Hysterical Journey To Historic Places


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North America » United States » New Mexico » Soccoro
January 27th 2013
Published: January 27th 2013
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MONUMENT HILLMONUMENT HILLMONUMENT HILL

From Socorro go south on I-25 to the Camino Real exit near Fort Craig. Take Hwy 107 northwest to milepost 12. Monument Hill is on private property to the west. It is a long way from the soldier fight with Massai in Guadalupe Canyon. The Apache Kid either did not participate with Massai on the raid into Arizona, or the civilian posse killed some other guy. Who knows?
MASSAI



Massai was a Mimbreno Apache born in about 1847 but he married into the Chiricahua band and raised two children among them. He served in the Army as an Apache Scout in 1880 and again in 1885 during the second of Geronimo’s breakouts. Massai had a pal named Grey Lizard who was a renegade Tonkawa. Near the time that Geronimo surrendered to General Miles in Skeleton Canyon, Massai and Grey Lizard were both apprehended smuggling arms and ammunition into Mexico. It got them both deported on the prison train to Florida along with the hostile band and the Apache Scouts who were Chiricachuas. Massai and Grey Lizard came up missing from the prison train as it neared St Louis. When the two of them stepped off that prison train for the last time, they stepped straight into American folklore. Legend has it that Massai and Grey Lizard made it afoot all of the way back from St Louis, then down the Pecos River, through Capitan Gap, and on to Sierra Blanca on the Mescalero Agency in New Mexico. It would have been an amazing journey if it was true. The two friends split up at
PARTING OF THE WAYSPARTING OF THE WAYSPARTING OF THE WAYS

From Socorro go south about 10 miles on I-25 to the San Antonio exit. Take Hwy 380 east about 60 miles to Carrizozo. Turn southwest on Hwy 54 and go about 25 miles to Three Rivers. Stop at the Indian Trading Post there and get some cherry cider and check the sculptures. The site where Massai and Grey Lizard split up for the last time is about 5 miles east just past the petroglyph place.
Three Rivers. Grey Lizard went back to San Carlos and Massai, like the Apache Kid, became a ghost. He kidnapped a Mescalero girl named Zanagoliche, married her in the Apache tradition, and they had six children together. Massai appeared on the rolls at San Carlos until 1890 and then disappeared again. As renegades the Apache Kid and Massai sometimes cooperated together in raids north of the border. On December 3, 1895 a settler named Horatio Merrill and his daughter, Elizabeth were found murdered near Solomonville, AZ and on March 28, 1896 Alfred Hands was found murdered near Portal, AZ. The Army and several civilian vigilantes sprang into action. Civilians claimed to have killed the Kid a few miles west of San Marcial, NM and the Army engaged a small group of renegades in the Guadalupe Mountains near the border. An Apache woman was taken captive who had in her possession some of Elizabeth Merrill’s clothing. John Slaughter had a ranch nearby and was guiding the Army during that engagement. Massai was sighted, but escaped, and a young Apache girl was found wearing more of Elizabeth’s apparel. John Slaughter adopted the little girl and named her Apache May. Slaughter claimed that the girl’s father was the Apache Kid. The little girl was scampering around the Slaughter’s ranch house at San Bernardino Springs and caught herself on fire. A few days later she died of the burns. In 1906 Zanagoliche, appeared at San Carlos with the report that Massai had died of tuberculosis in Mexico. Neither of the reported deaths had ever been confirmed. Some say that one or the other of them lived in Mexico until the 1930’s. The civilians who claimed to have killed the Apache Kid were so certain of it that they erected a monument at the site. The photo shoes Monument Hill.

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4th March 2013

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