Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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JOHN PAGE



John Hempstead Page landed in Arizona in the spring of 1857. He was among a party of Henry Crabb’s Filibusters. The filibusters were California gun thugs who were promised land in Mexico if they agreed to back Pesquiera’s bid for the governorship of Sonora. As it turned out Pesquiera rose to power without having need for his imported gunmen. When Crabb and his army arrived in Caborca to meet Pesquiera they were all murdered. It was good fortune for the group that John had joined that they were a couple of weeks behind those gala festivities. The Crabb Massacre stuck in their craw, and the surviving filibusters took pleasure, when drunk, in abusing and intimidating any Mexican they saw. One day in 1858 they rode through the Sonoita Valley spreading terror wherever Mexicans were found. Most of the Mexicans escaped back across the border, but two were killed. John and some of his pals were taken into custody by the Army and held for trial. Arizona was still part of New Mexico Territory then and the courts were clear over in Mesilla. The Army could not spare the men or the funds to escort prisoners that far and the charges were dropped. After John was released he went straight, fell deeply in love and married Larcena Pennington. They were a happy couple and John supported her as a freight contractor. Shortly after they were married Larcena took sick. She suffered from recurring bouts of malaria. To help in her recovery John decided to take her to a log camp in Madera Canyon where the air was cleaner. John had been freighting supplies in to the log camp and taking lumber out. Along the way she was taken captive by a band of Apaches and narrowly survived a harrowing ordeal when she was jabbed with a lance, pushed over a cliff, had her head bashed in with a rock, and left shoeless to die in a snow bank. Two weeks later she made it back to the log camp crawling along on her hands and knees, bleeding, starving, and badly tattered. Larcena was a tough old desert chicken and she fully recovered from that happy experience, but a year later tragedy struck. On February 20, 1861, the day after the Bascom Affair ended; John was freighting a load of supplies from Tucson to Camp Grant. He was ambushed and killed near the headwaters of Canyon de Oro Wash. Larcena was about one month pregnant.

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Photos

PAGE BURIAL SITE-BIG
Page and his horse were both hit hard during the initial attack but they galloped off through it. They followed the trail around the hillside and then dropped in to a wash headed back to Samaniego's Ranch. Page and his horse both gave out in the wash while a less injured companion went for help. The ranch staff were not about to go off and engage the Apache, so the trusty companion rode on to Tucson for help. Help returned the next day, but by then a corpse was all that remained of John Page. He was buried where he died and his wallet and a lock of his hair were returned to widow, Larcena

PAGE'S HILL
This is the north side of the hill that Page rode around to reach the wash where he died. The initial attack was on the east side of the hill just out of sight in this view. It came from an Apache camp hidden in a deeper wash. If you look closely there is still a faint trace of the Camp Grant Road on the hillside.

WAGON SITE
Page and a trusty companion were riding a couple of hundred yards in front of the lumbering wagon chatting about their lunch when the attack began. The wagon stampeded away from the attack and rolled over in a wash, where the Apache busily looted it. They left with what booty they could carry and did not pursue any of the survivors.

WATER HOLE
Page and them stopped to water the livestock here before pulling up the steep ridge.