Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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POWELL WEAVER



Powell was born to white dad and Cherokee mother in 1797 somewhere in eastern Tennessee. As a young man he worked for the Hudson Bay Company but in 1830 he decided to enter the fur trade on his own. He arrived among a group of trappers at Taos. It was a popular destination for trappers because of a thriving grist mill located there that supplied grain to a distillery. The trappers were fond of Taos Lightning and many of them, including Powell, made their winter headquarters in Taos. There were still plenty of beaver in the mountains nearby. In August of 1831 Powell joined an outfit of trappers who scampered off across the desert to California. It was the first time he saw Arizona. The trappers were not very well tolerated in California; they were a surly bunch when deprived of their whiskey. In California all that was available to slake a heavy thirst in a man was wine and the padres were loath to part with it. Back in Taos in 1832 Powell joined up with the Catholics; married a local girl named Maria Dolores Martin and started in raising a family. His days as a trapper were about done. His Mexican in laws could not wrap their tongues around a gringo name like Powell, and they started in calling him Paulino. His gringo friends could not abide the Hispanic version and just settled on Pauline. Among gringos he would be known as Pauline Weaver for the rest of his long days. Pauline became a citizen of Mexico and moved his family to California in 1845 where he took up some land and operated a small rancho near Banning. When the War with Mexico broke loose Paulino took up with the Americans and Commodore Stockton hired him, Tom Fitzpatrick, and Kit Carson to carry some dispatches back to Washington D.C. proclaiming that California had been taken from Mexico. Along the way they met General Kearney, and Kearney arrogantly presumed to countermand their orders. The dispatches were opened and read, also without proper authority, and sent along with Fitzpatrick. Carson was commandeered to return to California with Kearney, and Paulino was sent off to locate the Mormon Battalion and guide them across the desert. Kearney did not trust the Mormons. He feared they might overthrow the real soldiers and desert to Deseret. After the war Paulino continued ranching and helping to keep the army from getting into trouble with the locals where he could until the War Between the States broke out. His little bride had gone up the flume by then, and his kids were grown up. He turned the Ranch over to his son, signed up as an army scout and rode off to guide Col Carleton’s brigade of California Volunteers over to New Mexico. Paulino was guiding the federal advance towards Tucson when they encountered a Confederate outpost and fought a brief engagement with them at Picacho Pass. After Carleton was safely in New Mexico Paulino returned to Arizona, and in 1863 he guided the Peeples Expedition to the discovery of gold at Rich Hill near Yarnell. He played an instrumental role in moving the territorial capitol from Del Rio Spring to Prescott and in founding that lovely little town. Paulino died in 1867 and was buried with full military honors at Camp Verde. When the military abandoned that post his old bones were dug up and transplanted to the Presidio at San Francisco. At the request of Sharlot Hall some Boy Scouts and school kids raised funds in 1929 to have his bones unearthed again and transplanted onto the grounds of the territorial capitol in Prescott. Sites all over Arizona are named in his honor. The photo shows the monument erected over his grave beside the governor’s mansion in Prescott.

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Photos

PAULINE WEAVER
The Sharlot Hall Museum and Territorial Capitol are on the southwest corner of W. Gurley St and McCormick Street in Prescott. It is 2 blocks west of Whiskey Row.