The next journal entry we have comes from our very own Father Eusebio Kino, who started the missions here in southern Arizona and in the northern Sonoran area of Mexico.
Father Kino was traveling with another missionary, Father Matheo Manje, who kept a journal of their travels as they visited various Pima tribes along the Gila River.
“While we were at one of the villages,” wrote Father Manje, “an old man told us the following story. ‘One day, a beautiful, strange, young white lady dressed in a flowing gown of blue appeared at our village and began to speak to us in a language that we did not understand. The more she spoke, the louder she became, and soon she was shouting at us. Many of our people became frightened. Some of our warriors shot arrows at her and she collapsed onto the floor of the desert. We ran away leaving her for dead. Many hours later, when we returned to where she had been lying, she had disappeared.’ The old Indian went on to say that a few days later she returned and started to yell at them once more in a strange language. Frightened, the Indians ran away.”
Father Kino and his assistant doubted the truth of the Indian’s story and decided to test his memory further. Had they ever seen a white person before? he asked. “Oh yes,” replied the old man nodding his head vigorously. “Many years ago, before the lady in blue, a white captain on a large horse passed through our village with many soldiers and horses. He was following our river to the great river to the west and to the land beyond that.”
Father Kino recognized the Indian’s description. The old Indian had accurately described the famous Spanish explorer, Captain Juan de Onate, who had led an expedition to the Colorado River and on to California. Father Kino reasoned that if the old man’s description of Onate was accurate, was not his story of a mysterious lady in blue also true?
So the stories found their way into the written records of the time, but always with unanswered questions. Who was this woman? Where did she come from? Where did she go? How could a single woman survive by herself in the vast Southwestern wilderness? She was never seen to take nourishment although the Indians often offered her food. How was it that she could speak several Indian languages and yet could not speak Pima? That is the mystery.
Tumacacori National Monument (Courtesy Arizona Office of Tourism)
There seems to be a beginning of an answer to this mysterious puzzle. The answer begins with the later journals of Father Alonzo. After staying in the Southwest for several years, Father Alonzo returned to Spain. While traveling in Spain, he met Maria de Jesus de Agreda, a Mother Superior of her convent. Maria de Jesus came from a prominent, wealthy Spanish family and became a nun when she was just 17 years old. She was so devout and capable that the Pope, by papal dispensation, made her head of her order when she was only 25 years old. But this honor did not totally satisfy Maria. She wanted to have the challenge of doing greater things for her faith than remaining cloistered in her convent. Priests and brothers from various religious orders were being sent to the New World to preach to the natives. Maria wanted the chance, the opportunity, to do the same. But in those days the Southwest was no place for a woman, particularly a young and beautiful nun.
Maria continued her peaceful and prayerful life at the convent, ministering to her sisters and to the poor, while her spirit yearned for more. Maria explained all of this to Father Alonzo during his visit to the convent at Agreda. “How much I admire you priests who are allowed to do missionary work in the New World,” she told him. “I wish that I could do the same and go to those people and tell them the stories of our Jesus.”
For a long while she sat quietly in front of Father Alonzo, her large black eyes lowered as if in deep thought. Finally she raised her pale face and spoke to him in the softest of whispers, “Some days when I go into my little room in the afternoon to meditate and pray, I fall into a deep sleep and I dream the most vivid dreams.”
She then described her dreams to Father Alonzo, telling him she had dreamt that she was visiting the New World, the great Southwest. Father Alonzo listened in astonishment, for Maria de Jesus was describing to him with an uncanny accuracy places he believed that only he had visited in the Southwest. For two weeks he questioned her, asking her for more and more detail of what she saw in her dreams. Maria described the dress and the homes of the Indians. Father Alonzo reacted with increasing alarm to her descriptions, for he believed himself to be the only person who knew of these things.
“God works in mysterious ways,” he told her. “I do not understand why this is happening, but I advise you to try to stop the dreaming.” In time Maria de Jesus told the priest that the dreams had stopped, but only after she had experienced some dreadful nightmares. The saintly Maria lived for 30 more years and there is no further mention of her ever having any more dreams about the Southwest.
Some years later Spanish scholars came across these journal entries and were very skeptical about the stories. Surely there must be some sensible explanation. They decided to go to the convent and search the records. Convents were required to keep careful records of everyone who visited or left the convent. Perhaps Maria de Jesus, coming from a rich family, acquired the funds to visit the Southwest, and did so, merely pretending to Father Alonzo that her experiences in the New World were dreams. A careful search of the records showed that the good nun had never left the convent for the extended time that would have been necessary to make the trip and return.
The scholars then reasoned that perhaps she had sent another nun to the Southwest and used this unknown nun’s experiences in describing her dreams. Again a careful and extended search was undertaken of all the convent’s records to see if anyone had been absent from the convent at Agreda for the necessary length of time for such a journey. Once again the records revealed nothing.
