Tales Behind the Tombstones Page 9

  Petite Nellie Pooler Chapman stood on the red-velvet-covered riser and gazed inside the mouth of a burly, distressed miner and shook her head. She would have to remove the tooth that was causing the prospector so much pain. Nellie selected a corkscrew-type instrument to begin the process. She wrapped the tool around the tooth and with considerable effort wrenched it out of the man’s mouth. The relief he felt was almost instantaneous.

  Nellie Pooler Chapman was the first woman licensed to practice dentistry in the Old West. In her thirty-year career she would care for numerous residents in Nevada County, California. She was born in Norridgewock, Maine, in 1847 and at the age of thirteen relocated with her parents to the Gold Country. There she met and married Dr. Allen Chapman, a prominent dentist in the area. The parlor in the home he built for his new bride included a dental office.

  Nellie did not enter the field of dentistry eagerly. She assisted her husband in his work but was not initially interested in the job as a career. It wasn’t until she had spent years learning about the profession from Allen that she decided to apply for a license of her own. Nellie became a full-fledged dentist in 1879.

  She was the first woman to be registered in the field in the western territories. When her husband decided to open an office in Virginia City, Nevada, Nellie chose to remain behind in California and continue working at the practice Allen had initially established. Allen traveled back and forth from his business in Nevada to visit his wife and children and help out at the busy Nevada City office. In his absence, Nellie was the sole dentist between Sacramento and Donner Lake.

  Dr. Chapman outfitted her thriving practice with a porcelain bowl, crystal water glasses, and the most modern drills and aspirators. The chair her patients sat in was covered in red velvet and labeled “Imperial Columbia” in gold script.

  In 1897 Nellie’s husband passed away. She continued on with the practice for another nine years, providing care for Northern California residents.

  Nellie’s talents extended well beyond dentistry. She was also an accomplished poet and a musician. She participated in the local Shakespeare Club and wrote several musical compositions. In addition to her involvement in civic organizations, she was also a busy mother of two boys, both of whom followed their parents into the field of dentistry.

  On April 7, 1906, Nellie Pooler Chapman passed away. Her sons donated the contents of her practice to the School of Dentistry in San Francisco. A glass cabinet contains some of her books, including an 1878 Gray’s Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical, an 1875 copy of The Principles and Practice of Dental Surgery, and other large leather-bound volumes containing technical and medical information.

  Dr. Chapman was fifty-nine when she died and was buried at the Pioneer Cemetery in Nevada City, California.

  The home where Nellie lived and worked still stands on the steep hillside above Deer Creek, a short distance from the location of the first gold strike in town. In spite of the fact that Nellie had solidified a place for women in the field of dentistry in the western territories, when she died the local newspaper, The Daily Union, barely recognized her professional achievements. The obituary lauded her other talents as a writer, composer, and elocutionist, and, in one line, mentioned that she had “practiced dentistry for many years in the city.”

  Charles Shibell d. 1908

  “The way I hear it . . . it was a dead square fight and that you couldn’t tell who shot who first.”

  — CHARLES SHIBELL’S COMMENTS ABOUT

  THE GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL, 1881

  Charles A. Shibell was the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, during the time one of the most famous events in the state, if not the West, took place—the gunfight at the OK Corral. His career in law enforcement began in 1874 when he was asked to serve as deputy undersheriff. In 1876 he became sheriff, overseeing the area from Tucson to Tombstone. Among the many men he appointed Arizona deputies were John Behan and Wyatt Earp.

  He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 14, 1841. He was an educated man who received good grades throughout school. After graduation he moved to California in search of gold. In 1860 he settled in Sacramento and worked as a clerk for a stage line. Unsatisfied with the sedentary position, Shibell took a job as a freight runner transporting goods from San Jose to Santa Fe.

  In February 1862 he signed on as a teamster with the California Column of the United States Army. He traveled with the 1st and 5th California Infantry and the 1st California Cavalry Regiment. Along the way he helped fight off hostile Natives and highwaymen who were out to steal military payrolls.

