My Attempt to Map a Historic Itinerary

Historic newspapers can be illuminating but also frustrating.  A case in point is the series of articles in the 1864 Arizona Miner detailing "Woolsey's Expedition" in March and April of that year.  

I hoped to deduce some of the actual places visited by the expedition, but the details given were confusing, contradictory, and ultimately insufficient to definitively map where the events took place.  I wonder how many modern newspaper stories, when subject to the same analysis, would fall short?

I analyzed Henry Clifton's account from the May 11, 1864 issue.  The first step was to break the narrative into a numbered itinerary.  I underlined what I thought would be helpful clues, and bolded descriptions I thought would be interesting to compare against present day conditions:

My next step was to try to map the itinerary points on a modern day map.  I added two additionally pieces of information to the text.  First, I looked up that sunrise and sunset were at 6:20am and 6:50pm, respectively. This helps fill in the times for each stop.  Then I filled in the mileage between each stop.  In the table that follows, question marks indicate uncertainty.  The start and stop points correspond to the itinerary above.

In some cases Clifton gives the mileage, and in some cases the stops can be determined so the mileage can be measured, but in many cases he does not give the mileage.  However, based on the travel and rest times I tried to estimate the mileage.  This can also be constrained by the possible stop locations.  For example, when they stop at a creek or a canyon, there are only so many choices for where that could be.  

This map shows their possible itinerary from Woolsey's ranch to the Apache Rancheria on "Squaw Creek".  Tent icons are campsites and hiking figures are other stops.  

Overview map showing likely itinerary points.

Waypoint #4 makes sense if they followed the drainage downstream from "Cottonwood Spring" SE to the next main drainage that could be described as "east fork of the Aqua Fria".  This fork is now known as Ash Creek.  The "Ash Creek" they named at stop #5 is most likely the next major creek to the SE, which is now known as Little Ash Creek.

My best guesses for stop #4 and stop #5.

Many mysteries remain.  First, they claim to do a lot of hiking at night, but this is extremely rough terrain that would be difficult to navigate by night.  According to the US Naval Observatory historical moon phase calculator, this expedition occurred during the waning last quarter of the moon, so they would not have had much light from the moon.  I don't know what kind of lanterns they had, but they don't describe much difficulty traveling at night, other than a description that they had to "descend carefully" to a creek for stop #7.

At stop #6, which occurred sometime after 10 PM on the night of March 31st, Clifton reports finding species of the garlic family on a ridge.  These small plants seem like they would have been difficult to notice by lantern light.  Interestingly, there are only two species of garlic/onions that grow in this area in the spring now.  One, is Crowpoison, which as the name suggests is toxic.  The other is Largeflower onion, which is not common.  

Second, was the Apache Rancheria at modern Squaw Creek or some other location?  It would make sense that their place name stuck, but Squaw Creek is not exactly a unique name so it is possible that other locations have the same name.  Interestingly these creeks that form the southeast boundary of Perry Mesa have been recently renamed Ledni Lii Creek, Gosga Creek, Liya Draw, Che Yagoodiguhn Creek, etc.  I can't find any information about when they were renamed or what the new names mean.

Based on their travel that night from 10 PM until 9 AM and their progress on other legs of the journey, I estimated that they traveled about 10 miles to get there.  However, (for reasons discussed below) I think the site of the Rancheria must have been just upstream of the confluence of Gosga creek and Ilya Draw (AKA North Squaw Creek and Squaw Creek), and this would put them less than 7 miles from camp.  After attacking the Rancheria they managed to get back to camp in less time, so it is possible that they were less than 10 miles from camp.   

Possible site of the Ranchera, upstream of the confluence of Gosga creek and Ilya Draw (AKA North Squaw Creek and Squaw Creek)

In the description of the battle, Clifton states that Company C was west of Company B.  Company B "was in the canon below the rancheria" and chased the Indians up the canyon to where company C was.  Since almost all of the canyons in this part of Arizona run from NE to SW, I had a lot of trouble finding a location where "up canyon" was some westerly.  

Conclusion

Through this exercise of interpreting and attempting to map a historical itinerary, I've come to realize the difficulty of matching newspaper accounts to specific locations.  Without an extremely explicit travelogue, creating a location-based itinerary is either impossible or unreliable.  There were several times when I was ready to give up, but through persevering, rereading the account, and staring at the map I've at least been able to convince myself that some of these locations are approximately correct.  I hope to visit some of these areas in the coming months to retrace the route and add additional information.  

Notes

Note: #PrescottAZHistory blog has an account of Woolsey's expedition that is more of a summary and less of a GIS analysis.  

Note 2: Woolsey organized several expeditions, including a second one in June of 1864 that traversed a much larger area.

Hiking the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces, NM

Climbing Blanca Peak (14,345 ft -4,372 m)

La Garita Wilderness Exploration

Know Your Barbed Wire

Often, in tramping about the Western States, the intrepid naturalist may find themselves waylaid by the manufacture of man. Rather than merely an occasion for pain and anger, this encounter can also be a learning experience.

