Gavilan Trail 1889

This portion of the 1888 township subdivisional survey plat map shows Gavilan Trail heading over the pass in the Mimbres Mountains. This is likely the trail taken by the U.S. Cavalry and posse on Nana's tail in August 1881.

This was a well worn path. Stephen Watts Kearney and the Army of the West, with Lt. Emory, guided by Kit Carson passed this way in October 1846.  In fact, they camped one night a few miles downslope to the east along Berrenda Creek. Harley Shaw in a previous post on Hillsboro History referenced the published journals of soldiers who made the trek in the Mexican War.  Emory Pass was not used by Kearney, though it commemorates his army's endeavors.

The headwater stem of Macho Creek in sections 30 and 31 is now known as Pollock Creek in memorial to Brady Pollock who was murdered by Geronimo in September 1885.

On the full version of the map, those familiar with the history around Hillsboro, Kingston and Lake Valley will recognize some of the names on the map, those like Knight, Richards, Parks, and Latham.  Parks Ranch, too, is associated Apache depradation. Ranch hand Jacob Hailing was murdered in Ulzana's Raid of November 8, 1885.  -- Craig Springer

Gavilan Trail and the headwater of Macho Creek near Lake Valley, New Mexico.
This is culled from the township subdivisional survey map, General Land Office. Surveyed January-Feburary 1889. T.18., R.8W. 

A Tale of Two Canyons

Mark B. Thompson, III

It seems fair to state that my great-grandfather, and Hillsboro, New Mexico politician, Nicholas Galles, was undoubtedly proud of his association with what I would call the defense against the Apache insurgency, 1860-1886. For example, both a 1902 Santa Fe New Mexican article, and his 19ll obituary in The Rio Grande Republican published in Las Cruces mention his involvement from 1877 through 1886. I have previously written that by time of the 1902 newspaper article he was certainly not “trumpeting” his involvement in the 1885, Geronimo, campaign. I decided to take a closer look at the 1881 encounter with Nana.

As described in the Saturday, August 27, 1881, edition of The Rio Grande Republican, Galles was reported as “missing in action” after the August 19, 1881, battle with the Apaches:  “Mr. Elias Blain of Hillsboro, who arrived here last Sunday furnishes the Republican the particulars of the fight at Gabilan cañon, between Lake Valley and Georgetown, a brief account of which was given in last Saturday’s Republican. [Note: Phonetic spelling of Gavilan and Spanish for canyon in original.]

“It appears the Indians rode right into Hillsboro and from a hill overlooking the town fired into the houses. Lt. G.W. Smith, with twenty troops and thirty-five merchants and miners of Hillsboro and Lake Valley started in pursuit of the Indians and when passing through Gabilan cañon, nine miles from Lake Valley, they were fired upon by the Indians concealed in the rocks. They were completely surprised and Lt. Smith and Mr. Daly and three soldiers were killed and four soldiers wounded. The troops and citizens scattered and twelve of the most prominent citizens are still missing, among them Mr. Nicholas Galles, one of the county commissioners of this county.” [Note: Hillsboro was part of Doña Ana County until Sierra County was created in 1884.]

Both the 1902 and 191l newspaper accounts arguably cover the story of 1881 but without a clear date reference. The Galles 1911 obituary describes a battle in Grant County which could be a reference to the August 1881 encounter because it states that Galles had his horse shot out from under him but that he was able to hide from the enemy for the rest of the battle, was missing for several days and thought dead until his reemergence.  [Ironically, it was the report of his death in the New Ulm, Minnesota newspaper in September of 1881 that provided us with more background information on why the Minnesotan Galles had come to New Mexico about 1875.]  The obituary, however, says that 65 soldiers and “militia” died in the otherwise unidentified encounter which clearly did not happened in August 1881. The 1902 New Mexican article merely states that Galles was “present” at the encounter in which Lt. Smith and George Daly were killed.

If that tale seems strange, the fact is that the civilians at “Gavilan Canyon” generally come off looking bad. Historian Charles L. Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers and Officers of the Ninth Cavalry, 1867-1898 (1999), pp. 225-31, claims that Lt. Smith knew he was to wait for reinforcements but that George Daly called him a coward and threatened to lead the civilians out of Lake Valley in pursuit of Chief Nana and the Apaches with or without the cavalry. Kenner says that when the cavalry entered the canyon at 9:30 A.M. on the 19^th with the “motley train of miners and cowboys,” many of the civilians “were still drinking.” He says that after Smith and Daly were killed in the opening salvo, “the miners either fled madly down the canyon or collapsed in fright behind boulders.” Historian Frank N. Schubert, Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898  (1997), pp. 76-89, says that Lt. Smith knew better but had followed the “eager cowboys” into Gavilan Canyon and does not mention the “cowboys” continuing the fight after the initial killing of Daly.

Battles between Buffalo Soldiers and
Apaches in NM made national news.

One of New Mexico’s earliest history writers, Ralph Emerson Twitchell, apparently thought this was a story about the leadership of John B. McPherson, a Hillsboro merchant and saloon keeper. Twitchell claims that McPherson was the leader of a group of forty citizens who accompanied the troop of forty soldiers into “Gavalan [sic] Canyon,” misstating the date, but mentioning the deaths of Lt. Smith and George Daly. The Leading Facts of New Mexican History (Vol. 2, 1912), pp.  438-39, n. 359. No other historian or history writer mentions McPherson and I suspect that McPherson’s living in Hillsboro until his death there in 1921 may have something to do with Twitchell making him the leader, when all others seemed to think it was George Daly.

Both Kenner and Schubert rely upon a documents found in the Medal of Honor files, documents available on microfilm at the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington D.C. or at three regional offices, but not the office in Broomfield, Colorado. I am guessing that Lee Silva, in his essay,  “Warm Springs Apache Leader Nana: The 80-Year-Old Warrior Turned the Tables,” also made use of the Medal of Honor affidavits and reports. Silva makes sense of the story by stating that the group left Lake Valley shortly after midnight, having spent the evening drinking at a local saloon, and that the ambush took place at about 10:30 A.M. He states one or two other civilians were killed and that George Gamble of Lake Valley, like Nicholas Galles, was also late getting back home and only after Gamble’s spouse had been told that Gamble was dead. 

