My tale is wrought with service to AZ and my fellow man. But greed, betrayal and injustice raised its ugly head, all in the last year's of my life.
I was born in IL to an Anglo father and Wyandotte mother around 1840. So it seemed perfectly natural to marry a member of the Pima Tribe upon moving to AZ in 1860. I fathered a daughter we named Juana whom would someday fight for her share of my estimated fortune of $1.6 million, all the way to the US Supreme CT. Only to be judged to have no standing in the case because marriages between Anglos and native Americans was deemed illegal.
With the help of Territorial Gov. Goodwin, I embarked on a letter writing campaign to Pres Lincoln in 1861 and his Sec. Of War to help me arm the local Pima and Maricopa's with muskets and training in order to fight the Apaches. It worked.
I was so highly thought of by the friendly Native Americans that in 1880, a Papago friend led me into a sparse and lonely valley in South Central AZ, and showed me the location of a fabulously rich silver lode.
A town rose up around the mine that I ran like a fiefdom. There was a mercantile with fair prices, bank, hotel and library but alcohol was not allowed. Fair wages were paid at the mine and town businesses and no racial discrimination of any kind was allowed.
I suffered a minor stroke around 1890 and my two business partners, which included my younger brother, moved quickly to take over my holdings.
They had me sent to a sanatorium in northern CA where in a short time I was released and deemed healthy.
My partners sued me in court saying I was insane and unable to run the mine. The proof they offered was my marriage to a native American. They had me rearrested and a crooked guardian ad litem was assigned to my affairs. I was sent back to the hospital in Napa where I was interned until my death.
Who am I?
