THE CLANTON RANCH
HOME TO...
IKE CLANTON, PHIN CLANTON, BILLY CLANTON, AND THEIR FATHER “OLD MAN” N.H. CLANTON, IN THE CHARLESTON ERA
By John D. Rose
In its brief history, Charleston rose from the Arizona desert floor to become one of the most notorious, and memorable locations in the American West. Though it would soon begin its decline returning back to the dusty Arizona landscape from which it arose, there remains its crumbling adobe walls, and scarce eye witness accounts from those who witnessed it. Some of those accounts are reprinted below so that the reader can enjoy reading the actual words of those who saw it with their own eyes. In particular, those who recalled the now famous Clanton brothers and their father are featured below. The common thread between these accounts is that they are in the context of remembering the Clantons at Charleston.
Wm. N. Miller was recalling his times in Tombstone and Charleston, and his account also illustrates how often these boomers, as they traveled from one western boomtown to the other, would see each other again, and in like trades, such as mining and its related transportation. Included in those he recalled years later where the Clanton brothers.
“Charleston was a fair sized town for those times[.] There were two Quartz Mills busy crushing the ores from the Lucky Cuss and the Toughnut Mines. Ham Light had I think 7-16 muleteams, hauling the ore. I was well acquainted with Mr. Light, as my father had been wagon boss for him in Pioche Nev. There were several stores, saloons 2 blacksmith shops besides Light’s shop. No regular livery stables but two or three corrals or feed yards. There were Riders there run[n]ing night herds. The Clantons run one and the Drew Brothers another besides a monthly day herd.”
In 1939, Edith Dorsey also recalled the Clanton’s, but from the perspective of a child whose mother was troubled by them and concerned for their safety while they were visiting Charleston. She wrote two letters to Mrs. Macia of Tombstone, who was a key preserver of Tombstone history, as are her descendants today as owners of the Rose Tree Museum in Tombstone. Edith’s recollection of the Clanton’s illustrates that the code of the American West forbade men, regardless of their station or status in life, to scare woman and children.
Her time in Charleston proved this by of all people, the Clantons. “Mother always went to Tombstone by stage to do her shopping - one day she was all prepared to take the stage when these cowboys came down the street shooting right and left - We lived next door (also) to a small hotel-these boys came and engaged a room at the hotel, and when Mother saw this she decided she had better not leave her darling children within shooting distance of these experts, so she said to the lady of the hotel she guessed she wouldn’t go shopping that day. This finally got to the ears of the Clantons, and they proceeded to come over to our house and apologize saying they didn’t mean any harm and they didn’t mean to scare little children, and for her to go right on to Tombstone, and all would be well -- so she smilingly said she would go, and she did - the boys [Clantons] were as quiet as lambs.”
In another letter to Mrs. Macia, Edith thought that it was the Daltons rather than the Clantons. Although the Daltons were also well known at that time, more so than the Clantons, her first recollection is the only one which makes sense, since the Clantons were known to visit Charleston, not the Daltons. Nor does she cite having lived in areas that the Daltons were known to frequent. Of other notables Edith recalled, “I remember the Earps by sight. I had been within a foot of Curly Bill many times, and knew most all of them by sight.”
Wm. N. Miller was recalling his times in Tombstone and Charleston, and his account also illustrates how often these boomers, as they traveled from one western boomtown to the other, would see each other again, and in like trades, such as mining and its related transportation. Included in those he recalled years later where the Clanton brothers.
“Charleston was a fair sized town for those times[.] There were two Quartz Mills busy crushing the ores from the Lucky Cuss and the Toughnut Mines. Ham Light had I think 7-16 muleteams, hauling the ore. I was well acquainted with Mr. Light, as my father had been wagon boss for him in Pioche Nev. There were several stores, saloons 2 blacksmith shops besides Light’s shop. No regular livery stables but two or three corrals or feed yards. There were Riders there run[n]ing night herds. The Clantons run one and the Drew Brothers another besides a monthly day herd.”
