Some of the history of the Scott Brothers was written about in Where Have All the Sheep Gone? Sheep Herders and Ranchers in Arizona – A Disappearing Industry new information on them have come to light.  There were four brothers, Raleigh, Robert, James and George, of which three definitely have connections to sheep.  Their uncle, Felix, was also a sheep man.  All the Scott’s were from Oregon.  Robert and James came after their uncle, Felix, and encouraged George to follow them to the Arizona territory.  Besides the name of the fourth brother, Raleigh, little is know of him.  More research may unearth new information on him and add to the Scott story.

More is known about George than the other brothers.  George had originally set up his camp in Forestdale, then moved to an area just south of Show Low.  A few years before he came, the Mormons had built a log cabin at Forestdale.  This was 1870.  George had the cabin taken apart, numbered each log, then the logs were moved to his new camp and put back together.  On this land the brothers built Scotts Reservoir to insure a water supply for their livestock.  It is known that James had his camp near Pinedale and Robert owned land where the Scotts Pine Meadow is located today.

George married the widow of the father of Sante Jaques, Anna Christina Jaques.  Jaques is well documented in the abovementioned book.  It was Scott who introduced young Jaques to sheep.  George had 16,000 sheep.  He would trail his sheep each winter to the Salt River Valley, but first he would burn his pasture land to rid it of the small trees beginning so they would not get a foothold on his pasture.  In the Salt River Valley, George had 320 acres which he kept in alfalfa which allowed his sheep to have winter feed.  In good years, he would sell his lambs to eastern markets prior to heading the ewes and rams back up the trail to summer grazing leases.

Before the Pleasant Valley War, the sheep trail was forged by the sheep herders and the sheep.  There was no exact trail.  Then a mile wide stretch of land was established for the herds.  The trail began in east Mesa, cross the Verde River at Blue Point and then up the Mogollon Rim to their summer grazing in the White Mountains.  If the land was dry because of dry winter conditions, the sheep would be taken by railcar to the White Mountains. George had grazing leases on the Apache Reservation.

Many locations are named after the Scotts and other sheep men in this part of Arizona- Scotts Reservoir and Scotts Pine Meadow, (Joseph) Sponseller Lake and Mountain, and Morgan Flat after William Morgan.

I have the humble privilege to announce Where Have All the Sheep Gone? Sheep Herders and Ranchers in Arizona – A Disappearing Industry won as a Award Winning Finalist in the History: United States category of the 2018 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. There were more than 2,000 entries and 400 of them, of which I was one, won in the Winner or Finalist category.  I am extremely grateful for this award especially as this is my first book.  Now, on to my next book telling the stories of more sheep families who made the industry.

A favorite saying of Joseph Pouquette was “Eat lamb-wear wool.”  It is more than a saying as it was a way of life for the Pouquettes.  Joseph was born January 6, 1888, to French parents in Ventura, California where his dad, Pierre, was in the sheep business in the 1880s. Shortly after his birth, the family returned to their home country of France.  When they did return to the United States, they took up the sheep business in the Ash Fork area.  Joseph married Marguerite Bordenave in 1915 and the couple moved to California for a year.  Within a year, he was back in Arizona where he purchased 3,000 sheep.  During 1918 and 1919 he served in the army during the first World War.

In 1920, he moved his family and sheep to the Williams area setting up his summer home and sheep camp.  He would trail his sheep between Williams and Wickenburg, his winter range.  The family would travel by train with “chickens, wood stove and everything” that would be needed for the summer months in the Williams area.  He had two sons who also went into the sheep business with him, Pierre and Albert.  His grandsons also ran sheep.

Three generations of Pouquettes were proud sheep men in Arizona.

There are other Pouquettes that will be written about in the next couple of weeks such as Albert Pouquette and his sons who were sheep men in the Williams area and Simon Pouquette, who was born in France in 1890, but was naturalized in 1910, is still being researched and his connection to the sheep industry.