Lee Silva also deals with what is a “major distraction” with this story, where did the ambush take place? The original reports of the Army talk about “Gavilan Pass,” “Cavalaus Canon,” probably a misreading of a Spanish name, and “McEwer’s Ranch,” undoubtedly a misspelling of an early name for Lake Valley, McEvers Ranch. Historian Dan L. Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria (U. of Okla. 1967), p. 215, places the ambush at “Guerillo Canyon, fifteen miles from McEver’s Ranch.” Because there is no Guerillo Canyon on modern maps or in the USGS place name tables, I have no idea where he came up with that story. A more serious “problem” is that there is also no “Gavilan Canyon,” the name most often used in the histories, often misspelled and sometimes using the Spanish name.  [“Gavilán” is Spanish for “sparrow-hawk,” but has other meanings and uses.]

Silva describes a route to “Gavilan Canyon” that probably would have taken about ten hours from Lake Valley and would be consistent with his story that the posse and Cavalry left the saloon shortly after midnight and encountered the Apaches about 10:30 AM.  Just as importantly, Silva’s description is more or less consistent with the August 27^th newspaper account putting the event about nine miles west of Lake Valley. Silva has the group going north to Berrenda Creek, then west to an unnamed spot, then south to Pollock Creek, which could then be followed almost to the summit of the Mimbres Mountains, then over the mountain (and the Grant/Sierra county boundary today) to Dry Gavilan Creek. The map below, courtesy of Gary O’Dowd, outlines what that route might have looked like. But some questions, given all of the factors described by Silva, still exist.

Potential route taken by Nana, posse, and Cavlary from Lake Valley,
over the Mimbres Mountains, August 1881. Courtesy Gary O'Dowd

If this is a story of not just two but multiple canyons, it is also a story of at least two tales with the second being the more important. As you might have guessed, the second tale is what happened after Lt. George W. Smith was killed in opening minutes of the ambush. Both Kenner and Schubert, as well as Silva, tell us the story of the African-American “Buffalo Soldier” Brent Woods and how he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at “Gavilan Canyon.” See also, Bob Barnes' excellent portrayal in a “Tale of Lake Valley.”

Although these authors of “military history” vary somewhat in the detail, they all explain how Brent Woods rallied the troops after the death of Lt. Smith and held off Nana and the Apaches for several hours before Nana decided that the better part of his valor was to abandon the fight. Another “side bar” story concerns the fact that it took the Army until 1894 to recommend Woods for the Medal of Honor. Kenner concedes that the contemporary Army record of Gavilan Pass barely acknowledges Woods valor. Schubert notes that, in reviewing the medal proposal in 1894, Major General John M. Schofield questioned the absence of contemporary reports on Woods and Gavilan Canyon but eventually decided the post-1881 evidence was persuasive. In reporting the awarding of the medal, The Washington Times on July 14, 1894, says it was awarded “By direction of the President.”

Buffalo Soldier and Medal of Honor recipient, Brent Woods, is honored at the New Mexico Memorial Garden in Albuquerque. Mark B. Thompson photo

In addition to the sources cited above, Wikipedia has an article on Brent Woods, and there are several photos online, most probably taken at or near the time he was awarded the medal. When he died in 1906 he was not given a military funeral nor a veteran’s grave marker and it was only in 1984 that his remains were reinterred in the Mills Springs National Cemetery in Kentucky. In 2011 he was honored by the creation of a statue now standing in the New Mexico Veterans Memorial Gardens in Albuquerque. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems to me that the “Buffalo Soldier” awarded a Medal of Honor for his bravery in an encounter with the Apaches in 1881 is largely ignored in New Mexico history.

Nicholas Galles and the 1885 “Geronimo Campaign”

Mark B. Thompson, III

Almost ten years before his death, the Santa Fe New Mexican ran a front page article about Nicholas Galles on June 21, 1902, with the banner “Men of the Hour in New Mexico.”  The article contained a long paragraph detailing his “five years” as a captain in the New Mexico Territorial Militia, the predecessor of the New Mexico National Guard, during the “Indian Troubles.” Surprisingly, the article did not mention his work in the 1885 campaign, probably the best documented of any of the Galles military experiences. Perhaps not surprisingly, this neglect of the 1885 events, not to mention the several other “errors and omissions,” were carried over into numerous obituaries after his death on December 5, 1911. Had Galles decided that “1885” was “no big deal?”  

N. Galles obit, 1911

On June 5, 1885, Galles wrote a letter* to New Mexico Territorial Governor, Edmund G. Ross, a former U.S. Senator from Kansas, later included in John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage for his part in the trial of Andrew Johnson for impeachment. This letter, accompanied by a petition signed by 36 willing volunteers, sought creation of a militia cavalry company for the Hillsboro area.  They did not get a cavalry appointment, but on June 10, 1885, Galles took the oath of office as a captain of Company G of the 1^st Infantry.  (I wonder if they nevertheless rode horses?) The muster roll for Company G shows that 40 men in addition to Galles were enrolled, including the once and future Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, Frank W. Parker, as well as the soon to be convicted felon, Julian L. (“Junee”?) Fuller. The four documents referred to can be found in the New Mexico Territorial Archives, together with a report from Galles which accompanied the eventual request for payment.  

What prompted the June letter and what was the role of Company G in the 1885 campaign? Fortunately the original of the report was later read and “relied upon” in Washington, but the microfilm version is almost illegible. I believe we must turn to the historians, something we needed to do any way, to get the basic “facts.”  The writers on the Chiricahua Apache “wars” are legion, and I have relied primarily on one recent publication: Edwin R. Sweeney, From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874-1886 (Norman: U. of Okla. Press, 2010).  Sweeney does cite his sources in detail and each paragraph of his 580-page book is so crammed with facts that you almost have to outline each paragraph in order to have some confidence that you know what you just read. If not the last word on the subject, it certainly seemed like a good place to start.

Sweeney tells the 1885 story partly through the eyes of General George Crook of the U.S. Army. Sweeney, (p. 430), describes how on May 28, 1885, Crook left Prescott, Arizona to establish his field headquarters at Ft. Bayard, southeast of Silver City and west of Hillsboro, not knowing that Geronimo (and Chief Mangas) had left New Mexico for Mexico. Although the Galles letter to Gov. Ross is vague and general about the looming threat, it seems reasonable to assume that the prospective volunteers in Hillsboro were probably aware of Crook’s concerns and that Hillsboro might need to be defended. In fact, as described in detail by Sweeney, the focus of the story shifts to Mexico during the summer of 1885, but about September 5, 1885, it was determined that Geronimo was headed back into New Mexico (Sweeney p. 460).