  Of the many locations Shibell visited, Tucson was his favorite. After he was honorably discharged from the army, he made the Southern Arizona town his home. Shibell became part owner of a stagecoach line that carried supplies back and forth along the treacherous route between the Old Pueblo and Yuma. His background dealing with Indians upset about wagons traipsing through their land was instrumental in negotiating a peaceful agreement to get the goods through safely.

  In addition to his responsibilities as a mediator and business owner, Shibell was also a rancher and farmer. He had a talent for managing money and put it to work as the treasurer of not only the Tucson Building and Loan Association but the Citizens Builder and Consumer Association as well.

  Not all of his endeavors were as civilized as banking and being a land baron. A raid by Apache Indians on a lumber camp in the Santa Rita Mountains near Tucson prompted Shibell to reenlist in the military in order to bring the natives to “justice.”

  The Apaches had kidnapped two girls when they overtook the Santa Rita settlement and were willing to release them only if some Apache prisoners were set free first. On April 30, 1871, Shibell and several other residents attacked the sleeping Indian camp and killed 118 men, women, and children. The two young women who were taken hostage were rescued, and one later married Charles Shibell.

  Shibell ventured from Arizona only once and that was to take the job of customs inspector in El Paso, Texas. The bulk of his adult life was spent in Tucson. During Shibell’s time as Pima County sheriff he led several posses in pursuit of outlaws and cattle rustlers. In 1878 he organized a team of six lawmen to track down a robber named William Brazzleton. After Brazzleton was brought to justice, Shibell had his body placed on display at the sheriff’s office as a deterrent to other criminals.

  Shibell took a step out of public service in 1882 and concentrated on a hotel business. He owned and operated two of Arizona’s most popular Old West hotels, the Occidental and the Palace.

  He returned to public office in 1888, serving as Pima County recorder. He was elected to the post six times. He also served as undersheriff during the same period. Sheriff Shibell was married three times and had two children. He died on October 21, 1908, and was laid to rest at Evergreen City in the town he cherished— Tucson.

  His funeral was attended by family members, several Native American friends from the Apache Indian Reservation outside of Tucson, and the governor of Arizona, Joseph Henry Kibbey. Kibbey praised Shibell’s contributions to law and order in southern Arizona and credited him with helping to bring about peace between the Apache Indians and the white people in the territory.

  Pat Garrett d. 1908

  “Pat, you son-of-a-bitch, they told me there was a hundred Texans here from the Canadian River! If I’d a-known there wasn’t no more than this, you’d never have got me!”

  — BILLY THE KID TO PAT GARRETT IMMEDIATELY

  AFTER STEPPING OUT OF THE ROCK HOUSE AT STINKING

  SPRINGS AND SURRENDERING TO GARRETT’S POSSE

  Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett is remembered best for being the man who shot Billy the Kid. But his contribution to taming the American West consisted of much more than that single event—for more than eighteen years, the lawman tracked down numerous outlaws running wild along the Texas-New Mexico border.

  Garrett was born on June 5, 1850, in Chambers County, Alabama. When he was three years old, his parents, John and Elizabeth, pur
chased a plantation in Louisiana and moved their children to their new home near the town of Haynesville, Alabama. At the age of nineteen, the six-foot, four-inch Pat struck out on his own and made his way to the Texas Panhandle, where he signed on with a team of ranchers driving herds of cattle to market. Eventually he left that work to become a buffalo hunter.

  The first gunfight Garrett was involved in occurred in November 1876 in Fort Griffith, Texas, when a heated exchange with a buffalo skinner over some hides resulted in a fistfight and further escalated to gunplay. Garrett, who was an excellent marks-man, shot the man in the chest.

  Shortly after the incident he departed Texas and rode into New Mexico, where he became a cowpuncher for a Lincoln County rancher. During his employment as a ranch hand there, he met and married a young woman named Juanita Gutierrez, who died within a year after the wedding. He later married Juanita’s sister Apolinana, and the couple had nine children.

