Legends of the Old West - PLEASANT VALLEY WAR Ep. 6 | “Last Man Standing”

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

A posse of lawmen rides to Pleasant Valley to stop the violence once and for all, but it leads to another gunfight that takes more lives from the Graham side of the feud. A lone survivor on the Graham side flees Pleasant Valley and begins a new life near Phoenix. But he learns that years and distance won’t stop the feud. He falls victim to an ambush that is blamed on a Tewksbury brother, and for the final time, justice is elusive in the Pleasant Valley War. Sign up for HelloFresh today! Use our link and promo code: HelloFresh.com/14legends Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons and 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

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Lego Fortnite. Lego Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and

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 1887, Arizona Territory was divided into just eight counties. As a result, the counties were

enormous. A couple were almost as big as small states in New England. The two biggest were Yavapai County and Apache County. They were right next to each other, and they made up almost half the territory. And the county line between them ran right through the middle of Pleasant Valley. Half of the valley was in Yavapai County and half was in Apache County. In the first week of September 1887, Apache County Sheriff Perry Owens nearly wiped out the Blevins family single-handedly during a shootout in the town of Holbrook. At the same time in neighboring Yavapai County, the county sheriff was meeting with the territorial governor to talk about the

situation in Pleasant Valley. It looked like open warfare. In just one month, from the beginning of August to the beginning of September, Andy Blevins, Hampton Blevins, Samuel Blevins, John Tewksbury, and Bill Graham had been killed in gunfights. And that was just the list of the main players. Allies of both sides had also been killed and wounded. Apache County Sheriff Perry Owens tried to do his part by attempting to arrest Andy Blevins, even though the attempt ended in a deadly gunfight. Two weeks later, Yavapai County Sheriff William Mulvenon tried to do his part.

After his meeting with the governor, he grabbed three deputies and headed for Pleasant Valley. When he arrived in the area, he recruited deputies from three other counties and formed a posse to try to end the feud once and for all. The murder and mayhem in the valley had reached the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C. Lawmakers were reluctant to add Arizona territory to the Union because it was simply too violent. Unfortunately for Arizona, it was going to have to get worse before it got better. 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.

From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With the internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify has allowed us to share something tangible with the podcast community we've built here, selling our beanies, sweatshirts, and mugs to fans of our shows without taking up too much time from all the other work we do to bring you even more great content. And it's not just us. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Shopify is also the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify.

countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business, no matter what 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 6, Last Man Standing. Sheriff Mulvanon decided to lay a trap for some of the combatants. At three o'clock in the morning,

about 14 members of the posse quietly rode through Pleasant Valley. Their destination was the Perkins General Store, the only one in the valley at that time. When the posse arrived, the store was under construction. It was in the process of being enlarged, which was perfect for the posse. Thirteen men could now hide inside while the sheriff waited somewhere outside. Sheriff Mulvanon also made Mr. and Mrs. Perkins stay in the store. He wanted to make sure there was absolutely no chance of word getting out about what they were about to do. About an hour later, sometime around four in the morning, the rest of the posse, about six men,

began slowly riding through the settlement of Young in ever-widening concentric circles. Their movements put them in plain view of the ranches of the Graham brothers and their allies, the Rose brothers. Once the men of the posse were confident they'd been seen, they rode back to the Perkins store. Johnny Graham and Charlie Blevins took the bait. They mounted up and followed the decoy posse at a safe distance. As they got closer to the Perkins store, they cautiously circled the area. When they were within range, Sheriff Mulvanon stepped out into the open with a shotgun. He ordered them to put their hands up. When they saw the sheriff, Johnny and Charlie yanked hard on their horse's reins. As they wheeled their animals around, Johnny reached for his pistol.

But before he could draw his weapon, Mulvanon blasted him with the shotgun. Most of the blast hit Johnny's horse in the neck, and the horse fell down dead. Johnny managed to leap off his horse before it trapped him underneath. He started to run for the cover of the trees that lined the pathway to the Perkins store, but Mulvanon fired again. The second blast tore up Johnny's right arm

and peppered his ribs through his side and back, and he crashed to the ground. At the same time, Charlie, who was still on his horse, reached for the Winchester rifle that was rigged to his saddle. But before he could pull it free, the posse fired a volley of shots. Eight bullets slammed into Charlie Blevins, and he toppled off his horse. Johnny and Charlie lay on the ground next to each other. They were both still alive, but just barely. Charlie died about a minute later, and members of the posse dragged his body into the shade of the store. Johnny was still alive, but he was in bad shape. The posse dragged him into the shade and gave him a drink of water. Sheriff Movenon knelt beside him.

