“The stage for California left Prescott on the morning of Saturday, November 4, 1871, carrying the US Mail,” the Weekly Arizona Miner began. Aboard were a driver and six passengers. Three of the passengers were from Prescott: Frederick Sholom, William Kruger, and a “soiled dove” named Mollie Shepherd. The other three passengers were part of the Wheeler Expedition, a US Geological Survey mission to map the West that started the same year. Among these three was a popular, well-known 22-year-old writer named Frederick W. Loring- a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard. The driver, John Lentz, was hired recently and was about to embark on his first return trip.
The first leg of the trip to Wickenburg “was almost a pleasure trip,” the same paper described. Loring told several people that he planned to write what he observed on his trip—that sentiment back East, believing the Indian Wars were nearly over, was fallacious, and he planned to redress the mistaken view.
But the following day would quickly become nationally infamous.
It was 6 AM when the stage loaded up and started west. They traveled around six miles when all hell broke loose. Suddenly, “either Indians or Mexican bandits disguised [as] Apache warriors, rushed down upon the stage as it was passing through a canyon, and fired a volley into the passengers, killing all but two persons and…wounding these,” the Miner wrote in its first report. One of the horses was also killed in the first fire.
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| Fred Loring and his donkey Evil Merodach near Prescott, just days before his death. |
The stage was surrounded on three sides, and William Kruger and Mollie Shepherd were able to leave the cabin on the clear side. After the attackers stopped their pursuit, the two continued on foot toward the next station when they came upon another stage heading back east toward Wickenburg. After they told the driver their story, he thought it prudent to turn around, “fearing to proceed by the direct route,” the Miner explained. Once back at the station, “information of the calamity was sent to Wickenburg via the Vulture mine.”
There was no telegraph available, and it took until midnight for authorities in Wickenburg to learn of the news. “Two parties of citizens started for the scene—one to bring in the dead and the other…to take the trail of the murderers,” the Miner reported. When they reached the scene, “a most horrible picture was presented to their sight.” Five men lying side by side, “rigid in death and drenched in blood—the unavenged victims of a murder as dark and as damnable as ever stained the hands of an assassin,” the paper averred.
While some men began tending to the dead, others searched for clues. “One mail sack was cut open, and its contents scattered over the ground; the other was left untouched,” the paper continued. “The baggage of the passengers was broken open, and while articles of but little value were carried away, large sums of money, [including an untouched Wells-Fargo express box], and other valuables remained.” It was thought that this alone pointed to Native Americans causing the calamity. However, all the remaining animals, the firearms, and ammunition, things usually prized by Native Americans, were left behind.
As the party fanned out, the last of the dead, CS Adams, was found 50 yards away. He had been scalped. But with it being the middle of the night, the search for the perpetrators would begin with the morning light.
Judge CA Tweed examined the stage and told the Miner that he counted 17 bullet holes, “the greater number of which were in the sides and at a proper elevation to perfect the work of murder… The Judge [was] surprised that even one of the passengers should have escaped.”
Much “Indian sign” was found, including Apache moccasin tracks. “Judging from the indications, after killing the passengers, something scared [the attackers], causing them to leave in hot haste—scattering in different directions,” the Miner thought. However, each of these trails reunited after four or five miles, and the one large trail headed toward the Date Creek reservation. This account was published and signed by five members of the search party. “There is no longer any doubt as to the authors of the crime,” the Miner declared. “They were…Apache-Mohaves from the Date Creek reservation.”
The tragedy became a national political football, however, as newspapers in the East, and the West Coast that sided with Colyer’s opinion refused to believe that Native Americans were responsible. Instead, they blamed Mexicans or “fiendish whites” dressed as Apaches. However, both survivors testified under oath that it was indeed Native Americans.
Doubts about Native Americans being the perpetrators were largely due to Vincent Colyer, a Quaker and a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners—a group of well-known humanitarians who made recommendations to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Colyer visited Arizona in 1869 and reported back to Washington that the Native Americans no longer wanted to fight and should be placed on reservations where they would be clothed, fed, and given guns and ammunition. However, at this point, many Native Americans were still ready and willing to fight.
Arizona editors disagreed with the Colyer strategy from the start and felt a terrible vindication after the massacre. After the tragedy, the widespread sentiment in Arizona toward Colyer was repugnance and anger. The Miner bitterly declared: “The murder of FW Loring and those killed with him is at the door of Colyer. Had such an ass and knave as [he] been kept at home, [then] valuable lives need not have been sacrificed.” The same article further described Colyer as “an arrant and self-conceited idiot,” and “an egregious ass.”
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The editorial protests continued: “Indians fed, clothed, and armed by the Government at Camp Date Creek, were absent from their reservation for nearly three days,” the Miner revealed. The second day of their absence was the day the stage was attacked. It was now believed that the reason why they didn’t take more from the scene was that if they brought any of the booty back to the reservation, it would be a sure sign of their guilt.
After trailing the culprits to the Date Creek reservation, General Crook devised a strategy ”for the purpose of capturing the offenders, which did not completely succeed, as the Indians suspected the ruse, and, at the attempt to arrest one of their number, showed fight,” the Miner reported. “The result was seven Indians killed, and a soldier mortally wounded.”
At the beginning of 1872, the Miner reported that William Kruger had healed from his wounds, but Mollie Shepherd had not. Indeed, she passed away from her injuries not long after this report.
Find Out What Happened to the stagecoach:
"An 1871 Journey to Prescott was Long, Difficult, Dangerous and Expensive"
One man's account of the trials and tribulations of simply traveling to Prescott, Arizona in 1871.
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SOURCES:
Weekly Arizona Miner:
11/4/1871; Pg. 3, Col. 3.
11/11/1871; Pg. 3, Col. 2.
11/18/1871; Pg. 2, Col. 1.
11/18/1871; Pg. 3, Cols. 1-2.
12/9/1871; Pg. 1, Col. 4.
1/6/1872; Pg. 2, Col. 3.
2/3/1872; Pg. 2, Col. 3.
9/14/1872; Pg. 2, Cols. 1-2
11/25/1872; Pg. 1, Col. 3.
11/25/1872; Pg. 3, Col. 1.
Arizona Weekly Citizen:
11/25/1871; Pg. 4, Col. 2.
5/23/1874; Pg. 2, Col. 2.
The San Bernardino Guardian, 11/11/1871.
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