 

Reading family histories in the Arizona Pioneer Ranch Histories gives us interesting pieces of information on the families trying to make a living in early Arizona, detailing the hardships of the land, diseases, attacks from native Americans, attacks from wildlife on the settlers and their livestock, living far from neighbors and a town and the associated lack of companionship, and relating weather conditions that destroyed what they had built in a single season. One example is the devastating snowstorm in the winter of 1937-1938. Tom Pollock had both cattle and sheep. The cattle were grazed in the Big Chino Valley and northward across what would be Interstate 40 on toward the Grand Canyon. He also had sheep at the Willaha Ranch just south of the Grand Canyon. While Pollock was able to save most of his cattle and move them further south, he lost 1,000 sheep in that storm. Of course, official records of drought or record rainfall can be found within the national weather service records but, when the information comes from those who lived through it, it has a different perspective, a more personal look, then just numbers given from some data base.

Another sidebar fact that will need verifying is this the same Mr. Pollock that owned the Arizona Central Bank in Flagstaff?

Picture from U.S. Forest Service —Picture from U.S. Forest Service – Kaibab National Forest FaceBook Throwback Thursday.  Photo by F. L. Kirby, June 1934.

At boarding houses frequented by Basque sheepherders in Arizona and other parts of the west, two of them had frontónes courts.  The Basque would play their hand game of pelote or pelota.  It is said to be across between handball and squash.  One can be still found at the Tourist Home in Flagstaff.  The Tourist Home today is a bistro today selling sandwiches, soups, and alcohol.  When the boarding house was turned into the bistro, the owners preserved the remains of the frontónes court or which can be found on the north side of the building.   There is evidence that a second frontónes was present in Flagstaff at the Martin Boarding House which was just a couple blocks west of the Tourist Homes.  It was just one of the activities that the Basque would partake of at the boarding houses.  Card games were also common; one was Mus.

John L. Mudersbach was born in Flagstaff in 1902 to John C. and Mary Azelia “Beesen” Mudersbach.   His family bought a ranch in Phoenix moving there in 1904.  The ranch had both sheep and cattle.  John, writing in the Arizona Pioneer Ranch Histories, Vol. III,  believed that these sheep may have been the first in the Salt River Valley.  His dad had Shropshires and Rambouillets.  These may have been the first Shropshires in Arizona!  His dad also had a ranch on the west side of the Phoenix area, near Glendale, where he had feed pens for fattening about 700 lambs.

Not much else is known about the dad except he is listed in Haskett’s early history of the “Sheep Industry in Arizona” as having sheep in Coconino County during the period 1891 to 1906.  Gus Mudersbach is also listed as having sheep from the 1880s to 1906.  What relationship existed between the two men is unknown. Neither name shows up in the Arizona Wool Growers Association roll.  This organization began in 1886, but not all sheep owners belonged to the Association.

The Shropshire sheep was introduced into the US in 1855.  From the 1880s to the 1930s it was the most popular and influential breed.  At one time, there were more Shropshire sheep in the US than any other breed.  Today, across the country, families raise these sheep for youth projects such as 4-H or FFA.

A Shropshires sheep.

a Rambouillets

Cecil H. Miller, E.M. Thomas and his son, J.H. Thomas

In continuing my reading of the Arizona National Livestock Show Ranch Histories Volume I little tidbits of information come to life on who had sheep in the early part of the 1900s. In 1926 Cecil married into a family, the Miller’s, who along with the Babbitts had formed the Glendale Stock Farm, a diversified farm operation with both sheep and cattle. This remained a sheep and cattle operation until 1936.  Whatever happened to the sheep of the Glendale Stock Farm will need further research.

E. M. Thomas came to Taylor, Arizona in 1881 with his wife and two sons. In 1890 he moved to a ranch that was northwest of Pinedale and began to raise sheep. He sold all the sheep in 1901 and went into the cattle business. His son, J.H. Thomas, remembers a time in 1907 when sheep were near where he was working cattle as the cattlemen did not carry canteens and only got water in the morning before leaving for the range, when they returned at lunch and dinner. The Mexican sheep herder had a canteen and he asked to drink some of his water which the Mexican shared. Later, J.H. married and moved to his own ranch west of Pinedale. He did odd jobs of which one was dipping sheep for $2.00 a day.

