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Published: April 2nd 2013
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HAMILTON CALHOUN McCOMAS
The massacre took place in the canyon visible at the center of the picture. It is as close as I could get to the actual McComas Tree. Ranchers up in that country have locked gates on every road. HAMILTON CALHOUN McCOMAS
He had just turned sixteen years old when he pulled out of Cabell County, West Virginia bound for Texas with three of his brothers. It was February of 1847 and they were going off to war with Mexico. It was a fine way for a young man to commence a lifetime of work dedicated to the best of intentions. Ham, as he was known in his youth, was born in 1831. It was the same year that his uncle, David McComas, wrote a well-reasoned piece about the right of South Carolina to secede from the union. Thirty years later some other politicians pulled that article out of the library, dusted it off and used it to start the War Between the States. When Ham got back from Mexico he sobered up, shook off the stink of war, and headed up to Ohio for some book learning and to read for the law. His older brothers and dad were already well seasoned law dogs and stout union men. As a novice young lawyer Ham decided to step out of the shadow of his prominent family and make headway of his own in Monticello, Illinois.
McCOMAS INCIDENT
This is the highway department sign on Highway 90 at Gold Gulch Road. You run into locked gates going that way too. He was busily engaged in the same stomping grounds as Abe Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Whatever were the professional encounters Ham might have had with those two rascals could not have done much damage to his judicial and political acumen. By and by his legal practice became well established, he took on a partner and a bride, and set out to raise a family. When the War Between the States broke out Ham had two sons of his own. Once again he responded to the call to arms and marched off as battalion adjutant to a volunteer infantry outfit. Warfare was not as much fun to a thirty year old family man than it was to a sixteen year old kid. He resigned his commission before the war ended and returned home to the warmth of hearth and kin, but found out that his wife had moved in with his law partner. He dissolved the law practice, divorced his wife, gathered up his two sons and moved to Fort Scott, Kansas to start over again. Fort Scott was a booming along towards prosperity and had good need for a judicial sharpster. Ham did well there and started dabbling in politics and won election as justice of the peace. His friends started in calling him Judge McComas. He was well respected in Fort Scott, had won some major cases that gave him a little national recognition. By the time his sons were teenagers he had taken on another bride, Juniata Ware, and started in raising another passel of kids: they were Ada, Mary and Charlie. Through his law practice Ham had connections to Saint Louis investors who wanted to throw their money at the mining boom in the southwest. Ham opened an office in 1880 at Silver City, New Mexico to represent their interests. It soon became a full time job, and it kept him busy but he missed his family. In 1882 Ham bought a home in Silver City and Juniata and the kids joined him there. His oldest son had come of age by then and had taken a job in a mine near Shakespeare. In the early fall of 1881 Geronimo had grown weary of reservation life, gathered in some followers and scampered off to bring hellish misery to Mexico. They plundered, and pillaged, and murdered, and robbed every Mexican they saw in Chihuahua until they ran low on ammunition and then took shelter in the Sierra Madre Mountains until spring. When spring broke in 1883 and the Apaches could once again travel through the mountains Geronimo raided for more provisions into Sonora and Chato raided into Arizona for more ammo. Geronimo’s raid was no less deadly, but Chato’s raid was considered far more heinous because it was Americans, not Mexicans, who were being plundered and pillaged, and murdered and robbed. On March 18, 1883 Ham and Juniata and Charlie were caught having lunch under a walnut tree beside the Lordsburg Road by Chato’s raiders. Ham and Juniata were both murdered and robbed and Charlie was taken captive. There was a huge public outcry over what became known as the McComas Massacre. The outrage quickly spread across America. Judge McComas became more of a celebrity in death than he ever was in life. The funeral celebrations lasted for a month before the judge and his wife were finally laid to eternal rest back in Fort Scott. The furor led to the resignation of General Crook and the installment of General Nelson Miles as military commander of Arizona. It did not end until Geronimo surrendered and was sent to prison in Florida along with all of the Chiricahuas. Chato had left the warpath and returned to his family at San Carlos to serve with distinction as an army scout. A massive manhunt on both sides of the border was made for the child, Charlie McComas, but he was never found and every Apache had a different story about what happened to him. His orphaned sisters, Ada and Mary were raised by Juniata’s family in Fort Scott. They were both the darlings of America for a while, but Ada never recovered from the emotional trauma. Hamilton Calhoun McComas did more to end the Apache War than General Miles could ever have done. The tree where they had the picnic is still there but has finally died too.
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