That is the mystery. That is all the records tell us about the sightings of a beautiful, young, white woman in a nun’s habit during the 1600s.
There is a third explanation that is offered today by some contemporary people. Perhaps these journal entries are an early recording of an out-of-body experience? But if it is, how is it that the Indians were able to see her and speak to her?
San Xavier del Bac, Tucson (Courtesy Arizona Office of Tourism, Phoenix)
Each person who reads this story must decide the answer that they wish to believe. But the next time the reader has a chance to visit those marvelous ruins at Casa Grande or the lovely mission, Tumacacori, or walk through the quiet halls of the beautiful church, the white dove of the desert, San Xavier del Bac, find a quiet place and allow the atmosphere to flow over you, and then remember this story. Over three hundred years ago, a beautiful, young white woman, dressed in a flowing gown of blue, was seen visiting each of these places .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayer. Mrs. Edward E., The Memorial of Fray Alonso de Benavides, 1630, Annotated by Frederick Webb Hodge and Charles Fletcher Lummis, Horn and Wallace. Publishers, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1965.
Bolton, Herbert Eugene, Rim of Christendom, A Biography, Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific Coast Pioneer , The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1936 and 1963.
Evans, Edna Hoffman, “The Mysterious Lady in Blue,” Arizona Highways , September 1959.
The Sheriff Was a Major
Many of Arizona’s first pioneers were people who led such interesting lives that we are captivated with their stories to this day. One such man was Major A. J. “Jim” Doran. Successful in business and the military, sheriff on the rugged frontier, a politician and leader of men, capable and tough James Doran brought to Arizona the kind of talent that helped the territory develop and flourish.
The settlers who did arrive in Arizona were often looking for new land to farm or to use for cattle ranching. There were also miners who came looking for a bonanza mineral treasure. Happenstance brought a third group to Arizona. These were the soldiers who manned the forts, protected the arriving settlers from Indian attack, forged the routes across the land, and then defended the Union during the Civil War against
a Rebel force supported by friendly inhabitants from the southern part of the territory.
After their tour of duty was over, many of the soldiers elected to stay, fascinated by the possibilities of this newly-opened territory. Others went elsewhere, only to return at a later date, unable to completely shake the dust of Arizona’s deserts from their hearts and minds.
Major A. J. Doran first arrived in Arizona in 1862 with a battalion of Union troops called the California Column, under the command of Colonel (later General) James H. Carleton. Carleton’s orders were to rid the southern part of the territory of any Rebel troops that were stationed there. The task was accomplished after two major skirmishes, one at Stanwix Station and the other at Picacho Peak.
After the war, Major Doran returned to civilian life and spent the next 14 years engaged in mining and railroad building in California and Utah. He was involved in the completion of the first major transcontinental railroad and participated in the ceremony that finally united the two separately-built segments of track at Promontory, Utah. In San Francisco he built the first railroad turntable ever used in the United States.
The call of a newly discovered silver mine in Arizona brought him back to the territory in 1876. Arizona was to remain Major Doran’s home for the rest of his long and very eventful life.
Jim Doran was hired to build the processing mill for one of the most successful silver mines in Arizona, the famous Silver King located west of Superior and north of Florence. How this huge reserve of ore was discovered is one of the grand mining stories of Arizona.
Due to Apache hostility, Camp Pinal was created near Superior for the purpose of protecting the local population. One of the soldiers, a Trooper Sullivan, had been helping to cut a trail through a nearby area. After he had completed his work for the day he started back to the camp. The day was hot, the work strenuous. A weary Sullivan sat down on a small hill to rest. While sitting there, he began to play idly with some pieces of rock by his feet. The rock consisted of heavy black fragments that would flatten when he pounded them but would not shatter. The strange quality of the rock, on further examination, intrigued him. He took a few pieces with him and returned to camp. Uncertain of what he had found, he chose not to mention his find to any of the other soldiers.
Soon afterwards, Sullivan completed his tour of duty, and having been discharged, went to the nearby town of Florence. Curious about the rock, the young soldier took a few samples to a friend of his in Florence, Charles G. Mason, to have him check them for their potential value. Mason identified the rock as rich in silver, being almost solid chloride of silver. He suggested that Sullivan go back and find a few more specimens and stake a claim to the area.
For some reason Sullivan did not do this. Some speculate that he could not find the original hill, others believe that he was killed in an Apache raid. When no legal claim surfaced, Charles Mason organized a search party of four men and himself to try to find the silver ore. For the next several years the men made periodic searches into the surrounding countryside looking for the silver outcropping. Each exploratory trip ended unsuccessfully and they were still looking for the illusive hill of silver ore in 1875. At that time it was decided that any hope of finding it was mere wishful thinking.
As the men were packing to leave from this final expedition, Mason noticed that one of the animals, a white mule, had disappeared. One of the men started to search for the lost mule and found him standing on a reddish-looking hill, sunning himself in the morning sun. When the men went up the hill to retrieve the mule, they found themselves standing on the rich black outcroppings of silver nuggets that were to become the famous Silver King Mine.