At that point it was assumed that the Chiricahuas were probably headed to Ojo Caliente, north of Hillsboro, and the home of the Chihenne band before they were removed to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. The first sighting was apparently in the Cooke’s range, the southern part of the Mimbres Mountains, about September 9, 1885. At that point neither U.S. troops nor militia were following Geronimo (Sweeney p. 462).  On September 11, 1885, Geronimo’s men showed they were in fact traveling north when they attacked in several places, killing Brady Pollock near today's Pollock Canyon west of Lake Valley, then heading down Gavilan Canyon into the Mimbres drainage killing Martin McKinn and kidnapping his brother Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn. Geronimo then attacked further north in Gallinas Canyon, southeast of San Lorenzo.  (Today you can roughly follow this path, and the Mimbres River, by traveling north on State Highway 61.)  Finally, at least by September 12, 1885, the U.S. Cavalry from Ft. Bayard, militia from Hillsboro, and a small party of ranchers were in pursuit (Sweeney p. 464). Sweeney does not identify anyone in the militia from Hillsboro.

Sweeney says that Geronimo and his men spent the night of September 12, 1885, “near the confluence of Sapillo Creek and the Mimbres” (p. 464).  Given the route Geronimo was taking toward the northwest, Sweeney could have meant either the confluence of Sapillo Creek and the Gila, or another creek on the Mimbres. Sapillo Creek is on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide and drains to the Gila. In any event, Geronimo now realized that he needed to put some distance between himself  and the pursuers and by the evening of September 13, 1885, he had arrived at the Black Canyon, about eight miles southeast of the Gila Hot Springs. On Monday, September 14, 1885, the Apaches had reached the junction of Little Creek and the West Fork of the Gila.  According to Sweeney, the army and militia at that point gave up the chase (p. 464).

Geronimo and his men made it to Arizona by September 19, 1885, but by September 27 they were back in New Mexico, killing a merchant, A.L. Sabourne, at Cactus Flat, about five miles northwest of Buckhorn. (Today U.S. 180 runs through Buckhorn.) Apparently they camped in that area for about a week and Sweeney relates that “Geronimo’s party left for Mexico about October 6, 1885” (p. 471).  As we shall see, the period between the September 27 and October 6 is important for the Galles story, but Sweeney does not give any indication that Geronimo had moved east toward Hillsboro from Buckhorn during this period.   

Perhaps because Congress passed another pension provision for veterans (and widows) of the “Indian Wars” on March 4, 1917, the widow of Nicholas Galles, Harriett Stocker Galles, filed an application for a widow’s pension on January 12, 1918.  The application said that Galles had served in the territorial militia “in 1885 and perhaps 1886.”  This application was rejected on March 5, 1919, on the grounds that the “muster rolls in the State Archives fails to show the period of service.”  The records in Santa Fe were eventually found and apparently a request for “reconsideration” was filed with the federal authorities. A preliminary decision was made on August 29, 1923, indicating that the service was “pensionable if period of 30 days is shown.”  By November 13, 1923, it was determined that the period of service was only eight days, from September 30, 1885, through October 7, 1885, and a final decision rejecting the application was issued on  August 26, 1924. Harriett Galles filed yet another application in June of 1927, but it does not recite any additional facts.

Harriet Stocker Galles

The dates of September 30 through October 7 are consistent with a return of  Geronimo to New Mexico on September 27 and his leaving for Mexico on October 6. It would make sense that the militia was “activated” on the September 30 because of the possibility of Geronimo moving toward Hillsboro, but, as we know (or believe), he stayed to the southwest of Hillsboro and then soon moved on to Mexico. What about the period of September 12, 1885 and September 14, 1885, when the militia had joined in pursuit of Geronimo up the Mimbres, etc?  Was the militia, referred to by Sweeney, in fact Company G headed by Galles? As a matter of law, adding three or four days to the eight used for the pension application would have made no difference on the pension decision—it was still short of the required 30 days of service.

Even if the record had shown two-plus weeks of “active duty” during the 1885 campaign, Galles may have concluded that it was nothing to “brag about.” Sitting around and a few days chase on horseback obviously resulted in no encounter with Geronimo. Given the inclination of politicians to trumpet their “Indian Fighter” status, the absence of any mention of 1885 in the 1902 Santa Fe New Mexican article should give us pause.  I have not confirmed that Galles served five full years as a captain in the militia during the period 1877-1882, as alleged in the 1902 article. There is, however, evidence of his participation in encounters with the Chiricahuas in 1879 and 1881, both of which, with mistakes, etc., are recited in the 1902 article and the subsequent obituaries. Geronimo was, and still is, the big name in this genre, but Galles may have decided it was better not to embellish his limited involvement in the 1885 encounters.

*You can read the referenced 1885 letter to Ross is the book, Around Hillsboro.

Bridal Chamber Mine a Centennial Journey

by Craig Springer
The Bridal Chamber, perhaps the richest silver mine in the history of the American Southwest, is the story twice-told.  And we're telling it again, here, thanks to the Office of the State Historian.

The Bridal Chamber is located in Lake Valley, New Mexico, once a thriving boomtown. The 1885 Territorial Census counted 183 people living in Lake Valley while nearby Hillsboro had 376 residents, and 329 people lived in Kingston, according to the University of New Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research.   All three towns were busy places.  Lake Valley was the jumping-off place for train passengers.  Those not staying at Lake Valley moved on by stage to the other two mining towns of western Sierra County.

Enjoy this Centennial Journey (click here), an audio presentation in celebration of the New Mexico's 100 years of statehood.

The labor force that extracted the mineral wealth of the Bridal Chamber lived at Lake Valley, seen here circa 1890. Photo Black Range Museum.

Timbers prop open the Bridal Chamber as mine workers pause for a photo in a moment of levity. Photo Black Range Museum.

Extracting minerals from the earth is a labor-intensive affair, as evidenced by this Bridal Chamber reduction operation at Lake Valley. Photo Black Range Museum.

NICHOLAS GALLES: “The father of Sierra County"

By Mark B. Thompson, III

So said the Albuquerque Journal in its article noting his passing in Las Cruces, New Mexico on December 5, 1911. Galles had died too young; approximately two months short of the fifty-fourth anniversary of his birth in Chicago, Illinois.  He had, however, led a full life, including thirty-five years or so as a volunteer militiaman, businessman, hard rock miner and politician in the Territory of New Mexico.