In 1939, Edith Dorsey also recalled the Clanton’s, but from the perspective of a child whose mother was troubled by them and concerned for their safety while they were visiting Charleston. She wrote two letters to Mrs. Macia of Tombstone, who was a key preserver of Tombstone history, as are her descendants today as owners of the Rose Tree Museum in Tombstone. Edith’s recollection of the Clanton’s illustrates that the code of the American West forbade men, regardless of their station or status in life, to scare woman and children.
Her time in Charleston proved this by of all people, the Clantons. “Mother always went to Tombstone by stage to do her shopping - one day she was all prepared to take the stage when these cowboys came down the street shooting right and left - We lived next door (also) to a small hotel-these boys came and engaged a room at the hotel, and when Mother saw this she decided she had better not leave her darling children within shooting distance of these experts, so she said to the lady of the hotel she guessed she wouldn’t go shopping that day. This finally got to the ears of the Clantons, and they proceeded to come over to our house and apologize saying they didn’t mean any harm and they didn’t mean to scare little children, and for her to go right on to Tombstone, and all would be well -- so she smilingly said she would go, and she did - the boys [Clantons] were as quiet as lambs.”
In another letter to Mrs. Macia, Edith thought that it was the Daltons rather than the Clantons. Although the Daltons were also well known at that time, more so than the Clantons, her first recollection is the only one which makes sense, since the Clantons were known to visit Charleston, not the Daltons. Nor does she cite having lived in areas that the Daltons were known to frequent. Of other notables Edith recalled, “I remember the Earps by sight. I had been within a foot of Curly Bill many times, and knew most all of them by sight.”
PHIN CLANTON AIDS IN A CHARLESTON MURDER INVESTIGATION
Phin Clanton, Ike and Billy’s brother, would offer service as a circumstantial witness in a Charleston murder mystery. Clanton didn’t witness the crime, but he observed some of the area in which the crime had taken place. Suspicion was cast on Charleston neck breaker Jerry Barton, and it wasn’t the first time that his name had surfaced with violence in the boom town on the San Pedro River.
William Somers died as a result of what were thought to be benign causes, possibly injuries from an accidental fall. But a number of Charleston residents contacted the Epitaph in Tombstone with their suspicions that Somers might have been a victim of foul play. The location of his body and money missing from his person when his pockets were searched only added to the intrigue.
“I was told that Somers had been settled with, and that Mr. Eccleston, (possibly Robert Eccleson, a Tombstone Merchant, or James Y. Eccleson, who worked at the Safford Hudson bank and heard the gunfire from the Gunfight near the O.K. Corral.) had paid him $125 in currency,” as S.W. Starrh testified. “I went down to where the body lay and watched it until the arrival of Justice Brown, who searched the pockets and found two knives, a piece of tobacco, a small piece of buckskin and four ten cent pieces.” The $125.00 had already been separated from his remains. Somers had spent his last evening drinking in of all places, Jerry Barton’s Saloon, which only added to the suspicions that abounded locally. James Murray was with him there that evening, having had several drinks together. He noted that he didn’t see Somers spend any of the $125.00 while he was with him at Barton’s, but he also acknowledged that he was not present the entire time that Somers was. “I left Barton’s saloon before Somers; he was there when I left…When I left the saloon I went straight to the corral and went to bed. I was pretty full myself [drunk or close to it].”
Barton testified about the time he spent with Somers in the last minutes of his life. “I know, or did know, William Somers. Saw him last about half past 9 o’clock, about ten yards from my house. He hallooed at me and asked when the train was coming. I recognized him and told him to come around the pond that was between us, and go home. I brought him around the pond and started on the trail towards the bridge.
“After I had got him straightened on the trail I went home-a very short distance from where I left him. I next saw him where his body lay, when the inquest held by Justice Brown was being held. Where I last saw him alive was on the east side of the San Pedro river, opposite Charleston…he was going down the trail leading from my house down towards the bridge. I judged from his condition that he had been drinking and was what is called full. He had been in my saloon during the evening and spent two or three dollars.” Regarding the key point of the missing money, Barton added, “Did not know, of my own knowledge, that he had been paid off at the time he was there. I watched him going down the trail until he got down off the bank nex[t] to the river, then I went home. This trail is on this side of the place where he was found in a dry-wash that comes in just above the bridge.”
