Legends of the Old West - PLEASANT VALLEY WAR Ep. 2 | “Assault With Intent To Kill”

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

The cattle baron of Pleasant Valley believes the Tewksbury brothers are stealing his animals. He sends three men to the Tewksbury ranch to discover the truth, and the confrontation turns into a shootout. The first gunshots of the Pleasant Valley War are fired, and they trigger a chain reaction of reprisals. Sign up for HelloFresh today! Use our link and promo code: HelloFresh.com/14legends Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fortnite created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. In 1877, 39-year-old James Stinson of Arizona Territory was approached by a faction of Mormons

from Utah. They were looking for more hospitable lands to colonize. Stinson's massive ranch along Silver Creek, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, was just what they wanted. As comfortable as he was, the rancher's fortunes were tied to the ebb and flow of grain prices. He offered to sell the Mormons some of his land for the equivalent of about $300,000 in today's money. The Mormon elders didn't have that much cash, but they struck a deal with Stenson. They would pay him partly in cash and partly in a herd of 600 Midwestern cattle that they'd brought with them

from Utah. The Midwestern cattle were raised as beef cattle. They grew bigger and fatter than the cattle that populated most of Arizona at the time. The current stock in Arizona was mostly Mexican range cattle that were tougher and leaner than the Midwestern breed. The Midwestern stock certainly required more work, but they also commanded higher prices, and America's appetite for beef was only growing. Jim Stenson made the deal. He now had a sizable herd and he headed for Pleasant Valley to build his operation. And coincidentally, in the same year

that Jim Stinson set up a cattle empire in Pleasant Valley, a down-on-his-luck prospector named Ed Shiflin filed his first claim for a silver mine. His mine was about 170 miles south of Pleasant Valley, and he called it Tombstone. Ed Shiflin could never have foreseen that the town that grew around his mine would one day be home to the most famous gunfight

in American history. And Jim Stinson could not have known that his cattle operation would plant the seeds for the longest and bloodiest feud of its kind in the American West. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business.

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Shopify.com slash Realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is a six-part series about the bloodiest feud in the West, the Pleasant Valley War. This is Episode 2, Assault with Intent to Kill. Before Jim Stinson went big into the cattle business with the arrival of the Mormon sect, he raised corn and barley on thousands of acres that he claimed using squatters' rights. He also raised herds of Mexican range cattle, but he quickly saw the value of the new stock that the Mormons brought to town. He built his operation along

Silver Creek, which runs for about 45 miles along a segment of what's called the Mugion Rim. The rim is a richly forested ridge that runs almost the entire width of central Arizona. It's a giant plateau, and in some places, it rises more than 2,000 feet above the area around it. Because I'm sure this will come up at some point, do a fun exercise. Go to the internet and try to type the name Mugion Rim based on how I'm saying it. You'll discover that it's spelled almost nothing like it sounds, according to the local pronunciation here in Arizona. The plateau was probably named after a man who was briefly the

governor of the Mexican province of New Mexico back in the early 1700s. His last name is spelled the same as the rim, and it was probably pronounced Mogollon. Over the last 300 years, the pronunciation has been corrupted into Mogollon. So with that out of the way, the rim drops down into an area called Pleasant Valley. Pleasant Valley was beautiful. It was full of tall grass, flowers, and plenty of game. Its meadows were fed by streams of melting snow and rainwater from the rim. Decades after the years of the Pleasant Valley War, famous Western novelist Zane Gray built a hunting cabin in the area, northeast of the present-day

town of Payson. The valley was also isolated. It was a three-day trip by wagon down to the town of Globe that you heard about in the last episode. The county seat at the time was 150 miles to the west in Prescott, where, coincidentally, a man named Virgil Earp was now a deputy U.S. Marshal. Like almost every other white person in Pleasant Valley in the 1870s, Jim Stinson was from somewhere else, Maine to be exact. And two years after Stinson launched his new cattle operation, he met another man from Maine, J.D. Tewksbury. J.D. was about 15 years older than Stinson, and he had left the East Coast 20 years earlier to seek his fortune in the gold fields of Northern California. J.D. had a wandering spirit. He sailed on a ship from New England, down around Cape Horn at the tip of South America,

and then up the west coast to Oregon. He ended up settling in Humboldt County, California, which is far north and west of the original hotspot for gold. He met and married a woman who was a member of the Hoopa tribe. They had five children, four boys and a girl, but unfortunately his wife passed away in 1878, probably from tuberculosis. Sometime shortly after his wife's death, J.D. decided to pack up the family and leave California. It's not clear why, but it may have been in part because of the increasing violence toward Native Americans in that part of the country.

