b'CHARLEY DUCHET: THE MAN, HIS GUN AND HIS DESERT CANYONPART 1 By Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerO ld-timers call it Duchet Canyon. It is located a couple of miles west of Aguila. It is named after Charley Duchet who came into Arizona Territory in the 1880s. Charley Duchet was a man who was hard to kill, and who did his share of killing. He is said to have killed 32 men. He claimed that many at times and other times he said he couldnt remember them all.Most of those killings were off the record. There is no papertrail of the dead men Duchet claimed to have left in California, Texas, Nevada, Kansas or in Pleasant Valley, Territorial Yavapai County. Duchet was an enigma. Those close to Pleasant Valley, now Young, have said the more they find out about Duchet, the less they know about him.Duchet knew the Tewksbury clan in Pleasant Valley.Duchet caught hell after They offered him work tending sheep in the late 1880sthe fight for not keeping as the famed feud between the Tewksburys and theup his end of the battle. He Grahams was heating up. Duchet came from Californiafigured the renegades were to Pleasant Valley for the job. Once there, he met Tomeither gonna kill him or Graham. Duchet and Graham immediately took to oneleave him on the plains to another and a life-long friendship ensued. die. That night he stole the leaders horse and saddle Duchet told the Tewksburys he had decided not to takeand made his escape.the job and went to work for Graham. He stayed by Grahams side until Graham was murdered by ambushHe ended up in Visalia, in Tempe on August 2, 1892. Duchet, known widely forCalifornia when a his deadly skill with a six-gun had been Tom Grahamsyoung man. There, bodyguard for more than half a dozen years.he was smitten by a young Mexican girl. When the unarmed Graham, who had taken up farmingTrouble was, the senorita had a boyfriend and he was aMexicans pursued him into the night. A short distance in Tempe after leaving Pleasant Valley, was cut down atbullfighter. The bullfighter challenged Duchet to a dueldown the dark trail, Duchet got in position behind a seven in the morning while taking a load of barley toand Duchet accepted. The two men were locked in a lowrock. As the band of Mexicans came down the trail, market, Duchet was not with him. He was tending toceiling, windowless adobe hut. The two could hear theDuchet blasted the first one with a sawed-off shotgun. chores on the Graham farm. Graham lived most of thesenorita outside, cheering for the bullfighter and urgingHe killed the next two with his pistol. The rest fled.day of August 2nd, despite his fatal wounds. One slug hadhim to kill Duchet. Inside the dark hut, the two men severed his spinal cord. He was coherent until about twostruggled with knives to the death. Duchet found his way to Sonora, California where he and hours before his death, and time and time again he nameda miner struck a rich claim. Organized claim jumpers Ed Tewksbury and John Rhodes as the men who shot him. Finally, a knock was heard at the closed door andcame down on him and his partner one day killing his seconds later one of the two men opened it. Duchetpartner. Duchet felled two of the claim jumpers and the Sometime after Grahams death, how long is unknown,staggered out of the hut and collapsed on the ground,rest fled. He was arrested for murder and locked in a Charley Duchet found his way to the huge ranch westbleeding profusely. Inside the blood-spattered adobe, theone-room cabin by the sheriff. While jailed, Duchet was of Aguila. Duchet holed up in a remote canyon on thisbullfighter was sprawled on the floor, dead. Duchet wastipped off that the sheriff was in cahoots with the claim ranch. He had long been into prospecting and miningstill alive but badly cut up. As he was recovering from hisjumpers. That night, a couple of the deputies came to take and he occupied himself in that trade in the canyon thatsevere wounds, the senorita took off with another man.him to be lynched. Duchet grabbed the gun off one of now bears his name. At one time, John Moore, the fatherDuchet eventually recovered, but he had been crippledthem, shot both lawmen, and fled.of Kearny Moore and grandfather of Roy Moore, bothfor life, one leg badly severed. He was limited forever well-known ranchers in the Aguila and Congress area,to the use of his left arm, the arm he trained to deal outRobbing Stages held some claims with Duchet back in the Harquahalladeath from his pistol. The fierceness of the duel earnedHe took up robbing stages. In those days he used the mountains around the canyon. Duchet and Moore alsoDuchet the name El Diablo among the Mexicans. name Bob English, one of his many aliases he fronted had claims in the Wickenburg and Congress areas. during his life. Duchet based himself in Monterey The Killings Begin County, California for awhile where he robbed a Wells About Charley Duchet Duchet was to kill two more Mexicans in California. HeFargo stage of $80,000. The stage company had a big Charley Duchet was badly crippled and had been since aescaped from custody near San Francisco and killed aprice on his head after that incident.young man, perhaps explaining his heavy reliance on hissheriffs deputy. By this time, Duchet already had killed skills with a gun. He was born in Kentucky in 1838 andseveral Indians and a white man in a gunfight in a saloonDuchet and a partner once robbed a stage of $8,000, fled his home and the whip of an abusive brother whenat Fort Benton on the Missouri River in the 1850s. A mobthen rode into the next town on the trail. When the stage he was 12. He stole his brothers gun as he left. formed after the killing and Duchet left the area. arrived and reported it had been robbed, Duchet and his partner joined the posse to chase down the bandits. Heading west he took up with a band of renegades andAt one point, Duchet went to Santa Fe where he becameWhen the chase ended in failure, Duchet and his partner soon found himself in a pitched battle with Indians.angry and cleaned out a gambling house. Angrycontinued on page 2118 March 2020'