As the following day began, James Murray would learn the fate of his drinking companion from the previous evening. “Next morning we got up, and as we were about half way to the bridge and the first house on the right of the bridge a lady hailed us, and said there was a man dying in the gulch, under a steep bank, and asked us to go and [t]ell somebody. I went down to within four or five feet of him, and thought he was dead…”
If Somers had walked off into the night as Barton had described, then one set of foot tracks, those of Somers, would have been found. This set of foot tracks would have constituted the route of his final steps before accidently falling to his death. But S.W. Starrh and others soon noticed an anomaly. “…I got upon the bank with Phin Clanton, N. Price and Geo. Williams. We found tracks leading up to the edge of the bank, the last being one or two feet from the edge. There were also tracks leading away from the edge of the bank,” recalled Starrh.
Starrh also noted that “These tracks were of different sizes. I remarked at the time I saw these tracks that it looked as if something was wrong. We followed the tracks back from the bank about fifteen yards when a third track came in. The tracks followed up a little swale about seventy-five yards from where the man lay, when we lost them. Where the body lay in the wash there were two tracks that crossed a cave of the bank, that went up to within a few feet of the body. One of these could be traced away; the other could not.”
The coroner’s jury ruled that Somers died from a “rupture of the right lobe of the liver, causing internal hemorrhage; and also that the eight rib of the right side was fractured, said injuries being inflicted with criminal intent by some person unknown.”
The Epitaph was quick to endorse the findings, and added that the coroner’s jury had good “grounds for the verdict that the death was caused by foul means, but unfortunately for the cause of justice the criminal so skillfully covered up his tracks that no clew [clue] could be found as to the perpetrator, and the chances are that it will always remain a mystery and add one more to the already long list of unfathomed murders in Cochise county.”
Whether or not Barton killed Somers, or twelve other men for that matter, remains a mystery, but his notoriety stood firm at least 24 years later: A visitor to the Charleston area in 1905 referred to it as “the deserted city of Charleston, south of Fairbank…the crumbling adobe walls, still standing as a reminder of the departed glory of the ‘Queen of the San Pedro Valley,’ which flourished in the early 80’s in the days when Jerry Barton did the artistic act with everything from his fist to his pump gun.”
Mary Wood, the wife of mining executive S.W. Wood, recalled Charleston and the recreation that the Clanton would sometimes partake in. “Perhaps at night the street may have been livelier. The Clanton boys and their friends sometimes had horse races south of the town. Gamblers came down from Tombstone sometimes but were not welcomed by either cowboys or mill men. The latter were usually steady men with families or were bent on acquiring a ranch in California. The town was usually very quiet.
William Somers died as a result of what were thought to be benign causes, possibly injuries from an accidental fall. But a number of Charleston residents contacted the Epitaph in Tombstone with their suspicions that Somers might have been a victim of foul play. The location of his body and money missing from his person when his pockets were searched only added to the intrigue.
“I was told that Somers had been settled with, and that Mr. Eccleston, (possibly Robert Eccleson, a Tombstone Merchant, or James Y. Eccleson, who worked at the Safford Hudson bank and heard the gunfire from the Gunfight near the O.K. Corral.) had paid him $125 in currency,” as S.W. Starrh testified. “I went down to where the body lay and watched it until the arrival of Justice Brown, who searched the pockets and found two knives, a piece of tobacco, a small piece of buckskin and four ten cent pieces.” The $125.00 had already been separated from his remains. Somers had spent his last evening drinking in of all places, Jerry Barton’s Saloon, which only added to the suspicions that abounded locally. James Murray was with him there that evening, having had several drinks together. He noted that he didn’t see Somers spend any of the $125.00 while he was with him at Barton’s, but he also acknowledged that he was not present the entire time that Somers was. “I left Barton’s saloon before Somers; he was there when I left…When I left the saloon I went straight to the corral and went to bed. I was pretty full myself [drunk or close to it].”
