b'WHEN DEATH STALKEDTHE SANTA CRUZ VALLEYPART 2 By Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerVeteran Soldier Not ImmuneMike OReilly, born in Ireland in 1836, joined the California Infantry in Auburn, Colorado at the age of 25. He was mustered out of the Army in 1864 and arrived in Arizona Territory in 1865. A few months after getting out of the Army, OReilly received a head wound in a battle with Indians that killed two of his companions. He was carrying the mail from Tucson to Ft. Bowie under government employment in 1865 when the attack occurred.Within five years, OReilly had accumulated enough money to start a stage station. The census in 1870 listed him as station keeper with property valued at $2500. His stage station was 18 miles northwest of Tucson. It was called Kennedy Station. In February of 1871, he reported Apaches had made off with a horse and six mules from the station and killed William Bloom, a native of Germany, who workedat the station.OReilly had a partner in the station named Matthewstation was on the main road to San Carlos and CampSettlers Victim of GovernmentStevenson. Several months after the Apache attack,Apache from Camp Grant, assuring plenty of wagonIn the early 1870s, the governments policies and the OReilly left the partnership and opened a new stationand stage traffic. OReilly put the station up for sale inArmys were a shambles of contradictory directives at the junction of the Bowie and Crittenden roads,the summer of 1875. and haggling between officials. President Grant which he called the Crittenden Station. wanted to civilize the Indians by putting them on OReilly had sunk 12 wells between the San Pedroreservations. He sent an emissary, Vincent Colyer, a By 1874, he had sunk a well 70 feet deep on hisand Camp Grant in establishing his second station.Quaker who felt the Apaches were suppressed by the premises, which were located some 13 miles south ofHe also built 16 miles of road between Three Oakswhites and openly sided with the Indians, ignoring Camp Grant. He said the well was full of water andand Dos Cabezas and built a station two miles southsettlers complaints about Apache raids. overflowing its top. A successful well was the key toof Croton Springs. In 1878 he built another station on operating a stage station, and OReilly had establishedTurkey Creek, 18 miles from Camp Rucker, and builtAt the same time, Grant sent General Crook, an his second station with plenty of water for stock. The18 miles of road to increase traffic to his station. experienced Indian fighter who was highly respected for his abilities to bring Indians onto reservations Not much was heard from OReilly after the fall ofand end dangers from hostiles to settlers. Colyer 1885 when he landed in county jail in Tucson on aset up feeding stations at several posts for Apaches. charge of selling liquor to Indians. From 1880 untilThis policy followed those of the General Crook he landed in jail, he was prospecting and miningreplacement General George Stoneman, who ordered throughout the area where his stage stations hadmany Army posts closed as a waste of money and survived a decade of Apache rampages and hadestablished reservations around a few key posts served a generation of travelers and governmentincluding Camp Apache to the north and Camp troops. Following the liquor charge, OReilly movedGrant near Tucson.to Bisbee, where at the end of 1891 he applied for a pension for injuries received in the Indian attack onStonemans actions were so annoying to citizens in him when in government service delivering the mailsoutheastern Arizona who felt he was reducing, not from Tucson to Ft. Bowie in 1865. increasing, protection of them from the Apaches that they called for his removal. So did Territorial Washington denied his pension. The reason was thatGovernor Safford, who was basically in favor of he could not provide any witnesses to the attack byexterminating the Indians rather than feed and house Indians on him although the attack was in officialthem on reservations. Following Colyers departure, reports. OReilly could not provide witnesses becauseGrant sent respected Civil War General Oliver Otis his two companions were killed in the attack thatHoward, to bring about peace between the settlers resulted in his horse being shot from under himand Apaches.and his head hitting a rock as he fell, knocking him unconscious. The Indians left him for dead. TheHoward listened to the grievances of both sides head wound bothered OReilly all his life. In Arizonaand investigated the white traders who had been Territory OReilly was known as an early pioneer whosupplying both the Army and the Indians in the had built more stage stations than anyone at a timeArmys charge with shoddy goods, ripping off when these stations and the water they provided werethe government in the process and reducing the United States Army General George Crook desperately needed, and a man who made that recordIndians relying on the Army posts for food to near during the worst years of Apache attacks. starvation. He immediately set about to find solutions 56 October 2021'