The First Settlers of Maricopa County
The year 1870 was a very important one to the
Phoenix Settlement. It marked the beginning of an era of prosperity to
the farmers in that section. The agricultural area under cultivation
throughout Yavapai County, was increasing all the time. The farming
acreage of the Salt River Valley was expanding more rapidly than in any
other locality. In this year the first harvesting machinery was brought
into the valley, Crete Bryan, of Wickenburg, bringing in a header, and
a well known rancher from Florence, W. J. Mulholland, driving over a
threshing machine, and these two worked over a portion of the valley
during that season. In the spring of the following year, the firm of
Murphy & Dennis, and William and John Osborn, brought in threshers,
while in 1873 Lum Gray and John P. Osborn, aided by Barnett & Block
brought two more machines into the valley. After this they became quite
common throughout the valley. Various kinds of fruit trees and vines
were planted during the season of 1870. These vines and trees were
brought overland from Southern California, and it required a good deal
of care to have the young plants reach their destination in good
condition, but, once set in the ground, the extreme fertility of the
soil insured their rapid growth. Early settlers, during the first years
of farming, having but little or no capital, had to rely upon their own
energy for their support, so little opportunity was given for
experimentation in products. The preparation of the ground, and the
sowing of seed and setting of cuttings or young trees, required the
expenditures of but little money. By the middle of 1870 there was
perhaps a hundred fruit trees of various kinds, including fig, quince,
plum, peach, English walnut, apricot and orange, set out in the valley
with no absolute knowledge at that time that they would become
productive. In 1868 grape cuttings were first set out by Jack Swilling
and the Starar Brothers, and did well from the start, and consequently,
were extensively planted by the early residents. Of the cereals, barley
was the favorite crop, and yielded heavily each season, while corn was
planted extensively during the first years. The latter crop, however,
was gradually supplanted by wheat, which always made a good crop. In
1870 only sixteen acres were planted to alfalfa in the Valley, being on
the farms of Barnum, Duppa, Gray, and Swilling, and but two and a half
acres of oats had been sowed, a couple of acres on the ranch of Darrell
Duppa, and a half acre on that of the Starar Brothers. Gordon A. Wilson
was the first to experiment with pecans, peanuts and tobacco, having,
in 1870, about fifteen trees of the former, about a quarter of an acre
of peanuts, and about a hundred plants of tobacco. J. G. Young was the
first to try the cultivation of orange trees in the Valley, and, in
1870, had three trees of that variety upon his farm. In the latter part
of 1872 Jack Swilling had quite a number of these trees on his ranch,
which did not do very well on account of the exposed character of the
land. Afterwards on better and more protected ground, they proved a
success. The acreage in the staple crops increased steadily year by
year, and from some two hundred and fifty acres cultivated in 1868, the
cultivated area expanded to something less than a thousand acres in
1869, and to approximately1700 acres in 1870. During the latter year
only twenty farmers had planted crops of various kinds, mostly barley
and corn, although the water supply at that time was sufficient to
irrigate a far greater amount of land than was then under tillage.
These pioneer tillers of the soil were, according to Barney, the
following: John T. Alsap and Wm. L. Osborn, with about 57 acres. John
Ammerman, with about 225 acres. Thomas Barnum, with about 103 acres.
Jacob Denslinger, with about 82 acres. Darrell Duppa, with about 175
acres. Columbus H. Gray, with about 72 acres. George James, with about
64 acres. John Larsen, with about 86 acres. John B. Montgomery, with
about 60 acres. Frank Metzler, with about 78 acres. James Murphy and
John T. Dennis, with about 98 acres. Benjamin F. Patterson, with about
61 acres. Lewis Rodgers, with about 100 acres. John W. Swilling, with
about 193 acres. Jacob and Andrew Starar, with about 243 acres. Gordon
A. Wilson, with about 78 acres. J. G. Young, with about 52 acres. In
the San Francisco Weekly Bulletin, of California, there appeared in
1870, a well written article by a prominent pioneer, entitled
"Wanderings over Arizona," from which the following, relating to the
early Salt River settlement, is taken:
(Contributed by Janice Rice)