Barton testified about the time he spent with Somers in the last minutes of his life. “I know, or did know, William Somers. Saw him last about half past 9 o’clock, about ten yards from my house. He hallooed at me and asked when the train was coming. I recognized him and told him to come around the pond that was between us, and go home. I brought him around the pond and started on the trail towards the bridge.
“After I had got him straightened on the trail I went home-a very short distance from where I left him. I next saw him where his body lay, when the inquest held by Justice Brown was being held. Where I last saw him alive was on the east side of the San Pedro river, opposite Charleston…he was going down the trail leading from my house down towards the bridge. I judged from his condition that he had been drinking and was what is called full. He had been in my saloon during the evening and spent two or three dollars.” Regarding the key point of the missing money, Barton added, “Did not know, of my own knowledge, that he had been paid off at the time he was there. I watched him going down the trail until he got down off the bank nex[t] to the river, then I went home. This trail is on this side of the place where he was found in a dry-wash that comes in just above the bridge.”
As the following day began, James Murray would learn the fate of his drinking companion from the previous evening. “Next morning we got up, and as we were about half way to the bridge and the first house on the right of the bridge a lady hailed us, and said there was a man dying in the gulch, under a steep bank, and asked us to go and [t]ell somebody. I went down to within four or five feet of him, and thought he was dead…”
If Somers had walked off into the night as Barton had described, then one set of foot tracks, those of Somers, would have been found. This set of foot tracks would have constituted the route of his final steps before accidently falling to his death. But S.W. Starrh and others soon noticed an anomaly. “…I got upon the bank with Phin Clanton, N. Price and Geo. Williams. We found tracks leading up to the edge of the bank, the last being one or two feet from the edge. There were also tracks leading away from the edge of the bank,” recalled Starrh.
Starrh also noted that “These tracks were of different sizes. I remarked at the time I saw these tracks that it looked as if something was wrong. We followed the tracks back from the bank about fifteen yards when a third track came in. The tracks followed up a little swale about seventy-five yards from where the man lay, when we lost them. Where the body lay in the wash there were two tracks that crossed a cave of the bank, that went up to within a few feet of the body. One of these could be traced away; the other could not.”
The coroner’s jury ruled that Somers died from a “rupture of the right lobe of the liver, causing internal hemorrhage; and also that the eight rib of the right side was fractured, said injuries being inflicted with criminal intent by some person unknown.”
The Epitaph was quick to endorse the findings, and added that the coroner’s jury had good “grounds for the verdict that the death was caused by foul means, but unfortunately for the cause of justice the criminal so skillfully covered up his tracks that no clew [clue] could be found as to the perpetrator, and the chances are that it will always remain a mystery and add one more to the already long list of unfathomed murders in Cochise county.”
Whether or not Barton killed Somers, or twelve other men for that matter, remains a mystery, but his notoriety stood firm at least 24 years later: A visitor to the Charleston area in 1905 referred to it as “the deserted city of Charleston, south of Fairbank…the crumbling adobe walls, still standing as a reminder of the departed glory of the ‘Queen of the San Pedro Valley,’ which flourished in the early 80’s in the days when Jerry Barton did the artistic act with everything from his fist to his pump gun.”
Mary Wood, the wife of mining executive S.W. Wood, recalled Charleston and the recreation that the Clanton would sometimes partake in. “Perhaps at night the street may have been livelier. The Clanton boys and their friends sometimes had horse races south of the town. Gamblers came down from Tombstone sometimes but were not welcomed by either cowboys or mill men. The latter were usually steady men with families or were bent on acquiring a ranch in California. The town was usually very quiet.
SAM AARON AND THE CLANTON BROTHERS
Sam Aaron was the sometimes errant son of a local Charleston merchant. He once gambled some of his father’s funds away, and spent time working in a stamp mill across the river at Millville in order to make right the loss. He would also venture into the saloon world of Charleston, and his time in the area would also bring him into contact with Ike Clanton.