Over seven million dollars in silver were taken from the mine before the United States government repealed the Sherman Silver Purchasing Act and stopped buying silver. After this, the mine continued to operate at a lower rate of profitability. Then a most unusual incident happened.
In 1907 an old man came into the mining camp looking for work and claiming that he was Trooper Sullivan. He never explained why he had not staked a claim to the silver those many years ago. He did say that at the time he had needed to get to California and while living there he had been unable to save sufficient funds to return. When he did hear of the discovery and success of the mine, he knew that he had lost his chance to become rich. But he decided that one day he would return just to see how everything looked. The owners of the Silver King, through some old acquaintances, were able to confirm the identity of Sullivan. Financial arrangements were then made to put him on the company’s payroll and provide care for him during the last few years of his life.
Charles Mason, one of the original owners, became the first superintendent of the Silver King. Major A. J. Doran, with his proven ability to lead men, which he had acquired from his military and his various railroad building experiences, was asked to become the second superintendent. At that time, many of the miners were stealing ore from the mine and the owners were concerned over the loss of income and the general lack of discipline at the Silver King. During his tenure as superintendent, Major Doran showed great determination and courage in ridding the mine of this undesirable type of miner and returned the operation to peak efficiency.
Major Doran (Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum Archives, Prescott)
While the major was superintendent of the Silver King, Pinal County was experiencing some difficult and unsettling times. Gamblers and whiskey men, the lawless element of the county, had taken control of most of the business activities in the communities of the county. Up until 1885, Arizona was a wild, lawless country filled with robberies and murders. The current sheriff seemed unable to affect any sort of reform. The job of sheriff required nerves of steel, quick intelligence and a firm belief in making the fledgling legal system work. It was not an easy job.
The decent citizens living in the area were increasingly concerned for their self-protection and asked the major to run for sheriff. They had been impressed with his cool, intelligent handling of the difficulties at the Silver King. When Doran became sheriff, he demonstrated that, in spite of extreme and dangerous challenges, he was the right man to protect Pinal County.
In the years 1882 and 1883, stagecoach robberies were rampant throughout the territory. One of the most outstanding incidents concerned a stage traveling from Bisbee through Tombstone to Tucson. Fourteen thousand dollars had been taken and a man had been killed. The only evidence found at the scene of the crime was some scattered pages from a book. The sheriff of Cochise County hunted for months without success, trying to find that book and some lead about the perpetrators of the robbery and murder.
Then on August 10, 1883, the stage between Florence and Globe was robbed of $1,000 in gold and $2,000 in silver. Again a man was killed. Sheriff Doran rounded up a posse to search out clues about who had committed the robbery. At first nothing surfaced. Then someone recalled that two men (there had been two robbers) had been seen on the road to a ranch owned by a wealthy rancher named Redfield. The ranch was 75 miles from the scene of the crime. It was a gamble to travel that far to question the two men and perhaps offend the wealthy Redfield with only the barest possibility that there would be any connecting link to the robbery. Sheriff Doran decided to take the gamble. On the way to the ranch, he questioned several other people who also remembered seeing two men riding on the road just prior to the robbery and then returning shortly afterwards.
Astonishment greeted Doran and the posse when they arrived at the Redfield ranch. Not expecting anyone to come on such a tenuous lead, Redfield and one of the robbers had made no attempt to hide any evidence. Doran and the posse were easily able to find the shotgun which had been used to kill the messenger traveling on the stage. In addition, a mail sack known to have been on the stage was found. Sheriff Doran arrested the one robber who was still at the ranch as well as the rancher, Redfield. The robber quickly implicated the ranch owner as the mastermind behind the robbery and showed the posse where the silver had been hidden.
The citizens of Florence were outraged when they found out who had been behind the rash of robberies and murders. A vigilante committee was formed which included some of the leading citizens in the town. The committee went to Sheriff Doran and demanded that he turn over the prisoners to them for hanging. Doran refused, saying that he had sufficient evidence to convict the men and that until such time as the legal process could be undertaken it was his responsibility to see to the safety of the prisoners. This he would do and anyone who attempted to take the prisoners would have to do so over his dead body.
Although the townsfolk were pleased with Doran’s accomplishment, his attitude about saving the prisoners did not satisfy the members of the committee. They felt that Redfield, being a rich man, would be able to buy his way out of a conviction. It was also generally agreed that through the services of expensive lawyers, Redfield would be able to have the trial scheduled elsewhere where a jury, uninformed of the anguish that this rash of crime had caused the community, might be persuaded to allow him to escape any serious form of punishment. Doran listened sympathetically, then gave everyone his personal assurance that he would not allow the prisoners to be taken out of his protection and that a trial would indeed take place in Florence.
Arizona Legends and Lore Page 14