 did not molest them.
Belles of Santa Cruz Valley
In the eyes of his neighbors and, most especially, the soldiers at the fort, Elias knew his success as a farmer was overshadowed by the lovely crop of daughters he raised on the farm. “I had the pleasure of an introduction to the eccentric old Pennington,” J. Ross Browne noted. “Large and tall, with a fine face and athletic frame, he presents as good a specimen of the American frontiersman as I have ever seen. The history of his residence in the midst of the Apaches, with his family of buxom daughters, would fill a volume.”
Dr. John Hall, a remarkable British soldier of fortune who had spent a considerable time in Sonora, arrived in the Santa Cruz Valley in the summer of 1857. He attended a Christmas gathering at a ranch near the fort at which the Pennington girls created quite a sensation. “But few ladies, American, graced the party, but those present were the ‘belles’ of the valley, good looking and true specimens of frontier coquettes,” he recalled. “Womankind (white) are scarce in Arizona, so all the young squatters present were deeply smitten.”
Captain Ewell, who Hall called an “inveterate old bachelor,” enjoyed the scenery immensely. Hall was perplexed by the small stick the American girls had in their mouths. Ewell explained to the well-travelled Englishman that this tobacco-laden stick and this practice of “mopping” were common on the frontier. The little stick was the mop.
Hall was mortified. “It is abominable, even worse than crinoline,” the Englishman huffed. “A Mexican woman may be excused her cigarette, a Hindoo her hookah and an Irishwoman her short ‘dundeen,’ but a pretty American girl a ‘mopstick!’” Dr. Hall was learning just how quickly the social conventions broke down on the frontier.
Of all the Pennington girls, 22-year-old Larcena was by far the loveliest, breaking the forlorn hearts of many a lonely soldier and miner. She finally married handsome John Page on Christmas Eve 1859 in Tucson. Page was one of the wildest spirits in the valley. He had come to Tucson with the notorious gunman Bill Ake in April 1857. Ake and Page were part of a turbulent group of young toughs that a later generation would label with the epithet “cowboys.”
After their wedding, Page took his bride to William Kirkland’s Canoa ranch on the Santa Cruz River. Kirkland, a tall, imposing, 27-year-old bachelor from Virginia operated a thriving lumber business, servicing both Tucson and Fort Buchanan. While Page felled timber 13 miles to the east in the mountains, Larcena tutored Kirkland’s ward, Mercedes Sais Quiroz, the bright 10-year-old daughter of a Mexican widow who lived in Tucson.
Larcena fell ill at the Canoa ranch.
The wetlands along both the Santa Cruz River and Sonoita Creek bred legions of mosquitos that carried malarial fevers, while fungus-laced spores from dust also infected settlers with sometimes deadly fevers that were totally misunderstood
for another century (called Valley
Fever in Arizona today). The mountain
air of the lumber camp was deemed to be good for her, so, on March 15, 1860, Larcena and Mercedes climbed onto an ox-drawn supply wagon headed for the lumber camp. The little girl cradled Larcena’s small dog in her lap. Kirkland, fretting over this outing, dispatched William Randall, an old frontier hand, to accompany the wagon on horseback. Kirkland also thoughtfully sent along a rocking chair and featherbed as gifts for the newlyweds.
As the oxen struggled to pull the wagon up Madera Canyon to the lumber camp, five Tonto Apaches watched and waited. While Mangas Coloradas might hold his Chiricahuas in check, even he could not control the Apache bands north of the Gila.
The Apaches Attack
After an early breakfast, Page and the other woodcutters headed higher up the mountain slope while Randall went off to hunt venison for supper.
As Mercedes played, Larcena eased into the rocking chair in her spacious tent. Her little dog lay curled up beside her. When the dog began to growl, Larcena hushed him. Then she heard Mercedes scream.
As she rose to her feet, the te