The parents of Nicholas Galles, William and Anna Marie, with their one year old son, Joseph, arrived in New Orleans from their home in Luxembourg on May 30, 1857. The party of nine also included William’s brother Nicolas as well as their father, Peter. (William’s brother apparently preferred the spelling without the “h,” but for the next generation, I have followed the spelling of the name on New Mexico documents.)  In Luxembourg the family had worked as “wheelwrights,” building wagons, and they anticipated opportunity for working that trade in the expanding frontier of the United States.  While the others headed to Minnesota, William, Anna and Joseph went first to Chicago, possibly because of the large population of Luxembourger/Luxembourgeois immigrants.

Nicholas Galles 1858 - 1911.
Photo Mark B. Thompson III

The Galles family came from a country where most people speak both French and German.  Surname experts believe the name is a Germanization of the French Gallois, which means “Gallic,” i.e. Gaullic or Gaelic.  (The most common pronunciations of Galles are either “gal-is” or “gal-us.) Perhaps young Nicholas shared an “identity crisis” with some of his ancestors. They probably had a hard time keeping their nationality straight before 1815, when the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was finally given a unique nation state status.  In four census enumerations between 1880 and 1910, he never gave his parents birthplace as “Luxembourg;” twice he said “France” and twice he declared their birthplace as “Germany.”


At least his political instincts kicked in and he was evenhanded on the subject!


Chicago was not their kind of town, however, and in 1859, William moved his family to Shakopee, Minnesota, southwest of Minneapolis in Scott County. By 1860, they had moved on to New Ulm, the newly formed German community named after the town in Wurttemberg, Germany.  It seems safe to say that William, whose marriage certificate identifies him as “Wilhelm,” favored his “German side” and New Ulm probably looked liked a good place to build his business among German speakers.  In addition, his brother Nicolas, with help from their father, was building a successful wagon business only a few miles to the east in Nicollet County.  But the move to New Ulm, although it might have appeared to offer “instant community,” brought both short term and long term complications for William and his family.


The first “complication” was caused by the Dakota insurgency of 1862.


A “Gallis,” no first name, appears on the roster of John Helm’s company of the Minnesota Militia, indicating that William took part in defending New Ulm. In addition, a family story indicates that Anna and her children were protected by a Dakota woman Anna had befriended.  Whatever the personal involvement of the Galles, they, with other residents of New Ulm, were clearly affected by the physical destruction of the town. The Galles moved back to Shakopee in 1862 and then on to Oshawa, home to brother Nicolas, in 1865.  By 1869 they had returned to New Ulm.  Although it is unlikely that young Nicholas had an understanding of the insurgency and the move from New Ulm in 1862, his return at age 11 clearly had some impact on his life.


The long-term complications of the move (and return) to New Ulm derive from the nature of the German immigrant settlement of the town.  Originally staked out by a German group from Chicago in 1854, that group was joined in 1856 by another German immigrant group from Cincinnati, Ohio.  The group from Cincinnati was affiliated with a turnereine, a German gymnastics union. Its members were commonly known in this country as the Turner Society or “Turners,” which simply means “gymnasts” in German.  The Turner movement originated in Prussia in 1811 and many of its members came to the United States after the unsuccessful German “revolution” of 1848.


The Galles family, devout Roman Catholics, and perhaps others, saw the Turners as more of a religion.  Indeed, one of the goals of the Turners was the promotion of “reason against all superstition.” A sociologist/historian of religion might agree that this could look like a “belief system,” or from the standpoint of the New Ulm Catholics, a “non-belief” system, one which was a threat to the church.  William and Anna’s oldest, Joseph, eventually became active in the Turners and was denied the sacraments by the Roman Catholic Church. This was to have a devastating impact on the Galles family, especially on Anna after the death of William in 1878, when she was forced to move in with Joseph and his family.  It may have contributed to her mental illness which resulted in her commitment to the state hospital in St. Peter where she died in 1901.


Perhaps just as relevant to our story was the influence of the Turners on the public education system in New Ulm. One of their historical efforts was to promote “non-sectarian” schools during that period of American history when the most powerful religion in a community often controlled the education of the young.  As a result of the Turner efforts, William and Anna eventually sent some of their children to school in other communities.  Nicholas apparently ended up in Lake City in Wabasha County, which by today’s roads would be approximately 130 miles from New Ulm.


It is unclear why Lake City was chosen; for example, no Galles relatives lived in that community.  On    my trip to Lake City in 2011, I found evidence that may indicate that for both the move to Lake City and the following move to New Mexico, Nicholas Galles appears to have come under the influence of a character named Abner Tibbetts.


Born in Maine about 1825, Tibbetts found his way to Lake City, Minnesota in 1855.  Apparently he had some political connections and in 1861 was appointed Register of Public Lands at the St. Peter, Minnesota office of the Government Land Office by President Lincoln.  He resigned his position in April of 1865 and is back in Lake City at the time of the Minnesota census enumeration in June.  Appointed to the same post by President Grant in March of 1869, Tibbetts and his wife Marian moved again, this time to New Ulm.  In the 1870 census they are found a mere six homes from the William Galles household, which at that time included twelve year old Nicholas Galles.


The ubiquitous Abner and Marian Tibbetts can be found in the May 1875 Minnesota census in Mankato, Minnesota living in the household of their in-laws, headed by Edgar Walz (Sr.).


More importantly, at least for this story, earlier in that year Abner had made a trip to New Mexico and a letter to his son-in-law, William Walz, written from Mesilla, New Mexico, is published in the Lake City Leader.


Although he does not mention Nicholas in the letter, the Mesilla News of April 4, 1875, notes that on Thursday April 1, 1875, the Hon. A. Tibbetts and N. Galles had arrived in Mesilla from Lake City, Minnesota “and have decided to make their future home with us.”


Abner and Marian are found in the 1880 census living with Nicholas and others in a boarding arrangement headed by George Perrault in Hillsboro, but in 1881 Tibbetts was appointed by the U.S. President as a Collector of Customs and the Tibbets moved again, this time to El Paso, Texas.


