Yavapai County AZ Archives Biographies.....Wood, John 1844 - living in 1896
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 7, 2005, 7:46 pm

Author: McFarland & Poole

p. 577-579

  JOHN WOOD. The career of him whose name heads this sketch smacks strongly of
the romantic, and were it not vouched for by reliable parties would read almost
like a fairy tale. In his case, particularly, it may be said that "truth is
stranger than fiction," and his career in the West has been a most interesting
and varied one. He was born in Georgia, July 31, 1844, a son of John and
Catherine (Wilson) Wood, natives respectively of North Carolina and Tennessee.
The family emigrated from Georgia to Dade County, Missouri, about 1846, and
there remained until 1859, when they moved to Southwest Kansas, and finally to
the Lone Star State. The subject of this sketch acquired a thorough knowledge of
farming, but received limited educational advantages, in fact, mainly what he
could obtain by practical experience and observation, a hard, if thorough,
school. At the age of fifteen years his adventurous spirit asserted itself and
he defied parental authority by running away from home, leaving without a
dollar, and on foot. He made his way to Barton County, Missouri, and there fell
in with a man by the name of Wash. Farmer, who was making up a train to cross
the plains into California, and hired himself out to him at $10 per month as a
roustabout boy for the family, being assistant cook, etc. Their first permanent
stop was made at Honey Lake Valley, the journey thither having occupied four
months and seven days, but en route, at Gravelly Ford, on the Humboldt River,
their stock was stampeded by the Indians, and nothing remained but to give them
chase and recapture the stolen animals. In this they were successful, and after
hanging two of the Indians they returned to Honey Lake Valley, and here Mr. Wood
was left in charge of the stock for that winter (1859.) During that winter he
was troubled considerably by the depredations of the Indians, and with others
was gradually driven back to the settlement. In the spring of 1860 Mr. Wood,
with others, made a new camp about thirty miles away, which was named Fort Sage
by Mr. Wood, and still bears that name. At this time a comrade of Mr. Wood was
captured, beaten, set fire to by the Indians and left for dead, but was found by
his friends, and after long nursing, finally recovered. They then left this
camp, owing to the outbreak of the Piute Indians, who massacred every white they
could lay hands on, only six or eight escaping with their lives, and Mr. Wood
made his way up the Honey Lake Valley and stopped with his herd of cattle at the
mouth of the McCalmy River. He met the owner of the stock at Big Meadows, on the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, and with him went on into California and put the cattle
on a ranch at Tooley, where Mr. Wood was left to herd them. He remained a few
weeks, then went back to the Sierra Nevada Mountains to near Volcano, where he
was engaged in driving a logging team for a saw mill until the spring of 1861.
In June of that year he went to Washoe, Nevada, during the gold excitement
there, and began freighting, continuing a few months. In the winter of 1861-2 he
was sick for a long time with the small-pox, and upon his recovery found himself
in very bad shape financially. In the fall of 1862 he began hauling wood and
later turned his attention to farming and ranching on the Carson, below Fort
Churchill, where he remained until the spring of 1865, when he went to Bannock
City, Idaho, and spent the summer and fall of that year in mining. He then
removed to Virginia City, Montana, and for some time followed mining on Alder
Creek, and the following winter hunted buffalo and other wild game on the
Yellowstone River. The following spring he went to Elk Creek during the gold
excitement there, and the summer of 1866 was spent in mining. Upon his return to
Helena, Montana, he prospected, hunted and trapped during that winter and the
next year went to Leesburg, Idaho, and engaged in fishing in a lake there, and
during that summer made more money than he had done in a long time. However, he
did not long remain there, for he got into trouble with the Indians and had to
leave or get scalped, and he wisely decided that "discretion was the better part
of valor." He returned to Helena and the winter of 1867 was spent in
mountaineering. In 1868 he engaged in ditching, and the summer of 1869 he spent
in mining thirty miles from Helena. In the fall of that year he started for
Arizona with a wagon accompanied by two other men, but when they reached the
Moham River his companions left him and went on into California, and soon after
he met two other wagons and came on to Fort Moham. From this place he walked to
Prescott, traveling at night and hiding during the day in the brush to keep out
of the way of the wily redskin, and soon after his arrival here secured
employment with a man by the name of Dan Hazzard, and became wagon boss of his
train, in which capacity he continued for two and a half years, freighting from
Prescott to California and Colorado. In the spring of 1870 his train moved the
United States troops from Fort Whipple to Wingate, New Mexico, and on his
journey back from this trip he had an encounter with the Indians at Rattlesnake
Tanks. In this encounter two of his mules were killed and one Indian. Later Mr.
Wood made one trip with his train for government freight on the Gila River, and
the morning after they had made camp at Alfreo, Washington, they overtook a
freight train loaded with corn, but found the wagons badly damaged, much of the
corn wasted and poured out of the sacks and three dead men on the wagons—the
work of Indians. At Florence, while they were unloading and loading, they put
their mules out to herd, when it was rumored that they had been stolen by the
Indians, but later found that none of their animals were missing, but that the
Indians had stolen the teams from another train, killed all the members of the
outfit, and had just passed them with their booty. Notwithstanding these
menacing demonstrations Mr. Wood and his train reached Prescott safely, and soon
after took a train into California, but on this trip encountered a heavy sand
storm which lasted four days, and which came near resulting fatally for all the
men and stock. The journey was at length accomplished, with a loss of some
stock, and they were much fortified and sustained by meeting a supply wagon
which furnished them with supplies. On the journey back to Prescott Mr. Wood was
taken *ill and the train was placed in charge of another man, and he mounted a
mule and rode back to California. Later he made a trip east to his old home in
Missouri, where he remained one winter, after which he went to his old home in
Kansas, but could find no trace of his family, and to this day has never heard
of them. While in Kansas he gave such glowing descriptions of Arizona that an
emigration party of twelve families was made up and the train consisted of
fifteen wagons and was under the captaincy of Mr. Wood, who found the position a
resposible and trying one, but he got the train through without mishap and the
company located in the Verde Valley, where they at once proceeded to erect
cabins, make ditches and canals, and improve their land, the result being that
the settlement prospered. Here Mr. Wood also erected him a cabin and has ever
since lived. Since that time he has been engaged in ranching and the stock
business, and he it was that practically built a canal about thirteen miles
long, which furnishes the valley with an abundance of water. He is the owner of
three hundred and twenty acres of land, about two hundred of which are under
cultivation, and gives considerable attention to the raising of race horses, and
owns what is supposed to be the fastest horse in the Territory. Mr. Wood is one
of the pioneers of the valley, and to see him in his quiet home and following
his present peaceful pursuits one would hardly realize that he has been an
Indian fighter and a miner of the wild and lawless days of the West. In 1894 he
was elected a member of the board of supervisors, he and one other man being the
only ones elected on the Democratic ticket. He has been a school trustee, also,
in the valley, and is a public spirited, useful and law abiding citizen. He was
married in 1881 to Miss Frances M. Rutledge, who died in 1887.


Additional Comments:
From:

A Historical and Biographical Record of the Territory of Arizona
Published by
McFarland & Poole, Chicago, 1896



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