By 1878, Native societies in the West were breathing their last gasps. In Texas, the Comanches had been decimated. The tribes of the Northern and Southern Plains were on reservations or on the run. The tribes of the Northwest, specifically the Nez Perce, had been on the run, and now their long fights were done. And I promise that's a story we'll get to in a future series. In the Southwest, reservations had been established, but as you already know, there were still years of raids yet to come, most notably by the Apache and led by Geronimo. to come, most notably by the Apache and led by Geronimo. In California, tribes who had lived there for a thousand years contended with Mexican settlers and then European settlers,

and the violence had risen sharply for about the last 30 years. Another event we'll probably get to in a future episode is the Bloody Island Massacre of 1850, also known as the Clear Lake Massacre. It happened about 70 miles southeast of Humboldt County, probably just a handful of years before J.D. Tewksbury arrived in California. J.D.'s children were half Native American and had darker skin than other families in the area. Maybe that influenced his decision to move.

Maybe not. But their features would certainly lead to problems in their new home. than other families in the area. Maybe that influenced his decision to move, maybe not, but their features would certainly lead to problems in their new home. In the fall of 1879, J.D. married a Mormon woman in the small settlement of Tempe, which is now essentially a suburb of Phoenix. She had also lost her spouse to illness and was a single mother of two children. They joined their families together, and shortly thereafter, J.D.'s four sons moved out of the house. At the time, the ages of the sons probably ranged from 21 to 14. In all likelihood, the family home in Tempe was just too crowded. The four young men moved up to Pleasant Valley and started building a ranch.

They constructed a cabin, a bunkhouse, a smithy, corrals, and stables. As the Tewksbury boys worked, their sister married and moved out. Then it was just J.D., his wife, and her daughters at the place in Tempe. And it wouldn't be long before they reunited with J.D.'s sons in Pleasant Valley. The Tewksbury boys chose a well-watered area along Cherry Creek for the ranch where they intended to raise hogs and horses. area along Cherry Creek for the ranch where they intended to raise hogs and horses. The rocky foothills that ringed the area provided some protection from the winter winds and helped keep the livestock close. The location was remote to an extent. It was far from other white homesteaders, but it wasn't very far from the Apache reservations. In that part of the valley,

from the Apache Reservations. In that part of the valley, the Fort Apache Reservation was only eight miles away. But the valley as a whole slowly began to attract other people, settlers from all different backgrounds. Most were single men who were seeking fortune and adventure. Some were Civil War veterans who just wanted a quiet place to grow old. In 1880, there were just five or six small ranches in the approximately 7,600 acres of Pleasant Valley. There were only about 250 people in the entire expanse. Sometimes neighbors lived relatively close to each other. Other times the nearest neighbor was 50 miles away. So when the whole Tewksbury clan reunited in Pleasant Valley, they were the only multi-generational family in the area. J.D. and his wife and stepdaughters moved on to a little ranch close to the one owned by his sons. Then, a short time later,

a tragedy occurred. It had nothing to do with the violence and chaos of the years to come, but it was an early omen nonetheless. Mrs. Tewksbury's eight-year-old daughter from her previous marriage was playing in Cherry Creek and drowned in a flash flood. After heavy rains at higher elevations up on the rim, water could come raging through the streams and creeks of the valley and hit without warning. After that sad event, everyone was extra careful to watch out for each other. Pleasant Valley had great land for livestock, but it was just as dangerous as any other part of the frontier, with violent weather, mountain lions and bears, and Apache raids. Families and neighbors had to stick together to protect each other,

especially because there were so few of them. J.D. Tewksbury had enjoyed Mexican fiestas back in California, so he brought some of the tradition to Pleasant Valley. Every now and then, he'd invite everyone in the valley to his ranch for a couple days. They'd have horse races, barbecues, roping contests, and dances until all hours of the night. But it was still a male-dominated society at that point. There weren't many families, and there weren't many women. Pleasant Valley was hard to get to. There were only a couple wagon roads into the valley, and the railroad wouldn't arrive in the

town of Holbrook for a couple more years, and even then, it was more than 60 miles away. Getting to and from a friend's cabin or the general store or a courthouse could take anywhere from a couple hours to several days on horseback, and it was probably the dynamics of the valley that caused a pairing that might initially sound odd to the ear. John Tewksbury, the eldest son, married his stepsister, the eldest and now only daughter of his stepmother. They were close enough in age and obviously not related by blood. They'd only known each other for a couple years, so it wasn't like they'd grown up together so that there was the feel of a familial bond. That was in 1882, after the Tewksbury clan had been in the valley for a couple years. John and his wife moved away from the main ranch and built their own spread about four miles away. Then in early 1883, the trouble began,

and like most range wars, it started with a dispute over stolen cattle. And like most range wars, it started with a dispute over stolen cattle. To some extent, the cattle baron in the Pleasant Valley region, Jim Stinson, must have known what he was getting into when he started a herd of beef cattle back in 1877. A herd of any size was an obvious and attractive target for rustlers. But in addition, Stinson must have known that there was a well-established economy of stolen people, goods, and livestock in Arizona Territory. One prominent historian described it as a scenario of traders and raiders. And of course, that started with the Apaches.