We believe that Galles in 1875 had headed back north to Socorro, New Mexico and for a time taught school in that community. In April of 1876, he was appointed Postmaster at Aleman, New Mexico, a settlement south of Socorro in that desolate land known by its Spanish name, El Jornado del Muerto, “the journey of the dead.”  He worked on a ranch at Aleman before moving on, perhaps in 1877, to Mesilla where he read the law in the office of Albert J. Fountain one of New Mexico’s most famous lawyer/politicians.  We do not believe that Galles asked Judge Warren Bristol, once of Red Wing, Minnesota, for admission to practice law. Galles instead moved again, this time to the Black Range area of northern Doña Ana County where gold had been discovered.  We do know that in March of 1879 he was appointed the first Postmaster of Hillsboro and it is likely that he had earlier formed a general store with George Perrault.  He made the history books by leading a company of militia against the insurgency of the Apaches, led by Chief Victorio, in the 1879 battle at Lake Valley where fourteen of the Galles militia company lost their lives.

This preserved letter documents a long-distance romance.
Photo Pam Thompson Rau

After moving to New Mexico, Nicholas Galles apparently kept in contact with  Harriet Stocker, a young woman he had met in Lake City. In August of 1880, he wrote her father asking if Mr. Stocker would have any objections to “Hattie” and Nicholas getting married.  Apparently no objections were lodged and on January 5, 1881, they were married in Chicago, Illinois, not in Lake City nor in nearby rural Goodhue County, Minnesota, where her mother was living with a second husband and Hattie’s sister Ninette, nicknamed “Nettie.”  Although she appears in the 1880 Lake City census in her father’s household, Hattie is also is listed in her paternal grandparents’ household in McHenry County, Illinois that same year.  The marriage certificate indicates that the bride lived in McHenry, Illinois, and, because Harriet does not appear in a list of graduates at the Lake City high school, I suspect that she may have finished her schooling in McHenry.

Harriet Stocker Galles posed in the Kingston Studio of J.C. Burge in 1889.
Photo Pam Thompson Rau

Three of his younger brothers, Louis, Peter and George, then living in New Ulm, followed Nicholas and Harriet to New Mexico. Their father had died in 1878 and, as indicated above, their mother was not very happy living with their older brother Joseph. George, the youngest, appears to have stayed in Minnesota for his education and is in brother John’s household in Minneapolis in 1895, but then is in Hillsboro working as an engineer (mining?) and is counted in the 1900 census.  According to a Nicholas Galles obituary, he was in Washington State in 1911.  Peter had a successful career in Hillsboro as a carpenter, and married Ophelia Jones there in 1887.  Peter died in Hot Springs (Truth or Consequences), New Mexico on June 24, 1918. Louis was successful in business in Hillsboro and was the patriarch of the automobile dealership family of Albuquerque and Taos, creating New Mexico Motors in 1908.  He did not stay long in that business, however, and his son, the first H. L. Galles, is credited with creating the enduring Galles legacy in the automotive world.

Sisters Ninette Stocker Miller (l) and Harriet Stocker Galles pose in this circa 1900 photo taken on Ninette's porch in Hillsboro. This image was replicated on a fresco on the home's stucco wall in the early 1990s. Photo Craig Springer 

The Apache insurgency continued, and Nicholas had to set the record straight when his death at the hands of the insurgents was erroneously reported in newspapers in 1881.


Galles probably made good use of this publicity for his entry into politics. In 1881 he began a two-year term as a county commissioner for Doña Ana County. In 1884 he served as a representative from the county in the territorial House of Representatives. It was during that session that he sponsored the bill which created Sierra County out of Doña Ana, Grant and Socorro counties.  The county commissioners of the new county rewarded him with a Justice of the Peace commission in July of 1884.  In a twist of irony, he ran for Sierra County Sheriff in November 1884 and was walloped by Democrat Tom Murphy, 447 to 280. The Rio Grande Republican reported four precincts: Hillsboro, Lake Valley, Kingston, and Las Palomas. Galles carried only Kingston. The Republican had opined in September that "Thos. Murphy will have an easy victory. In June of 1885, Galles led several of his fellow citizens in petitioning for a new militia to combat the Apache insurgency, now being led primarily by Goyakla, better known as Geronimo, the nom de guerre given to him by the United States military.  Galles was commissioned a captain in an infantry company which saw limited action in September of 1885, but for less than the thirty days required by law to allow Harriet to later obtain a military widow’s pension.

Edith Georgia Galles, taken March 1889 in the
Kingston studio of J.C. Burge.
Photo Craig Springer

Nicholas and Harriet’s first child, Gertrude, was born in Hillsboro in 1883.  Possibly due to a fall by the pregnant Harriet from a horse, Gertrude lived with both physical and mental “retardation” until her death in Las Cruces in 1921.  Their second daughter, Edith Georgia, was born in June of 1886 and was baptized at the Galles home in 1887 by the Episcopal Bishop of Arizona and New Mexico, with future New Mexico Chief Justice, Frank W. Parker, as one of the sponsors. The Galles family also increased the population of Hillsboro by bringing in more relatives. In addition to the brothers of Nicholas, Hillsboro also attracted Harriet’s younger sister Ninette, who, with her first husband, George T. Miller, arrived soon after their marriage in Minneapolis on June 24. 1891.

Edith Georgia Galles at age 16.
Photo Pam Thomson Rau

After 1900, the Millers were joined by the mother of Harriet and Ninette, Tamezin (Kimball) (Stocker) Dodge, who died in Hillsboro in 1927.  Ninette Stocker, who also served as “Postmistress” of Hillsboro, married Alphonso Lafayette Bird after the death of her first husband.  She died on October 23, 1946, in Hillsboro.


It is difficult to create a timeline for his business ventures with precision, but it does appear that Nicholas continued with some aspect of the mining and milling of ore during the 1880s.  In September 1889, he was one of the Sierra County delegates to the New Mexico Constitutional Convention.  Nicholas was a committed Republican, as were many voters in New Mexico until the 1930s, and this convention was seen as an effort by the Republicans to control the statehood debate.


In another echo of New Ulm for Nicholas, the first being the military campaign against native insurgents, the constitution adopted by the convention was opposed by the Roman Catholic Church because it proposed a “non-sectarian” public school system. The main problem was that few Democrats publicly supported the proposed constitution and it was rejected by more than a 2-1 margin in the special election.


During the 1880s, Nicholas apparently convinced his father-in-law, Henry Stocker, to take some role in his mining ventures.

