Peace Officers
Arizona The Youngest State
McClintock, 1913, page 468




Henry Garfias was appreciated by Arizonans as one of the 
bravest men ever known in this region of brave men.  He 
came in 1874 was Anaheim California, and was a native of 
the Golden State.  In 1876 he was elected constable of 
Phoenix and since that time had continued till his death 
to be a peace officer in some capacity.  For seven or eight 
years he was city Marshall.

A desperado named Oviedo, known as the Saber Slasher, was 
arrested.  As he and Garfias were personal enemies, the 
latter was unwilling to undertake the arrest but did his 
duty.  Oviedo had threatened to kill Garfias on sight.  
As the officer walked toward him, Oviedo snatched up a 
shotgun and fired pointblank.  Garfias was on of the quickest 
of men with a revolver and probably beat the record on this 
occasion, for when the load of buckshot whistled over his 
head he had put two deadly bullets into Oviedo's body.

When Garfias was city marshal, several Texas cowboys fresh 
from their native heath, mistook the character of Phoenix and 
started to shoot it up.  They were plainly not acquainted with 
the reputation of the marshal.  As the first joyful yell came 
to his ears and the sound of pistol shots opened the ball 
after the fashion of the Panhandle, Henry was on his horse.  
The four cowboys were gaily curvetting down Washington Street 
eastward, occasionally taking a shot at a promising looking 
door, sign or hanging lamp, when called upon by the lone 
Marshall to surrender.  They did not and opened fire.  The 
Marshall was unharmed despite a hail of lead and was 
fortunate to wing two of the cowpunchers , one of them 
fatally.  Then he rounded them up and put them in jail. 


One of the most notable peace officers in the Southwest was 
George Scarborough of Deming.  He had killed a number of men 
but always in discharge of his duty.  There was nothing of 
the bully about him.  It is probably that he was feared by 
the cattle rustlers as had been no other man.  In April 1900, 
Scarborough and Deputy sheriff Walter Birchfield of Cochise 
County started from San Simon to investigate a case of cattle 
rustling.  In the Chiricahuas Mountains they rode up to a 
couple of saddled horses, when they were fired upon from 
ambush.  The two officers, revolvers in hand, galloped into 
the rocks under a hailstorm of bullets.  Both officers were 
wounded, Scarborough so severely that he died two days 
later.  His companion dismounted and built up a rock 
fortification, behind which, when darkness fell, he left 
Scarborough and finding his own horse, dashed away for 
help.  Before daylight he was back from San Simon with a 
force of cowboys but the outlaws had left, headed for 
Mexico.  The outlaw band, which had five members, was met 
by two officers unexpectedly.  It had come from the 
mountains near Saint Johns, apache County, where on March 27, 
Frank Lesueur and Gus Gibbons, two young cowboys were 
ambushed and killed.  The next day the five bandits 
successfully resisted an attempt toward arrest by Sheriff 
Beeler and a number of stockmen.  Four of the murderers 
were known, namely, John Hunter, Ben Johnson, John Wilson 
and John Coley.


For about fifteen years the peace of Prescott was kept by 
Jim Dodson, an officer typical in all respects of the accepted 
melodrama type of the city Marshall.  Jim handled matters 
rather after his own ideas and petty misdemeanors interested 
him very little.  He was always looking for large game and 
the carrying of a huge revolver in a belt where his hand 
could reach it quickest was not for ornament, for upon a 
silver-mounted belt that had been presented him by the 
citizens of Prescott he had carefully cut eight nicks, 
the number standing for the men he had killed.  Possibly 
on account of Jim Dodson, Prescott never was a disorderly 
town, however much the cowboys and miners might flock in 
from the hills.  It was told that in the Civil War he had 
been a member of the Quantrell guerrilla band. In the 
course of time he retired from the office of Marshall and 
served as guard on the wall of the penitentiary at Yuma 
when his skill as a rifle proved valuable in at least one 
desperate attempt made by prisoners to escape.  The latter 
part of his life was spent in Phoenix, where he died 
May 10, 1907 at the age of 67. 


One of the historic shooting scrapes of Arizona was that 
between Pete Gabriel and Joe Phy on the main street of 
Florence, in June 1888.  Each was considered worthy of a 
high place among the gunman of the day.  Gabriel had been 
Sheriff and had done good work as a U.S. Deputy Marshall.  
Phy had had long service as an officer of the law and had 
been Deputy Sheriff under Gabriel.  Bad blood had been 
developed between the two when Phy made an unsuccessful 
attempt to succeed his chief in office.  For weeks it had 
been known that a meeting between the two would mean deadly 
work.  The meeting came accidentally in Keating's Saloon.  
There was a quick exchange of shots, each man claiming that 
the other had fired first and then the battle was continued 
outside.  Each man emptied his revolver and every shot told.  
Phy finally went down with a broken hip bone.  Gabriel weakly 
stood above, to receive fierce summons from his foe, "Damn 
you. I can't get up.  Get down here and we'll finish it up 
with knives."  Gabriel, shot through the kidneys answered, 
"I guess we both have plenty," and tried to cross the street, 
reeled and fell.  The only surgical attendance at hand was 
given Phy, who died in the night.  Gabriel lay for hours in 
the office of Steven's Corral till a surgeon could be brought 
from Sacaton.  He recovered and later moved his residence to 
Yuma.  Of the two, Gabriel was rather of higher type, yet was 
a hard drinker while Phy was an abstainer.  Phy had gone to 
Florence from Phoenix where while serving as a peace officer, 
he had been ambushed by Mexicans in an alleyway, just north 
of the present site of the Adams Hotel, repeatedly stabbed 
and left for dead, a few minutes later found with his head 
under water in a large ditch.  When he was able to travel, 
he left Phoenix, which he said was a bit too tough a town 
for him.



Possibly the wildest time ever known to Saint Johns was San 
Juan's Day, June 24, 1882, when Nat Greet and a band of Texas 
cowpunchers thought to provide themselves a little entertainment 
by shooting up the sleepy Mexican town.  On the border they had 
been accustomed to seeing Mexicans run whenever the fusillade 
started.  They were mistaken in the character of the population 
of Saint Johns, for the Mexicans there refused to be intimidated 
and returned the fire with interest, especially from an 
improvised fortress in the loft of Sol Barth's home.  The 
defence was under the charge of Perez Tomas, a Mexican 
Deputy Sheriff, who according to Charlie Banta, was as f
ine a man as ever lived.  Only one Mexican was wounded, 
Tafolla, whose son afterward was killed while serving in 
the Arizona Rangers.  Father Nathan C. Tenney, an elderly 
and beloved Mormon resident was accidentally killed while 
trying to act as peacemaker.  One of the attacking party 
named Vaughn was killed and Harris Greer was wounded.  The 
Texans were finally repulsed and rode away.  Later they were 
arrested and brought back to Saint Johns for trial.  For a 
time there was serious danger of lynching and the Mexican 
population even organized to storm the jail.  Summary 
action of this sort was avoided through the influence of 
Sheriff E.S. Stover and of Barth and the raiders in the 
end escaped with light punishment.


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