A story about sheep in Graham County in 1889 comes from newspaper articles in the Saint Johns Herald.  The story was called the Bonita Tragedy because of the senseless killing of sheep herders by cowboys of the Chiricahua Cattle Company.  There is uncertainty as to the owner of the sheep as three different articles state two different owners – Sol Luna or Don Pedro Montana.  This is just another example of the dislike that the cowboys had for sheep and those who worked the sheep for a living.

In the story of Lester Fuller, I mentioned, in 1937 sheep were shipped from Bellemont, near Flagstaff to Santa Barbara, loaded on ships and unloaded on the islands off the coast. These may be part of what became a feral population that were discussed in the article, “From Thriving to Striving,” by Jeannette Beranger in Out Here Magazine, Spring 2018 issue, a quarterly publication by Tractor Supply Company. The article states that the island of Santa Cruz was a “haven for sheep ranchers in the 19th and 20th centuries because no large carnivores prowled the island”. (page 50) The sheep developed characteristics which allowed them to be self-sufficient. The high lanolin content in their wool may have helped them to live in the moist conditions of high rains and fog. Their wool developed a “fine crimpy texture that more effectively insulated the animals against the heat and cold than other domestic sheep”. The article further states that they developed the ability to shed their wool, shearing was eliminated.

This picture is taken from the website http://albc-usa.org/cpl/santacruz.html

In 1978, the Nature Conservancy acquired the rights to the island and set out to protect the native plant and animal species ecosystem. Santa Cruz Island along with four other islands in the chain known as the Channel Islands became the Channel Islands National Park in 1980. With no predators on the islands, the feral sheep population grew. A survey completed in 1989 estimated that over 21,000 sheep lived on the island, but their days of living here were numbered. The eradication of the feral sheep began. But, someone was thinking at the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and was able to save a small number of the Santa Cruz Island sheep. They convinced the Nature Conservancy that the sheep should be recognized as “a unique genetic resource for the species” (albc-usa.org/cpl/santacruz.html) . In 1988 the first of twelve lambs were rescued and placed with five breeders in California. More of the species were brought off the island in 1991. The article ended stating that the population of Santa Cruz Island sheep has grown to 200. What a shame that only so many of the animals were senseless killed because of a lack of understanding about the species. A family in Lewisberry, PA has taken some of the sheep on their farm to help insure their survival. It will be interesting to follow what happens with the Santa Cruz Island sheep.

 

 

As the story continues for Lester Fuller, more sheep were present as can be surmised from the statement about Will Anderson who died from a heart attack in one of the corrals on the Valle Ranch in 1938 while working sheep. During 1938 and probably into 1939, many of the holdings of the Arizona Livestock Company were sold to cattlemen. This included range lands and ranches. By the spring of 1942, 12,000 ewes were at the new headquarters at Red Hill and Blank Tanks. (Red Hill is a ranch south of the Williams area). The sheep could still be seen on the range there in 1943-44.

WWII brought other challenges to ranchers. Trying to get herders who understand the nature of working with sheep were few and far between as sons who knew the ins and out of the sheep business were drafted.  Sometime in 1944, or maybe the end of 1943, Oscar Rudnick bought lambs from the outfit and then he both the whole sheep outfit. Rudnick also bought other holdings of the Arizona Livestock Company including the VVV Ranch. Lester, now working for Rudnick, said in the Arizona Pioneer Ranch Histories that he was given a checkbook, and no one bothered him until lambing season, October 1945. Over the next couple of years, cattle were purchased from many sources to stock the range, but sheep were still a part of the operation as Lester stated that during the summer of 1947, they had 20,000 cattle and 16,000 sheep. All sheep were finally sold in the spring of 1948 and shipped to Lancaster, California where Rudnick had Basque run the flock. From 1950 to 1966 Lester headed the Sheep Sanitary Commission enjoying traveling the state and seeing the sheep men he used to work with. While there were other interesting tidbits about Lester, they did not include sheep and thus, ends the story of another sheep man in Arizona.