Alfred F. Banta
History of Arizona,  Thomas Edwin Farish, Vol. 2 1915, pg. 240

A.F. Banta was born in Warrick County Indiana in December 18 
1846, a son of John Fulton and Fidelia Ann Banta, his father 
a native of Kentucky. He was descended by an ancestor who 
came from the islands off the coast of Holland to New Amsterdam, 
in February 1659.

He moved to Missouri with his parents as a child and was 
raised in a cabin on the frontier.  At twelve, he left and 
lived for a time in Kansas and then went to New Mexico where 
he set type on the Rio Abajo Press and arrived in Arizona in 
October 1863. 

When Fort Whipple was relocated on Granite Creek in April he 
moved to that vicinity where he herded stock for R.F. Ferrington 
and  during the summer he was employed by John Wesley Johnson.

In April 1865 he with C.W. Beach and George Cooler accompanied 
the escort of the U.S. Paymaster from Prescott to Santa Fe.

He was probate judge of Apache County in 1881-82; a member of 
the Legislature in 1883-84; Justice of the Peace at St. John 
in 1876; at Springerville in 1877-78 and County Assessor in 
1880.  He was the chief guide of the Wheeler Exploration 
Expedition and also the 100th Meridian Expedition in 1883. 
He served as U.S. Marshall and Deputy Sheriff in the 1880's.  
He was the first postmaster at Springerville and at various 
times he has been an editor.  This writer saw him a few 
weeks go when he was organizing an expedition to find the 
Lost Dutchman mine.


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