The letterhead of the Standard Gold Mining & Milling Co. indicates that Minneapolis was the “main office” and Stocker was shown as a Vice-President. Stocker’s association with the Galles businesses continued into the 1890s and the two families had homes in 1895 about ten blocks from each other in Minneapolis.  In 1894, Standard Mining, Galles, Stocker and others were sued in Minneapolis in what the newspaper called a “famous” and important case. The case took 36 days to try, a record for the times, and resulted in the reputation of Stocker being tarnished because of his conflict of interest as both a stockholder in Standard and as an attorney for the plaintiff.


During the nineties Nicholas was also engaged in mining ventures in Colorado and Prescott, Arizona.  Henry Stocker moved to Prescott to practice law about 1897, apparently leaving his second wife in Minneapolis.  When Stocker died in May 1900, the Prescott, Arizona obituary indicated that Nicholas Galles was in charge of arrangements.


During the 1890s Harriet apparently spent considerable time in Minneapolis, allegedly due to unspecified “health problems.” Perhaps the dry air of the high desert was a problem and she needed the humidity of the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes! They show up in both the 1895 Minnesota state census and the 1900 federal census near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. They are not found in the 1900 census in Hillsboro and the Louis Galles family is listed near Ninette and George Miller in a house that may have belonged to Nicholas and Harriet.  Apparently Nicholas did not give up legal residency in New Mexico.  In 1894 he served on the Territorial Bureau of Immigration, an official body charged with drumming up new residents for the territory. In 1894-95 he represented Sierra County in the upper chamber of the territorial legislature, known as the Council.


On January 21, 1902, Nicholas was nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt to be the Register for the Las Cruces, New Mexico District office of the Government Land Office and was confirmed by the Senate on January 29, 1902.  The Register was one of the three main local officials of the GLO, the other being the Receiver (of public moneys) and the Surveyor General, the latter being a single, state-wide position.    The Register was appointed for a four-year term, but served at the pleasure of the President.  The position might be described as “quasi-judicial” in that a Register could be “disqualified” from acting on a land application when he had a conflict of interest.  He had a base salary of $500.00 per year, plus fees and commissions from the sale of government land.  That compensation method itself sounds like a conflict of interest waiting to happen but the Santa Fe New Mexican in June 1902 declared Nicholas to be a “man of the hour” and we believe he completed his term without any scandal.


As he started his fourth and final year as Register, Galles made a move for another political office; he sought the governorship of the Territory. President Theodore Roosevelt began his second, but first elected, term as President, on March 4, 1905. The pundits and experts were sure he would take the opportunity to relieve Miguel Otero of the governorship he had held for seven years and appoint “his own man.” Nicholas obviously thought he had TR’s ear and announced that at least 18 U.S. Senators were ready to confirm his nomination.


The position of the nominee on statehood would be the “litmus test,” and Galles’ main opposition was probably lawyer Bernard Rodey of Albuquerque. Rodey, however, had just been rejected, first by the Republicans, and then, as an independent candidate, when he sought re-election as Territorial Congressional Delegate.

Nicholas Galles was an engaged businessman. This ad is from a 1909 NMSU Round-Up. 

Perhaps to avoid a fight among “good Republicans,” Roosevelt fooled everyone and reappointed Otero, only to ask for his resignation a couple of years later as the controversy over statehood strategy heated up.


No doubt disappointed, Galles turned again to business pursuits. In April of 1905, he joined several other businessmen, including his son-in-law, Robert Mayes, the husband of Edith Georgia and father of Nick’s first grandchild, Edith Sue, to form the First National Bank of Las Cruces.  Galles was then chosen to serve as the first President of the bank, which eventually became part of the Albuquerque based Sunwest Bank holding company and now part of the Bank of America system. During this period, he was elected to the board of directors of the Mesilla Valley Water Users Association, an organization which would play a significant role in the development of the Elephant Butte and other dams on the Rio Grande.  In the 1910 census, Galles gave his occupation as “unemployed miner,” perhaps the truth but also showing a sense of humor. One of his last business related positions was his service as the chairman of the Mesilla Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Hillsboro, looking west, as Galles saw it circa 1900. Photo George T. Miller Collection, Black Range Museum.

It was during this period that Nicholas and Harriet Galles started acquiring land on Depot Avenue, now Las Cruces Avenue.  Judging from the 1910 and 1920 censuses, they may have at one time owned the entire south side of the street in the West 400 block.  In 1909 they gave their daughter Edith Georgia and her second husband, Mark B. Thompson, a portion of the land on which a home was built at “409” and which is noted by historian Linda Harris as the “Mark Thompson House.”


In the 1910 census, the Galles and Thompson families are listed next door to each other, and, although no house numbers are shown, we believe that the Galles were at what would become 425 W. Las Cruces Ave.  Harris identifies the extant house at that address as built “circa 1910” but names it the “Duarte House” and Sixto Duarte is listed with his family at the address in the 1930 census. By deed dated February 15, 1922, Amelia Armendariz de Duarte, the wife of Sixto Duarte, had purchased the property from Harriet Galles.


Sixto and Amelia Duarte were both born in Chihuahua, Mexico and immigrated in 1913 and 1915, respectively. A successful Las Cruces merchant, Sixto died in El Paso, Texas, in November of 1966.


In January of 1908, yet another hearing was scheduled in Washington on New Mexico statehood and a committee of prominent citizens from each county was chosen to go to D.C. to “lobby” for statehood.  Nicholas, Mark Thompson and others, were chosen to represent Doña Ana County.


The trip never took place and this effort does not even rate a mention in the definitive history of the “quest” for statehood. 


The statehood “enabling act” was passed by Congress in 1910, but Nicholas Galles did not run for delegate to the constitutional convention held that year. Galles’ good friend, and sitting territorial judge, Frank Parker, was elected as a delegate and played a major role in shaping the New Mexico judiciary.  The Galles son-in-law, Mark Thompson, however, was an unsuccessful candidate for a Doña Ana County delegate position, the only time he ran for political office.


Perhaps the skin cancer was already beginning to take a toll on Galles.  He died one month and a day before President Taft signed the legislation on January 6, 1912, creating the State of New Mexico. Harriet Stocker Galles continued to make Las Cruces her home and died in El Paso, Texas on January 7, 1930.


Mark B. Thompson, III, is the great grandson of Nicholas Galles.


Sources

¹ “Pioneer of New Mexico, Nicolas (sic) Galles, Dead,” The Albuquerque Morning Journal (Wednesday, December 6, 1911), p. 7.  See also, “Death of Nicholas Galles,” The Rio Grande Republican (Friday, December 8, 1911), p. 2.

