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The line at present is irregular in its course, and cuts off from our Territory the head of the Santa Cruz river and valley, the Sonoita valley, the San Bernardino valley, the whole course of the Colorado river from a point twenty miles below the mouth of the Gila river, and, worse than all, the control of the head of the Gulf of California, and the rich and extensive valley of Lake Guzman, besides a large and extremely valuable silver region, well known both to Mexicans and Americans the planchas de la Platte.
After the massacre of four of Crabbe's unfortunate party near Sonoita by the Mexicans, the Papago Indians buried carefully the bodies to which Mexican inhumanity had denied this last charitable office.
The Mexican escaped to Sonora, came back when he thought the affair had blown over and went to work for the railroad at Sonoita. There he had a fracas with the section foreman, stabbed him and made off into the hills. Sheriff Wakefield from Tucson came down to get the man and shot him dead near Greaterville, which ended the incident. In the preceding I have mentioned the railroad.
John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, who was then in command of the military district embracing that portion of the Territory south of the Gila River. Crittenden was beautifully situated on the Sonoita, about ten miles from where I now live and in the midst of some of the most marvelously beautiful scenery to be found on the American continent.
The Sonoita, upon which Patagonia is situated, is one of these "disappearing rivers," the water coming up out of the sand about half a mile from the main street. The big rivers, the Colorado, the Salt, the upper Gila and the San Pedro, run the year around, and there are several smaller streams in the more fertile districts that do the same thing.
It may be remarked here, in justice to the rest of the State, that the temperature of Yuma is not typical of Arizona as a whole. In the region I now live in the Sonoita Valley in the southeastern part of the State, and in portions around Prescott, the summer temperatures are markedly cool and temperate.
Only two years ago a prominent rancher in this country the Sonoita Range shot and killed a Mexican who with a partner had been caught red-handed in the act of stealing cattle. With the gradual disappearance of the open range, cattle stealing has practically stopped, although one still hears at times of cases of the kind, isolated, but bearing traces of the same old methods.
The Sanford brand was changed three times. The D.S. brand I sold to the Vail interests for Sanford, and the Sanford brand was changed to the Dipper, which, afterwards, following the closing out of the Sanford stock, was again altered to the Ninety-Seven brand. Cattle with the 97 brand on them still roam the range about the Sonoita.
Pine and spruce, with superior white ash and walnut, were found, and the most gigantic cotton-woods, particularly on the Sonoita. "The mountains in the neighborhood are filled with minerals, and the precious metals are said to abound.
That our soil has been stained with the blood of American citizens, shed by Mexican hands, in an armed invasion of our Territory near Sonoita, and that there is no civil magistrate or officer here to even protest against such an outrage.
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