Movenon asked Johnny why he'd pulled his gun. Didn't he recognize the sheriff on sight? Johnny could only shake his head side to side, indicating no, he hadn't recognized Movenon. And that only made the sheriff angrier. He called Johnny a damned liar and then took a moment to compose himself. Mulvanon wanted to find Johnny's younger brother, Tom. Mulvanon tried to entice Johnny to give up Tom's location by saying the posse would go get Tom and bring him back here to sit with Johnny during Johnny's final moments. The posse wouldn't arrest Tom, it would just reunite the brothers here at the end.

Johnny Graham was having none of it. He died an hour later without revealing Tom's location. And Tom was, in fact, very close. He and a nephew of the Graham family, who had been loosely involved in some of the events of the feud, were stationed within earshot of the gunfight. A member of the posse climbed a tall pine tree and looked around with a set of field glasses. He spotted the two men some distance away. They were frantically saddling their horses. They'd clearly heard the gunshots, and when Johnny and Charlie didn't return, they assumed a posse would be after them. Moments later, they galloped away, and the posse did not

follow. Sheriff Mulvenon knew that Tom Graham would not surrender peacefully, and the sheriff figured that two dead men before dawn was probably enough. Tom and the nephew, Lewis Parker, rode down the trail and then holed up in a defensive position. They watched the trail until nightfall, still certain that a posse would be chasing them. When they didn't see a posse by the time it got dark, they figured they were in the clear. They carefully and quietly made their way back to the cabin shared by Johnny and Tom, hoping against hope that Johnny might have made his way back there too. Sadly for Tom, his brother wasn't there and never returned. Tom knew Johnny was gone, and now there was nothing left for Tom in Pleasant Valley.

Tom and Louis asked a friend to store their belongings, and they fled the valley once and for all. Tom Graham took up temporary residence in a hotel in Prescott. Louis went into hiding, and Tom refused to divulge his whereabouts even to Louis' mother for fear the location would somehow leak out. In Prescott, Tom filed a petition with the probate court to assume control of his brother's estate. Then he headed south to the communities of Maricopa County and settled in the village of Tempe. He slowly sold his family's land and never returned to Pleasant Valley. But Tom couldn't run forever, and the war would eventually catch up with him. Sheriff Mulvanon hoped that by allowing Tom to run, he might give all the warring parties time to cool off and come to their senses. In a three-month span of 1887, 12 men were shot to death, four were wounded, and one was missing and presumed dead. Since the outbreak of hostilities between the Grams and the Tewksbury's in 1884, at least 14 men had been killed, and at least nine had been badly wounded in various encounters.

Up to this point, no family had lost more than the Blevins family, the allies of the Graham family. With the death of Charlie Blevins, there was just one male Blevins left, John Blevins, who had nearly been killed in the Holbrook shootout. So as Tom Graham was allowed to move on with his life, Sheriff Mulvenon busied himself with other work in the valley. He served warrants on several allies of the Graham family, the most notable being Al Rose. Al and his brother Ed had been Tewksbury allies early in the war, but had gradually moved over to the Grahams. Al was much more involved in the events than Ed, and Al was suspected of being one of the

men who burned down the Middleton Ranch. The Middleton Ranch was owned by an ally of the Tewksbury's, and it was the site of the gunfight between Jim Tewksbury and Hampton Blevins, during which Hampton was killed. Sheriff Mulvanon rounded up Al Rose and several others, Sheriff Mulvanon rounded up Al Rose and several others, and another round of legal proceedings began, and then ended, like all the others. Not surprisingly, none of the witnesses who were called to testify could or would say that they saw who started the fire. The defendants were all acquitted, and some sources say Al Rose was ready to leave the valley forever. But before he did, he became another casualty of the war. In October 1887, one month after his acquittal, Al rode out to an old ranch in the East Valley that was still owned by the Graham Brothers.

Two men worked the ranch on behalf of the Grahams, and Al Rose offered to help them with the chores, branding cattle, rounding up strays, and feeding the horses. On the morning of November 1st, Al walked out to feed his own horse, and he was startled by sounds behind him. Before he could react, a group of men walked out of the brush and blocked the path between Al and the cabin. The bushwhackers were dressed in long coats with collars turned up. Their faces were covered, and most of them held rifles or shotguns. They began to howl like animals. Al had seen plenty of combat in the Civil War, and he didn't scare easily.

But in this instance, he was too scared to move. The men in front of him had the general look of bandits, but white bandits didn't usually howl like that. Apaches might, but they wouldn't wear long coats and hats. Al tried to make a move around the group and shout for help from the two men in the cabin, but it was useless. The group had him trapped, and he threw up his hands in defeat. The masked men shot and killed Al Rose without a word. Around the same time that Al Rose was gunned down on a Graham ranch, another Graham ally was found dead. William Bonner had been accused of arson with Al Rose, and shortly before Al's death was reported in the papers, Bonner's death made headlines. His bloated body was found on the side of a well-traveled road.

