Forty Years at El Paso, 1858-1898. W. W. Mills
B. Rohman, merchant; dead.
R. L. Robertson, agent Overland Mail Company, Union; dead.
Dr. Nangle, agent San Antonio Mail Company, Union; dead.
James Buchanan, merchant in Juarez; dead.
Charles Richardson, Confederate; lives in Juarez.
D. R. Diffendorffer, merchant in Juarez.
F. R. Diffendorffer, merchant in Juarez.
G. W. Gillock, justice of the peace and hotel-keeper; dead.
J. E. Terry, with the stage company; lives in El Paso.
Charles Music, merchant; lives in Mexico; and
Andrew Hornick, H. McWard, George Lyles—— Tibbits—— Milby, David Knox, Bill Conklin and Tom Miller.
There were usually about a dozen United States army officers at old Fort Bliss, now East El Paso.
The most prominent Mexican citizens in Paso del Norte (now Juarez) were:
Dr. Mariano Samaniego, Inocente Ochoa, José M. Flores, all still residing in Juarez; José M. Uranga, Jefe Politico, dead; Juan N. Zubiran, collector of customs, my partner and friend; and the venerable Ramon Ortiz, who ministered there as curate for fifty years, and died a few years since, beloved of the two races.
The Americans living at Ysleta and San Elizario before the war were: Price Cooper, Henry Corlow, Tom Collins, Henry Dexter, James McCarty, A. C. Hyde, William Claude Jones; and Fred Pierpoint, who died of hydrophobia at El Paso in 1869.
Of those named above as residing at El Paso in 1860, the following left with the retreating Texans in 1862: Crosby, Hart, the Gilletts, the Magoffins, Herbert, Merritt, O’Bannon, Morton, Cook, Skillman, Dowell, Richardson and Russ Howard. Some of the last named remained away for years and others never returned.
In their places there came soon (mostly discharged Union officers and soldiers): A. H. French, J. A. Zabriskie, G. J. Clarke, E. A. Mills, Nathan Webb, A. J. Fountain, William P. Bacon, Edmond Stein, S. C. Slade, John Evans, George Rand, Joe Shacker, Solomon Schutz, Louis Cardis, and Charles H. Howard.
Except those last named, there was but little increase in the American population of El Paso for about fifteen years.
INCIDENTS BEFORE THE WAR AND EARLY IMPRESSIONS.
On the second night after my arrival in El Paso I had my first experience of the manner of settling difficulties there. Samuel Schutz, still of El Paso, and one Tom Massie had had a misunderstanding about the rent of a house. My brother and I went across the river that afternoon, and on the way we met one Garver, a half-witted fellow, called “Clown,” who said he had been “fixing a canoe” at the river, and in a friendly way he advised us to return early because there would be some fun that night. We asked him what fun, and he replied: “Oh, killin’ a Dutchman!” That night, in front of the postoffice, I heard Massie say to a friend: “I have taken half a dozen drinks of straight brandy, but d—n me if I can get drunk.” I went into the postoffice and found an unusual crowd of men talking in low tones, and Mr. Schutz, in his shirt sleeves, was playing billiards with a friend. Presently Massie entered, and saying, “Mr. Schutz, you told a d—d lie,” presented a cocked pistol at that gentleman. There was no mistaking his intention. Murder was in his voice and in his face. Then there came from Mr. Schutz such a sound as I never heard before or since. It was not a shriek, or an outcry, for he did not distinctly articulate a single word. It was not exactly an expression of fear, but was more like a prolonged wail over some tragedy which had already occurred. But Schutz did the right thing, and quickly. He seized the barrel of Massie’s pistol and held it upward. Then commenced a struggle for life. Both were powerful men, and in their prime, one moved by hatred and revenge, and the other by the instinct of self-preservation. It was some seconds after they grappled before that strange sound ceased. Massie strove to bring his cocked pistol to bear on Schutz, and Schutz to move it in any other direction. Shocked and alarmed, and remembering my teaching about law and order, I stepped forward and said, “Gentlemen, would you see the man murdered?” Not a man moved. Massie finally let fall his pistol, drew a knife and drove it into Schutz’s shoulder. Schutz fled, but Massie recovered his pistol and fired two shots at him as he ran out through the front door. It was dark outside. Immediately after the shots Schutz stumbled over a water barrel and fell, and Massie, thinking him dead, crossed to Mexico in that canoe which Clown had “fixed.” Schutz was untouched by the bullets, and the knife wound was not serious.
The next day “Uncle Ben” Dowell gave me this advice: “My young friend, when you see anything of that kind going on in El Paso, don’t interfere. It is not considered good manners here.” The advice was well intended and worthy of careful consideration. Tom Massie returned to El Paso, but was not prosecuted.
Not long after the above occurrence, I saw a certain gambler shooting at another member of the profession in this same postoffice. A stray bullet killed an inoffensive by-stander. The coroner’s jury exonerated the killer, as they said the killing was clearly “accidental.” There was, of course, some sympathy for the innocent dead man, but most of it appeared to go to the gambler who had been so “unfortunate” as to kill the wrong man.
Of the Americans then at El Paso, some had left wives, or debts, or crimes behind them in “the States,” and had not come to the frontier to teach Sunday school. But there were good people here also, and for the few who were capable of doing business and willing to work, the opportunities were as good then and as profitable as they have ever been since that time. The products of the mines, crudely worked, in northern Mexico, were brought to El Paso and exchanged for merchandise or money. The military posts (forts) in northwest Texas and southern New Mexico were supplied with corn, flour, beef, hay, fuel, etc., by El Paso merchants and contractors.
The Overland Mail Company then operated a weekly line of mail coaches, drawn by six animals, between St. Louis and San Francisco. The time between these two cities was usually twenty-six days, the distance being 2,600 miles. These splendid Concord coaches (now almost gone out of use) carried the United States mail, for a Government subsidy, and usually four to nine through passengers, besides the driver and “conductor.” Changes of animals were made at “stations” built of rock or adobe, every twenty-five to forty miles, or wherever the company could find a stream, or spring, or water-hole. These coaches traveled day and night, in all kinds of weather.
El Paso was at this time (1858) the terminus of two other important stage routes—one from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the other from San Antonio, Texas. These were in every particular so similar to the greater “Overland” route that a description is unnecessary. There was also a stage line to Chihuahua.
These mail coaches were the forerunners of the “Limited Express” and the Pullman sleeper of the present day; and the rough, brave men who drove and managed them and protected the stations, fighting Indians the while, were the pioneers, the Daniel Boones and Simon Kentons of this frontier! They opened the way for the Southern Pacific, the Mexican Central, the “Sunset” and the Santa Fe.
Does the tenderfoot who now rides over these routes, in luxury and safety, appreciate the work of these men? I have heard more than one of them intimate that he would have done things much better than we did, if he had only arrived in time. I am very sure I have heard several of them say that they would have made and saved plenty of money, if they had only had our opportunities; and this appears to me the proper place for a few remarks on success and failure in life; if, indeed, any place is good for such a homily. By success I, of course mean what the majority of men mean by the word success—the accumulation of wealth.
Well, during the ten years following my locating at El Paso, I was well and familiarly acquainted with at least fifty active, intelligent, educated young men, of whom it might have been predicted that they would succeed