Al Sieber, Famous Scout Item Type text; Article Authors Williamson, Dan R. Publisher Arizona State Historian (Phoenix, AZ) Journal Arizona Historical Review Rights This content is in the public domain. Download date 29/09/2021 08:22:29 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/623491 60 ARIZONA HISTORICAL REVIEW AL SIEBER, FAMOUS SCOUT OF THE SOUTHWEST (By DAN R. WILLIAMSON) Albert Sieber was born in the Grand Dutchy of Baden, Ger- many, February 29, '1844, and died near Roosevelt, Arizona, February 19, 1907. Came to America with his parents as a small boy, settling for a time in Pennsylvania, then moved to Minnesota. Early in 1862 Sieber enlisted in Company B, First Minne- sota Volunteer Infantry, serving through the strenuous Penin- sula campaign of the Army of the Potomac as a corporal and a sharp-shooter. On July 2, 1863, on Gettysburg Battlefield, he was dangerously wounded in the head by a piece of shell, and while lying helpless and unattended on the field of battle a bul- let entered his right ankle and followed up the leg, coming out at the knee. He lay in the hospital until December, 1863, when he was transferred to the First Regiment of Veteran Reserves as a corporal, under Captain Morrison, and his regiment was ac- credited to the State of Massachusetts. When Sieber fell wound- ed on the field of Gettysburg, General Hancock, who was near him, was wounded at the same time. For Sieber 's service with this regiment the State of Massachusetts paid him the sum of $300 bounty. He was in active service until July 15, 1865, the close of the war, when he was mustered out and returned to Minneapolis, and in 1866, being of an adventurous turn of mind, he started for the west. In 1867-8 we hear of him at Vir- ginia City, the great Nevada silver camp where while working on a road grade a highwayman came along and robbed him of fifty cents, all he had. For this he guyed the bandit unmerci- fully, so enraging him that he nearly murdered Sieber. Sieber next went to White Pine, Nevada, on a great silver rush, but not finding anything to his liking he went to California, where it is understood he joined some parties in driving a bunch of horses to Arizona. We next hear of him as foreman for C. C. Bean of Prescott, on his Williamson Valley and Verde Valley ranches. His stewardship of these ranches developed all of Sie- ber 's resourcefulness, for he was called upon to defend the prop- erty and livestock thereon against both renegade whites and hostile Indians. In 1871 we find him a member of the celebrated Miner Expedition, organized by a man named Miner who claim- ed to have seen seventeen ounces of gold panned from one shovel loh Courtesy Col. J. H. McClintock John P. Glum, Agent at San Carlos, and Apache escort, 1874. At left, Chas. T. Connell. At right, Al Sieber. Below, Alchisay, White Mountain Chief, and Warriors. AL SIEBER, FAMOUS SCOUT 61 full of dirt. Miner failed to find the place and his story was believed to be false. Leaving Prescott this party numbered thirty and their numbers were increased at Phoenix, Tucson and Flor- ence until there were 267 men. This party crossed the San Pedro River, thence to the mouth of the San Carlos River and up to its head, then over to the upper Salt River where they prospected for a few days. From there they went to Tonto Basin, Cherry Creek and into the Sierra Ancha Mountains, where they found neither gold or silver. They returned down Cherry Creek to Salt River and across to Wheatfields, just below Globe, where they separated, Governor Safford, who had captained the party, returned to Tucson with his crowd, while the Prescott bunch, under the leadership of Ed Peck, returned to that town with Sieber. Dave and Robert Anderson, twin brothers, who two years later made the first location in the Globe mining district, were members of this party, the claims they located were called the Globe and the Globe Ledge, and are now important components of the Old Dominion group, and allow me to remark right here that the Old Dominion Mine, which has been operating in a large way for nearly fifty years, has more copper ore in sight today than at any time in its history. Sieber first entered United States employ in July, 1871, scouting under General Stoneman, and in November, 1872, was employed as a scout at Camp Hualpai. Under date of September 24, 1872, Captain Mason, Fifth Cavalry, reports the jumping of four hostile Apache-Navajo camps, in which raid forty