Apache society was almost entirely based on raiders. And of course, that started with the Apaches. Apache society was almost entirely based on raiding. They generally didn't hunt buffalo, because the herds were mostly way off to the east, and they generally didn't cultivate the land, which would have been hard to do anyway in that part of the country. So the Apaches raided northern Mexico relentlessly for generations. The American government thought that when it confined the Apaches to reservations, it would stop the flow of stolen goods in the Southwest. In reality, the opposite happened. Outlaws of every stripe picked up where the Apaches left off, and now with less fear of being ambushed by a party of warriors.

Settlers who moved into the Southwest wanted to get established quickly, and when they bought horses and cattle, many weren't concerned with where the animals came from. Trade routes opened up from Arizona to New Mexico to Texas that specialized in the flow of stolen livestock. If you heard our seasons on Tombstone and Billy the Kid, you heard some pretty good descriptions of the networks of smugglers who stole, bought, sold, and moved horses and cattle through the region. By 1880, the heyday of the cattle industry was starting to decline in most of America. The open ranges of the West were declining. Railroads brought waves of settlers to places that had once been open land, and cattlemen increasingly put up barbed wire to protect their grazing land from competition. But Arizona Territory was a different story.

While the grasslands of the Great Plains were becoming overgrazed, the grasslands of central Arizona were not. Their isolation kept them preserved, and so, naturally, as Jim Stinson built up his herd of beef cattle, it became a prime target for thieves. Stinson was probably the wealthiest man in the area, but he still didn't like to lose even one animal. Like all stockmen, he knew that some cattle would be killed by wolves or mountain lions or by weather or disease. That was part of the business. But also like other stockmen, he hated thieves and wouldn't tolerate them. By early 1883, he thought there was a problem

with the Tewksbury brothers. It sounds like Stinson didn't initially think the Tewksburys had stolen his cattle. He thought they had mistakenly branded some of his animals at the last roundup. There were two big roundups in Pleasant Valley, one in the spring and one in the fall. Each time, all the ranchers and cowboys worked together to scour the area and collect all the cattle. They gathered the animals into one big group and then separated them by ranch. They branded the calves, and then each owner took his cattle back to his respective ranch.

Well, Jim Stinson was under the impression that three Tewksbury brothers had mistakenly branded some of his herd at the fall roundup. Stinson had one of the most basic brands of all time, just a simple T, which could easily be reworked into something else. Apparently, the brothers admitted the mistake. They offered to return the cattle and rebrand them. Stinson's initial response was to threaten to prosecute

them. But later, after the damage was done, he claimed he had had a change of heart, and that the three men he sent to the Tewksbury Ranch were not gunmen, but simple messengers who were supposed to tell the brothers about the change. But after what happened, few people believed him. The Tewksbury's had survived a year of Apache raids from the summer of 1881 to the summer of 1882, despite their close proximity to the reservations. And in the summer of 1882, one of the middle brothers, Ed, met a 31-year-old Irishman named Johnny Graham. Ed pitched the virtues of Pleasant Valley to Johnny and Johnny's younger brother Tom. When the Apache raids were halted by the army in midsummer,

the Grahams made the trek to Pleasant Valley and established their own ranch, with help from the Tewksbury's. And in the winter of 1882, the Tewksbury brothers decided they needed a new house. They had outgrown their one-room cabin. So the Graham brothers pitched in to help their neighbors with the construction. And that's what they were doing on January 12, 1883, when three men rode up to the Tewksbury ranch. Ed and Jim Tewksbury were probably near the half-built cabin when the riders approached. Tom Graham was splitting a log to make a cupboard, so he was probably close as well.

