons against the U.S. Army, was in full swing. The previous October, Mormons had torched the fort in an unsuccessful effort to keep it from falling into the hands of the army. The soldiers wintered near Fort Bridger, and by early spring they and local settlers were almost out of meat. U.S. Marshal Peter K.

[2]



Pete Gabriel: Gunfighting Lawman of the Southwestern Frontier

Dotson was ordered to lead a supply expedition to a Shoshone Indian encampment on Bear River, thirty miles east. Dotson picked thirteen civilian volunteers, including Pete Gabriel, and started out on April 24. They were soon spotted by Mormon scouts. More troubling, Dotson and his men were able to buy only four head of cattle at the Shoshone camp. Late on the night of April 26, Dotson, Gabriel, and the rest were wakened by Indians who warned them that a company of ninety-one Mormons had entered Bear River canyon. Dotson later reported that the Mormons had told the Indians that "they intended to wipe out this party of Americans who were on Bear River." Dotson and his men quietly slipped out of camp at midnight and made their way back to Fort Bridger.3

The Utah War was soon resolved by a political settlement, and that summer young Pete Gabriel went to work for the famed Colonel Frederick W. Lander, superintendent of the main overland wagon route. Pete's job was to act as a guide for Lander on the central division of the Fort Kearny, South Pass, and Honey Lake Wagon Road, which crossed the Rocky Mountains to California. This section of the road became known as the Lander Cut-Off.

Colonel Lander was impressed with young Gabriel, singling him out for praise in his official report: "I was compelled to make a reconnaissance for the location of the road with one companion, a mountaineer named Peter Gabriel to whom I am much indebted

for his self reliance, determined energy, and courage." One day, in the fall of 1858, Pete was in the Wasatch Mountains with another of Lander's assistants, the frontiersman Charles H. Miller. The pair was three days in advance of the main work crew, marking and lay- ing out the wagon road, when they were captured by a Bannock war party. Gabriel and Miller were both adept at sign language and understood a little of the Shoshone and Bannock dialects. As Miller

later reported, "The Bannacks had recently killed many Mormons and stolen their stock. . . . The medicine pipe was smoked, and a discussion took place as to whether we should be killed or not, the Indians believing us to be Mormons." Miller and Gabriel managed, through sign language, to convince the Bannock chief to accompany them back to the main body of the expedition, where they proved that they were not Mormons.4

Gabriel gained valuable experience on the Lander expedition. For one thing, Pete became an excellent cook. As a friend

[3]




once explained: "He is as neat and skillful as if he had served an apprenticeship in a French restaurant."5

The Lander road to Honey Lake, in eastern California, was completed in September 1859, when Pete undoubtedly crossed the Sierra Nevada to the Whiteside home for a reunion with his adopted family. Ninian Whiteside's father-in-law, James R. Vineyard, was a prominent politician and acted as Indian agent of the Sebastian reservation in Tejon Pass in Southern California. Whiteside recom- mended young Gabriel to Vineyard, and soon Pete was working on the reservation.6

On May 30, 1860, Gabriel started out on horseback from Tejon to Los Angeles. While passing through Rancho Cahuenga, four miles outside San Fernando, he was accosted by two horsemen, one Anglo and the other Mexican, who rode up on either side of him and demanded his money. When Pete answered that he had none, the Mexican drew a knife from underneath his serape and slashed at Gabriel, who pulled his horse away from the flashing blade and toward his Anglo assailant. The second bandit opened fire at Pete's head with a pistol at close range. Although powder-burned, Gabriel yanked his own six-shooter and fired, putting a ball in his Mexican assailant's leg. This was more than the robbers had bargained for, and they spurred their horses and fled. Gabriel raced into Los Ange- les, where he was seen and described by a reporter for the Star. "Mr. Gabriel, on his arrival in town, exhibited marks of a severe contest.

His cheek and neck were scarred by balls, the powder lodged in his face, and his clothes were cut and torn during the fray. One ball penetrated the edge of the mochillos [sic], and lodged in his mule, which will likely die from the wound." This was but one of many close brushes with death during Pete's life on the frontier.^

In December of 1860, Pete was hired as a muleskinner and hunter by Josiah D. Whitney, leader of the first geologic survey of California. He probably got this government job as a result of the political influence of Whiteside and Vineyard. One of the surveyors, William H. Brewer, was impressed with Gabriel, describing him as "a capitol fellow in his line - young, game, posted as to mules, can tell a story, sing a song, shoot rabbits (and dress, cook, and eat them) - a most valuable man. Has been over the plains, was with Colonel Lander on his wagon-road expedition, etc. I pride myself on choosing him out of a host of applicants."8

[4]




Brewer mentioned Pete frequently in his diary, particularly an incident that took place on September 27, 1861, which illustrated Gabriel's hunting skills and fearless character. The surveyors were camped in what is now Clayton, at the foot of Mount Diablo, in Northern California, when a rancher's dog treed a large raccoon. It was dark, so Pete built a large fire at the base of the huge oak tree. Brewer described how "Pete climbed the tree, no easy feat as the trunk was four or five feet in diameter. Up in the branches - still no coon - built another fire - it lit up the foliage, and the scenery around - caught a glimpse of him - Pete followed him out to the end of a lofty limb sixty or eight feet from the ground and shot him with his revolver. It was exciting, as he got higher and higher, shooting and missing, in the dark, until he had but one load left, then following him out to near the end, and that ball brought him."9

A few weeks later, on October 23, 1861, the party was camped near Benicia, across the Bay from San Francisco, when Whitney came in with a large packet of letters. According to Brewer, "Peter got the sad news of the death of his mother, who lived in Illinois (or Iowa) . He had not seen her for two or three years, but often spoke of her in terms of tenderest affection. He is much depressed by it." Pete's sadness became symptomatic of strong mood swings, which later were intensified by heavy drinking. Most men on the frontier drank, often heavily, and Pete was no exception. In addition to strong liquor, he developed a taste for card playing and gambling.10

Within a few weeks, Pete left the survey party and eventually headed north to join the Idaho gold rush. His older brother Wil- liam, who spent several years mining at Parks Bar, had settled in Idaho before 1858. Pete prospected in Idaho and reportedly served for a time as a deputy sheriff. Gabriel cut a dashing figure in the Owyhee country. He was strikingly handsome, with thick brown hair and a drooping mustache and imperial, rough clothing, and heavy boots. He wore his large percussion revolver and Bowie knife in a fancy, silver-mounted pistol belt. Pete caught the eye of a pretty, slightly buck-toothed, young brunette, Maria Rinehart, and they were married in Ruby City, Idaho, on May 18, 1864. A year later, in August 1865, they welcomed their first child, a baby girl appropri- ately christened Ida.11

By September 1864, Pete was a director and part owner of the Allison Company, which owned a gold mine near Ruby City.

[5]



Carte de visite images of Pete Gabriel and his first wife, Maria Rinehart Gabriel, taken in Los Angeles on August 24, 1869. Bancroft Library.

The mine proved a failure, and in 1865 the owners' shares, including Gabriel's, were advertised for sale at a public tax auction. As a result, Pete Gabriel moved his bride and daughter 180 miles west to Silver City, Idaho. His brother William had already settled in Silver City, where he ran a saloon and later worked as a teamster. William married, raised a family, and was a well-known local pioneer until his death in 1918.12

Pete Gabriel was a popular figure in Silver City, respected for his fairness and judgment. This was demonstrated on September 30, 1866, when he was chosen to referee a prize fight between well- known western pugilist Patsy Foy and local boxer Jimmy Dwyer. The purse for the first prize fight in the Owyhee country was $2,100. A large crowd watched the battle in an outdoor ring set up near a saw- mill two miles north of town. It was a bruising, bare-knuckle affair, fought under the rules of the London Prize Ring, which provided that a round ended when a man went down by a punch or a throw. The downed fighter then had thirty-eight seconds to come to the "scratch line" at center ring and resume the fight. The Foy-Dwyer battle lasted an incredible eighty-four rounds, over two full hours,

[6]




until the badly battered Foy finally "threw up the sponge." Pete Gabriel proved a fair and even-handed referee, with the editor of the Owyhee Avalanche reporting that he had acted "in such a manner as to give general satisfaction to all parties." One boxing expert of the time remarked, "The battle, from a slugging viewpoint, was the best ever pulled off in Idaho." Not everyone agreed. The editor of the Portland Oregonian called it a "disgraceful scene."13