Most people can guess slickwire from barbed, but how many know the entire taxonomy of man made dolorimeters?Here is my rough key to this vexing subject:

a.Single Strand....b
b.Slick Wire [not depicted]
bb. Glidden's Twist
aa. Double or more strands
b.Ribbon Strand...Untorn Ribbon
bb. Double Strand...c
c. Barb is of similar wire, usually twisted around strand...d
d. Barb is twisted around both strands...e
e. Barb is three pointed...Burnell Hook Around
ee.Barb is one or two pointed...f
f. One pointed...Preston's Horse Wire
ff. Two pointed...g
g. Barb wrapped around both strands together....Brotherton's Barb
gg. or Barb wrapped around both strands one at a time...Decker Spread
dd. Barb is twisted around a single strand....e
e. Barb is four pointed... Shinney's "4" Point
ee. Barb is two pointed, common...Baker's Flat Barb
cc. Barb is otherwise, not same wire as strand
d. Barb is metal plate...Stubbe Plate [rare]
dd. Barb is small plate or flat nail....e
e. Barb is twisted around strand...Scutte's Plate
e. Barb is tied to strand...Kelly Diamond Barb

Backpacking on Mount Ellinor

(Quotes from Jesse Wolf Hardin, Gila, NM)

Even now, enshrouded in a crust of asphalt and concrete, the Earth is wild, willed, directed and empowered by its own inner nature rather than some conglomeration of outward ideas. Gaia is faithful to its natural processes .. those rhythmic patterns of impermanence and change, mounting waves of their own fertile heat, then birth and death of Gaia's varied parts, the flex and pause of Earth's heart muscle pumping new life through arteries in time.

And as integral extensions of Gaia, we too are originally wild: deeply willed, and willful. For safety, certainty n d comfort we may try to deny our wildness, sacrificing our will as we seek shelter in the certain and the tame. Yet in spite of all the artifice and constraint of our times we remain instinctual, visionary beings. We are mirror made of dancing flesh, interterrestrial sensors, activated nerve endings extending from the gaian ganglion into the evershifting universe.

The human spirit dies when it is tamed, and the human species cannot long survive the deliberate unraveling of contextual Nature. Rational mind, government and science cannot alone cure the environmental crisis, which is first and foremost a crisis of value and character. By recognizing perception as the instrumental element in our kind's estrangement and resulting destruction behavior, we have the option of participating in the inevitable cure. The return to balance spoken of by most "primitive" cultures requires a deliberate shifting of the total weight of human perception in the direction of relationship, wildness, and love.

Without a doubt, we ignore the attentions of the animal world at our own peril. One by one the shrinking ponds cease to ring out with the glad croaking songs of frogs. One by one they are hushed by the weight of our presence and by what we, as lovers of this Earth have yet failed to do. The moonless nights may soon be as still as stone. In the face of such a final silence, we should be "all ears": attentive, concerned, and vigorously responsive.

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego
and when we escape like rats
turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in
and passion will make our bodies
taut with power
we shall tamp our feet with new power
and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh, and institutions will
curl up like burnt paper
D.H. Lawrence

The domesticated animals, like the wild, are a set of messages. Living in a world which, at the level of the senses, is heavily man modified, congested, and polluted, the spavined horse, land scalping goat, and pea brained sheep are important signals. The pathos of the over fat pig, white rat stripped of nuance, and dog breeds with their congenital debilitation signals to us an aspect of the human condition.
Paul Shepard

Catron County, NM

Mathematics and Mileages to my House

The trail to my house, as all trails in the Southwest, is a wash (or vise versa). You go along down the dirt road where the BLM rangers lost my tracks. When the tire ruts have begun to meander individually, separate from one another, you have come to the right spot. Now they split and go around trees that are 50 years old.

They tracks have become trails.


But these trails are no longer monotonic, (one-to-one) i.e. for a given distance from the trailhead there are different, yet equivalent, positions on the trail. In other words there are many trails masquerading as one another.

Suddenly, you are at my camp.

Steep Gulch outside Leadville, CO

I started down from Hope Mountain in a light rain -- so light I could still look about normally. The Gentians were closed against the storm, though. The face of a deer caught the corner of my eye, and the recognition became an involuntary turn of the head, in time to see her do the same.

Down, down through the mats and then thickets and then forests of Engelmann spruce, as if dull silver-evergreen tips remember dry copper-containing ore. Where the spruce grow tall they let the mat juniper have the understory. And now mats of strawberries...I noticed a tiny wild strawberry sitting on the lip of the mountain squirrel's burrow; ripening in the sun or dropped from his paws when my oversize shadow darkened his door? Without hesitation I picked it up and ate it in two heavenly bites. No regret.

Two butterflies were fluttering over and on one another, surely engendering piles of caterpillars in the underbrush.