  In 1878 Garrett traded in his job as a cowboy to become a saloon owner. He catered to the rough range riders, serving not only drinks but food as well. When Garrett wasn’t tending bar, he was gambling and dealing faro to his customers. Enter William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, a frequent patron. Pat and Billy got along very well together and became fast friends, swapping stories of the rough life on the frontier. Billy trusted Pat and regarded him as an older brother. Because both liked to gamble, the pair gave each other the nicknames of Little Casino and Big Casino. Garrett knew the Kid’s hideouts and his partners in crime. It was in part Garrett’s friendship with the Kid that prompted territory officials to appoint him to the post of sheriff. His background as a reformed gunfighter and his familiarity with the notorious outlaw made him a natural for the job.

  Garrett was sworn in as the Lincoln County sheriff on November 7, 1880. The war between the cattle barons and Billy the Kid was in full swing. The Kid and his friends had shot and killed several of the gunmen hired by the cattle barons to kill the Kid’s employer and mentor, John Tunstall. Garrett’s job was to put an end to the conflict and arrest Billy and his cohorts.

  The sheriff and his deputies took out after the fugitive and caught up with him in late December. The Kid was taken into custody and escorted to the town of Mesilla to stand trial, where he was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to be hanged. But days before the punishment was to be enforced, the Kid escaped in a hail of gunfire.

  Garrett formed another posse and, following a tip that the Kid was hiding with his friends at the army post, rode to Fort Sumner. On July 15, 1881, under the cover of darkness, Sheriff Garrett and his men snuck into the compound and surprised the Kid. Before the outlaw could draw his weapon, Garrett fired his own gun twice and killed him.

  The news that Pat Garrett had brought down the notorious Billy the Kid spread quickly across the West and brought the key players in the shootout instant fame. Because of Pat’s previous affiliation with the young renegade and the sympathy he had for Billy’s desperate situation, some historians question Garrett’s account of the Kid’s demise and maintain he escaped. The debate has kept people interested in the lawman and outlaw for decades.

  Garrett finished his term as sheriff in 1882, and he then turned his attention to ranching and politics. In 1884 he made an unsuccessful run for the New Mexico state senate as well as a bid for the Republican nomination to serve another two years as sheriff. Garrett returned to Texas to work as a ranger and achieved the rank of captain in the corps.

  From 1885 to 1896 the restless lawman traveled back and forth from New Mexico to Texas several times. He held various high-profile jobs in both places, including serving as county commissioner in Uvalde, Texas County, and sheriff of Dona Ana County, New Mexico. In 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him as customers inspector in El Paso. After holding the position for five years, he retired to his ranch in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

  On February 29, 1908, Garrett was involved in a feud over land he had leased to a farmer. Garrett objected to the farmer’s goats grazing on acreage he believed should be for cattle only. The minor range war sparked a deadly outcome. One of the men Garrett had argued with ambushed him and shot him in the back of the head when the famous ex-sheriff had stopped to relieve himself.

  The former lawman’s lifeless body was left on the side of the road until Las Cruces Sheriff Felipe Lucero arrived on the scene four hours later and identified the dead man. Garrett’s tall frame would not fit in the average-size coffin of five-foot, five-inches, and a special casket had to be made for him. After his body was placed inside the coffin, his body was put on display at Strong’s Undertaking Parlor.

  Funeral services for Pat Garrett, held on March 5, 1908, were attended by hundreds of southern New Mexico residents. The graveside service included a eulogy from Garrett’s longtime friend and well-known gambler, Tom Powers. Pat Garrett was laid to rest beside his daughter, Ida, at the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

  The cemetery is located at 760 South Compress Road in Dona Ana County.

  The cattleman who shot and killed Garrett later confessed to the murder. The judge who presided over the man’s hearing had disliked Garrett because he felt he was arrogant. His bias prompted him to rule that the rancher had acted in self-defense, and the man was acquitted.

  Red Cloud d. 1909

  “My sun is set. My day is done. Darkness is stealing over me. Before I lie down to rise no more, I will speak to my people.”