A few weeks later, Pete and several companions were on a prospecting trip to the headwaters of Reynolds Creek when they encountered a band of hostile Indians. The Indians fired a single shot, and Gabriel's party wisely retreated to safety. By this time Pete had begun to exhibit a dual personality. When sober, he was generous, funny, kind, and a boon companion. But when intoxicated he became a terror. On Christmas night 1866, he got roaring drunk in the Silver City Bakery. According to the Owyhee Avalanche , "he announced himself chief, took complete possession, and with the aid of several stools and a bowie knife made the rightful proprietors and by-standers scatter, and for about fifteen minutes he vigorously carried on a wholesale work of destruction. Tables, stools, gold scales, glassware in the bar and glass in the doors were soon shattered into worthless fragments." Swinging his bowie knife, Gabriel slashed the vest front of one of the owners. "The raving man had everything his own way," reported the Avalanche , until the sheriff arrived and Pete submitted to arrest. When a chagrined Gabriel sobered up, he reached an agreement with the owners to pay $500 in damages, and they dropped all charges against him.14

In the spring of 1867, Pete took Maria and their baby to the Lemhi Mines, some 350 miles northeast, where he operated a mining claim near Salmon City, Idaho. Apparently, the claim did not pan out, and in March 1868 he was hired as a gunman in a dispute between the owners of the adjacent Golden Chariot and Ida Elmore mines near Silver City. The trouble began when miners inside the Golden Chariot tunneled through the rock wall separating the two claims. Each side hired fifty armed men, and on March 25 a bloody, two-day underground shootout claimed two lives and left several wounded. Gabriel was unscathed.15

By the next year, Pete had returned to California, settling with his young wife and child in Los Angeles. But all was not happy in

[7]




the Gabriels' marriage. Pete's penchant for gambling and his erratic behavior while drinking did not sit well with Maria. According to an all-too-brief contemporary newspaper report, on December 17, 1869, Pete "became insane and was taken into custody" as a result of "family afflictions." He plainly was not insane, but probably had embarked on another violent drinking spree, undoubtedly prompted by his marital troubles. Pete soon recovered and was released. However, he never recovered from gold fever. A few months later, in February 1870, news arrived in Los Angeles of a gold discovery in Julian, in San Diego County. According to a friend, "Pete Gabriel nearly killed two horses in stampeding from Los Angeles to the scene of excitement, and then didn't make his eternal fortune after all."16

During 1870, Pete traveled back and forth between Los Angeles and the mining region near Prescott, Arizona. On July 8, the census enumerator found him alone in Prescott, working as a prospector. Less than six weeks later, he was back at his home in Los Angeles, where the census-taker reported him living with Maria and little Ida. A few months after that, he was back in Arizona, mining in Kirkland Valley, twenty-six miles southwest of Prescott. Ever popular, he also served as justice of the peace for the Kirkland Creek Precinct. Christmas night of 1870 found Pete in a Kirkland Valley saloon. Gabriel and a gambler named Boyce were drinking and playing poker. Pete spotted Boyce dealing from the bottom of the deck and ordered him to "desist and play fairly." When Gabriel drew four jacks, Boyce accused him of cheating. According to one account, Boyce tried to grab the pot; in another, he pulled a knife on Pete. In either event, Gabriel jerked his six-gun and fired three times. One round tore through Boyce's head, killing him instantly; another hit the thigh of a patron who was sleeping in a corner of the saloon. Pete was charged with murder, but the case would drag on for five years. ^

The fact that Gabriel had spent Christmas far from his family, drinking, gambling, and shooting two men, was hardly an indicator of a successful marriage. At some point during the 1870s, Pete and Maria divorced. By 1880, Maria and their fifteen-year-old daughter Ida were living in Tombstone. Meanwhile, Pete returned to Califor- nia, serving during the early 1870s as a deputy under Los Angeles County's half-Hispanic sheriff, William R. "Billy" Rowland. The fact

[8]




that Pete had a murder charge pending in Arizona did not deter Rowland from employing the seasoned frontiersman.18

At about this time, Gabriel was involved in an incident that showed his too-ready willingness to resort to firearms, moderated, however, by his fundamental sense of fairness. Maria Plummer owned three-quarters of a section of land located near the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles. When the balance of the section, 160 acres, came up for auction at a foreclosure sale, Maria bought it and moved her eighteen-year-old son, Eugenio, into a small shack on the land. Soon, the former owner's wife, Mrs.

Brown, decided to regain possession, and hired Pete Gabriel to assist her. Eugenio Plummer returned to the shack one day to find that it had been taken over by Gabriel and Mrs. Brown.

Plummer recalled: "I came home and found them there and

asked them what they were doing in my house. I was standing out on the porch with this Gabriel, as we talked, and he got very abusive, accusing mother and me of stealing the land away from the Browns. When I ordered him off the place he drew a gun and shot at me, but missed, the bullet passing through the tail of my coat. I jumped on my horse and went up to mother's house, a quarter of a mile away . . . and as I dismounted she met me at the door and asked, 'What's the matter, Genie?' I didn't answer, but got my shotgun from the granary and was on my horse again when she grabbed the bridle. I told her then about Gabriel and how he'd tried to kill me, and I said I was going to shoot him."19

Maria Plummer, with Eugenio and another son, John, walked to the shack to confront Pete Gabriel, who was standing on the front porch.

"What are you doing on this place?" Maria demanded. "Don't let that boy come in here," Gabriel warned, pointing

at Eugenio. "Mrs. Brown told me to bring her out here, that you people had driven her off this land and had no right to it."

Maria then calmly explained how she had bought the land at a foreclosure auction and had legal title to it. Gabriel was taken aback, and replied, "In that case Mrs. Brown has deceived me." Turning to her, Pete announced, "Mrs. Brown, I'll have to leave you. You've tried to fool me. I can't take any more part in this." He then climbed into his buggy and drove off, leaving the Plummers to eject Mrs. Brown from the property.^0

[9]




Early in 1873, Pete Gabriel was back prospecting in Julian with his twenty-year-old friend Mike Rice, who later became an Arizona journalist, lawman, and politician. There they joined a mining expedition to Bega California. When his long-awaited trial for killing Boyce finally came up in June 1873, Gabriel returned to Prescott where he surrendered and was promptly released on $5,000 bond. The week-long trial resulted in a hungjury, which meant that Pete would have to await a retrial. In the meantime, he returned to Los Angeles and resumed work as a deputy sheriff. In September 1873, the notorious bandido chieftain Tiburcio Vasquez fled into eastern Los Angeles County following the Tres Pinos Tragedy, in which his gang had murdered three people in a bandit raid in Northern California. Gabriel took part in the exhaustive manhunt for Vasquez in the San Gabriel Mountains. Sheriff Rowland's men arrested one

of the bandidos, but Vasquez managed to escape.21 On January 13, 1874, Gabriel accompanied Sheriff Rowland

and a small posse to the Rancho Potrero Grande, near El Monte, to evict a squatter named Bernard Newman. For safety, the posse arrived before daybreak, as Newman had threatened to kill anyone who tried to eject him. For two hours they warily watched the barricaded house. When Newman failed to show himself, Gabriel

volunteered to search several outbuildings in order to confirm the posse's suspicion that Newman was still holed up inside. As Pete stepped inside one of the shacks, Newman leaped forward with a double-barrel shotgun and fired a blast into Gabriel's right breast. Desperately wounded, Pete dropped his gun and staggered for cover behind one corner of the house, where he collapsed. Sheriff Rowland and his men rushed him to a doctor in El Monte.

Rowland then returned with a large force and arrested Newman. Doctors expected Pete to die from the wound, which damaged his right lung. But the tough frontiersman was not ready to cash in his chips. Nonetheless, he was laid up for months, which kept him from taking part in the continuing manhunt for Tiburcio Vasquez. A posse organized by Sheriff Rowland finally captured the bandit chieftain in May 1874. A month later, Pete Gabriel was able to leave his bed and walk about. 22

Meanwhile, in late May, Bernard Newman was tried for assault with intent to murder Gabriel. Pete's friend Mike Rice recalled that

"This was one of the most famous trials of the early days of Los

[10]




Angeles County. . . . Gabriel was brought into court to testify on a stretcher, and the scene was very dramatic. I attended Gabriel on this occasion and witnessed the complete proceedings." Newman was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Newman's law- yers filed an appeal and he was released on bond. Pete recovered from his wounds, only to be shot again, a year later, on July 8, 1875. This time he did it himself, by accidentally discharging his revolver and putting a ball into his right leg. His hardiness seemed to know no bounds. Three months later, he was well enough to return to Arizona and face the murder charges still pending against him in Prescott. In October 1875, a jury acquitted him by reason of self- defense. By then, Bernard Newman had obtained a new trial in Los Angeles. According to Mike Rice, "Gabriel refused to return to Los Angeles to prosecute or testify in the case. This generous act on the part of Gabriel resulted in the acquittal and release of Newman.""

