Horace Philley
Arizona Silver Belt
September 24, 1894

The finding of a dead man, near Reno, in Gila County, with a 
bullet hold through the body was reported here on Sunday. Mr. A.
J. Howell, postmaster at Tonto, who arrived in Globe on Monday 
related to us all the circumstances connected with the case.

The body was discovered by Tommy Rice on the morning of September 
7th in the Reno Canyon, about one mile and a half above Moore's 
ranch.  Rice started immediately for Tonto to report the discovery 
and a short distance from the Tonto store and postoffice, met 
Sheriff J.H. Thompson and together they proceeded to the store 
and reported to Mr. Howell.  The latter, who is a notrary public, 
summoned a jury, repaired to the scene, held an inquest on the 
body and buried it.  An examination idsclosed the fact that the 
dead man had been shot from behind, the ball having entered the 
left should and come out at the right nipple.

Immediately in front of the body was found a roll of papers, 
where it had evidently escaped from the man's hand when he 
pitched forward off his horse. In the roll was a bill of goods, 
for 17 pounds of bacon, bought by Mr. Philley from Lon Forshea, Sept. 4.

Philley was described as a small sized man of sandy complexion and weighed probably 150 pounds.  He wore a gold ring on the little finger of the left hand.  His hat was found about 20 yards back of where he fell.  The body had evidently not been disturbed after falling.

The Gazette gives the name of the murdered man as Horace Philley, aged 20 years and says: "He was a native of Texas near Dallas and had been a resident of Arizona about five years. He was an orphan, his only immediate relative, a brother who came to Arizona with him, having returned to Texas.  A cousin, S.J. Roach, is a resident of the valley.  For three years Philley was in the employ of Murray and Company taking care of range cattle in the Bloody Basin region on the western slope of the Mazatzal range. He was highly esteemed."

Owing doubtless to the paucidy of facts in its possession, regarding the murder of Philley and its love of the sensational, the Gazette gives wings to its imagination and advances the preposterous theory that the mysterious death of young Philley may possibly be ascribed to the renewal of the Tewksbury Graham feud, although there is not one iota in the evidence bearing on Philley's death to support or even suggest such a theory.

After the burial of young Philley, Sheriff Thompson went over to Crabtree's Ranch at Sunflower whre he learned that Phliley was alone whne he passed there, with four horses, two of them packed; also that philley left Tempe alone and was on his way to Pleasant Valley to work for Mr. Harmon who bought the Graham cattle.  Two mounted men with pack animals, that passed Crabtree's ahead of Philley, which gave rise to the story that pHilley had a companion.  What direction these two men ahead of Philley took after passing Sunflower is not known as they were not seen afterwards.

Sheriff Thompson, accompanied by a youth named Bud Burrowns, left Sunflower last Saturday monring for the scene of the murder and when near the summit of the road over Reno Mountain struck a horse's trail which he back tracked to the canyon where Philley's horses had been unpacked.  There he discovered moccasin tracks. Not far from there a gray horse, that showed signs of hard riding was found; he was branded H on the left thigh, a brand that is unknown in that section.  The supposition is that this is the horse ridden by the person who killed Philley and that after the killing, he caught the latter's horse and rode him off.

USGenWeb Project NOTICE: 
In keeping with our policy of providing free information 
on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as
long as this message remains on all copied material. These 
electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for
profit, nor for commercial presentation by any other organization. 

Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must 
obtain express written permission from the author, or 
the submitter and from the 
listed USGenWeb Project archivist. 

submitted by burns@asu.edu