PECK CANYON HISTORY

BACKGROUND - Artemus Peck was born in New York in 1848 and moved to Kansas in his early youth.   He eventually ended up in Sonora, Mexico working silver mine claims.  During this period, he hired peaceful Apaches to help him work his claim and had always treated them fairly and had gotten along well with them.  He was known to these Apaches as “Red Arms” due to the fact that he always wore red long johns that were very evident when he rolled up his sleeves to work.   After a few years, he met and married a Mexican-Irish girl named Petra and they moved back to Kansas.  They were not very happy there and after their first born died of yellow fever, they moved to Southern Arizona.  They built a one room, dirt floor adobe house in what was then called Agua Fria Canyon.  They also had a well, a garden and a small corral.  Petra’s 12-year-old niece, Trinidad Verdin, or “Trini” was also living with them to help with the chores since Petra was pregnant.


Geronomo was the notorious chief of a band of Apaches.  He was described by Lt. Britton Davis as “a thoroughly vicious, intractable, and treacherous man,  His only redeeming traits were courage and determination.  His word, no matter how earnestly pledged, was worthless.”  In 1883, he had surrendered to General Crook and he and his people were living on the San Carlos Reservation.  On 17 May 1885, Geronomo and three other Apache Chiefs (Nana, Mangus and Chihuahua) departed the reservation with their followers and headed for Mexico.  After having been pursued in both the United States and Mexico, Geronomo surrendered to US forces under General Crook in Northern Sonora in March of 1886.  After hearing rumors that he and his followers would be hanged when they were returned across the border, Geronomo and about 20 followers, including some women, snuck back to their Mexican hiding places.   In April of 1886, the struck back across the border into the Santa Cruz Valley on what was to be their last incursion into the United States.  We will finish the story at the Peck Memorial in the Canyon.


MEMORIAL -  This monument was built in 1967 by Doug Cummings with help from what was called the Green Valley Riding Club in memory of what happened here on April 27th, 1886.   Petra and Trini had prepared breakfast for Artemus Peck and Charlie Owens who was a part time employee at the ranch.  They had left the house at daybreak and went up the canyon to round up maverick cows for branding. The Apaches came down the canyon from the West and came upon Peck and Owens up at the Corral.  Peck was on horseback and had just roped a maverick bull and had his end of the rope wound around his saddle horn.  Charlie Owens was trying to topple the animal so he could wrap the legs when he saw the Apaches.  He yelled to Peck and took off across the stream.  Owens only rode a hundred feet or so and was shot through the leg with the bullet also passing through his horse.  In about a hundred yards, the horse fell and the Apaches killed Owens.  Peck tried to free his rope from the saddle horn but the Indians were upon him quickly and knocked him to the ground.   They then began to beat him and strip off his clothes.  He was wearing red long johns.  When they saw his long johns, one of the Apaches shouted something to the others and a short conversation ensued.  Whereupon they finished stripping him but quit beating on him. The Apaches departed with all of Peck’s clothes and with Owens’s spurs, boots, gun belt and one chap.  As they rode off toward the Peck Homestead, one of the Apaches spoke to Peck in Spanish and told him not to return to his house or he would be killed.

Back at the house, Trini saw the Indians riding down the canyon and immediately warned her Aunt Petra who was inside the house.  Petra was not concerned since it had been nearly 10 years since there had been any problem with Apaches in the Santa Cruz Valley so she picked up her 2 year old and went to the door.  She was immediately shot by one of the Indians.  Trini was then captured and the baby was picked up by the heels and smashed against the stone fireplace. 

Peck ignored the Apache and made his way downstream to his house where the Apaches were taking everything of value they could carry and burning much of the rest.  He saw Trini sitting on a horse behind Geronomo and asked her where his family was.  When she told him they were all dead, Peck fell to his knees in shock as the Indians rode off.   As a side interest item, when Geronomo’s band left the Peck Homestead, they rode back up the canyon and over to Yank’s Springs where they killed a cowboy before heading back into Mexico (The club has two hikes that start from Yank’s Springs).  Peck, Completely naked, made his way the 8 or 9 miles to Calabasas where he came across George Wise and George Atkinson who gave him some clothing and took him to Nogales for medical attention.  The remains of the three dead were retrieved and buried in Nogales.  Trini lived with the Apaches until late June 1886, when she was rescued by Mexican Militiamen and subsequently reunited with her parents.  Doug Cumming’s grandfather served on the Coroners jury involving both the Peck’s killing and the Cowboy at Yank’s Springs

Peck sold his ranch to a Polish immigrant named Joe Piskonski for $500.   Peck put the money in the only safe in Nogales, in a saloon.  The next day, both the bartender and the money vanished.  Peck ended up in Tombstone where he remarried in 1887 to a girl named Carmen Canez and they moved to Nogales.  He made enough money mining silver in Tombstone to buy a livery stable in Nogales where he became a prominent businessman.   Peck died in 1941 at the age of 93, never having returned again to the canyon where the massacre occurred.





ADDITIONAL ITEMS OF INTEREST

ROCKING H RANCH -  The ranch near the beginning of Peck Canyon is called the Rocking H Ranch.  It is owned by Douglas Cummings who is the third generation of Cummings to own the ranch.  Doug’s father and grandfather were friends of Al Peck for whom the Canyon is now named and whose homestead is the destination for our hike today.  When Peck lived there, it was called the Agua Fria Canyon and had been the main trail from the Santa Cruz Valley to the mineral rich mountains of the Arivaca area.  The Club’s “C” hike starts at the Flying H Ranch.

WISE MESA - Wise Mesa is named for George Wise.  George was one of the men who befriended Al Peck after the massacre by giving him some clothing and taking him to Nogales for medical attention. The Club’s “B” hike to the Peck Memorial starts on Wise Mesa.

RUBY CONNECTION -  In addition to being the main trail from the Santa Cruz Valley too Ruby and Arivaca, Peck Canyon was the route for the water pipeline which provided water for the town of Ruby

STREAMBED HOUSE - In the early 1940s, a treasure hunter came to the canyon and built a house with a boat shaped foundation in the middle of the streambed.  Wise and Cumming advised against building in the stream bed but the man thought the ship shaped foundation would deflect the water and protect the house.  He wanted the house situated near where he thought Father Kino’s buried treasure was so he could control the area while he searched for the treasure.  He hunted for the treasure until his death in 1955 without success.  His search was financed by the royalties from a patent on the three prong grounded electrical plug that we use today.  The house lasted longer than local folks thought it would but it finally washed away about 20 years after it was built.

Summary prepared April 2003 by T. Johnson

Additional Material: GVHC Library File 43