Gabriel returned to mining near Prescott until 1877, when he ran a hotel at Silver King in Pinal County. Sheriff Peter R. Brady also appointed him a resident deputy. Pete's reputation had preceded him, even though, as Mike Rice pointed out, "he was a modest man and not prone to boast of his acts, officially or otherwise." Gabriel's popularity with local Democrats prompted him to run for sheriff against his boss. He defeated Peter Brady in the November 1878 election and took office in Florence, the county seat, on January 1, 1879. As Pinal County sheriff, Pete hit the ground running. His limitless skills as a frontiersman, coupled with his prior law-enforcement experience, made him a peace officer to be reckoned with. He quickly established himself as one of Arizona's finest and most-dedicated sheriffs, fighting lynch mobs and tracking down stage robbers, murderers, horse thieves, and cattle rustlers. Gabriel soon became one of the best-known lawmen

in the Southwest.24

Many Florence residents were impressed with their new sheriff s skill with firearms. According to one observer, "Gabriel was the finest pistol shot I have ever known, equaling, I am sure, the best the West ever produced. It was no trick at all for him to knock over a jackrabbit some fifty yards distant while he sat in a buggy driven at a rapid rate." Such skill was necessary on a frontier where most suspects were armed and often resisted arrest.25

[11]



Pete Gabriel as he

looked while serving as

sheriff of Pinal County .

Courtesy Judy Pintar.

Gabriel's rough life made him sympathetic toward other tough men - miners, gamblers, and even some hardcases. Tom Kerr, a Californian, was one of the most dangerous gunmen in Pinal County, having killed several men, including the notorious Madison "Mat" Bledsoe in Tucson in 1877. Two years later, Gabriel arrested Kerr for killing his mining partner. Pete, who liked Kerr, raised an uproar among local residents when he released his prisoner from jail, without a bail bond, in January 1880. When the county board of supervisors publicly censured the sheriff, Gabriel responded, "I am responsible for Mr. Kerr, and his appearance at the April term of the District Court of this county; and I inform the public he will be there to satisfy the ends of justice." Pete was true to his word. Kerr appeared in court, ironically enough, while he was serving as a constable.26

Pete Gabriel also became a close friend of Wells Fargo detec- tive Bob Paul. Like Gabriel, Paul was an unrepentant gold miner. He had come to California in the Gold Rush, serving as a lawman

[12]




in Calaveras County and then as a shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo. The express company sent Paul to Arizona Territory in 1878. In January 1880, Pete Gabriel captured a New Mexico horse thief named Hall, who promptly tunneled out of the county jail in Florence. Pete trailed him south and concluded that the fugitive was headed for Altar, Sonora. Stopping in Tucson, Gabriel enlisted Bob Paul's help, and the two started for the border in a buckboard. Not far from the Mexico line, they spotted a man on foot in the distance. Gabriel recognized the fugitive. With Bob Paul at the reins, they drove close. Gabriel, Winchester in hand, leaped out of the buckboard and ordered Hall to surrender. At the same time,

Paul swung up his sawed-off shotgun. Hall wisely raised his hands, and Pete brought his prisoner back to Florence.27

On the night of July 11, 1880, three bandits held up the Flor- ence-to-Globe stagecoach at Cane Springs Summit, near Riverside station (present-day Kelvin) , twenty-five miles east of Florence. The robbers fled with a measly ninety dollars from the Wells Fargo box. Once again, Bob Paul joined Pete Gabriel in a manhunt for the road agents. The lawmen made a hard ride into the mountainous

98

country south of Globe but returned to Florence empty-handed/0 98 Seventeen-year-old Carrie Wratten was particularly taken with

the handsome, dashing Pinal County sheriff. Her father, George L. Wratten, was a lawyer from Sonoma, California, who had brought his family to Florence in 1879. Carrie's younger brother, George M. Wratten, would become a well-known Indian scout, interpreter, and friend of the Apaches. Despite their age difference - Pete was forty-one - the couple was married on August 15, 1880. For several years, the newlyweds were blissful. A newspaperman reported in 1881 that, as a result of his marriage, "Mr. P. Gabriel, Sheriff of Pinal County, is not only one of the most popular, but one of the happiest men in the Territory of Arizona." This newlywed joy was not to last.29

On May 15, 1881, a desperado named J. H. Floyd shot and killed a well-known Florence character, American Charley. Pete Gabriel immediately arrested the killer and lodged him in jail. It was a cold-blooded murder, and angry citizens threatened to lynch Floyd. The next morning, Pete decided to take his prisoner to Tucson for safekeeping. He started in a buckboard for the rail- road at Casa Grande with a band of armed vigilantes, led by Jim

[13]



Carrie Wratten Gabriel in her wedding dress. Under the photograph she wrote, "Friendless Creature." Carrie and Pete Gabriel were married in Florence on

August 15, 1880, and divorced in 1887. AHS/SAD #15009.



Pete Gabriel : Gunfighting Lawman of the Southwestern Frontier

Brash, in pursuit. In Casa Grande, the mob surrounded Gabriel with leveled Winchesters and demanded his prisoner. The Tucson Arizona Star commented: "But anyone who knows Pete Gabriel can readily surmise what he would do under such circumstances." As the Tucson Citizen reported, "Without flinching or exhibiting any fear whatever, the brave officer defied the crowd and refused to

comply with their demands, and with sheer superiority of courage kept eight or ten men from accomplishing their purpose." Gabriel managed to get help guarding Floyd. Even so, he stayed awake all night, finally convincing the vigilantes to relent just as the Tucson- bound train arrived. Pete bundled Floyd on board and soon had him safely locked up in the Pima County jail.30

On his return to Florence, Pete immediately began prepara- tions for a hanging. It was his second experience with the gallows. On January 14, 1881, he had executed a Pima Indian named Voolo for killing Arthur Muncy. He had erected a scaffold for the occasion on a spot just south of Florence. After the hanging, Gabriel had the gibbet dismantled and stored for future use. That time arrived four months later. On August 29, 1880, Miguel Esicio, a powerful man, standing six feet tall and weighing more than two hundred pounds, took part in a drunken quarrel in Florence, shooting to death Nevis Montano and wounding a woman bystander. A desperado, Esicio was liked by many Anglos but feared and despised by Hispanics who had felt the brunt of his bullying. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and sentenced him to hang on May 20, 1881.

Pete Gabriel marched Esicio up the gallows steps on the fatal day. The condemned man had publicly declared that he wanted everyone to see him "die game," and a crowd of five hundred, many of them Hispanic and Indian, turned out to see if he would keep his word. Sheriff Gabriel, who did not relish hanging men, appointed his gunfighting friend Tom Kerr as a special deputy to do the deed. Kerr placed Esicio on the trap and bound his arms with straps. At that moment, Esicio shouldered the deputy aside aside and exclaimed, "I don't want you to touch me. I want my friend Don Pedro to do the job."

Sheriff Gabriel looked closely into the doomed man's eyes, then stepped forward and placed the black cap over Esicio's head. Without a word, Pete sprung the trap and Miguel Esicio plunged downward, his neck broken by the fall. By an extraordinary irony,

[15]




Gabriel's special deputy met an identical fate. On December 26, 1882, Kerr shot a man to death in a saloon in Pioneer, south of

Globe. An impromptu lynch court quickly found him guilty and strung him up to a sycamore tree. Before he died, Kerr confessed to several killings. He then convinced the mob to remove his foot- wear, so that he would not die with his boots on.31

Deputy Andy Hall, a noted frontiersman who had accompa- niedjohn Wesley Powell on his thrilling 1869 expedition down the whitewater of the Colorado River, was one of Pete's closest friends.