Aaron recalled the near constant movement of stolen goods in the area, and the rustlers who profited handsomely from them. This made an inviting target for such criminals, with honest teamsters forced to live under the constant threat of robbery. “Many of these smuggling trains, when they had to be unloaded, were ambushed by rustlers. These rustlers were made up, for the greater part, of renegades who infested Arizona. Most of them came from Texas because they feared the Rangers. A good many of these rustlers were widely known…The Clantons…were the leaders of a gang of fifty. They lived in mud houses alongside the San Pedro River. Their escapades were many, but my connections with those men came about through the fact that they had placed confidence in me and would bring their money to me to hold and divide it up among them.
“I will say this, that they held themselves aloof of any crime against the United States Government. They would not hold up a stage, bother the mail, but would steal as high as 2,000 cattle at one time in Mexico. They would start in Sonora, Mexico, and would drive forth everything they could lay their eyes on. And by the time they would get to the American line, their loot would be big. They would dispose of this cattle at $3.00 to $4.00 per head.”
While Sam seemed to sympathize with the brand of lawless activity perpetrated by the Clantons, he was not as generous with the Earps, or Earbs as he referred to them. He viewed the Clantons’ cattle rustling as simply affecting people south of the border, but was willing to believe that the Earps and Doc Holliday were committing the more controversial crimes of robbing stages on the U. S. side. “The Erbs [Earps] and their combinations would commit depredations, and immediately blame it on the Clantons.”
Though such was not the case, this stems from Ike Clanton’s testimony during the Spicer hearing which followed in the wake of the Gunfight near the O.K. Corral. His strategy was to cast doubt upon the Earps with whom they were feuding, and at the same time draw attention away from questions regarding their own questionable activities. Given the racial climate at the time, it would have been easier for Sam to hold funds from the theft of Mexican cattle than it would have from stage robberies where Americans might have been shot at or killed. In other words, Sam may well have needed to believe that the Clantons were victims of the Earps before he would accept the money.
Aaron recalled the near constant movement of stolen goods in the area, and the rustlers who profited handsomely from them. This made an inviting target for such criminals, with honest teamsters forced to live under the constant threat of robbery. “Many of these smuggling trains, when they had to be unloaded, were ambushed by rustlers. These rustlers were made up, for the greater part, of renegades who infested Arizona. Most of them came from Texas because they feared the Rangers. A good many of these rustlers were widely known…The Clantons…were the leaders of a gang of fifty. They lived in mud houses alongside the San Pedro River. Their escapades were many, but my connections with those men came about through the fact that they had placed confidence in me and would bring their money to me to hold and divide it up among them.
“I will say this, that they held themselves aloof of any crime against the United States Government. They would not hold up a stage, bother the mail, but would steal as high as 2,000 cattle at one time in Mexico. They would start in Sonora, Mexico, and would drive forth everything they could lay their eyes on. And by the time they would get to the American line, their loot would be big. They would dispose of this cattle at $3.00 to $4.00 per head.”
While Sam seemed to sympathize with the brand of lawless activity perpetrated by the Clantons, he was not as generous with the Earps, or Earbs as he referred to them. He viewed the Clantons’ cattle rustling as simply affecting people south of the border, but was willing to believe that the Earps and Doc Holliday were committing the more controversial crimes of robbing stages on the U. S. side. “The Erbs [Earps] and their combinations would commit depredations, and immediately blame it on the Clantons.”
Though such was not the case, this stems from Ike Clanton’s testimony during the Spicer hearing which followed in the wake of the Gunfight near the O.K. Corral. His strategy was to cast doubt upon the Earps with whom they were feuding, and at the same time draw attention away from questions regarding their own questionable activities. Given the racial climate at the time, it would have been easier for Sam to hold funds from the theft of Mexican cattle than it would have from stage robberies where Americans might have been shot at or killed. In other words, Sam may well have needed to believe that the Clantons were victims of the Earps before he would accept the money.
