b'FAMILYS KILLING A 32 YEAR MYSTERYBy Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerAMAN NAMED JOSHUA WARD, his wife Abigail and their two daughters, Sarah 5 and Phoebe 8 left Boston in the spring of 1876 for Nevada. Joshua was going to seek his fortune in prospecting and mining in a remote region of Nevada near the town of Cherry Creek. Abigale wrote home to Boston often. Then, after a letter in August of 1878, the letters stopped. She told relatives in Boston of Joshua locating a silver find in an isolated area miles outside the small mining camp of Cherry Creek. She said he had built a fine log cabin for the family near aFinally, Crampton spotted a long unused trail that headedinches thick through the years. On a bed near the fireplace spring in a valley with cottonwood trees and good grazingoff between Ruby and Franklin Lakes through Harrisonwas another dust covered body and in a corner between land for their oxen. Abigail said Joshua would be gone twoPass and over the Ruby Mountains. They had gone at leastthe bed and the fireplace two smaller forms could be weeks at a time to work his mine. He had built a road from20 miles farther out of Cherry Creek than they intended,seen. Breaking the crust on dust that encased the bodies, the mine to the cabin to make it possible for him to bringcalculating that the old wagon trail to the Ward cabinit became apparent from the skulls that Abigail, on the his ore home with his wagon and team of oxen. The minehad to be between Cherry Creek and the trail throughbed, and her two girls had died in the same manner as the was over a ridge at the end of the valley and a long distanceHarrison Pass. They backtracked several times that dayoxen, from a blow by a heavy axe-type instrument.by wagon from the cabin, she wrote. before spotting what they were looking for, a wagon trail almost obliterated by time with sage and brush coveringJoshuas body near the door, laying face up, showed no Her letters told of an L shaped cabin with kitchen and livingmost of the old wagon ruts. They drove the Ford along thesign of how he died until the body was turned over. Four room but no windows as a protection against Indians wholong unused trail until they encountered a deep washoutarrows, their shafts broken by Joshuas falling body, had frequently hunted the abundant game in the area. The heavythat stopped the Ford. They began packing along the oldbeen shot into his back. Crampton surmised that Joshuas door with triple bars on the inside was the only way in andtrail on foot. Walking into foothills and then up a longwife and daughters had been caught inside the cabin by the only opening that had to be watched when Indians werepass, they found that the man who made the road hadraiding Indians, who had killed them and had left when in the valley.been forced to cut away slopes and move boulders so hisJoshua ran to the cabin from some distance away after wagon could get through. hearing their screams. As he went through the door, the Abigail wrote that Joshua had put a good shingle roof onIndians shot him in the back with the four arrows. Joshua the cabin, had built a shed for the oxen and a smokehouseCABIN SPOTTED had enough strength left to turn and throw bars on the near the cabin. She even sent back to Boston a sample ofThey had hiked some 20 miles from the Ford when, atop acabin door before falling over dead on his back at the the ore from the rich find Joshua had made and indicatedridge, they saw a lone cabin about a mile ahead in a valley.doorway. It appeared he did not live long enough to see that the mine was some 10 miles from the cabin. That wasThe cabin was L shaped and had several outbuildings. Thewhat had been the fate of his wife and daughters.all relatives in Boston knew of the Ward family when aspring Abigail had described was some 100 yards from mine engineer arrived one day from the Copper Belt minethe cabin. The searchers made camp at the spring for theDEATH IN TOTAL ISOLATIONnear Wickenburg, Arizona Territory, to report on miningnight. At dawn, Crampton and his partner were out of theirIt was obvious that from the day Joshua made his final act investments the relatives had made in Arizona and Nevada. bedrolls and at the cabin immediately, eager to solve theof throwing the bars across the cabin door, no man, white mystery of what happened to the Ward family. or Indian, had been in that lonely, remote and thoroughly The year was 1910; 32 years after Abigail Ward had writtenisolated cabin. For 32 years, it had served as the coffin for her last letter postmarked Cherry Creek. The family hadAbigail had failed to mention that the cabin was built nearJoshua Ward and his family.investments in mines near Wickenburg and Chloride ina low rock rim that sheltered it from weather, weather it Arizona and Hamilton in Nevada. They wanted the mineshowed little evidence of feeling during the past 30 years.Crampton and his partner placed the bodies of Ward and engineer, Frank Crampton, to see if he could locate theHalfway between the spring and the cabin, the two foundhis two girls next to Abigail on the bed and covered them Ward family and Joshuas rich mine. Crampton wired aheadan old ore wagon, its huge wheels sunk into the mud, thewith the bedding from another bed in the cabin. It was and had a friend and business partner meet him in Ely.sides of the bed long rotted away, and the ore it had carriedbeginning to snow. A storm had been threatening all day. From Ely, they drove a Ford to Cherry Creek, a trip of lessspilled onto the ground around it. Near the cabin theyCrampton and his partner repaired the door, took all the than a day in the Ford. There they studied a rough mapfound the skeletons of the two oxen in the shed Abigail hadpapers from the desk in the corner to send to the relatives drawn by Abigail in one of her letters some 30 years earlier.described. They had been killed by a single blow from somein Boston, and bolted and locked it securely.It showed the cabin in its valley, with Hamilton to theinstrument, perhaps the flat of an axe.south, Cherry Creek to the east and Humboldt to the north.They headed into the snow, the first snow storm ofUnfortunately, no distances were given other than an arrowGRIM SIGNS, GRUESOME FIND winter, knowing that the many things left to be done atindicating Eureka, where Joshua sold his ore, was six days byReaching the cabin door, they saw arrow points withthe cabin would have to wait until spring. It took two wagon west of Hamilton. broken shafts embedded in the logs on both sides of thedays to get back to Cherry Creek through the wet, foot door. Gingerly, they tried the door. It would not budge,deep snow. There, they sent a letter to the Wards relatives THE SEARCH apparently barred from the inside. The two searchersin Boston, describing the Wards fate and enclosing the Crampton and his partner set out at dawn to begin theirbroke away the boards at the top of the door and madepapers collected at the cabin. Crampton promised to search of the Cherry Creek area for the cabin. No one inan opening to crawl through. There was little light in thereturn to the cabin in the spring as soon as possible to take Cherry Creek remembered the Ward family, who 30 yearswindowless cabin but having crawled through the openingcare of the remains and package up whatever personal earlier had come to the mining camp town for supplies.in the door they had made, they saw why it would noteffects were still intact in the cabin to ship to Boston. Even 30 years after Abigail wrote of the isolated cabin theopen. Three bars were evenly spaced across the door.Cramptons letter to Boston relatives told much more than Wards had built, Crampton found no settlements, fewwas written. It told of how lonely and isolated the lives of traveled roads and not even remote prospectors cabinsScraping years of accumulated dust from the cabin floormining families could be, and often was, in the prospects in the broad area of their search. They steered the Fordnear the door, they removed the bars and pulled theof Nevada in the 1870s. through valleys, over mountain ridges, up passes anddoor open from the inside. In the light, they could see across desert areas searching for the spot they plotted on athe outline of a mans body in the crust of the dust that map where they expected to find a trail leading to the longcovered everything in the cabin and had built up several forgotten Ward cabin.44 September 2022'