In September of 1881 , Gabriel and Hall, along with several Florence citizens and fifteen Pima Indian policemen, scouted on horseback after hostile Apaches on the Gila River. Although they came up empty handed, on their return to Florence, Pete and his possemen "compliment[ed] the Pima police upon their good conduct" and proclaimed that they "consider [ed] them trustworthy."32

Andy Hall also served as a Wells Fargo shotgun messenger on stagecoaches operating out of Globe and Florence. On August 20, 1882, two brothers from Globe, Lafayette and Cicero Grimes, with a friend, Curtis B. Hawley, pulled off one of Arizona's most infamous robberies and murdered Hall in the process. The Wells Fargo man was guarding a mule train carrying $5,000 in gold treasure when he and an unarmed U.S. mail carrier were ambushed by Lafayette Grimes and Hawley four miles south of Globe. Hall was shot in the leg, after which the brigands escaped with the booty. During their flight, Grimes and Hawley stumbled upon and mortally wounded Dr. W. F. Vail, a Globe pharmacist. Meanwhile, the wounded Andy Hall set off after his attackers, whom he thought were Indians. He eventually caught up with Grimes and Hawley and innocently asked their help in trailing his presumed assailants. They agreed. Then, at the first opportunity, they shot and killed the unsuspecting Wells Fargo guard, riddling his body with bullets.

The popular Hall's corpse was soon discovered on the trial, and news of the murder and robbery spread like wildfire. When Pete Gabriel innocendy visited Silver King the next day, he discovered a crowd gaping at Hall's bullet-riddled shirts. He later recalled, "I saw the crowd and went up to them to see what was the matter. When told of the murder and shown the shirts clotted with the life

blood of my best friend, I determined to assist in hunting down the assassins." Pete immediately rode into Globe. Arriving at two

[16]




in the morning, he found "that the town was all excitement." Gila County's new sheriff, W. W. "Tip" Lowther, passed Gabriel half a dozen times on the street, but either out of inexperience or jealousy, never sought his help. Gabriel was miffed at the slight. "But as he remained as reticent as a wax Indian," Pete later explained, "I did not deem it my duty to beg for his cooperation."33

Pete Gabriel, who carried a deputy U.S. marshal's commission, did not need Sheriff Lowther 's help. Empowered to arrest robbers of the U.S. mail, he immediately began a quiet investigation. From Dan Lacey, captain of the Globe militia, Gabriel learned that on the day before the murder Lacey had loaned a new rifle to one of his volunteers, Lafayette Grimes. Lacey noticed that when Grimes returned the weapon it had been fired and that it exhibited dents in the stock from colliding with rocks. Also, Grimes, who gener- ally was the first to report for duty, had failed to appear when the militia was called out to search for the killers. "I said this was good evidence and we went to work," recalled Gabriel. He and Lacey visited Globe's gunsmith shop to compare cartridges found at the scene with those used in the borrowed rifle. Pete noticed that Cicero

Grimes, who was in the shop during his visit, "seemed uneasy and looked guilty."

As they left the gunsmith's, Gabriel said to Lacey, "That man is guilty. Who is he?" Told that it was Lafayette Grimes's brother, Pete set out with Dan Lacey and Lindsey Lewis to pick up Lafayette. They found him working at the Morris mill in the Wheatfields, twelve miles north of Globe. In questioning the suspect, the astute Gabriel informed Grimes that he had witnessed the murder and

recognized him as one of the killers. Lafayette took the bait and quickly confessed, implicating his brother and Curtis Hawley. He claimed that Cicero had helped plan the robbery. Leaving Lewis to guard Grimes, Pete and Lacey went into Globe where they surrounded Hawley's house and arrested him at gunpoint. Gabriel and Lacey, worried that the suspects would be lynched in Globe, took Hawley out of town, where they met up with Lindsey Lewis and Lafayette Grimes.

By this time Sheriff Lowther had learned of the arrests and rode out after Gabriel's posse, already en route to Florence. Lowther demanded that Gabriel turn over the prisoners, but Pete refused, saying that they would be lynched if taken back to Globe. After an

[17]



The Hanging Tree in Globe where Cicero Grimes and Curtis Hawley were lynched

on August 24, 1882, for robbery and the murder of Wells Fargo guard Andy Hall. AHS/SAD *6061 7.

extensive and heated argument over who had jurisdiction, Gabriel finally relented. Lowther lodged Lafayette Grimes and Curtis Hawley in the Globe jail, where they were soon joined by Cicero Grimes. Lowther's decision was fatal. On August 24, 1882, an enraged mob took the prisoners from the jail, forced them to reveal where the stolen loot was hidden, and then hanged Lafayette Grimes and Curtis Hawley from a sycamore tree on Broad Street. Because he was only an accessory, the mob spared Cicero Grimes, who was eventually sentenced to prison. Sheriff Lowther, who seems to have been motivated largely by his desire for the rewards, was thwarted even in that endeavor. Pete Gabriel and his posse received the funds, with Pete using one-third of his share to pay for Andy Hall's tombstone and a fence to surround the grave.34

A. J. "Jim" Doran opposed Sheriff Gabriel in the November 1882 election. The result was a tie. The two men were on friendly terms and agreed to settle the election by a roll of the dice, a method that appealed to Pete's gambling instincts. Gabriel lost and graciously turned over the badge to Doran.35

[18]




After leaving the sheriff s office, Pete busied himself with mining and ranching enterprises. In April 1883, he started a ranch near Dripping Springs. He also held mining claims in the mountains near Florence and in Tombstone. In August of 1883, he reportedly sold one of his mines for the then-munificent sum of $30,000. A month later, the Florence Enterprise reported that "J. P. Gabriel is building a very neat adobe dwelling and also a commodious store building in Picacho. Both buildings have been provided with shingle roofs." For several years, Gabriel and his family lived in Picacho, south of Casa Grande. In 1885, he was appointed postmaster of the little community. But manhunting - not managing mail - was in his blood.36

On August 10, 1883, bandits held up the Florence-to-Globe stagecoach near Riverside station. The desperados murdered Wells Fargo messenger John H. Collins, took $2,600 from the express box, and vanished. Pete Gabriel, who happened to be in Riverside on mining business at the time of the heist, quickly learned that a hardcase named Red Jack Aimer had been hanging around the Florence depot and had left town aboard the fatal stage. Aimer got off the coach at Riverside station, angry that friends had not left a horse there for him. Gabriel astutely concluded that Red Jack was one of the gang. Sheriff Doran soon arrived in Riverside with a small posse, and with Gabriel in the lead, started after the fleeing outlaws. The trail led sixty-five miles south along the Gila River to the ranch of Len Redfield, near what is now Redington. Gabriel knew that ranches owned by Len and his brother Hank were rumored to have once been hideouts for the notorious Cowboys of Cochise County.

At daybreak on August 13, Pete Gabriel and his fellow possemen raided Len Redfield's ranch house, capturing the rancher and a man named Joe Tuttle. In the barn, they found a shotgun and a U.S. mail bag concealed under a pile of manure. Despite protesta- tions of innocence from Redfield and Tuttle, Sheriff Doran and his posse took the two men to the Florence jail. On the way, they encountered Redfield's nephew, Frank Carpenter. When Carpenter made incriminating statements, he also was placed under arrest. Pete Gabriel, meanwhile, continued on alone in pursuit of Red Jack Aimer.37

On August 27, Joe Tuttle broke down under repeated questioning and confessed that he and Charley Hensley had robbed

[19]




the stage and killed messenger Collins. Hensley admitted that Red Jack Aimer and Len Redfield had planned the holdup, and then led Sheriff Doran to the buried loot. The next day, a small posse led by Pete Gabriel and Bob Paul, now the Pima County sheriff, tracked Red Jack Aimer, Charley Hensley, and a third desperado to a hideout in Sycamore Canyon in the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson. The outlaws managed to escape in a hail of gunfire.

