Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">PEGLEG WILSON'S



Ike Clanton was kind of a strutting rooster, stringy and tough, and forever crowing when those within earshot better craved his silence. He was belligerent, and obnoxious and demanding and those most around him found it easier to agree with him than to dispute him. It enabled his influence to grow within his family and all who came under his influence paid dearly for it. In his whole life the only thing that Ike Clanton was ever good at was stealing his neighbor’s cattle. His life of thievery would lead to the killings of his father, Newman Haynes, his 19 year old brother, Billy, and his friends Frank and Tom McLaury. It would cause his brother Phin to serve a stretch in the Yuma Penitentiary. Ike’s brother-in-law, Eben Stanley, was a highly regarded army scout and Indian fighter. Eben had, in fact, been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for service at Turret Mountain. Not long after Ike moved to Apache County Eben found himself under indictment on charges of larceny because of Ike. The charges were dropped on the stipulation that Eben leave Arizona forever. He left in disgrace, died in Hillsboro, NM and is buried in an unmarked grave. A national hero brought down by a scoundrel like Ike Clanton. By the summer of 1887 Ike was completely outside the law. No honest man would trust him to dig a latrine trench because Ike would likely the shovel. For some time Ike had been stealing cattle from the White Mountain Reservation and selling them to butchers in Springerville. The reservation authorities were wise to him though and set a stock detective named J. W. Brighton on Ike’s trail. Brighton began staking out trails that followed flowing drainages off the reservation. One morning Ike rode up to Pegleg Wilson’s cabin on Eagle Creek and found Brighton waiting. When Ike resisted arrest Brighton killed him with a shot through the heart. Ike was buried beneath a tree in Pegleg’s front yard. The location of Pegleg’s cabin is no longer widely known. There are, however, not a great many places on Eagle Creek where the cabin could have stood such that Ike would be likely to pass by. One such place is the confluence of West and Middle Prong Creeks where they flow into Eagle Creek. The photo shows that location as best a gimpy old man can reach it without breaking his neck. Pegleg’s Cabin stood about a quarter mile to the west on the north bank.

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