Camp Date Creek
The William W. Smith Archives
Disclaimer
DISCLAIMER: All material provided for reference and research purposes only. No reproduction of images or text is permissible. If linking to any item on this blog, please site the source.
February 9, 2019
First Peoples of Sharlot's Country (New Directions, Sharlot Hall Museum Newsletter, March/April 2002, Vol. 29, No. 2)
SHARLOT HALL MUSEUM NEWSLETTER
neJKEGTJQNS
Museum
Yard Sale
The series begins with Dr. Harry Swanson, whose expertise includes the Mohave, Chemehuevi, and Colorado River
Indian tribes. His talk is entitled “Giant Farmers and Pygmy Slaves.” Hualapai Sylvia Querte, well known to
Elderhostel tours at Peach Springs, discusses her people in the “Cultural History of Hualapai.” Archaeologist Chris
Coder returns, by popular demand, to speak about the “Dilzhé: The Western Apache of Central Arizona.” The
Museum’s cultural anthropologist, Sandra Lynch, will present “Yavapai: The People of the Sun.” For prehistory buffs,
Dr. David Wilcox returns with an update on his Yavapai regional study—”What a Sight! Hilltop Communication
Systems in West Central Arizona, AD 1100 to 1400.” Senior Curator Norm Tessman will present the evidence on the
timing and lifestyle of the very first people in “Elephant Hunting in Arizona: Paleo-lndians and Really Big Game!” The
First Peoples Series will culminate with a speech by Bill Smith, site steward for Camp Date Creek, which will prepare
participants for a daylong field trip to Camp Date Creek—an abandoned military postlincarceration camp that once
held the Yavapai.
Check the Calendar for the schedule. Register free for the series by calling Gail Sisson at 445-3122. Drop-in seating
for individual programs will be on a space-available basis. Register for the Camp Date Creek field trip by calling
Anita Nordbrock at 445-3122 (ext. 18). The sessions will fill up fast, so do not delay.
- -
**_
,.--
__L
MARCH/APRIL 2002
VOLUME 29 - NO.2;1]
3. —-,‘-—
INSIDE;0]
.--, J -
A Yavapai family in Peeples Valley about 1890-1900.
First Peoples of Sharlot’s Country
Yavapai Heritage
Roundup 1
Indian Cowboys
Sharlot Hall -
-Award
Touched by Daisy
Lorenzo Hubbell
& I
Annie Dodge
Wauneka
Apotecary
Acquisition
Du ring the month of March you are invited to walk the lands of the A’bahhjah and
DilzhO in a series of lectures and discussions on the First Peoples of Sharlot’s
Country. Walking the land in knee-high moccasins the A’bahhjah and DilzhO left
few reminders of their struggles, their passions, their ambitions, and their greatness. The
A’bahhjah spoke a tongue modern anthropologists call Yuman. They called themselves
A’bahhjah —“We are People.” The Dilzhé spoke a language of the Athapaskan New
World migrants who also populated regions far to the north. Only a few adventurers
would leave their descendants to populate New Mexico and Arizona. These were the
First Peoples of a world that Sharlot M. Hall would later help to protect.
The A’bahhjah were bands of the Yavapai—the Kewevkapaya, the Tolkapaya, the
Wipukapaya, the Nyavbiyah of Wiigahvdtehh (Granite Mountain), and the vanished
Maht-quaddipaya. Their cousins were the Hàmakháv—”the water people”—as tall as
giants. Along the vast abyss of the Grand Canyon came other relations—the Hualapai
(the A’bahhjah of the Tall Pines) and the Havasupai (A’bahhjah of the Blue Green
Water). And there were people who were unrelated to the A’bahhjah —a people of another tongue, the DilzhO,
known to latecomers as the Apache.
February 1, 2019
Lessons From the Arizona Site Steward Program, Mary Estes (Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Volume 14, 2004) (excerpt)
"Lessons From The Arizona Site Steward Program", by Mary Estes, Site Steward Program Coordinator, Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, for Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Volume 14, 2004, pp. 87-90.
This article arguing for the necessity of stewards for historic sites located on public property mentions an incident in which Bill W. Smith thwarted vandalism at the Camp Date Creek site in 2003.
PuRuc PARTICIPATION AND TilE PROTECTION OF ARCIIAEOIOGICAL REsouRcis
87
LESSONS FROM THE ARIZONA SITE STEWARD PROGRAM
MARY ESTES
The Arizona Site Steward Program began in the late l980s, and has now grown to almost 700 members. This author has been the state
program coordinator for the last nine years, and the following paper outlines the pros and cons of developing a stewardship program,
working to ensure accountability in volunteers, suggestions for limiting the flow of site information to volunteers, and working with the
news media to ensure program coverage while at the same time protecting site locations.