On the morning of September 2, an enraged mob broke into the Florence jail and lynched Len Redfield and Joe Tuttle. They spared Frank Carpenter because of his youth. Two weeks later, Pete Gabriel and Bob Paul, acting on a tip, set out on another manhunt for Red Jack and Hensley. At the head of a strong posse, they almost trapped the fugitives at Big Springs in the Rinçons. But, once again, the outlaws escaped. Pete, who had been acting as a private citizen, returned to his mining business and, consequently, was not with Paul in October, when the Pima County sheriff and his deputies tracked down and killed Red Jack and Charley Hensley.38

In November 1883, newspapers widely reported that Pete Gabriel had captured the much-wanted outlaw Procopio Busta- mante near Tucson. The nephew of Joaquin Murrieta, the infamous California Gold Rush bandit, Procopio had committed numerous robberies and murders in California during the 1860s and '70s, served a term in San Quentin, and then moved his operations to the Arizona-Sonora border. But the story proved to be a case of mistaken identity; the man Gabriel arrested was not Procopio Bustamante.39

In the meantime, trouble had erupted in the Gabriel house- hold. Pete and Carrie welcomed an infant daughter, Carrie, in 1881, and a second girl, Emily, the following year. But, by then, their marriage had turned stormy. Pete's drinking and gambling upset his young wife, who undoubtedly felt the brunt of his occasional drunken rages. At the same time, according to family tradition, Carrie was vain, spoiled, and self-centered. She was also flirtatious and enjoyed the attention of other men. The couple's conflict- ing character traits were the recipe for disaster. In April of 1884, Carrie sued for divorce. Pete, who seems to have given up on his marriage, did not bother to answer the lawsuit. A default judgment was entered against him, and the divorce decree was rendered on June 7, 1884. Almost immediately, Pete and Carrie had a change of

[20]




heart. Less than two months later, on July 31, they went to Globe and were remarried.40

In November 1884, Pete Gabriel was elected by a 130-vote majority to his third and last two-year term as Pinal County sheriff. He appointed thirty-nine-year-old Josephus Phy as his deputy. A miner and freighter, Joe Phy was born in Platte County, Missouri, on May 22, 1844. At age fifteen, he ran away from home, eventually landing in Arizona, where he was taken in by attorney Granville Oury and his wife. Phy was an unsuccessful candidate for Phoenix sheriff in 1872, and later served at times as a Maricopa County deputy sheriff. In 1878, he was appointed a deputy U.S. marshal. Phy was a veteran of several encounters with Indians and outlaws. In 1881, he ran a private water company in Tucson, and later claimed he was cheated out of it. The erstwhile lawman and entrepreneur was moody and often brooded about the failures in his life. Nonethe- less, he and Pete Gabriel became close companions. Phy neither drank nor smoked, but like Gabriel, he had a bad temper. In 1876, Joe Phy had married Christina Cavaness. After her death in 1882, he wed Jesusita Rebago, fathering four children in all. Joe Phy's friendship with Pete Gabriel would soon turn sour.41

By early 1886, Pete's marriage was again in trouble. As Mike Rice explained, "Gabriel had a very amiable and attractive wife. . . . She was very susceptible to flattery and admiration. He was twice her age and . . . was unreasonably jealous of any attention shown toward her. This caused [a] separation." Pete moved out of the family home on April 6, 1886, and took up lodging in the sheriffs office. Carrie later alleged that Pete had abandoned her and refused to support her and their daughters. Gabriel's loneli- ness was relieved when Bolin J. "Bo" Whiteside came to Florence from Marysville. Bo had worked as a law clerk for his father and had served as undersheriff of Yuba County, California. Through Pete's friendship and influence, he soon became a prominent figure in Pinal County, serving as county recorder, then as justice of the peace, before being elected to the territorial legislature.42

Pinal County district attorney and future Arizona governor Richard E. Sloan recalled:

A few days after I had been appointed as district attorney [in 1886] it was my duty to pass upon the quarterly account of Sheriff Pete Gabriel. I did not then know Gabriel but had heard a good deal of him ever since my arrival in the Ter-

[21]




ritory and had formed an unfavorable opinion of his character. In the first place, he was known as a "killer," having several notches on his gun. In the second place he had a reputation for being exceedingly quarrelsome and especially ugly when drinking, which frequently occurred. After examining Gabriel's account very carefully, I cut out approximately half of his charges, as either excessive or wholly illegal, and then returned the amended account to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors. The next morning Gabriel came into my office, which was just off the street, and in an ugly, offensive manner, said:

"Sloan, I see you have disapproved my account." 'Yes," I replied, "I had to disapprove much of it." "No, you don't, and young fellow that account is now on my desk. I will

be back in an hour and by that time if you haven't approved it, damn you, I will know why."

He then turned and left the office. Though I could see that he had been drinking, I didn't take the matter seriously for the first few minutes. The more I thought of the matter, however, the less I liked my situation. To tell the truth I became badly scared, and as the time for Gabriel's return approached I felt inclined to take to the brush, but pride and anger came to my rescue and, instead of leaving the office, I stepped into the clerk's room, borrowed his shotgun, loaded with buckshot, and sat facing the door with the gun within reach, bathed in a cold perspiration and waiting for the trouble to come. An hour passed and then another, and finally noon came and to my immense relief no Gabriel. And though I had occasion to disapprove, at least in part, every account he filed for the remainder of his term in office, he at no time ever mentioned

43 the fact or complained in any way.

When Sheriff Gabriel rode into Florence on September 15, 1886, he discovered that a notorious desperado and horse thief, Ramon Surtega, had been terrorizing Bailey Street and threatening to kill a Mexican woman. A warrant had been issued for Surtega's arrest for stealing a saddle. Gabriel turned to his undersheriff, George Evans, and demanded, "What in hell have I an undersheriff for who permits such actions in my absence?"

"Mr. Gabriel," Evans replied, "I don't care to come into contact with this fellow as I might be compelled, in attempting to arrest him, to kill him. Besides, he has often said that he did not fear you and that you could not arrest him."

"He said that, did he?" Gabriel angrily retorted. "Well, we'll see about that."

Pete found the desperado behind J. M. Ochoa's store on Bailey Street and ordered him to surrender. Instead, the oudaw put spurs to his horse, at the same time reaching for his six-gun. Sheriff Gabriel whipped out his revolver and fired a single shot.

[22]




From a range of 150 yards, the heavy pistol ball ripped completely through the desperado's lower back and struck the horse in the back of the head. Animal and rider collapsed into the dusty street. The horse was killed, and Surtega died the next morning. Accord- ing to Mike Rice, "Gabriel often assured me that he had neither intention nor desire to kill this man. He had shot to cripple the horse, and thereby to be enabled to arrest his man." Either way, if anyone in Arizona had doubts about Pete Gabriel's skill with a handgun, they had been quickly laid to rest.44

By this time, Pete had decided to return to mining. In the fall election, he threw his support behind Joe Phy in the race for sheriff against popular hotelkeeper Jeremiah Fryer. During the course of the campaign, Casa Grande teamster Tom Montgomery claimed that Phy had disparaged Fryer, saying that he (Phy) was "running for sheriff against a scrub." When Pete Gabriel upbraided his deputy for leveling the insult, Phy denied having made the remark. Against this backdrop, on September 25, ten days after the Surtega shooting, Gabriel, Phy, and several friends climbed into a buggy and drove the thirty-two miles east from Florence to confront Montgomery in Casa Grande. It was evening when they arrived. After the party separated, Phy found Tom Montgomery in front of the American Hotel. "Is your name Montgomery?" he demanded.

Upon receiving an affirmative reply, Phy yanked his six-shooter and felled his adversary with a heavy blow to the temple. Phy continued to pistol whip Montgomery about the head while he was down. Mrs. James Woods tried to intervene, and the enraged deputy took a swing at her. As a crowd gathered, Phy backed into the street, six- gun in hand, threatening to "wipe out some more sons of bitches." A warrant was issued for Joe Phy and Pete Gabriel arrested his deputy. Still enraged, Phy offered to fight it out with Gabriel "as men fight." Pete only laughed, remarking "Joe, this is only part of my job." Gabriel then stripped Phy of his badge and ordered him to vacate his office in the courthouse. Phy refused to give up the office, only doing so when the county board of supervisors evicted him. Gabriel withdrew his support from Phy, and Jeremiah Fryer was elected sheriff in the November election.45

Thus began a deadly feud between Phy and Gabriel. Pete left the sheriffs office for the last time on January 1, 1887, but that did not put an end to his troubles with Phy. Political enemies of the

[23]



Joe Phy was shot and killed by Pete Gabriel

in 1888, in one of the Southwesťs most

famous gunfights. AHS/SAD #249.

two men spread rumors and fanned the flames of enmity. Pete, who was especially jealous of his estranged wife, became convinced that Carrie was having an affair with the married Phy. Mike Rice recalled, "It used to make Gabriel furious if he seen Phy and his wife in conversation, even at little social functions." One day, early in 1887, Gabriel and Rice were in Sheriff Fryer's office when Pete spotted his six-year-old daughter, Carrie, hand a note to Phy in the street outside. Gabriel seized a rifle, but before he could fire, Rice wrestled it away. "Gabriel started to follow his intended victim," said Rice, "but I persuaded him to desist and for once he listened to reason and placed the Winchester against the desk." Joe Phy walked off, oblivious to the danger. Instead of a love letter, the note turned out to be an order for groceries. Rice explained how "Gabriel, afterwards in milder mood, thanked me heartily for my intervention on this occasion over his impulsive desire to kill."46