² Nicholas Galles can be found in census population schedules for 1860, 1865 & 1870 (Minnesota, in his father’s household), in New Mexico in 1880, 1885 and 1910, and Minnesota in 1895 and 1900. 

³ See generally, Kenneth Carley, The Dakota War of 1862 (St. Paul: Minn. Hist. Soc. Press, 1976).  A new edition is due out in 2012, the 150^th anniversary of the insurgency.

⁴ A good, short (“inhouse”) history of the Turner movement is published at http://northwestturners.org. 

⁵ I have not yet found any evidence of Nicholas’ attendance in a school in Lake City.

⁶ The Walz household not only included William, married in 1874 to Jennie May Tibbetts, but also his younger sister, Julia A. Walz, who in 1877 married Thomas B.  Catron of Santa Fe, and a younger brother, Edgar A., who later played a small role in the Lincoln County War as a business partner of Catron.  Given this history, I think perhaps Abner Tibbetts should be known as the head of the “Minnesota Ring.”  

⁷“New Mexico as Seen by A Minnesotan,” The Lake City Leader (Thurs. May 13, 1875), p. 2.  It was the accidental discovery of this letter in the Lake City Public Library which led me on the Abner Tibbetts chase and eventually to his association with Nicholas Galles.

⁸ The Mesilla News item was later confirmed, without reference to a specific date in 1875, in an untitled article on Nicholas Galles. See, The New Ulm Review (Wed. Sept. 7, 1881), p. 3.

⁹ The original name of the community may have been El Aleman, “The German” in Spanish, named for a German resident.  How appropriate for a Minnesotan from the German speaking community!

¹⁰ Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The Leading Facts of New Mexican History (Santa Fe: The Sunstone Press,  2007) [facsimile ed. of the 1911 publication], Vol. II, pp. 438-39, n. 359.

¹¹ “The Gabilan Canon (sic) Fight,” The Rio Grande Republican (Las Cruces, N.M., Sat. Aug. 27, 1881), p. 3. This story was picked up by the New Ulm Review (see note 8, supra) and The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Sat. Sept. 17, 1881. 

¹² “Cupid’s Cavortings,” The St. Paul Daily Globe (Sat. June 28, 1891), p. 10.

¹³ See generally, Robert W. Larson, New Mexico’s Quest For Statehood, 1846-1912, (Albuquerque: U. of N.M. Press, 1968), chap. X.

¹⁴ It was Stocker’s association with Harriett and Ninette in Minneapolis and Hillsboro, we have a photo of Stocker we believe was taken by George T. Miller, which persuaded me that Henry had not completely burned his bridges after he left their mother shortly before 1870.  Her efforts to obtain a widow’s pension, he was a civil war veteran, was a pretty ugly story and left me temporarily convinced that he had walked out of their lives.

¹⁵ “An Important Case,” The St. Paul Daily Globe (Thurs. April 19, 1894), p. 3.  “Mexican (sic) Gold Mine,” The St. Paul Daily Globe (Wed. Aug. 22, 1894), p. 10.

¹⁶ “Men of The Hour in New Mexico,” The Santa Fe New Mexican (Saturday, June 21, 1902), p. 1.

¹⁷ “Nicholas Galles Latest Candidate For Governor,” The Albuquerque Morning Journal (Wednesday, March 1, 1905), p. 1.

¹⁸ See my article in the State Bar Bulletin, “Bernard Rodey and the Jointure Movement in the U.S. Congress,” June 30, 2008 (republished on line by the N.M. State Historian).

¹⁹ Linda G. Harris, Houses in Time: A Tour Through New Mexico History (Arroyo Press, Las Cruces: 1997), p. 74.  Harris in “Houses” also includes a home built by Peter Galles and others for Harriet’s sister, Ninette, in Hillsboro, and known as the “Miller House.”  Id at p. 88.

²⁰ Harris, id at p. 142.

²¹ Special thanks to Neil Weinbrenner, lawyer and historian, for his “fact-checking” the Galles/Duarte transaction. 

²² “Hearings on Statehood Measure,” The Albuquerque Morning Journal (Friday, January 17, 1908), p. 2.

²³ See generally, Larson, note 13 supra.

Remembering 9-11

By Craig Springer
The date, September 11, is seared in American memory. And it was one that perhaps was not forgotten by those who lived in and around Hillsboro in 1879.

In August of that year, the Apache leader Victorio launched a rampage that made its mark in history. Victorio, followed by tens if not hundreds of disenchanted Mimbres and  Mescalero Apaches, and probably Comanche Indians too, raided ranches and isolated military outposts in southern New Mexico, west Texas, and northern Chihuahua.

On September 11, a posse of armed citizen from Hillsboro led by the likes of town pioneers, Joe Yankie and Nicholas Galles, confronted Apaches at H.D. McEver's Ranch 15 miles south of Hillsboro. McEver's Ranch would shortly become the first townsite of Lake Valley following a silver strike.

Nicholas Galles, Hillsboro's first
postmaster, was at McEver's Ranch
on 9-11-1879.
Photo Mark B. Thompson III. 

The number of Hillsboro men engaged in the battle vary, as do the number killed--and so does the actual date--depending upon which report you read. A review of the literature reveals that anywhere from a half dozen to 15 men were killed in action. The 1880 Secretary of War's report to Congress offers some insight as to the geographic extent of the Apache depredations. As for those known to have been killed at McEver's Ranch on September 11, 1879, they were: Steve Hanlon, Thomas Hughes, Thorton, Preissier, Green, Dr. Williams, and I. Chavez.

Other documented works by writers Dan Thrapp, Edwin Sweeney, and Joseph Stout make mention of an entire ranch family murdered and mutilated on Jaralosa Creek a mere few miles from McEver's Ranch that same day. The names of those victims are not reported.

The eastern front of the Black Range would see more action between Apaches, citizens of Hillsboro, and the U.S. Army for another seven years. But in the short-term, McEver's Ranch was the site of a heated battle with the 9th Cavalry, the famous Buffalo Soldiers, led by Maj. A.P. Morrow. If the brief New York Times account, you can sense a frustration that dogged the military in the Victorio campaign that lasted until late 1880. In October 1879, the Apaches attacked McEver's Ranch again, and burnt down its buildings. Because of its location--central to Ft. Cummings to the south and Camp Ojo Caliente and Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd to the north--McEver's Ranch would be occupied by the U.S. Army for much of the Victorio and the Geronimo Campaign to come in 1885-86. And coincidentally, September 11, 1885 was a significant date for several ranch families who lost kin to Geronimo near Lake Valley--Abeyta, Hollage, Horn, McKinn, Pollock.

