b'WICKENBURG MASSACRE STILL A WHODUNITPART 1 By Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerI T HAS BEEN OVER 150 YEARS since the stage from Prescott to California was stopped and all but two of its passengers and its driver were massacred some six miles west of the old mining camp of Wickenburg. Immediately, the Yavapai sometimes called the Apache Mohave in those days were blamed for the murders. Just as immediately, cooler heads among old pioneers who had foundedFREDERICK WADSWORTH LORINGthe Arizona Territory nearly a decade earlier saw plenty of evidence toshow that the Yavapai had nothing to do with the murders.The press, particularly the Indian-hating editor of theWell, the next stage station on the trail to Ehrenberg andcouple. Crete noticed the neatly folded harness from the Miner in Prescott, would have none of the sage advice ofCalifornia. It didnt make it. lead horse on the stage tongue and noted the dead animal the pioneers who knew the Yavapai well. It called anyonehad been left untouched as were the other horses, found who doubted the Yavapai were responsible vile whites.SIX MILES TO DEATH standing in their harnesses. Buffalo robes were still in the The evidence was so strong that it was not Indians whoClusters of brush on both sides of the old trail out of towncoach. Bryan and other old timers noted that always hungry ambushed the stage that the debate over who actuallybecame thicker as the stage rolled toward a wash some sixIndians would have taken the flesh of the dead horse and committed the crime is carried on to this day, throwingmiles west of the mining camp. Suddenly, shots rang out,rode off with the other horses in tow. They also would have doubt on the credibility of a plague on a historical markercutting down one of the lead horses. Driver John Lentz tooktaken the harnesses for the leather and most definitely in Wickenburg built in 1937 that claims the deed wasa ball almost the same instant and slumped dead in his seat.would not have left the buffalo robes behind.committed by Apache Mohave or Yavapai Indians. The shots were coming from brush on the north side of the trail. Loring, Adams, Shoholm, Hamel, Kruger, and MissBryan also noticed, as did others, that only two suitcases, The Saturday night stage out of Prescott for Los AngelesSheppard bailed out of the stage on the opposite side. Somethose of Kruger and Sheppard, had been cut open and came down the old wagon trail in the dark of November 4,10 to 12 armed men swarmed down on the passengers asransacked. The others were untouched, as was the mail. 1871, via Iron Springs, Tonto Springs, Skull Valley, Kirkland,they hit the ground. Kruger and Miss Sheppard ran up theAny gold Kruger and Sheppard might have been carrying Bells Canyon, Date Creek, and Black Tanks before takingwash to escape. Loring, Adams, Shoholm, Salmon, andwas gone. Indians would have had no use for it. Yavapais the fork east to Wickenburg where it stopped briefly at JimHamel were slaughtered near the stage. Hamel was scalpednever took scalps, as every pioneer in Wickenburg knew. Yet Grants stage stop.by the attackers. Hemel was scalped, apparently in an effort to make it appear that Indians had committed the slaughter. Indians would Aboard were some interesting passengers. One was WilliamThe bandits found the suitcases of Kruger and Sheppardhave ransacked all of the suitcases and taken any items of Kruger, clerk of the Chief Quartermaster of the Departmentand cut them open. The baggage of the others, as well as theclothing that suited them, yet apparently no clothing had of Arizona, an organization known in Prescott for someU.S. mail, was left untouched. One of the bandits fired upbeen taken.shady deals and sales of government supplies out the backthe wash after Kruger and Sheppard, wounding Sheppard in door at Fort Whipple. Some said Kruger had gleanedthe back. One of the bandits took the harness off the deadSome of the townsfolk followed the tracks left by the some $40,000 for himself from some of these deals. Withhorse, folded it up neatly as a freighter would, and placed itmurderers up the trail by Black Tanks toward Date Creek Kruger was his girlfriend, a madam of some fame knownon the tongue of the stage. The bandits then fled. where the military had an Indian reservation near the as Mollie Sheppard. It was believed in Prescott that she hadpost. They found a couple of Indian items on the trail to managed to accumulate a considerable sum, some $15,000,Kruger and Sheppard made their escape up the wash andDate Creek, dropped right in the middle of the trail, too from her business affairs. Others claimed that Kruger hadthen back out onto the trail where they were picked upobvious to have been dropped accidentlly, the old timers contributed to Miss Sheppards wealth by lavishing fundsby a wagon and taken to Cullens station. Kruger claimedthought. The search party concluded that the murderers on her gleaned from his dealings in government property.the attack was the work of Indians. Miss Sheppard saidwere Indians from the Date Creek Reservation. Strangely, Kruger and Sheppard had new luggage with their names onthe attackers were Indian or Mexican and wore U.S. Armythey did not pursue the trail on to Date Creek nor did they it when boarding the stage. jackets. The two survivors were returned to Wickenburg.report them to the Army. Instead, the search party returned In the meantime, a group of Wickenburg citizens hadto Wickenburg to tell all who would listen that they had C.S Adams, Fred W. Shoholm, W.G. Salmon, and P.M. Hemelconverged on the bloody scene. Kruger said the banditstracked the bandits toward the Date Creek Reservation.also were aboard as guests of driver John Lentz. So washad pursued him and Miss Sheppard up the wash and he Frederick W. Loring, a young and salty writer for the Bostonstopped periodically to return their fire and fight them offINQUEST HELD IMMEDIATELYPress and not a stranger to what was now Arizona Territory,until his fire finally convinced them to give up the chase. An inquest was convened in Wickenburg, with Mace having accompanied the Beale expedition that carved the oldMousse as foreman. The jurors included F. Purrella, Beale wagon road across the northern part of the territorySTRANGE EVIDENCE Dave Morgan, Aaron Barnett, Charles Buchannon, Julius above what is now Williams. Loring was so prominent thatOld-time pioneers from Wickenburg who went to the sceneGoldwater, Charles Hargrove, M.W. Wennen and Dennis the Wickenburg massacre is referred to as the Loring partyof the massacre found flaws in Krugers story. Crete BryanMay. The latter would gain fame years later as the discoverer massacre, although it was not his party at all. was one. He operated a freight wagon between Wickenburgof the famed Congress Mine. The jury concluded the and Ehrenberg. He said he could find no tracks going upvictims died of gunshot wounds received at the hands of After a stop in Wickenburg the morning of November 5, thethe wash but those of Kruger and Miss Sheppard, indicatingIndians trailed towards Date Creek.stage headed west with the sun at its back towards Cullensthat Kruger was lying about the bandits pursuing the 44 November 2022'