[24]




Soon after this incident, on March 19, 1887, twenty-three- year-old Carrie once again sued Pete for divorce. To add insult to injury, her lawyer was Joe Phy's friend and mentor, Granville Oury. Pete acquiesced to the divorce and conceded to Carrie the custody of their two daughters. She also received one-half owner- ship of a 160-acre plot of land outside Florence and twenty-five dollars a month in alimony. After the divorce, Carrie moved with the couple's two daughters to Sacramento, California. She never had anything nice to tell the girls about their father. As Judy Pintar, Pete Gabriel's great-granddaughter, explains, "The divorce was very bitter, and my father, Ralph R. (Bill) Elder, was raised on stories of how horrible a man Pete was. My dad actually thought Pete had been hanged as a horsethief. It wasn't until 1968 or thereabouts that on a visit to Florence, Arizona, that my dad found out who Pete Gabriel really was!"47

Meanwhile, the tension between Gabriel and Phy went from bad to worse. On one occasion, when Phy was boarding at the house of his friend Pete Brady, Jr., son of the former sheriff, the angry and brooding ex-deputy, suddenly picked up a shotgun, loaded it, and stepped toward the door. Brady asked him where he was going, and Phy spat back, "I am going to kill that damned son of a bitch, Pete Gabriel." Brady told him that if he did, he could never return to his home. Phy reconsidered and put the shotgun down.48

Another evening, still brooding about Gabriel, Phy dropped into John Keating's Tunnel Saloon. Describing for Keating what he planned to do to Pete, Phy suddenly tossed two silver dollars on the bar. Then he drew a fancy Bowie knife and showed it to Keating. It was an ivory-handled gambler's dirk made by Will & Finck of San Francisco, one of America's premier knife makers. When Keating remarked on the keenness of the blade, Phy made two powerful swings, cleanly slicing each silver dollar in half. 49

In April 1887, while his divorce was being finalized, Pete was prospecting near Quijotoa, ninety miles west of Tucson. On the night of April 18, bandidos led a raid on the isolated ranch of Wil- liam Wheaton, on the San Pedro River, thirty miles south of Tres Alamos. Francisco "Pancho" Gomez, Fernando Vasquez, Gregorio Alcantar, and Rafael Apodaca, alias "El Zarco," entered Wheaton's ranch house and demanded money. When the startled rancher produced only pocket change, the bandits put a rope around

[25]




his neck, dragged him to a cottonwood tree, and strung him up. Wheaton prompdy blacked out, whereupon the robbers let him down, ransacked his house, and fled with $100 and a double-action Colt's revolver. Pancho Gomez and Fernando Vasquez were quickly arrested in Tucson after foolishly spending the stolen money to bail fellow gang member Librado Puebla out of jail. On April 20, Tucson Chief of Police Billy Roche and Deputy Sheriff C. B. Stock- ing received a tip that one of the oudaws' compadres was driving stolen horses toward Quijotoa. They started in pursuit, reaching Dobbs' Station, forty-nine miles west of Tucson, just before daylight the next morning.

There, the lawmen encountered Pete Gabriel, preparing to hitch up his team. Pete told Roche and Stocking that the fugitive had not yet passed the stage station. Suddenly, just after dawn, Gabriel and the two lawmen spotted a rider cresting a distant hill, accompanied by a Mexican woman, also on horseback. Roche and Stocking slipped inside the station and out of sight, while Gabriel continued to work on his team, his double-barrel shotgun within easy reach. As the two riders closed within a few hundred yards of the station, Deputy Stocking stepped outside with his rifle in hand. The desperado, who proved to be El Zarco, jerked his Colt's six- shooter and fired, the bullet whining past Stocking's head. Then, he wheeled his horse and raced for an arroyo. Pete Gabriel fired a blast from both barrels of his shotgun, but he was well out of range. Stocking and Roche opened fire and El Zarco dropped, a bullet in his right lung. At the same time, the woman's horse spooked and threw its rider, dragging her by the stirrup. The officers brought El Zarco into Tucson, where he died of his wound. His pistol was identified as the one stolen from Wheaton. The woman rider, who

was not seriously injured, was released.50 Over the years, Pete Gabriel stayed in contact with Ida, his

daughter from his first marriage. In Tombstone, she married a popular actor, J. A. Rokohl, known by his stage name of Gus Wil- liams. The couple had a daughter. Sadly, on October 7, 1887, Ida died suddenly of heart disease. She was only twenty-two. Pete must have been heartbroken. Ida's death, coupled with his two failed marriages, only aggravated his drinking.5

By the spring of 1888, Gabriel was spending much of his time at his claim, the Monitor Mine, at the head of Mineral Creek in

[26]




the Dripping Springs Mountains northeast of Florence. Four miles distant, he erected a stamp mill for crushing ore. Joe Phy remained a thorn in his side. When Phy announced that he would again be candidate for sheriff in the fall election, his enemies taunted him

by saying that Gabriel would run against him. True or not, Phy believed the rumors and became increasingly bitter. Some of his acquaintances thought that he "had become mentally deranged." On the several times they met, Phy insulted and threatened Gabriel, but could not goad the former sheriff into a fight. One of Pete's friends cautioned him to be alert at all times. Gabriel responded, "Joe Phy thinks I am afraid of him. I fear no man ever born .... While I do not seek an encounter with him, I anticipate his attack. He may shoot me through the heart but I will live long enough to get him in the end."52

Mike Rice was present at one encounter between Gabriel and Phy. As he later recalled: "Once while accompanying Gabriel from Riverside Crossing on the Gila to Florence, in passing up the Zelleweger Wash we ran into Joe Phy and Smith Turner so suddenly that our rigs almost collided. Gabriel and I [were] in a low-seated buckboard and Phy and Turner in a high-seated Bain Wagon. Phy held across his knees a double barrel shotgun. My hair stood on end as I firmly believed that the ball would open then and there. Had Gabriel made the least move for his gun he was a dead man. But they passed to my relief, as in case of a fight I was in the line of fire. Phy told me afterwards that it was fear of hitting me that prevented him from killing Gabriel on the spot."53

On the morning of May 31, 1888, Pete Gabriel, accompanied by Mike Rice, left his mine near Riverside in a buggy, headed for Florence. Rice recalled, "As was usual with Gabriel on such trips he had a quart of devil water along and imbibed freely of its contents. When we arrived in Florence Gabriel was practically all in." On their arrival in town, Pete got word that Joe Phy was seething with anger and looking to pick a fight. Gabriel paid no heed. That evening he stepped into the Tunnel Saloon (the saloon's name came from its tunnel-like cellar where patrons could escape the extreme summer heat) to have a few drinks with the owner, John Keating. A bystander, Sidney Bartleston, spotted Pete entering the saloon and rushed to tell Joe Phy that the ex-sheriff was in town. Phy buckled on his gun rig and fancy Bowie knife and headed for the Tunnel. Gabriel was

[27]



John J. Keating stands in the door of his Tunnel Saloon, scene of the shoot out between Pete Gabriel and Joe Phy on May 31, 1888. AHS/SAD #764.

resting at the bar when he spotted Phy peeking in the back window. Pete reached for his gun, but Phy disappeared. Each time a patron entered the saloon, Gabriel dropped his hand defensively to the six-shooter tucked into his waistband.54

An hour later, at eight o'clock, Joe Phy returned. One wit- ness said his pistol was in his hand; another claimed it wasn't. In either case, Joe Phy burst through the batwing doors of the Tunnel Saloon, sparking one of the most famous gunfights in southwestern histoiy. The gunfire put out one lamp and saloon patrons were too busy running for their lives to give detailed descriptions of the fight. Pete yelled out, "Joe!" and both men opened fire at close range. Phy moved sideways from the door, shooting as he went, while Gabriel returned fire, working his way along the bar toward the door. The combatants exchanged eleven shots at close range

[28]




in a matter of seconds. As Gabriel reached the door, Phy lunged forward, six-shooter in his right hand and Bowie knife in his left, and fired point blank into his opponent's chest. The bullet tore into Pete's right lung. Another slug pierced Gabriel's intestines.

