October 2018 22 Apache Terror continued from page 20 that occurred in Pleasant Valley a week before the arrests. Houck said Jake Lauffer was shot at from ambush and his arm broken by the shot on August 5th and that two other men, Cody and Coleman, also were shot at from ambush. Neither of the latter was hit but Cody’s horse was shot. Houck claimed he and his posse had arrested Stott, Scott, and Wilson for these shootings but that as the posse and its prisoners crossed into Yavapai County a band of “40 outlaws seized the prisoners from the lawmen and lynched them.” Houck’s tale was widely disbelieved. It is doubtful if there were 40 armed men available in Tonto Basin at the time to form such a large vigilante band. The Tewksbury clan never had but a dozen men associated with them, including Lauffer and Jim Houck. It was later rumored that Tewksbury men John Rhodes and Nook Larson were part Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens, 1884 Billy Wilson (left) and Jim “Jamie” Stott. Killed, along with Jim Scott, August 4, 1888. Photos Courtesy: National Archives of the band Houck claimed took his prisoners, but there was never any evidence to support that claim. None of the five men in Houck’s “posse” were ever identified and the only witness that could be found to back Houck’s story of his prisoners being seized by a “band of outlaws” was Houck himself. Some even suggested that it was Houck who fired the three shots from ambush August 5th in Pleasant Valley to create a cover story for arresting Stott, Scott, and Wilson and lynching them. The Arrest Scene It was apparently before daylight on August 11, 1888, when deputy J.D. Houck rode up to Jim Stott’s cabin at Aztec Springs. Four men were at the Stott cabin when the posse arrived. Jamie Stott, James Scott, Billy Wilson and Lamont Clymer, according to some accounts. Later information indicated the Stott, Wilson, Clymer and another man, Alfred Ingram were at the cabin when Houck and his posse of some half a dozen men arrived. The later accounts said Jim Scott had been taken captive by the Tewksbury faction and held at the Perkins store in Pleasant Valley for several days before August 11th, then taken to the Stott cabin by a band of men associated with Houck to meet the deputy there. Houck explained to Stott and the others at the cabin that he had come to arrest Stott, Scott and Wilson for the ambush shootings a week earlier in Pleasant Valley. When asked if he had warrants for this arrest, Houck said he did, but that he had left them at home. Actually, Houck had no warrants for the arrest of the three men. Nor did he have any evidence that the three were involved in the shootings from the ambush of Lauffer, Coleman, and Cody a week earlier. Stott did not treat Houck and his trumped-up arrest with much seriousness. In fact, shortly after the posse arrived, Stott offered them breakfast and fed them. The men in the cabin and the posse seemed to be cordial to each other in Clymer’s view. As the morning progressed Houck finally said it was time to go. Stott, Scott, and Wilson were put in shackles and put on their horses. The posse then led the prisoners down the trail that went towards Prescott. Once having crossed the Navajo County line into Yavapai County Houck stopped the posse at a tall Ponderosa pine. Nooses were placed around the necks of the prisoners. There was evidence at the scene that the killers hoisted Stott up in the air, and then let him down several times, in an attempt to torture the young man before he was finally hoisted aloft for eternity. Several notches burned into the limb by the rope attest to the repeated hoisting and lowering of Stott before he was finally left to hang until dead. Scott and Wilson were just simply hoisted into the air and left to die. The posse rode off. Hours passed. Finally, Floyd Clymer, left at the ranch by the posse, followed the direction they had taken with his friends down the trail. Soon he encountered the grisly scene of three men hanging deathly still from ropes on the branches of the big Ponderosa. Their eyes wide open, gazing skyward, seeing nothing, their faces a ghastly purple color, their necks elongated unnaturally by the weight of their bodies. Clymer became hysterical and began running, then walking. A tuberculosis patient who Stott had taken in so he could take advantage of the clean mountain air at Stott’s cabin, Clymer ran and walked the 60 miles to Holbrook to report what happened to livery stable owner Sam Brown. Brown was friends of Stott, Scott, and Clymer and acquainted with Billy Wilson, a miner, and prospector from Colorado who had stopped in Holbrook on his way to Globe. Stott had invited Wilson to stay over that fateful night of August 10th. The liveryman immediately rode to the scene. He cut down the bodies and buried the young men beneath the big Ponderosa where they were murdered. Three innocent men lynched as the end result of a devious attempt by Deputy Jim Houck to discredit Stott and get his ranch. The brand was shaped like a chuck wagon implement, so the Aztec was known as the "Hashknife Outfit." Navajo County Historical Society Museum Jim Houck ran the White House billiard hall in Holbrook, AZ, which then had a population of about 200.