Wickenburg Massacre
33°57′47″N 112°47′50″W / 33.963072°N 112.797253°W
Wickenburg Massacre | |
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Location | Wickenburg, Arizona |
Date | November 5, 1871 |
Attack type | Killing |
Deaths | 6 |
Injured | 2 |
Victim | White European Settlers |
Perpetrator | unknown |
The Wickenburg Massacre was the November 5, 1871, murder of six stagecoach passengers en route westbound from
road.Massacre
Around mid-morning, about six miles from Wickenburg, the stagecoach was allegedly attacked by 15
Yavapai warriors, who were sometimes mistakenly called Apache-Mohaves, from the Date Creek Reservation.[1][2] Six men, including the driver, were shot and killed. Among them was Frederick Wadsworth Loring,[3] a young writer from Boston working as a correspondent for Appleton's Journal and assigned to cover a cartographic expedition led by Lieutenant George Wheeler.[4] One male passenger, William Kruger, and the only female passenger, Mollie Sheppard, managed to escape.[5] According to Kruger, Sheppard eventually died of the wounds she received.[6]
Memorial plaques have been installed near the site several times, including in 1937 by the Arizona Highway Department and in 1948 and 1988 by the Wickenburg Saddle Club.[7]
Wickenburg Massacre
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Vicinity marker where the Wickenburg Massacre took place (33°57′47″N 112°47′50″W / 33.963080°N 112.797239°W)
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Old Stage Coach Road where the November 5, 1871, Wickenburg Massacre occurred
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Grave of one of the victims of the Wickenburg Massacre
The Wickenburg Massacre was featured on an April 12, 1996, episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
See also
- List of massacres in Arizona
References
- ^ "The Indian Attack Upon an Arizona Stage – The Driver and Five Passengers Killed". The New York Times. November 20, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ^ "The Indians; Verdict of the Coroner's Jury in the Wickenburg Massacre". The New York Times. November 22, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ^ July 29, 1876 The Arizona Citizen, front page
- ^ "The Late Frederick W. Loring". The New York Times. November 24, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ^ Own, Our (January 1, 1872). "The Wickenburg Massacre; First Authentic Account from an Eye-Witness". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ^ "What Really Happened to Mollie Sheppard?"; by: Jan MacKell Collins
- ISBN 9781626198630.
Further reading
- Wilson, Michael (2008). Massacre at Wickenburg: Arizona's Greatest Mystery. TwoDot. ISBN 978-0-7627-4453-4.
- Dan L. Thrapp: Al Sieber: Chief of Scouts. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1964, ISBN 0-8061-2770-8pp. 87–105
- Another account of the massacre from University of Arizona
- Bill W. Smith. A Collection of Newspaper Articles, Letters, and Reports, Regarding the Wickenburg Massacre and Subsequent Camp Date Creek Incident. Phoenix: Privately Published, 1989. 68 pp. OCLC 22103156
External links
- "The Wickenburg Massacre" – via Google Sites; a proposed archeological investigation