The Dona Ana link to The Butterfield Trail

Cattle Trails

The Butterfield Trail

The Dona Ana link

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            At sunup, the small caravan departed Ft. Mason on what today is the Corralitos Ranch in Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

            They pointed their team on the trail that led to the ridgeline to the west. In that clear New Mexico Territory morning air, the clarity of the features of the ridge stood out as if it was hundreds of yards ahead rather than miles. The family had not yet become accustomed to an almost surreal atmospheric condition that illuminated this big strange land. It was nothing like they had experienced in their native Switzerland.

            Before they reached the ridge, a rider appeared. The dust in his wake preceded his arrival for a greater part of an hour before his distinct features could be made out. He stopped only long enough to scream a warning.

            “Indians!”

 Indians are killing people over the ridge”, he yelled from astride his lathered horse. “Turn back to Ft. Mason!”

            Without hesitation, the family turned and followed the rider who quickly outdistanced them.

They were on their own when dust from numerous riders appeared in their wake.

Indians!

            Before Ft. Mason was reached a pitched, running battle commenced between the wagon occupants and the Indians. The family diary describes how a horse was shot and was down in the traces before the patriarch of the family cut the harness loose, and, with the other horse, helped pull the wagon through the open gates of Ft. Mason. The doors were slammed shut and the little band stood and sat unbelieving at what had just transpired. Scattered gunfire discouraged more conflict.

The Indians departed, and …the pioneering family was safe.

            The Butterfield Trail

            The trail the family had been following that day was the Butterfield Trail. They had been on it for weeks coming out of Texas.

            The improved trail was the result of actions starting with a Buchanan presidential order to his Postmaster General, Aaron Brown. Many things had changed in the West between 1845 and 1850. California had become a state and Texas was the nearest state to the east. A huge swath of wild country lay between the two land masses. The federal government was committed to establishing a defensible mail route connecting the continent.

            John Butterfield competed for and secured the contract for the overland stage route. Although the distance was greater than the more northern routes, the southern route was selected because of the better winter travel conditions.

            The route would connect St. Louis to San Francisco with an adjoining leg commencing at Memphis. That routing funneled travelers and mail from the east, joined at Little Rock, and continued west to San Francisco. The leg from St. Louis to San Francisco was a horrendous 2,785 mile marathon.

            It was a huge undertaking.

            Securing funding required stockholders, and, among others, Butterfield enlisted Wells Fargo. The Overland Mail Corporation was cobbled together and was ready for business in 1858. It operated until 1860 under Butterfield. At that point, it was passed to Wells Fargo which was more capable of running the venture.

            That era of service was short lived, too, when it was all curtailed at the onset of the Civil War. Wells Fargo survived only because of parallel enterprises and the burgeoning economy of the West following the conflict.

            While in operation, the company employed 800 people, built and operated 139 stations, acquired and ran 250 Concord stages, and fed and maintained a herd of horses that numbered between 1800 and 2500.

            Indeed, it was a huge undertaking.

            Ormsby

            As a passenger, Waterman L. (Lily) Ormsby chronicled the first east to west run from St. Louis in 1858.

            Notwithstanding the endless thrill of crossing Texas, it was the El Paso to Tucson run that really captured Ormsby’s attention. That was the blood and guts alley that attracted the continuing fascination of novelists and, eventually, screen writers. Outlaws, renegades, Indians, cactus, scorpions, and frijoles with a rattlesnake or two made good pulp scribbling, and, in that stretch of 382 miles, all of it was found in abundance.

            Lily was not much taken with Franklin City which today we know as El Paso. Cavalry was garrisoned at Ft. Bliss, but interestingly, it was the agriculture that was arguably more interesting to him. He described the viticulture in some detail. His description of frost control concepts at that time was excellent.

            The grapes, of course, led to the products of trade that were included in his account. Brandy and wine were front and center, and it was apparent he imbibed. Wine was a particular interest.

            Leaving dusty Franklin City, its vineyards, saloons, and 400 mixed residents, he described, in succession, stage stops northward at Fronteras, La Tuna, Cottonwoods, Ft. Fillmore, and then La Mesilla. The modern counterparts became Canutillo, La Tuna (the area of the prison), Anthony and, of course, Mesilla. Alcohol was still on his mind when he noted New Mexicans knew the Franklin City brandy as “Pass Whiskey”. That referenced the sourcing of Franklin City brandy and the El Paso del Norte name which was the area traversing the narrows of the Rio Grande north from Franklin City (which also applied to what we now know as Juarez).

            Ormsby’s description of the village of Mesilla was not becoming. He described its agriculture with interest but he wasn’t taken by the town. He found the residents “squalid, dirty, and indolent”.

            “I never saw such a miserable set of people in my life,” he wrote.

            Beyond Mesilla they watered and changed teams at Picacho. It was from there to Tucson his western adventure escalated.

His description of the trip beyond Tucson was surprisingly subdued. The roads were better, the stops were consistent, and the rate of progress was excellent.

He liked California.

In 23 days and 23½ hours he reached his destination of San Francisco. Asked if he would board the stage for the trip back east, he suggested he might, but, on second thought, he wasn’t so sure.

“I know what hell is like,” he admitted.

The continuing cow trail

Congress decommissioned its involvement in the Trail in 1861, but that didn’t halt traffic. The Trail became the primary access route into southwestern New Mexico and on to Arizona for generations of pioneers.

I, for one, believe the Trail should be elevated as one of the most important cattle trails in the nation’s network due to the abundance of mixed herds trailed by settlers into the area. The difference in those herds and the better known counterparts in Texas was the nature of the enterprise. The cow trails of Texas were commercial farm to market corridors whereas, on the Butterfield Trail, privately owned foundation herds were trailed. Their ownership was seeking homes that existed in their hopes, imaginations, and hearts. At the time, they simply fought for existence. They knew nothing of the immensity that must now be assigned to their endeavors. Their efforts and sacrifices were gigantic.

The reference to mixed herds was the fact cows and calves were trailed whereas most of the commercial trailing of cattle consisted largely of adult steer cattle. Trailing mix herds was much more difficult, and that segment of the harshness of the lives of those pioneers has never been adequately described. That story and others like it are components of the immeasurably important history value that is not taught in schools today and exists only in enclaves of diminishing oral history.

Fewer and fewer direct lines of descendents know the immensity of their own family history.

 Safety at Ft. Mason

In the leg west from Picacho, the stage was pulled by mules. The need for mules was the result of distance between water sources and the grades. Ormsby described the stops following Picacho as “Rough and Ready, Goodsight, Ft. Cummins, and Cooke Springs”.

The name Ft. Mason did not yet exist in 1858 but it was the referenced “Rough and Ready”. Through a series of transactions, title was secured by one Kit Mason in 1877. He ran a mercantile and forage business catering to Trail traffic. It was Mason who was proprietor of the establishment on the day of the massacre in 1879. It was probably Mason who slammed the gate shut behind the wagon being pulled by the unlikely team of Christian Flury and his horse escaping from Indians intent on killing him and his family.

A question must now be asked. After he unharnessed himself and his horse and caught his breath was it in Swiss, English, or … in tongues that Mr. Flury finally spoke?

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Flury became the patriarch who gave rise to ranching families whose names still exist in Grant and Luna Counties. Members of the Benedict, Burris, Delk, Franks, Gunter, Harrington, and Johnson families have direct linage to Mr. Flury. They are part of our valued ranching heritage tied to the Butterfield Trail.”