warriors were killed and many more wounded, also, eight women and ten children were captured. Hualapai scouts were used in this raid and they rendered splendid service. Mason in his report says : "Guide Seiber did excellent service." In 1873 Sieber was sent to Fort Verde in active charge of a large body of Apache scouts. In the winter of 1873, seemingly all of the Indians of Arizona were on the war-path and Sieber was everywhere, fighting con- stantly. He would often be in the field for weeks, the only white man, with from thirty to one hundred scouts, and in those days they neither asked nor gave quarter. Arizona in those days was a veritible paradise according to Sieber. Along the river bottoms the grasses were so tall that a man riding through them on horseback would be concealed. Also, in the fastness of the White Mountains he has seen flocks or bands of wild turkeys that he estimated contained ten thousand birds. He had killed gobblers weighing up to forty pounds from which only the breasts were taken and made into "jerky." 62 ARIZONA HISTORICAL REVIEW In a day's march across the country he told that his scouts had killed as many as eighty deer. In those days and up to 1887, all scouting by Indians was done on foot. Sieber was a keen observer and soon became a good judge of Indian charac- ter. He quickly gained their confidence and respect by treat- ing them absolutely fair and giving them exact justice, never deceiving them in any way. He would fight and whip them to- day and enlist them as scouts tomorrow and when so enlisted by him they proved faithful in almost every instance. In all of Sieber's scouting he kept one eye open for promising mineral outcrops. Quoting Sharlot Hall in "Out West" for July, 1906, re the discovery of the Great United Verde Copper : "Once, when the Tontos came as usual to the place of the 'Bitter Water,' a white man came with them, Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts, under General Crook. Far below the present mine the little stream passed over a ledge of lime rock and had built up through uncounted ages a rich deposit of copper ; to this Sieber came again with George B. Kell and made a location, calling it the Copper-Queen, and here long after a quantity of rich ore was taken out. "Sieber and Kell and George Hull were probably the first prospectors to follow the little thread of colored water to the cliff rimmed peak." Sieber told me personally that he had located the first min- eral claim in the United Verde District. In 1878, while follow- ing and fighting the Del Shay bunch of Tontos in the Sierra Ancha Mountains, Sieber discovered a promising lead which, with several other government employees, he located, and he re- tained his interest in this property until his death twenty-nine years later. I became interested in this property with Sieber in 1888, and many of the happiest days of my life were spent in Del Shay with Sieber, while doing the assessment work on this property. Deer were usually plentiful there and we kept about three hanging in a tree for our meat supply. The little basin was well watered and timbered and being five thousand feet high was usually cool and delightful. One day while trailing a wounded deer I followed him, onto a rocky hilltop where I found many rock breastworks, and asking Sieber about them he explained that the Del Shay band of Apaches who lived there practically never surrendered, but fought day by day until they were pretty much exterminated ; he explained that there were many breast- works like that all over that district, and when the Indians were • 7 :7n cn d o cr, 0.:45 .,•4 P 5`4 o 0E-n o ,)-D•• Fx0c,' • 0. • "Ci • frFt er! • .,7; ?If) cq•D 0 cd t"-C1 cit • ca-9 a) E, *Ui a> z ▪ "c• C, Z c9 .E.E -cs Z cn 0.1, qc 7P: 48 • cd-;.".4 1—; g g • 1-1 gg tz,c' c. —5 g34) o bnoC) c9a. 0. E ZZc rz48 AL SIEBER, FAMOUS SCOUT 63 driven from one lot they would retreat to another and continue to fight. Sieber said he had one scout in those days, John Daisy, who was able to trail by night, and when it was f elt or suspicioned that they were nearing a hostile camp, one or two scouts would hold a woolen blanket in front of and partially around John Daisy while he lighted matches and continued trailing until the trail indicated they were close to the Indians, then they would lie down quietly until the first streak of dawn when they would jump the hostile camp again and continue this until all were killed or captured.