You can read about these events and more in Around Hillsboro a new book written by members of the Hillsboro Historical Society. You can find it in local book stores, and the Black Range Museum.

Code Name: Geronimo

By Craig Springer
Unless you live under a rock, you no doubt have heard that the U.S. military evoked the name of a former (albeit transient) Sierra County, New Mexico, resident in its designs to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "Operation Geronimo" was the tag given to the recent Navy Seal operation. President Obama confirmed in a recent 60 Minutes interview that when bin Laden was shot it was communicated by, "Geronimo - EKIA," code for "enemy killed in action."
 
The original "operation Geromino" went down in southern New Mexico 126 years ago, with there being significant U.S. Army and Apache activity at Kingston, Lake Valley, and Hillsboro. The threat of loss of life and property by Apaches was significant on a number of occasions from 1877 until 1886, such that commerce and travel were conducted at great risk. Observers at the time commented that Apache depredations prostrated the mining industry. Hillsboro was the first of the three towns to be founded, in 1877, followed by Lake Valley and Kingston in the early '80s.

The Apache, Geronimo, as he appeared before surrender in 1886. Geronimo and his band attacked outlying ranches near Lake Valley a few months before this image was taken. Library of Congress.

The Apache named Goyakla, or "One Who Yawns," was nicknamed "Geronimo" by the Mexican military when he escaped injury in gun fire, the Mexican soldiers evoking the name of St. Jerome for the Apache's remarkable luck in cheating death. "Geronimo" became an American war cry during World War II.

The U.S. Army put considerable resources on the ground to capture or kill the Apache paladin and his lieutenant so to speak, Naiche, the son of Cochise. Geromino's last outbreak from the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation occurred in 1885 and lasted until his surrender in the fall of 1886. Some of those U.S. Army resources were at Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd, about a mile north of today's Hillsboro post office.

This string of U.S. Army soldiers are heading out of the Percha Creek bottom at Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd. The photo was taken by Kingston photographer, J.C. Burge circa late 1885. The camera looks toward the northeast, with Hillsboro only a short walk away. The former camp is on occupied private property. Courtesy Patti Nunn.

Naiche, seen here a prisoner of war circa 1898, was with Geronimo to the last. Library of Congress.

The national media carried news about the Indian campaign. The 1885 Harper's Weekly shows Ft Bayard soldiers in a training exercise. Ft Bayard is roughly 25 miles from where Geronimo last struck near Lake Valley. Library of Congress.

Companies of infantry and cavalry were stationed for about a year--mid-1885 until September of 1886--at Camp Hillsboro, later called Camp Boyd in honor of Capt. Orsemus Bronson Boyd who died in the Black Range. "Operation Geronimo," the one that unfolded in Pakistan last week, has come under criticism as being insensitive to Native Americans for relating the Apache to bin Laden. Understandably, American Indians, especially those who have proudly served in the U.S. military would rather not be viewed as in league as with an avowed enemy of the U.S. Witness New Mexico's own Navajo Code Talkers who were vital in the Pacific theatre in World War II.

But one cannot ignore the historical significance that Geronimo had locally--and nationally. Thousands of soldiers, both American and Mexican, were put on the ground in his pursuit. Hundreds of people died in the Geronimo campaign and other notable conflicts with Apache men, both his contemporaries, and in the years before him: Ulzana, Chihuahua, Victorio, Nana, Cochise, Mangas. Civilians, soldiers, and Apaches were victims of the violence.

U.S. Army surgeon and well known naturalist Edgar Mearns for whom Mearns quail is named took this image in eastern Arizona. Scenes like this unfolded near Lake Valley on Berrenda Creek, west of Hillsboro on Percha Creek, and through the Black Range. Library of Congress.

Geronimo was not only an enemy to the U.S. military, he was an enemy of some of his own Apache people. Companies of enlisted Apaches, led by U.S. Army officers chased after Geronimo. Geronimo murdered and kidnapped Anglo, Hispanic, and Apache people--men, women, and young children. He kidnapped Chief Loco's band and ensured that eventually all of the Chiricahua Apaches would be treated as prisoners of war, and removed to Florida, and eventually Oklahoma by way of a stay at Alabama. The condition of the then imprisoned Apaches at Ft. Sill is surveyed in the recently published book, Chief Loco: Apache Peacemaker, written by a descendant of the Apache leader. Geronimo lamented late in life that he had no friends among his own people.

Geronimo, a prisoner of war, taken circa 1898. Library of Congress.

Though the Geronimo Trail National Scenic Byway slices through Kingston and Hillsboro, perhaps his most significant presence was made at Lake Valley. On September 10, 1885, Geronimo's band moved over Macho Canyon and shot rancher Brady Pollock twice, then crushed his head with a boulder. Onward the Apaches went, north to McKnight Ranch on Berrenda Creek where they stole horses. Geronimo made it over the Mimbres Mountains to the west, probably going over the pass at the head of today's Pollock Canyon, and down Gavilan Canyon, the site of a battle with Nana in 1881. On September 11 more would die. By noon, Avaristo Abeyta, George Horn, and 17-year-old Martin McKinn were dead, just over the Black Range from Kingston. The teenager's younger brother, 9-year-old Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn witnessed Geronimo crush his brother's head and then don his brother's jacket. With little Jimmy McKinn Geronimo headed into the Black Range, chased by cavalry and a militia from Hillsboro, headed by Sierra County pioneers Nicholas Galles and Frank W. Parker, the latter a future supreme court justice.

Geronimo evaded capture, but surrendered a year later, the last to give in to the concentration policies of the U.S. government. The McKinn boy remarkably survived and was returned to his parents when Geronimo surrendered. You can learn more about how the young McKinn lived his life in this story by Jerry Egan, called The Captive in Desert Exposure. The original "operation Geronimo" came to a close in September 1886. Many lives lost, many lives ruined. The Chiricahuas--the entire tribe--became prisoners of war and were removed from the Southwest.

These events are well documented in scholarly works, and among the best resources is the book, From Cochise to Geronimo by Edwin R. Sweeney. Members of the Hillsboro Historical Society have written a book, titled, Around Hillsboro, due to be released in August. In this book, you'll see rare images related the Apache wars--and a whole lot more.