WYATT EARP, BILLY CLANTON AND A MISSING HORSE AT CHARLESTON
Wyatt Earp would later testify that he had an early encounter with Billy Clanton at Charleston. Earp told his account at the Spicer Hearing, as he and his brothers and Doc Holliday stood to answer for the shooting deaths of not only Billy Clanton, and also Frank and Tom McLaury.
“The difficulty which resulted in the death of William Clanton and Frank McLaury originated last spring, and at a little over a year ago, I followed Tom and Frank McLaury and two other parties who had stolen six government mules from Camp Rucker. Myself, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp, and Marshall Williams, Captain Hurst and four soldiers; we traced those mules to McLaury’s ranch.
“While at Charleston I met a man by the name of Dave Estes. He told me I would find the mules at McLaury’s ranch. He said he had seen them there the day before. He said they were branding the mules ‘D S,’ making the ‘D.S.’ out [of] ‘U.S.’…About one month after we had followed up those mules. I met Frank and Tom McLaury in Charleston. They tried to pick a fuss out of me down there, and told me if I ever followed them up again as close as I did before, they would kill me.”
Of an early, if not the earliest encounter between Wyatt Earp and his eventual shooting victim Billy Clanton, Wyatt testified to the following: “Myself and Doc Holliday happened to go to Charleston the night that Behan went down there to subpoena Ike Clanton. We went there for the purpose to get a horse that I had had stolen from me a few days after I came to Tombstone. I had heard several times that the Clantons had him. When I got there [Charleston] that night, I was told by a friend of mine that the man that carried the dispatch from Charleston to Ike Clanton’s ranch had rode my horse. At this time I did not know where Ike Clanton’s ranch was.
“The difficulty which resulted in the death of William Clanton and Frank McLaury originated last spring, and at a little over a year ago, I followed Tom and Frank McLaury and two other parties who had stolen six government mules from Camp Rucker. Myself, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp, and Marshall Williams, Captain Hurst and four soldiers; we traced those mules to McLaury’s ranch.
“While at Charleston I met a man by the name of Dave Estes. He told me I would find the mules at McLaury’s ranch. He said he had seen them there the day before. He said they were branding the mules ‘D S,’ making the ‘D.S.’ out [of] ‘U.S.’…About one month after we had followed up those mules. I met Frank and Tom McLaury in Charleston. They tried to pick a fuss out of me down there, and told me if I ever followed them up again as close as I did before, they would kill me.”
Of an early, if not the earliest encounter between Wyatt Earp and his eventual shooting victim Billy Clanton, Wyatt testified to the following: “Myself and Doc Holliday happened to go to Charleston the night that Behan went down there to subpoena Ike Clanton. We went there for the purpose to get a horse that I had had stolen from me a few days after I came to Tombstone. I had heard several times that the Clantons had him. When I got there [Charleston] that night, I was told by a friend of mine that the man that carried the dispatch from Charleston to Ike Clanton’s ranch had rode my horse. At this time I did not know where Ike Clanton’s ranch was.
“A short time afterwards I was in the Huachucas locating some water rights. I had started home to Tombstone. I had got within 12 or 15 miles of Charleston when I met a man named McMasters [McMasters would later join the Earp Vendetta posse]. He told me if I would hurry up, I would find my horse in Charleston. I drove into Charleston and saw my horse going through the streets toward the corral. I put up for the night in another corral. I went to [Justice Jim] Burnett’s office to get papers for the recovery of the horse. He was not at home having gone down to Sonora [Mexico] to some coal fields that had been discovered. I telegraphed to Tombstone to James Earp and told him to have papers made out and sent to me. He went to Judge Wallace and Mr. [Webster] Street. They made the papers out and sent them to Charleston by my youngest brother, Warren Earp, that night.
“While I was waiting for the papers, Billy Clanton found out that I was in town and went and tried to take the horse out of the corral. I told him that he could not take him out, that it was my horse. After the papers came, he gave the horse up without the papers being served, and asked me if I had any more horses to lose. I told him I would keep them in the stable after this, and give him no chance to steal them.” According to Wyatt’s testimony, long before their famed confrontation in Tombstone, mistrust and animosity between the Earp and Clanton factions had begun at Charleston.