The veteran lawman reeled but stayed on his feet, backing out the door and returning fire, shot for shot. Bystanders scattered in a panic as one of Gabriel's bullets struck Phy in the left thigh, shatter- ing the bone; another slammed into his stomach. As the ex-deputy buckled over in pain on the sidewalk, Pete fired a death shot: the heavy ball tore through the front of Phy's right shoulder and slashed downward through both lungs. Phy squeezed off a final shot as he dropped into the street, gasping, "Oh my God, I'm down!"

John Keating and a gambler, Dave Gibson, rushed to Phy. Gib- son had taken part in the 1882 murder of the noted gunfighter Jim Leavy in Tucson. Keating asked the obvious: "Are you hurt, Joe?"

'Yes, I am gone," Phy gasped. Gibson reached down to assist the downed man, saying "Raise his head."

Phy refused Gibson's help. Lifting himself by one elbow, he swung his Bowie knife, slashing the gambler's thigh. 'You murder- ing son of a bitch," he snarled.55

Bystanders picked up Phy and carried him into the stage company corral. Someone fetched Dr. William Harvey, who could do little more than remove one bullet. At half-past midnight, Joe Phy died from internal bleeding. Pete Gabriel fared better. Friends carried him to an adobe house next to the sheriffs office. Dr. Harvey was called, but did not come. According to one story, Harvey was Phy's friend and refused to treat Gabriel. In Mike Rice's version, Pete exclaimed, "Harvey is my family physician and he chooses to treat my enemy first. I want nothing more to do with him."

Whatever the truth, the fact is that Dr. Harvey, the only physician in town, did not treat Gabriel. Pete lay in agony for four-and- a-half hours until Dr. Thomas Sabin could be summoned from

the Sacaton Indian Agency twenty miles away. Sabin advised the grievously wounded Gabriel that "if he had any business to settle he should do so, as he was shot through the lungs and intestines and he could not live more than twenty-four hours."

Pete snapped back through gritted teeth, "I had only one lung to start with as the other was shot away years ago. Well, I will live without a lung and then be a better man than any of my enemies."56

[29]




Attorney Richard Sloan recalled, "I was told that Gabriel wanted to see me at once. I found him lying on a cot under a lean-to, as the weather was warm, swearing vigorously, and calling down curses upon his enemies as cowardly assassins who had tried to murder him in cold blood. Upon asking him what I could do, he said he wanted to make his will, his friends insisting on this, although he himself had no intention of dying. I hastily prepared his will, for I was afraid to delay the matter, as the doctor had said: Tete may pass in his checks at any time.' Instead of dying, Pete was walking the streets of Florence within six weeks."57

Pete Gabriel took no pleasure in the death of Joe Phy. For years he suffered nightmares about shooting his former friend. As Mike Rice recalled, "the killing of Phy preyed on him as long as he lived. He expressed his regrets to me on many occasions. It worried him in his waking and sleeping hours to the extent that he was often irrational on the subject. Once on the desert, while we were occupying the same blankets, he dreamt of his encounter with Phy and in a somnambulistic condition fired off every shot in his gun, at the same time exclaiming, 'Joe, Joe, Joe/ After this incident I never traveled alone with Pete Gabriel. 8

In the fall of 1888, Pete made an unsuccessful run for Pinal

County assessor. He also remained ever-ready to volunteer as a citizen posseman. On November 23, 1888, a lone bandit robbed several riders and a stagecoach near Casa Grande. Pete Gabriel and J. D. Thomas promptly started in pursuit, but rain wiped out the robber's tracks and they returned empty handed. The culprit was arrested the following day in Casa Grande. The bandit gave his name as Henry Miller, but he turned out to be the infamous Ham White of Texas, one of the West's most prolific stage robbers. Pete Gabriel brought him to jail in Florence, where he pled guilty and received twelve years in the Yuma penitentiary.59

A year later, Pete took part in the manhunt for Arizona's most infamous and elusive fugitive. The Apache Kid had been a scout serving under the famous AI Sieber and took part in various campaigns against Geronimo in the 1880s. In 1887, he killed a fellow Apache. When he surrendered, a melee broke out in which Sieber was shot in the foot. The Kid and three of his band were later convicted in

Globe of the attempted murder of Sieber and sentenced to seven years each in Yuma prison. On November 2, 1889, while en route

[30]




to the prison by stagecoach, they killed Gila County Sheriff Glenn Reynolds and a deputy near Riverside station. Pete volunteered to join Sheriff Jeremiah Fryer's posse, which was the first to arrive at the scene. But Gabriel never caught the Apache Kid and his fate remains one of the great mysteries of the Southwest.60

Pete Gabriel spent the next decade prospecting extensively in Arizona and northern Mexico. Finally, he returned to work his old claim, the Monitor Mine on Mineral Creek. Although in frequent pain from his old gunshot wounds, he was still hale and hearty at age fifty-nine. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Pete wrote to the Florence newspaper, lamenting that he was too old to join the Rough Riders. "I am only forty-five when it comes to fighting for Uncle Sam," Pete declared. In late July, he drank poisonous water, probably laced by arsenic used in mining. For a week, he lay alone and deathly ill in his cabin. His mining partner found him there on July 28, 1898. Pete died the next day and was buried nearby in a rude coffin made from boards removed from his cabin. Pete's friend Mike Rice always believed that one of his enemies had poisoned him.61

In reporting Pete Gabriel's death, the editor of the Phoenix Herald said, "He was a bold and fearless man, a good officer. . . . Pete Gabriel probably carried more scars at the hands of the lawless element than any other man in the southwest." The Globe Arizona Silver Belt eulogized him thus: "A man of great bravery, he never avoided an enemy or shirked duty, even when such a course might have been justifiable. . . . He was a sleuth-hound in pursuit, and criminals soon learned to have a wholesome fear of him. There was

no man who could pull a gun quicker, or shoot with more deadly accuracy than he." Mike Rice called his deceased friend "a man of many sterling qualities. His worst fault was liquor and irritability under its influence. He was loyal, generous and grateful, not resent- ful even with his opponents. He was absolutely fearless, the bravest of the brave, without throwing caution to the wind, he would face a foe and serve a friend to the last ditch." For many years, Pete Gabriel's body lay in the unmarked grave on the Monitor Mine property. Finally, in 1936, Florence citizens put up a bronze plaque to mark the remote spot.62

Pete Gabriel deserves recognition as one of the great lawmen of the southwestern frontier. But he is not remembered for that.

[31]




Instead, rightly or wrongly, he is known mainly for his role in one of the Old West's classic gun duels. His remarkable career as a frontiersman and western peace officer has all but vanished in a pall of gunsmoke at the Tunnel Saloon.

NOTES

1. Birth record of Johannes Petrus Gabriel, www.familysearch.org; New York, 1820-1850 Passenger and Immigration Lists, Ancestry.com; U.S. Census Mortality Schedules Index, Grant County, Wisconsin, 1850; M. M. Rice to Thomas E. Farish, June 30, 1913, and Con P. Cronin, "Duel Between Phy - Gabriel," unpublished ms., 1927, both in Arizona Historical Society [AHS] , Tucson. 2. Rice to Farish, June 30, 1913; Colin Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," Golden West (September 1970), pp. 32-33. Ninian E. Whiteside died in Marysville, California, at age sixty, on September 3, 1876. Wheatland (California) Free Press, September 9, 1876.

3. New York Herald-Tribune, June 12, 1858.

4. Report of the Secretary of the Interior, Communicating Reports Upon the Pacific Wagon Roads, Senate Executive Document 36 (1859), pp. 49, 70. 5. William H. Brewer, Up and Down California in 1860-1864 (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1966), p. 126.

6. Ibid., p. 19; Gary L. Ecelbarger, Frederick W Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), pp. 50-51. 7. Los Angeles Star, June 2, 1860; Sacramento Daily Union, June 11, 1860. Mochila is the Spanish term for saddlebags.

8. Brewer, Up and Down California in 1860-1864, p. 19.

9. Ibid., p. 193. 10. Ibid., p. 213. 11. Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1898; Owyhee County marriages, 1864-1890, Idaho Territory; http://filçs.u?gwarçhiyçsTQrg/içl/QWyheç/vi^il$/nqiarri?igçs/

12. Boise Idaho Statesman, September 29, 1864, and January 28, November 11, 1865; August 8, 1912; September 25, 1918; U.S. Census, Population Schedules, Silver City, Idaho, 1880. 13. Silver City (Idaho) Owyhee Avalanche, October 6, 1866; Portland Oregonian , October 10, 1866; Anaconda (Montana) Standard, August 25, 1907. 14. Owyhee Avalanche, October 27, December 29, 1866. 15. Ibid., July 20, 1867, and March 7, 14, 28, 1868; Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 33. 16. San Francisco Bulletin, December 18, 1869; Owyhee Avalanche, March 26, 1870.

