b'DOC DAY: CARING ROGUISH PIONEERBy Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerD OCTOR WARREN E. DAY arrived in Arizona Territory in 1873, an adventurer and a compassionate dedicated physician who had earned a reputation during the Civil War for his bravery in treating the wounded without regard to his safety. General George Crook knew well of Days dedicationmade up splints from cigar boxes on the supplyDay wanted and bravery and invited the doctor to accompany himwagon, set the arm as best he could consideringto establish as he went to Arizona Territory to take command ofthe severity of the shattered bone, and made a littera hospital in the effort to subdue the Apache. Doctor Day took upfrom canvas and blankets. He managed to get thethe Bradshaws the invitation. It was his cup of tea, so to speak. Thebadly wounded Capt. King back to the fort, whereto treat men wilderness of the Arizona Territory offered the doctorKings arm healed satisfactorily. For several yearsat these mines adventure and an opportunity to serve his fellow man.afterward, however, the captain was bothered byand others in the This is a look at Dr. Days Arizona experience. bone fragments working their way out from thearea. His restlessness location of his wound. and deep compassion for Dr. Day had hardly settled in at Fort Verde whenhis fellow man and those less fortunate than himself word came that Capt. Charles King and his troopsTo Whiskey Row caused him to abandon the plans for a hospital in the had been ambushed at Sunset Pass by Apaches. It wasLife at Fort Verde was like any Army post, full ofBradshaws. In 1880, he met and married a widow, after nightfall when the news reached the Army post.routine. Even though the fort was located on theBridget Gordon, shortly after she arrived in Prescott. Day enlisted a driver and set out by buckboard for theVerde River, on the fringe of Tonto Apache country,Bridget seemed to ease Days driven restlessness but battle scene, 22 miles away. It was the dead of winterit was hardly tamed by the time Day became the postdid not still his compassion.and the trail, what little there was, was cloaked indoctor. After three years, Day decided to move to snow and ice. About halfway up the trail, which wasPrescott and hang out his shingle. His office was onHackberryclimbing steadily into the mountains from the VerdeMontezuma St. up from Goodwin. Compared to FortThe year 1881 found Dr. Day at Hackberry doctoring River, Days driver developed frostbite. Day sent himVerde, this was a civilized country, despite the brawlsthe Hualapai. The tribe was starving due to drought back to the fort on horseback and continued up theand shootings that walled-up and poured out of theand the depletion of their game by white settlers. trail alone. saloons and gambling houses all around Days office. Seeds and grasses that were traditional foods were disappearing in the wake of vast cattle herds that He made it to Sunset Pass through the bitter cold ofMiners, prospectors, and a few cowhands made uphad been brought in. Water, always scarce, was a winter night through unfamiliar territory to thethe dominant Whiskey Row trade, with businessmen,being utilized in abundance by railroad crews as the scene of the ambush by mid-morning. The doctorlawyers, judges, and doctors mingling among themAtlantic and Pacific advanced across the Hualapai found Capt. King with a badly fractured arm. Dayat times to develop their clientele. Day developed alands. Four years of severe winters had left the tribe thriving practice among both the Hassayampersdevastated. Only supplies from the Army with and the locals. It was most likely the miners he metWashingtons blessings had allowed the tribe to on Whiskey Row that got him interested in the minesescape virtual extinction by the time Day arrived.of the Bradshaws and the men who worked them. Perhaps hanging out with the miners helped him fillDay and an Englishman named Charles Spencer the void left by the death of his wife in 1872, only abecame friends after the doctors arrival. Spencer had year before he accepted General Crooks invitation tobeen in the area for some 20 years and had married serve in the Arizona wilderness. a Hualapai woman. They had a son and a daughter. The son was two years old when Day arrived. Spencer Into the Bradshaws and a partner from Prescott, Charles Cohen, had a Day was a restless man. He was not known to staysprawling ranch near Hackberry.in one place for long periods. He entered the Army Medical Corps shortly after graduating from theIn early December of 1886, Spencer and Cohen were Albany School of Medicine in 1863 to serve in thereturning on the toll road from Prescott when they Civil War. At that time, the Territory of Arizona wasgot into a violent argument over Cohens desire to just being established. After the war, he learned ofsell his part of the ranch. Spencers five-year-old son a yellow fever epidemic in Key West, Florida. Hewas along for the ride. The two men fought violently spent two years in Dry Tortugas, Florida fighting thein the bed of the two-horse wagon, and then both disease. Dr. Day kept on the move, taking his medicalfell out. The horses bolted and ran off with the skills with him to places where medical doctors werewagon and the young boy but crashed into a tree and not to be found. stopped. The lad, unhurt, ran back to the fight.His move into Arizona Territory was merely partIt was a fight to the death. The men fought with of his pattern, which seemed to become a drivingstones, sticks, branches and whatever was handy force within him after the death of his wife. Hisfor two hours. At one point, according to Cohen, office on Whiskey Row, his trips into the BradshawsSpencer pulled out and opened a jackknife.Finally, to administer to miners at places like Peck Mine inthe two men fell to the ground exhausted and Alexandria, a silver mining camp once more populousunconscious. Cohen came to first. He found himself than the Prescott of the day, the Silver Prince, thelying across Spencers chest. Knowing that when Tip Top near the mining camp of Gillette and todaysSpencer came to, one of them must die before this Captain Charles King Black Canyon City and the Black Warrior. fight ended, Cohen found the jackknife and cut the 20 October 2020'