“While I was waiting for the papers, Billy Clanton found out that I was in town and went and tried to take the horse out of the corral. I told him that he could not take him out, that it was my horse. After the papers came, he gave the horse up without the papers being served, and asked me if I had any more horses to lose. I told him I would keep them in the stable after this, and give him no chance to steal them.” According to Wyatt’s testimony, long before their famed confrontation in Tombstone, mistrust and animosity between the Earp and Clanton factions had begun at Charleston.
IKE CLANTON TAKES UP ARMS AGAINST A POSSE IN CHARLESTON
The Tombstone Epitaph reported on Wednesday, January 25, 1882 under this heading: “The Official Scandal. Up to the time of going to press nothing has been heard from the posse that went out with Marshal [Wyatt] Earp. After the escape of Ringo it was decided to send out another posse to bring him in, as the marshal of course had no warrant for his arrest. Accordingly, yesterday morning [Tuesday] about 4 o’clock a posse of eight, led by Mr. J. Jackson, left town with a warrant for his arrest. Arriving at Charleston at daybreak they put their horses in a corral to grain and after leaving their arms at a convenient place proceeded to the Occidental hotel to get their breakfast. Upon passing the threshold they were intercepted by Isaac [Ike] Clanton and another man with drawn weapons, while the barrels of other Winchesters suddenly gleamed over the adobe wall. Mr. Jackson stated his errand. After a few words by some of the party that nobody would be arrested unless they wanted to be, Clanton stated that Johnny had always acted the gentleman toward him and he would see what could be done, the result of his efforts being that it was arranged that Ringo should return with the posse to Tombstone. A little while afterward Mr. Goodrich rode up and took Ringo [to] one side for conversation. A few moments afterward Clanton informed Mr. Jackson that Ringo had left but would [be] in Tombstone within an hour or an hour be [sic] and twenty minutes at most, and in just about the allotted time he appeared, gave himself up and was placed in the county jail. The posse returned to town about four o’clock, the intent of their mission having been achieved by the voluntary act of Ringo. They report about twenty-five cow-boys congregated at Charleston, and from a gentleman who came in late from the southern country we learn that he was passed by a quartet about four miles above Charleston, who were making excellent time in the direction of Hereford.”
A CHARLESTON BRIDE REMEMBERS
“Charleston had a main St. about 500 floating inhabitants –There were several Coralls-Resturants with plenty of Saloons, a daily stage a store that carried dry goods and groceries run by Hererire [Herrera] & McClure…Doctor Peterson was the leading Physician. I can name several characters…the Clanton boys Finn-Ike and Will. [T]their father ran a dairy near on the San Pedro River…Will the youngest son about 16 years old of age was a good boy but had no chance in life and was killed with his brothers Ike and Finn in a fight on the streets of Tombstone between the Earps and Cowboys in 1882… [Ike left the fight in 1881 alive and Finn, aka, Phinn, was not present at all]
Carrie Miles was recalling her time in Charleston and the path her family took to get there. It all started in the fall of 1879, when her father, William Douglass, relocated his family to the Arizona Territory. They left Los Angeles traveling by covered wagon, as news of Schieffelin’s discoveries caused a rush, and they were to be a part of it. While looking through the corrals of Tucson, Carrie’s father met Alexander Miles, whom he hired to haul them and their belongings on the final leg of their journey to Tombstone. But the elder Douglass would choose Charleston instead. Miles decided to settle near the family in Charleston as well, having noticed Carrie Douglass, and the two soon began to court.
Carrie Miles was recalling her time in Charleston and the path her family took to get there. It all started in the fall of 1879, when her father, William Douglass, relocated his family to the Arizona Territory. They left Los Angeles traveling by covered wagon, as news of Schieffelin’s discoveries caused a rush, and they were to be a part of it. While looking through the corrals of Tucson, Carrie’s father met Alexander Miles, whom he hired to haul them and their belongings on the final leg of their journey to Tombstone. But the elder Douglass would choose Charleston instead. Miles decided to settle near the family in Charleston as well, having noticed Carrie Douglass, and the two soon began to court.
