Wickenburg Massacre

The Wickenburg Massacre was the November 5, 1871, murder of six stagecoach passengers en route westbound from Wickenburg, Arizona Territory, headed for San Bernardino, California, on the La Paz road.

Wickenburg Massacre
Frederick Wadsworth Loring in a photograph taken two days before his death
LocationWickenburg, Arizona
DateNovember 5, 1871
Attack type
Mass murder
Deaths6
Injured2
VictimWhite Americans
Perpetratorunknown

Massacre

Around mid-morning, about six miles from Wickenburg, the stagecoach was supposedly attacked by 15 Yavapai warriors, who were sometimes mistakenly called Apache-Mohaves, from the Date Creek Reservation.[1][2] Six men, including the driver, were shot and killed. Among them was Frederick Wadsworth Loring,[3] a young writer from Boston working as a correspondent for Appleton's Journal assigned to cover a cartographic expedition led by Lieutenant George Wheeler.[4] One male passenger, William Kruger, and the only female passenger, Mollie Sheppard, managed to escape.[5] According to Kruger, Sheppard eventually died of the wounds she received.[6]

For a time the identity of the attackers was disputed.[7] Over the next two years, General George Crook conducted an investigation into the attack, and eventually identified all the perpetrators. After trying to arrest the ringleaders without success, Crook sent Captain J. W. Mason to Burro Creek, where he encountered those responsible for the massacre as well as innocent Yavapai natives in three rancherias. Many were killed in the battle that followed.[8]

Seven months prior to the Wickenburg incident, 144 Apaches were killed in the Camp Grant Massacre near Tucson, and Eastern sentiment was with the victims. However, Loring's death in Wickenburg turned public opinion against the Yavapai. In February 1875, though once promised reservation land near Prescott "forever and forever", the Yavapai tribe was uprooted and driven 180 miles south to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, where they were forced to live beside their enemies from centuries past, the Chiricahua Apaches.

Memorial plaques have been installed near the site several times, including in 1937 by the Arizona Highway Department and in 1948 and 1988 by the Wickenburg Saddle Club.[9]

Wickenburg Massacre

The Wickenburg Massacre was featured on a April 12, 1996, episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

See also
  • List of massacres in Arizona

References
  1. "The Indian Attack Upon an Arizona Stage - The Driver and Five Passengers Killed". The New York Times. November 20, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  2. "THE INDIANS.; Verdict of the Coroner's Jury in the Wickenburg Massacre". The New York Times. November 22, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  3. July 29, 1876 The Arizona Citizen, front page
  4. "The Late Frederick W. Loring". The New York Times. November 24, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  5. Own, Our (January 1, 1872). "THE WICKENBURG MASSACRE; First Authentic Account from an Eye-Witness". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  6. "What Really Happened to Mollie Sheppard?"; by: Jan MacKell Collins
  7. "The Massacre at Wickenburg Traced Directly to Indians". The New York Times. February 5, 1872. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  8. "TRAIL TALK". Masked Rider Western November 1950.
  9. Collins, Jan MacKell (2015). Wild Women of Prescott, Arizona. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press. p. 92. ISBN 9781626198630.

Further reading
  • Wilson, Michael (2008). Massacre at Wickenburg: Arizona's Greatest Mystery. TwoDot. ISBN 978-0-7627-4453-4.
  • Dan L. Thrapp: Al Sieber: Chief of Scouts. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1964, ISBN 0-8061-2770-8 (Page 87 to 105)
  • Another account of the massacre from University of Arizona
  • Bill W. Smith. : A Collection of Newspaper Articles, Letters, and Reports, Regarding the Wickenburg Massacre and Subsequent Camp Date Creek Incident. Phoenix: Privately Published, 1989. 68pp. (Edition Limited to 20 Signed Copies)
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