Johnny Graham was the outlier. He was 200 yards away looking for stones in the creek bed to build the fireplace. The riders trudged through the snow toward the Tewksbury brothers. The riders trudged through the snow toward the Tewksbury brothers. The man in the lead was 25-year-old John Gilliland, who was a range foreman for Stinson. Behind John Gilliland were his 14-year-old cousin Elisha and an older man named Ruiz. They were heavily armed with six-shooters and Winchesters. John Gilliland steered his horse around Jim Tewksbury and looked him over. Then Gilliland stopped in front of Ed Tewksbury. Ed said, good morning, who are you

looking for? Gilliland said, you, you son of a bitch. Then he pulled his pistol and fired. And as hard as it might be to believe, and as awkward as it might seem in the movies, and as hard as it might be to believe, and as awkward as it might seem in the movies, shooters often missed at close range. Gilliland did, and Ed reacted quickly. He grabbed his gun and returned fire. Gilliland pulled the trigger again, and he missed Ed a second time. But the miss still made an impact.

The bullet went through Tom Graham's hat and slammed into a blasting cap. Ed had been preparing to blast a foundation in the frozen ground, and the bullet set off an explosion. Between the gunfire and the explosion, Ruiz's horse started jumping wildly. Young Elisha Gilliland sat frozen in place. Tom Graham and Jim Tewksbury scrambled to the half-built cabin, where their revolvers hung inside. Ed stood his ground and fired two more times. The second bullet hit John Gilliland at the perfect angle and tore through both his elbows. Ed's third shot finally shook Elisha out of his stupor.

The teenager turned his horse and charged away from the scene. Ruiz followed him. John Gilliland fired one more time and then turned his horse to follow the other two. He was bleeding from both arms, so he clamped the reins between his teeth as he raced away. Elisha Gilliland didn't make it very far. After a short distance, he slid off his horse and fell to the ground. When the adrenaline wore off, he realized he'd been shot in the hip. For whatever reason, John Gilliland and Ruiz kept riding. Maybe they overtook Elisha during the frantic escape and they were out in front when Elisha collapsed, so they didn't know he was in trouble.

Or maybe they were so consumed by panic, they weren't going to stop for anything. Either way, Elisha was alone on the frozen ground when Johnny Graham and Jim Tewksbury found him moments later. Johnny and Jim carried Elisha back to the cabin and nursed him as best they could. Then they transported him to the Stinson Ranch. It was undoubtedly a painful journey, but Elisha survived. As all the parties calmed down, it became clear that the injuries to Elisha and John Gilliland were not life-threatening. But in the immediate aftermath, the news of the gunfight spread incredibly fast,

especially in an area where it was 80 miles to the nearest telegraph office. A neighbor of the Gillilands thought Elisha was going to die, and he swore out a murder complaint against Ed Tewksbury. When it was understood that Elisha would live, the murder charge was reduced to assault with intent to kill. That charge was filed against Ed Tewksbury and John Gilliland. John Gilliland was taken into custody, but when authorities went to the Tewksbury Ranch to arrest Ed, he wasn't there. Ed and his friend Johnny Graham were already on the road to Prescott to file their own complaint against the Gillilands and Ruiz. Four months later, the first trial that involved the core players in Pleasant Valley began.

Naturally, both sides insisted the other was the first to draw a weapon. Testimony lasted for two days, and after two days of hearing conflicting stories, it was time for the jury to make a decision. The men of the jury probably had no idea who to believe, so they probably took the path of least resistance. Their decision was to find both parties not guilty. This first trial was short and fairly unexciting. It was mostly an inconvenience for those involved. But it was only the beginning of a series of courtroom battles that would become more serious and more emotional as the people of Pleasant Valley chose sides in the war.

And notably, this sequence of events, from the shooting to the trial, was the last time the Tewksbury's and Graham's were on the same side. And so after all that, what was the truth of the original allegation? Cattle Baron Jim Stinson thought the Tewksbury's were rebranding his cattle, probably on purpose, which meant they were stealing his cattle. More than likely, he was right. By 1882, Stinson was running more than a thousand head of cattle through Pleasant Valley. His herd was eating all the grass and drinking all the water. The probable reality was that everyone was stealing Stinson's cattle, to one degree or another. Some took more, some took fewer. But whatever the degree, by 1883, Jim Stinson was fed up. He'd sent the three riders to the Tewksbury Ranch in January, and that didn't work, regardless

of the intended plan. The trial happened in the spring, and that didn't have a satisfactory outcome. So in the fall of 1883, he tried a new tactic. He made a secret plan with Johnny Graham to betray the Tewksbury's. Next time on Legends of the Old West, the situation in Pleasant Valley really heats up with more courtroom trials, gunfights, and cattle rustling, and a little armed robbery mixed in for good measure. The feud between the Tewksbury's and the Grams

truly begins next week on Legends of the Old West. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive early access and the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched by Julia Bricklin and written by Julia and myself. Special thanks to historian Eduardo Pagan for his help during this production. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. Original music by Rob Vallier.

I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World,

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