THE CLANTON NAME LIVES ON IN THE LOCAL TAX ROLL
Some notables from Charleston and its environs made the delinquent tax list for 1887. It was a further sign that once-thriving businesses in Charleston were simply no longer viable. “Curry, A G, San Pedro river-Clanton Springs ranch and imp’s [improvements], 5 horses, 100 stock cattle, total value $1450, total tax and costs…49 21 [$49.21]”
AWAKENED BY CURLY BILL BROCIUS AT THE CLANTON RANCH
Ed Vail, of the Empire Ranch and Total Wreck town site and mine, recalled a visit to this infamous ranch and his interrupted sleep while there. It was courtesy due to a late night visit to the Clanton Ranch, by of all people, nighttime reveler, Curly Bill Brocius. “One time our foreman at Happy Valley, Young Eberhardy, whose father was buying our cattle came over one trip… We corralled at Clanton[s] for [the] night on our way over to Tombstone. Curly Bill and [an]other came home from Charl[e]ston drunk during [the] night and was shooting up [the Clanton] ranch…[the] next morning [we] went outside & saw [a] half dozen or more quail all with heads shot off.” Frank Proctor Vail’s foreman asked who was doing the shooting outside. The casual reply, (from either one of the Clanton’s or a frequent visitor) showed that this may have been common practice for an overly imbibed Curly Bill Brocius when returning from an evening of recreation in Charleston. ‘Oh [that’s] just Curly seeing what he can do.’ Another member of Vail’s party, Young Eberhardy, later asked “did you hear my cot shaking in the night while [the] shooting was going on …”
N.H. “NEWMAN HAYNES’ “OLD MAN” CLANTON AND THE CHARLESTON REAL ESTATE MARKET
On November 27th, 1880, N.H. Clanton, Father of Clanton brothers, purchased lots 10 and 11 of block G, Pioneer Street in Charleston, which contained a saloon and residence of James Clark. Also included in the sale were “…all liquors and bar fixtures” as well as two lots on the opposite side of Pioneer street including a home that Clark had previously lived in as well. The transaction was not to be a smooth one, with seller James Clark suing N.H. Clanton to recover the property less than two weeks later, on December 3rd, 1880. Following this setback, Clanton would again try his hand at the Charleston real estate market, later purchasing another lot and home in Charleston on April 28th, 1881, less than four months before his death. The home was located on lot 6, block M at Charleston, with a twenty five foot frontage on Stowe Street, and a depth of one hundred feet. He purchased the home and land from Francisco A. and Lobia Garcia, for $100.00 cash in hand, and the transaction was witnessed by Jim Burnett. It is indeed ironic that both Wyatt and Virgil Earp owned homes on Block M in Tombstone and the elder Clanton purchased a home on block M of Charleston. Block M of Charleston has long since been consumed by the widening of the San Pedro River (see entry below), so this site is simply gone. This is a separate property than that of the Clanton Ranch, south of Charleston.
On the second entry from the bottom, Phineas “Phin” Clanton makes and unfortunate appearance in the 1882 Cochise County Delinquent role. This is courtesy of Kevin Pyles, Cochise County Archives, Bisbee Arizona. Phin Clanton has yet to pay taxes on the home formerly owned by his deceased father N.H. “Old Man” Clanton. Located on Block M, lot 6, the adobe home is valued at $250.00.
Not surprisingly, Phin Clanton was listed as the taxpayer on his father’s former Charleston adobe house, as he was the administrator of his estate. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 14th 1882.
Near the bottom left of the Charleston plat map below, block M is visible where the elder Clanton, owned lot 6.
The above information is in part excerpted from “Charleston & Millville A.T. Hell on the San Pedro, by John D. Rose. This is the first and only book ever published on Charleston, released in 2012. For more on this remarkable story and far other research breakthroughs, this book is available at https://www.createspace.com/3758160. Also available at Amazon.com.
Copyright John D. Rose, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. All rights reserved.