17. Prescott Weekly Arizona Miner, December 3, 31, 1870.

18. U.S. Census, Population Schedules, Tombstone, Arizona, 1880. 19. John Preston Buschlen, Senor Plummer: The Life and Laughter of an Old Calif omian by Don Juan (Hollywood, Calif.: Murray & Gee, Inc. 1943), pp. 25, 72-75. Eugenio Rafael Plummer (1852-1943) later became a much beloved Los Angeles patriarch and "the best storyteller in town." Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1943. 20. Ibid. Plummer also claimed that his mother snatched away Gabriel's gun, frightening Pete, a story that sounds most improbable. 21. Michael M. Rice to Thomas E. Farish, December 22, 1918, AHS; Sacramento Daily Union, July 1, 1873; Prescott Weekly Arizona Miner, July 3, 1873; Portland Oregonian, July 19, 1873; John Boessenecker, Bandido: The Life and Times ofTiburcio Vasquez (Norman: Univer- sity of Oklahoma Press, 2010), pp. 231-39.

[32]




22. Los Angeles Daily Star, January 14, 1874; Los Angeles Herald , January 14, 1874; San Francisco Bulletin, January 19, 1874. Vasquez was sentenced to death and hanged in San Jose in 1875. 23. Los Angeles Herald, May 12, 16, 1874, and July 13, 1875; Prescott Weekly Arizona Miner, May 29, 1874, October 15, 1875, and November 22, 1878; Rice to Farish, June 30, 1913. 24. Rice to Farish, June 30, 1913; Prescott Weekly Arizona Miner, November 22, 1878.

25. Richard E. Sloan, Memories of an Arizona Judge (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1932), p. 45. 26. Prescott Weekly Journal Miner, January 16, 1877, and October 10, 1879; Tucson Citi- zen, January 24, 1880; Globe Arizona Silver Belt, January 24, 1880, and October 18, 1884 (reprinting article from January 17, 1880).

27. Tucson Weekly Citizen, January 31, 1880.

28. Tucson Weekly Star, June 10, July 22, 1880; San Francisco Bulletin, July 15, 1880; Prescott Weekly Journal Miner, July 16, 1880; Phoenix Herald, July 16, 1880.

29. Albert E. Wratten, "George Wratten, Friend of the Apaches," Journal of Arizona History, vol. 27 (Spring 1986), p. 91; Los Angeles Herald, August 19, 1880, and December 29, 1881. 30. Tucson Arizona Star, May 19, 1881; Tucson Citizen, May 22, 1881; Mike M. Rice, "Pete Gabriel Was Fearless," Phoenix Arizona Republic, April 10, 1935.

31. Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 52; R. Michael Wilson, Legal Execu- tions in the Western Territories , 1847-1911 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2010), pp. 15-17; Tucson Weekly Citizen, May 22, 1881; Sacramento Daily Union, December 27, 1882; Globe Arizona Silver Belt, December 30, 1882.

32. Florence Enterprise, quoted in Los Angeles Herald, September 21, 1881. 33. Florence Enterprise, September 9, 1882.

34. Florence Enterprise, September 9, October 21, 1882; Globe Arizona Silver Belt, August 26, 1882; Tucson Weekly Citizen, October 22, 1882; Clara T. Woody and Milton L. Schwartz, Globe , Arizona: Early Times in a Little World of Copper and Cattle (Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 1977), pp. 65-78. W. W. Lowther later served as constable in Bisbee, where he was murdered in the line of duty in 1890. Tombstone Prospector, April 12, 1890.

35. Tucson Daily Citizen, November 16, 1882; Tucson Weekly Citizen, January 28, 1883; Rice to Farish, June 30, 1913.

36. Los Angeles Herald, April 11, 1883; Salt Lake City Herald, August 1, 1883; Florence Enterprise, September 29, 1883; Official Register of the United States, vol. 2 (1886), p. 398.

37. Phoenix Herald, August 13, 1883; Philip J. Rasch, "The Riverside Stage Robbery," Real West (August 1986), pp. 14-17.

38. Tucson Weekly Citizen , September 15 and 29, October 6, 1883.

39. Los Angeles Times, November 7 and December 1, 1883. 40. Tucson Daily Citizen, October 17, 1882; Carrie A. Gabriel v. J. R Gabriel, case no. 576, Pinal County District Court, Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records [ASLr APR] , Phoenix; Judy Pintar to author, March 4 and April 20, 2009. Judy Pintar is the granddaughter of Pete Gabriel's daughter Carrie. 41. Globe Arizona Silver Belt, November 8, 1884; Peach Springs Arizona Champion, Novem- ber 15, 1884; Tucson Arizona Star, September 26, 1878; Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," pp. 54-55.

42. Carrie A. Gabriel v. J. P. Gabriel, John A. Swearingen, Good Men, Bad Men, Lawmen (Flor- ence, Ariz.: The author, 1991), p. 145; Marysville Daily Appeal, October 18, 1906; Sloan, Memories of an Arizona Judge, p. 48.

43. Sloan, Memories of an Arizona Judge, pp. 44-45.

44. Globe Arizona Silver Belt, September 25, 1886; Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1886; Phoenix Gazette, June 12, 1936; Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 53.

45. Casa Grande Voice, reprinted in Tombstone Prospector, September 29, 1886; Rickards,

[33]




"Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 56; Con P. Cronin, "Arizona's Six-gun Classic," Arizona Historical Review [AHR], vol. 3 (July 1930), p. 9.

46. Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 57; Swearingen, Good Men, Bad Men, Lawmen , pp. 145-46.

47. Carrie A. Gabriel v.J. R Gabriel; Judy Pintar to author, April 20, 2009.

48. Cronin, "Arizona's Six-gun Classic," p. 9. 49. Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 57; Cronin, "Arizona's Six-gun Classic," p. 9-10. Joe Phy's Will & Fink Bowie knife is on display in the Florence Museum.

50. Tucson Arizona Daily Star, April 22, 1887; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, April 22, 1887; San Francisco Daily Alta California, April 22, 23, 26, 1887; Globe Arizona Silver Belt, May 7, 1887. Librado Puebla was sent to the Yuma penitentiary, where he was shot dead in the attempted prison break of October 27, 1887. 51. Tombstone Epitaph, October 5, 1886; October 8, 1887. 52. Tombstone Daily Prospector, February 1, 1888; Michael M. Rice, "The Gabriel and Phy Fight," pp. 2-3, unpublished manuscript, ASLAPR. 53. Rice, "The Gabriel and Phy Fight," p. 3. 54. Ibid., p. 4. 55. Florence Enterprise, June 2, 9, 1888; Rice, "The Gabriel and Phy Fight," p. 4; Cronin, "Arizona's Six-gun Classic," p. 10. 56. Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 58; Rice, "The Gabriel and Phy Fight," p. 6.

57. Sloan, Memories of an Arizona Judge , p. 46.

58. Rice, "The Gabriel and Phy Fight," p. 7. 59. Globe Arizona Silver Belt, September 29, 1888; Tucson Daily Citizen, November 27, 1888; R. Michael Wilson, Encyclopedia of Stagecoach Robbery in Arizona (Las Vegas, Nev.: RaMa Press, 2003) , pp. 139-40; Mark Dugan, Knight of the Road, The Life of Highwayman Ham White (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1990), pp. 78-83. 60. Mertice Bruce Knox, "The Escape of the Apache Kid," AHR, vol. 3 (January 1931), p. 83.

61. Mineral Park Mohave County Miner, October 12, 1889; Prescott Evening Courier, March 31, 1891; Prescott Weekly Journal Miner, September 2, 16, 1891; Globe Arizona Silver Belt, March 26 and May 28, 1892, July 27, 1895; Flagstaff Coconino Weekly Sun, January 16, 1896; Rickards, "Sheriff Pete Gabriel and Deputy Phy," p. 60; Rice to Farish, June 30, 1913.

62. Phoenix Weekly Herald, August 11, 1898; Globe Arizona Silver Belt, August 4, 1898; Phoe- nix Gazette, June 12, 1936; Rice to Farish, June 30, 1913.

[34]



Documents

PETE GABRIEL: Gunfighting Lawman of the Southwestern Frontier