At least one Arizona newspaper speculated that it had been the work of the Tewksbury gang. one Arizona newspaper speculated that it had been the work of the Tewksbury gang. Al's older brother Ed learned of his murder from a deputy sheriff while on the trail to Globe City. Ed returned to Pleasant Valley to give the sad news to Al's wife. Like many others, she assumed the Tewksburys were involved with her husband's death. Though Al never pulled the trigger during the war, he did run his mouth. Lots of residents remembered him as an instigator who continually needled the Graham brothers into action. With the burial of Al Rose, the battles in Pleasant Valley died down over the winter months of 1887-1888, but they flared right back up again after the snow melted in May.

Early in the month, Ed Tewksbury and a man named John Rhodes were riding along the Salt River in the southern portion of Pleasant Valley. There was a cantina on the side of the road, and they stopped for a drink. For some reason, though no one knows why or who started it, John Rhodes got into a gunfight. He shot two men before being shot in the hand himself. John and Ed escaped the cantina, and John sounded like he wanted to turn himself in, but then he changed his mind. Though most of the details are mysterious, at least one newspaper said the shootout was a result of the ongoing feud. Less than a week after the dust-up in the cantina, two of Tom Graham's employees broke into a post office-slash-general store.

There were no shootings or killings, thankfully, but it was another black mark on the Graham name. black mark on the Graham name. Since fleeing Pleasant Valley in the fall of 1887, Tom and his wife Annie had built a small house in Tempe outside Phoenix. They had lost their first child in infancy, but now they had a second whom they were raising outside the war zone. But as Tom was about to learn, no place was safe. In 1890, a man named Robert Bowen built the Tempe Hotel. He became prosperous enough to buy cattle. He chose to keep a herd in Pleasant Valley, and he hired one of the best cowboys in the area. That cowboy was John Rhodes, the friend of Ed Tewksbury who was now two years removed from the shootout in the cantina. In addition to being Ed's friend, Rhodes was now family. Rhodes had married the widow of Ed's brother, John.

In late July 1892, on a cattle drive from Pleasant Valley to Tempe, Robert Bowen was making small talk with John Rhodes. Bowen mentioned that they were going to drive the cattle to a field next door to the residence of a man named Tom Graham. Rhodes gave no indication that he knew Tom, but if the story that Tom told later is to be believed, Rhodes used the information as fast as he could. Just a few days later, on the morning of August 2nd, 1892, Tom Graham rose early. He loaded his wagon with newly harvested barley and set out for a flour mill three miles away. As he rounded a large cottonwood tree that had fallen in a windstorm, he was startled to hear the sounds of horses charging up from behind. Tom turned and saw two riders

bearing down on him with rifles raised. He was trying to jump from the wagon when a single rifle shot hit him in the back and exited below his jaw. It snapped his head back and sent his body flopping onto the grain in his wagon. He was paralyzed from the waist down and could only drag in deep gulps of air as he waited for the kill shot, but it never came. Two teenage girls were farther up the trail. They heard the shot, and then a few moments later, two men raced by them. The girls told law enforcement that one of the men appeared to have distinctly dark skin. Tom Graham lived for a few more hours, and he was able to gasp out the names of the men who shot him.

He said they were John Rhodes and Ed Tewksbury. Tom's friends, who were at his bedside, helped him scribble an X on a statement that named the two men as his killers. At three o'clock that afternoon, Tom Graham succumbed to his wound and died. A deputy found John Rhodes two days later in Tempe. Lawmen moved Rhodes to a jail in Phoenix to better protect him against the vigilante mobs that were forming in Tempe. He adamantly denied having anything to do with Tom Graham's death. In mid-August, he went to trial and the courtroom was packed. Onlookers respectfully parted when Annie Graham, Tom's wife, appeared at the entrance to the courtroom with their young daughter.

Both were dressed in black. As the day progressed and Tom's murder was discussed in open court, Annie's sobs intermittently punctuated the proceedings. At one point during the trial, a witness was drawing a diagram on a chalkboard, and the audience watched with rapt attention. Suddenly, Annie shrieked. She lunged forward to try to get to the defendant. She had concealed her husband's.45 caliber Colt revolver in her handbag, and now she tried to use it to kill John Rhodes.

But the hammer got caught on a piece of her clothing. As she pulled the trigger, the hammer slammed down on the fabric and failed to fire a bullet. Deputies wrestled Annie to the ground as she screamed, Oh my God, just let me shoot, over and over again. Five days later, John Rhodes was found not guilty. He had put forth an alibi that the jury believed was strong enough so that he couldn't possibly have killed Tom Graham. And then it was Ed Tewksbury's turn. After he was arrested, a lynch mob formed in Tempe, and it forced the lawmen to take him to

jail a hundred miles south in Tucson. And then when lawmen heard rumors that Ed's friends were searching for him to possibly intimidate witnesses or jury members, they moved him back to Phoenix. In December 1892, 34-year-old Ed Tewksbury was indicted by a grand jury in Maricopa County. But because of a series of legal missteps by both the prosecution and the defense, But because of a series of legal missteps by both the prosecution and the defense, Ed's trial didn't happen until mid-July 1893. And at that time, the whole show was moved back down to Tucson. He was allowed a change of venue because the jury pool was considered too tainted in the Phoenix area.