  —CHIEF RED CLOUD’S FINAL ADDRESS

  TO THE LAKOTA TRIBE, 1909

  A bitter blast of wind swept down the Platte River, and the watcher on the low bank took refuge under the projecting canopy of rocks. Thirteen-year-old Red Cloud sat atop his horse staring at the water coursing madly and swirling in black eddies ahead of the icy gale. He sat his mount with grace and ease; rider and horse appeared as one against the pristine Nebraska landscape. He imagined his father was looking over him from the great beyond, proud of the way his son carried himself.

  Red Cloud’s father had placed the boy on the back of a spirited colt when he was six years old and offered advice that would stick with him throughout his life. “My son,” Red Cloud’s father began. “When you are able to sit quietly upon the back of this colt without bridle or saddle, I shall be glad, for the boy who can win a wild creature and learn to use it will be as a man, able to win and rule men.”

  Red Cloud is considered by many Native Americans to be one of the most important Sioux Indian leaders of all time. His wisdom, courage, and strong eloquent manner of speaking helped negotiate treaties with the imposing white settlers.

  Red Cloud was born in Nebraska in 1822. His mother, an Ogallala Indian, and his father, a Brule Red Cloud, named him Makhpiya-Lutta. Makhpiya’s (or Red Cloud as he would later be known) father died before he was thirteen years old, leaving his mother’s brother to become the leader of the family.

  Red Cloud was an accomplished bow hunter and lariat thrower. His hunting skills served his tribe well when warring with the neighboring Crow, Shoshone, and Ute Indians. He was able to disarm his enemies not only with physical weapons but with his intellect as well. Red Cloud was commended by his people for his ability to exercise restraint when necessary and for his remarkable efforts in battle. By the time he was twenty-eight, he was recognized as a man who could bravely represent his people in all territorial disputes.

  In the beginning the Sioux nation did not try to stop the insurgence of white men onto their ancestral home. They believed there was enough land to go around and were willing to make allowances for a few pioneers. It was only when the Native American’s hunting grounds and the buffalo began to disappear that they fought to regain their territory.

  Red Cloud was called upon by the leaders of his tribe to organize a war party to drive the white man back. In 1866 Red Cloud and a number of Sioux warriors, including Crazy Horse and Dull Knife, attacked the inhabitants at Fort Phil Kearney in Wyoming. They killed eight soldiers and established themselves as a serio
us threat to the U.S. Army.

  A commission of politicians from the East was sent to discuss an end to the growing conflict between the Indians and the whites. Red Cloud would agree to peace only if all the army forts within the Lakota Sioux territory were abandoned. The U.S. government agreed and left the area. The Black Hills and the Bighorn were again solely Indian country.

  The discovery of gold in the region prompted a new rush onto Sioux land in 1874, and the U.S. government did little to stop it. For a while, Red Cloud held his ground and, along with other tribes, battled the persistent miners and their military protection.

  The army launched a flurry of attacks on the Sioux people in retaliation for the massacre at the battle at Little Bighorn. The Sioux were vastly outnumbered, and after a valiant stand, they were forced to yield to the U.S. demand that they be removed to a reservation.

  Red Cloud and his people were taken to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Their actions were continually watched by U.S. troops who frequently withheld food and other supplies. Red Cloud asserted his considerable authority to try to make sure the government was held responsible for the promises they had broken to the Indians. With the help of a Yale University professor, an official investigation was launched to look into the United States’ willingness to break the treaties they had signed with the Sioux. The case resulted in the dismissal of several corrupt key figures involved in Indian affairs.

  Red Cloud reluctantly remained on the reservation for more than thirty years. He continued to resist being conquered by the white man and argued against leasing the land of his forefathers to the United States government and dividing the reservation into individual sections. Historians note that the Lakota leader was a quiet, dignified man who lost his eyesight in the last few years of his life. The eighty-seven-year-old man converted to Christianity before dying on December 10, 1909, and his simple, respectful funeral was attended by several family members and friends. He is buried at the Native American Cemetery in Shannon County, South Dakota.