CHIRICAHUA A Pioneer Log Cabin in Bonita Canyon The History of the Stafford Cabin

D. THE STAFFORD FARM

Ja Hu Stafford, in middle age, and Pauline, a young teenager, went to work on the homestead to fulfill the terms of the Homestead Act of 1862, which required that the land be used and improved for a period of five years before being granted to the settlers. The threat of Indian attack posed perhaps the greatest concern during these early years; the renegade Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apaches hid out in the area after an uprising at the San Carlos Reservation in August, 1881. According to family tradition, Stafford had located the well inside the walls of the cabin for safety. The Staffords found the closest military protection at Fort Bowie, some thirteen miles northeast, and may have taken shelter there at times.²¹

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²¹Utley, A Clash of Cultures, p. 44; Torres and Baumler, Faraway Ranch, p. 18; interviews with Donald Riggs by the author, May 24, 1990, and Helen Kenney, November 14, 1990; in Forrestine C. Hooker, When Geronimo Rode (a thinly disguised historical novel based on Hooker's experiences with the Cavalry troops at Bonita Canyon in 1885-86), p. 148, residents of a cabin in Bonita Canyon escape to Ft. Bowie every time there was an Indian scare in the canyon.

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Stafford's homestead received official approval with a certificate from the President dated May 23, 1888. By this time his activities on the land consisted largely of stock raising and farming. Ja Hu Stafford called himself a "rancher" while registering to vote during his first years in Arizona Territory and his daughter Clara later recalled that in the early days he hauled wood to Willcox where he sold it. By 1888 he had changed his occupation to "gardener," and later to "farmer". Stafford's orchard and garden eventually provided his chief source of income.²²

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²²Faraway Ranch Papers, 1873-1976, Western Archeological and Conservation Center, Tucson; Great Registers at Cochise County Recorders Office, Bisbee; oral history of Clara Stafford Wheeler, Chiricahua NM.

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Stafford planted approximately two acres directly to the west and southwest of the cabin with fruit trees such as apples, apricots, peaches, persimmons, and pears. Stafford was, by some accounts, devoted to his orchard although the climate in Bonita Canyon proved less than perfect for fruit trees: early frosts killed a high percentage of the crops every few years. Nevertheless, people came to Bonita Canyon to buy fruits and vegetables from Stafford, whom one recalled as "very much of an orchard man." Remnants of the orchard remain in the field opposite the Stafford Cabin.²³

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²³Homestead patent #130, in Homesteads Vol. 1, p. 93, Bureau of Land Management, Phoenix; copy of the homestead certificate in Faraway Ranch Papers; taped interview with Nora Stafford, Special Collections, University of Arizona, Tucson.

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On the eastern portion of the homestead Stafford had a large vegetable garden, called the "upper garden", fed by a spring. The products sold to local ranchers, markets in Willcox and Pearce, the "Buffalo soldiers" during their year at Bonita Canyon (see page 14), and to Fort Bowie. No official documentation has been uncovered concerning the sales to Fort Bowie, but family tradition and a reminiscence of close neighbor Neil Erickson states that Stafford delivered produce to the fort.

Stafford's personal journal reveals sales of produce and eggs to a number of officers from Troops E, H and I, 10th Cavalry, while they were stationed at Bonita Canyon in 1885-86. Stafford documents purchases by Captains Theodore Baldwin and Joseph Kelley, First Lieutenant Millard Eggleston, Quartermaster Sergeant Charles Key, Sergeants James Spears and Charles Turner, and Private Randall Blunt, all stationed at the Bonita Canyon camp. The purchases, mostly for 25 cents to two dollars and sometimes with credit, included eggs, radishes, beans, lettuce, cabbage, onions, pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, parsnips, corn, squash, and watermelon. Apparently the garden was large, of two to four acres, and the only one of its size to be documented in the area other than that of a Mr. Barfoot who grew potatoes in Barfoot Park, in nearby Pinery Canyon.²⁴

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²⁴Betty Leavengood, "Faraway Ranch History, Neil and Emma Erickson up to 1903." Typescript, Chiricahua National Monument, 1984, p. 32; oral histories with Ben Erickson, 1970, and Clara Stafford Wheeler, 1971; Journal of Ja Hu Stafford; Tagg, Camp at Bonita Canyon, troop musters on p. 281.

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Stafford's garden received water from a nearby spring, by some accounts through a wooden flume. A number of reports have stated that this or another source was a hot spring. According to Stafford's daughter Clara, by diverting the warm water to the garden, vegetables could be grown even in the winter. Family accounts stated that an earthquake, known to be on May 3, 1887, caused the hot water to disappear, leaving Stafford to irrigate with a more conventional method. Stafford wrote of another earthquake on the day it happened, November 5, 1887, but made no mention of the hot spring or any damage: "had quite a heavy Shock of Earthquake this evening and also had our first frost the same night." Daughter Clara stated almost a century after the fact, that "when the earthquake came which they did have one in the 80s it just shook the fireplace all to pieces and threw her [sic] all over the yard and of course big rocks came down off the mountains too . . . the spring there had hot water at that time but after the earthquake came why the hot water disappeared . . . and the spring . . . [they] tried to find it several times but they never did find it."²⁵

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²⁵Interview with Kenney; oral history of Clara Stafford Wheeler. Kenney corroborates the hot spring story, and also remembers seeing remains of the wooden flume. As Clara was born in 1892, her description was not first hand and may not be accurate.

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Stafford continued gardening on his homestead for at least a decade. In 1896 he laid claim to water to the north of his homestead, filing this notice (in Stafford's unique spelling):

I Hear by Clame All the water on the North West quarter on South West 40 of Section 25 and the North West 40 of the South West quartor ton Ship 16 Range 29 in bunita canyon. I clame the wator to erigate with and for Stock Water I All So

Clame the Rite of way for Erigating ditch over the same Land to my garden.²⁶

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²⁶Document signed J.H. Stafford ("my full name Ja Hu Stafford") witnessed by Neil Erickson, recorded June 4, 1896. Cochise County Recorders Office, Bisbee, Arizona.

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Pauline Stafford's letters reveal some of the details about the gardens and their products. In September 1892 she wrote, "We have a very nice garden and lots of watermelons and we have about an acre planted to Peanuts they do well here we raised over 8 sacks last year . . . ." Later that year she wrote to her sister: "I must tell you something about what we have been doing. I have made 50 quarts of Ketchup for sale and 6 gallons of Citron Preserves, 3 gallons of Tomatoes Preserves besides I have put up for my own use 2 gal. apples 3 gal. Peaches 3 gal Gooseberries and about 10[?] gal. Tomatoes and then I want to make a lot more Preserves. I also dried about 25 pound Sweet Corn and alot of String Beans."²⁷

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²⁷Pauline Stafford to family members, September 5 and October 19, 1892, Stafford Papers.

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With the abandonment by the U.S. Army of Fort Bowie on October 17, 1894, Stafford no doubt lost a valuable customer. However, Stafford also had cattle to rely on for income. He first registered a brand for cattle and horses on October 28, 1887, and renewed the registration on November 20, 1898. Stafford's brand was a diagonal slash on the left cheek, and holes as earmarks in the points of each ear.²⁸

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²⁸Utley, A Clash of Cultures, p. 83; Brand Book 1, p. 323, Cochise County Recorders Office, and Livestock Sanitary Board, Brand Book 1, p. 636, Arizona State Archives. See the drawing of the brand in illustrations at the end of this paper.

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Figure 6 — Stafford family, 1997: Ja Hu, Pauline, Pansy standing, Anna Mae on lap. Courtesy of Tom Kelly. (CHIR 1756)