Fr om the chalking of petroglyphs on the Arizona
Strip, to the looting for Spanish treasure behind
the Chapel at the Presidio de Santa Cruz de
Terranate near Sierra Vista — from Arizona’s northern
rim to its southern border — Arizona Site Stewards
report vandalism almost weekly to the various land
managers who participate in the Arizona Site Steward
Program. Unlike most other stewardship programs in
the United States which have been developed to serve
a single land manager, for ten years, Arizona Site
Stewards have been assisting federal, state, county,
and municipal land managers with cultural resource
management. Arizona’s Site Stewards also monitor
historic cemeteries and sites for the Archaeological
Conservancy.
Currently, Arizona has 700 volunteers serving in
22 communities across the state. Each region has a
volunteer Regional Coordinator to oversee the
training, site assignments, and operations of the
Stewards in the region. While most of the work is done
by the Regional Coordinator in the local area, the
Land Manager must get involved with assigning sites
to the region, responding to reports of vandalism,
assisting with the initial field training of Stewards and
as speakers at workshops and conferences sponsored
by the program.
Several times the question has been asked
whether the land managers sponsoring the program
believe it is worth the funding they provide, and the
time and effort they put into working with the
volunteers. When posed that question at a recent
compliance workshop, City of Phoenix Archaeologist
Todd Bostwick said without hesitation that he could
not manage the sites he is responsible for without the
assistance of the Site Stewards. Over the years, Site
Stewards have earned the reputation of being an
essential part of the protection of cultural resources in
the state of Arizona.
For organizations or agencies in the beginning
stages of developing an archaeological stewardship
program, the question might be whether or not it is
worth the time, effort, and expense. What are the pros
and cons of such a program?
Bill Smith (Figure 1) has been an Arizona Site
Steward for about ten years, monitoring an historic
military camp known as Camp Date Creek, north of
Wickenburg, Arizona. Unfortunately, the site is
located on topographic maps of Arizona and included
in many books written for the treasure seeker, and has
been the target of several cases of Antiquity Law
violations in the past several years. Not only does Bill
monitor the site, but he has done extensive research
on its history; in fact, while not formally educated in
the discipline of history, he is considered the state’s
foremost historian on Camp Date Creek. In fact, he
has been asked to speak on the history of the camp so
often by various organizations that he has worked up a
very entertaining and authentic living history
reenactment.
Late last year, Bill drove from his home in Phoenix
to check Camp Date Creek and immediately noticed a
Bobcat® tractor and pickup truck with a trailer that
had cut a wide path across private property gathering
boulders, and had crossed a posted fence surrounding
State Trust land onto the historic military camp. Bill
copied the license number of the truck and called the
information into the State Land Department, which
handles trespass issues on State Trust lands in Arizona.
Mary Lutes, Site Steward Program Coordinator, 4rizorta Stale Historic Preserration 010cc
Proceedlngso(theSocietyforCalitorniaArchaeology, Volume 14, 2004, pp 8790
88
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGY, VOL. 14, 2000
Due to a quick response by law enforcement, they
were able to seize the tractor and identify the suspect.
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department and the
County Attorney’s Office are working on the case.
Without a Site Steward monitoring this site on a
regular basis, the vandalism likely would not have
been noticed until the stones making up the camp
walls had been completely relocated to some rock
company’s sales lot. Having Stewards with the talent
and dedication that Bill Smith demonstrates is a
definite “pro” for the time and effort it takes to
develop a stewardship program. The greatest reward
of having extra eyes to assist with cultural resource
management may be in seeing the dedication of the
trained volunteer working for an agency or program,
when they have observed and reported vandalism.
A Site Steward program is not free. And its cost is
not always found in the funding of the program.
Sometimes the greatest cost is the time and effort
spent by both the volunteer and the land manager. For
instance, reports of vandalism by the concerned
volunteer requires the time of the professional to
respond and to do a damage assessment. If the land
manager is too “busy” with other priorities to take the
time to show concern for the vandalism, the volunteer
soon loses heart. The Stewards’ dedication and
enthusiasm for continuing their efforts will only match
that of the paid professionals who are their contacts
with the land agency. Generally, for every hour we put
into training our Stewards, responding to the concerns
of the volunteers, and doing whatever paperwork must
be done, we can expect the efforts of the volunteers to
come back tenfold.
Depending upon the size of the program, or the
size it grows to be, the hours volunteered are
equivalent to one or more paid positions, yet not being
professional, the volunteers can never take away
positions from an agency, which must have work
overseen by someone who meets the Secretary of
Interior Standards. -
While “pros” weigh heavily in favor of developing
stewardship programs, there are inherent difficulties.
Financial security for a program like this is a must, and
is not always easy to put and keep in place. Someone
has to coordinate the activities, training, and general
operations. The job is usually more than can be given
to an existing staff member who is already struggling
to keep up with his or her work load. Often that means
funding must be found to hire a person to manage the
program. Once the scope of the program is decided
upon and developed, a budget must be planned to
fund the “wish list” of activities and events.
There is no monetary value we can place on the
void left in the minds and hearts of those who value
our Nation’s shared history when a site is damaged or
destroyed by collecting or looting. Site Stewards often
become emotionally attached to the resources that
they have been given the charge to protect. If there is
a “con” to this, it might be that some Stewards may
become so attached to the site they monitor that they
forget the sites are on public lands and open to anyone
who decides to hike across to them. An over zealous
Site Steward might want to close the site to the public
at the first sign of vandalism.
By involving a few people in cultural resource
management and educating them to the importance of
preserving the archaeological record, the word spreads
in the community. We are seeing others besides our
volunteers who are becoming aware that
archaeological site vandalism hurts us all and are
making the effort to contact agency law enforcement
when vandalism is observed.
How do we bring a sense of accountability to our
volunteers? In Arizona, we ask them to get involved
mentally and emotionally, not just physically, with our
program: we invite them to write articles for our
program’s newsletter, we ask them to be the liaison
with an Indian community to let the tribe know about
the program’s mission, and we get them involved with
planning workshops, training, and other activities.
When volunteers are recruited, we are not just
recruiting a “body” to do a certain job. We are
recruiting a variety of talents and skills that are
inherited with the “body.” Some of our Stewards are
outstanding photographers, airplane pilots, great
organizers, and have the skills to format regional
newsletters.
We train them, then we trust them. Rarely have
our volunteers let us down. In the ten years that
Arizona has had the program, more than 700 people
have left for one reason or another, and of these 700,
there were only a handful we felt might have
questionable integrity or lacked the common sense
needed to serve as a representative of the land
managers they served.
The better the volunteers feel about what they are
doing, the more accountable they will be. A volunteer
who has been used as an example of good stewardship
inspires others. Praising and rewarding volunteers
gives them a sense of acceptance by, and appreciation
from, the professional archaeological community.
Should we limit the flow of site information to our
volunteers? This is a rather complex question and not
Piisuc PT,cjpAr,o. j.%D THE PRO TECTIOPJ Of ARCH4EOLOIC4L RESOVRCE3
89
easily answered with a yes or no. Most of the sites that
Stewards have been asked to monitor are sites which
the public has already impacted. Where sites are so
remote or so relatively unknown chat the public has
made no trail to them, and that we feel reasonably safe
have not yet been discovered, we do not have Site
Stewards monitoring them. Or we assign them to a
Steward who has been with the program long enough
to have established a good rapport with the land
manager and a better-than-average level of trust. Let
‘our Steward know how important confidentially is,
especially for that site. The important point is not to
make a trail to the site by too many visits. The Steward
might be encouraged to visit the site at least twice a
car, unless impacts occur in the future which make
more frequent monitoring necessary.
With the large populations in Arizona and
Cilifornia, it is rare that hunters and hikers have not
already found more sites than even the land manager
knows about. Normally, surveys arc done across the
landscape in a lineal strip for right-of-way in readiness
for installations of telephone lines, the grading of a
new road, or the development of new buildings or
subdivisions. Often, the sites found during a survey
are the only sites documented in a survey report and
therefore make up most of our known sites.
Site Stewards, on the other hand, are proving to be
helpful tools in increasing the state’s inventory of
known sites. Because Stewards are out hiking,
horseback riding or flying their aircraft on a weekly
basis, they are reporting new sites all the time to the
land agencies. This, of course, can he a “pro” or a
“con,” depending on how you look at it. Once
discovered, a site must be professionally surveyed and
documented — another time consuming task on the
part of the land manager.
—-- __fv•_
•
Figure 1: Arizona Volunteer Site Stewards in Period Costumes at an Historic Military Camp Known as Camp Date Creek.
PROcEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGY, VOL. 14, 2000
Generally, we do not make a concerted effort to
limit site information given to our trained and trusted
Site Stewards. By the same token, we do not
automatically provide each Site Steward with the
locations of every site which we have been asked to
monitor — this list and the site kits prepared for each
site on our Site Steward inventory for a particular
region are given to the Regional Coordinator to use to
assign sites to the various volunteers.
One of the pros and cons—challenges—-of
developing and managing a stewardship program is
working with the news media. Most of us want some
coverage of our program, and the media finds the
concept of citizen volunteers assisting with the
preservation of archaeological sites extremely
interesting and newsworthy. We want the public to
know that volunteers are providing a physical presence
at archaeological sites. However, we also want to have
a limited amount of media coverage beyond what we
use in trying to recruit new Stewards; controlling the
flow of information is important. Inappropriate
information to the public must not endanger the
cultural resources that we are trying to protect.
We had a situation in Arizona where a freelance
writer approached us and asked to be part of one of our
conference field trips. Permission granted for him to
attend and write an article about his experience, he
wrote an exceptionally good article that promoted both
the program and the field trip along the Camino del
Diablo in southern Arizona. We have also had the
opposite results. Last year, a well known reporter for
the Arizona Republic became part of a field trip without
the Team Leader knowing who he was or that he
intended to write a story about his experience.
Fortunately, on finding out that one of her Site
Stewards had invited a “friend” along on what was
suppose to be a site orientation, instead of taking the
small group to the site she had intended to take them
to, the Team Leader took them to a site which is on
every topographic map and everyone knows about it
already, what we call a “show” site. As expected, when
the article appeared in the Repub/ic without any SE-IPO
contact or communication with our Public Information
Officer, his editor had included a locational map of the
site. Fortunately, even good comes out of a negative
experience, as I had 40 calls from people interested in
knowing more about the Arizona Site Steward Program
as a result of his article. Remember that once an
interview is granted, no one really has much control
over the tone or the content of the media’s approach.
In Arizona, our program has a formal Code of
Ethics which states that Site Stewards are not allowed
to bring media to site locations without first contacting
the land manager and the Public Information Officer
at Arizona State Parks. Usually the land manager will
take an active part in the interview, and the Public
Information Officer contacts the reporter to ensure
that proper credits, site etiquette, and antiquity laws
are mentioned in the article. The best advice is to
know your reporters and media people; the ones who
have worked well with you in the past are the ones you
want to work with in the future.
In summary, the Arizona Site Steward Program,
started in 1987, has taken many years to develop, lots
of effort in finding funding, and much dedication on
the part of the Site Stewards and of the land managers
and other archaeologists in the community.
Nevertheless, the “pros” well outweigh the “cons,”
and the critical issues discussed in this presentation
are not insurmountable. Keep the channels of
communication open and discuss problems openly
with your volunteers. Think of them not just as
volunteers, but as volunteer staff— and they will help
solve problems with new and creative perspective to
help stop the Thieves of Time.
January 19, 2019
Unsolved Mysteries:The Wickenburg Massacre, Episode #5.1, September 16, 1992. (partial transcript of television episode)
Below is a partial transcript of a segment about The Wickenburg Massacre from the television program "Unsolved Mysteries", Episode #5.1, which originally aired September 16th, 1992. Narrated by actor David Farina (DF) and featuring interview segments with Bill Smith (BS), credited as "Arizona Historian & Lecturer." Historical recreations of events by actors and additional commentary by "Dana Burden, Wickenburg Historian, Tour Guide", and "Jeff Hammon, Old West Writer & Researcher", are omitted from this transcript.
Unsolved Mysteries: The Wickenburg Massacre
Episode #5.1
Aired September 16, 1992
David Farina (DF): Coming up, the legendary Wickenburg
Massacre. Was the attack carried out by Apaches, or a ruthless con-man?
DF: On a quiet highway 60 miles from Phoenix, a small
monument stands at the edge of the road. It honors the victims of a once
infamous shootout and the days of the wild west. By the end of the attack, six
men were dead. One had been stabbed with a lance. Another was scalped. This
atrocity would become known as the Wickenburg Massacre. Somehow, two people
managed to survive. Though they were injured, William Kruger and Molly Sheppard
lived on to provide the official account of what happened that day.
DF: The story told by Kruger and Sheppard led the United
States government to retaliate. The result was the deaths of hundreds of Native
Americans. And now more than a century later, some historians believe that
Kruger and Sheppard might have planned the attack themselves, hoping to steal a
small fortune from the stagecoach.
DF: November 5th, 1871. William Kruger and Molly Sheppard
climb aboard a stagecoach in Wickenburg. Sheppard was a well known prostitute and
madam who had recently sold her brothel. Kruger was a two-time army desert who
had somehow convinced the military to hire him as a civilian clerk.
The day after the attack, while Sheppard was recuperating,
Kruger was questions by Capt. Charles Meinhold, who was assigned to investigate
the incident.
****
DF: By the time Meinhold reached the site, the victims'
bodies had been returned to Wickenburg for burial. He uncovered several clues
suggesting that Native Americans had been involved.
****
DF: The tracks led towards a reservation 25 miles away. It
was home to 750 members of the Yavapai tribe. But strangely, several miles
before the tracks reached the reservation, they veered off in a different
direction.
Bill Smith (BS): This to me, would indicate possibly a
non-Native American group, that is heading towards Camp Date Creek to make it
look like the perpetrators are heading back to reservation.
DF: The Yavapai, who were often misidentified as Apaches,
were a largely peaceful people. Many worked as laborers and scouts for the
settlers. To those who knew the tribe, it seemed inconceivable that they would
have been involved in the attack.
***
BS: If this was a Native American attack, we would have
found that the ammunition and the weapons, certainly, would have been missing.
And we would also found that any blankets would have been taken, but in this
particular case, none of it was touched whatsoever.
DF: But the most puzzling evidence was found in the bags of
mail that had been loaded onto the stagecoach at Wickenburg. After the attack,
a number of letters addressed to the Army Quartermaster had been opened, and
their contents carefully put back.
BS: Going through the mail. This is something that an
Indian--or a Native American, would not do, is go through the mail. This
certainly, you know, to me would indicate that it was a non-Indian attack.
DF: But if the Yavapai were innocent, who were the killers,
and what was their motive? At the time, gold bullion was often transported by
stagecoach. At least one account claims that Mexican bandits, disguised as
Apaches, were responsible. Others suggest a more devious plan.
****
DF: Kruger's account of escape seemed hard to believe. Researcher
Jeff Hammon believes that Kruger and Sheppard hired bandits to help them with
the robbery.
****
DF: In his report, Capt. Meinhold acknowledged rumors that
the scheme was intended to rob the mail of the bullion usually shipped around
the first of every month. And yet, Meinhold never said that the gold had
actually been carried on that specific stagecoach run. Still, the stories
persisted.
****
DF: Jeff Hannon believes that Kruger hid the loot somewhere
near the massacre site where only he and Sheppard could find it.
****
DF: If there was a treasure, it seems unlikely that Molly
Sheppard or William Kruger ever recovered it. Sheppard disappeared soon after
the incident, fueling rumors that she had died of her wounds. Kruger last
surfaced 13 years after the massacre when he sued the government for money that
he claimed to have lost in the attack.
DF: During the 1870s, the Wickenburg Massacre caused a
national outrage. Within 18 months of the attack, the Yavapai were driven off the
reservation by a government determined to punish them for their attack.
Eventually hundreds of innocent men, women and children died from starvation and
disease. We may never know who was responsible for the Wickenburg Massacre. However,
we do know that the list of victims include many more than the six men who were
killed on that violent morning more than a century ago.
January 15, 2019
20223. The Arizona Republican, Phoenix, Arizona, February 1st, 1909. Death of William Gilson, A Builder of Arizona (article)
The Arizona Republican
Phoenix, Arizona
February 1st, 1909
DEATH OF WILLIAM GILSON
A BUILDER OF ARIZONA.
He Had Been a Resident of the
Territory Almost a Half Century.
William Gilson, a resident of the territory
for forty six years died yesterday morning
at eight o’clock at his home on the Tempe
road. Mr. Gilson had been in ill health a
long time and his death had been expected.
Arrangements for the funeral have not yet
been announceth
Mr. Gilson was a native of Ireland and was
seventy—seven years of age. He came to the
territory in 1863 and engaged in mining at
Walnut Grove with W.H. Kirkland and others.
After that he settled on Date Creek. At that
time that was an Indian country and Indians
were at their worst. Mr. Gilson took his
part in the struggle of these settlers
against their depredations and their murdero
us raids.
Mr. Gilson came to the valley in 1880 and
bought the old Roberts ranch. He built the
St. John’s canal and the Gilson block at the
corner of Second and Washington streets, now
known as the Dennis block. In fact few men
have done so much for the building of
Phoenix and the Salt River Valley as Mr.
Gilson -
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)