It seemed like everyone in Arizona Territory had a connection to, or strong feelings about, one side or the other in the Tewksbury-Graham feud. The Los Angeles Times newspaper quipped that if the Territory had a few more feuds like this one, it would never have enough people to qualify as a state to be admitted to the Union. When Ed Tewksbury went through his trial, it seemed like a Pleasant Valley miracle occurred. Someone finally got convicted of something. In the 10 years of hostilities between the Tewksburys and the Grams, there had been lies, threats, lawsuits, intimidation, murder, attempted murder, cattle rustling, horse stealing, armed robbery, and arson. And not one conviction. But here at the very end, that finally changed. And then it didn't. Ed Tewksbury was convicted of first-degree murder. But incredibly, a clerk failed to file some important paperwork, which gave Ed's lawyers the opportunity to call for a mistrial.

The county agreed, and the conviction was nullified. They would have to do the trial all over again. On January 2nd, 1895, two and a half years after the murder of Tom Graham, In 1895, two and a half years after the murder of Tom Graham, Ed Tewksbury sat in a packed courtroom as he awaited the jury's verdict in his second trial. And the verdict was no verdict. He was a hung jury. With the prospect of a third trial on the horizon, Ed's lawyers convinced the judge that Ed should be allowed bail. The legal process had gone on for an absurdly long time by the standards of the day, and the judge agreed to a bail of $10,000. Ed's supporters raised the money, and he walked out of the courthouse a few days later.

And then, a month later, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors declined to conduct another trial of Ed Tewksbury. The case had already cost nearly $20,000, which would be more than $600,000 today. So Ed Tewksbury was a free man. It had been a little over 15 years since the Tewksbury family moved to Pleasant Valley, and for most of that time they'd fought the Graham family. But it was finally done, whether justice had been served at the end or not. And the Tewksburys could boast of the most survivors. During all the violence, only the eldest brother, John, had been killed.

Jim Tewksbury, who at a minimum is credited with armed robbery in the murder of Hampton Blevins, survived the worst of the feud, but then died of tuberculosis in 1888. The Graham family lost Johnny, Tom, and Bill, all killed by bullets. And as previously stated, the Blevins family, who were allies of the Grams, suffered the most. Andy, Charlie, Hampton, and Samuel were killed in gunfights related to the feud. And the sole surviving brother, John, was sentenced to prison for the attempted murder of Apache County Sheriff Perry Owens. But the good people of Holbrook thought the Blevins family had experienced enough misery, and they successfully petitioned the governor to commute John's sentence.

By the most conservative estimate, 18 men died in the Pleasant Valley War, and possibly as many as 35. Historians admit the true number might never be known, in part because some people just disappeared, like Martin Blevins, the father of the Blevins family, and George Newton, the Tewksbury ally who owned the Middleton Ranch where Jim Tewksbury killed Hampton Blevins. Some of George's belongings, including his gun, were found on the banks of the Salt River in April of 1892, but his body was never found. And then to add insult to injury in Pleasant Valley, after 10 years of escalating violence that mercifully abated in 1892, an economic depression hit in 1893. Cattle baron Jim Stenson had to sell off what was left of his livestock and leave Arizona

in a second-hand wagon. The Aztec Cattle Company, the big outfit from Texas that employed the notorious Hash Knife Cowboys, was nearly ruined from the inside by corruption, on top of the Depression. The company fired more than two-thirds of its employees in an effort to save itself. And then just as the company started to show a profit again at the end of the 1890s, the devastating winter of 1900 killed thousands of the company's cattle. It liquidated its assets and closed up shop. In an interesting twist of fate, John Rhodes, Ed Tewksbury's friend who had allegedly helped kill Tom Graham, went on to a career in law enforcement and became the oldest serving Arizona Ranger. And with decades of Apache raids and battles with the U.S. Army and bloody

feuds and bloody power struggles and range wars, it's probably no surprise that Arizona and New Mexico were the last territories in mainland America to become states of the Union. And that didn't happen until 1912. They were truly the last gasp of the Wild West. Thanks for listening to the story of the Pleasant Valley War here on Legends of the Old West. Next time, we're finally doing a series that I've been talking about for a long time. It's one of the big ones. The story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. We'll see you soon for that one.

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 Brickler 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 Valliere.

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, Once Upon a Crime, and many more. Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal?

Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent. C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Et Rakuten partage l'argent avec vous sous forme de remise. Téléchargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada