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Preface and Acknowledgments
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Preface I was intrigued by frontier woman Larcena Pennington at first glimpse - a brief mention of her in Bernice Cosulich's 1951 book, Tucson. It started me on a twelve-year search for facts about her. The Penningtons, emigrants from Texas, proved to be the venturesome, hard-working, persistent kind of people who dared to push America's frontiers westward. No one had yet compiled all the scattered, colorful fragments oftheir story. It was a pioneer saga that richly deserved telling. Early in 1854, the United States added the Gadsden Purchase to New Mexico Territory. It was not until the fall of 1856 and the spring of 1857, however, that there was any Anglo-American settlement between the Rio Grande and the Colorado River. A few American men had infiltrated Tucson, formerly a Mexican village, but that was still largely Mexican in population and character . In those nine months, four troops of United States cavalry, a few enterprising members of the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, and perhaps sixty to a hundred other Anglo-American immigrants, including the Penningtons, established themselves well south ofTucson. Most ofthese settlers were single men. They clustered loosely within thirty miles of Mexico, along the Santa Cruz River and Sonoita Creek. In this wilderness, an occasional crumbling ruin testified silently to earlier habitation by Spanish colonists routed long before by marauding Apache Indians. The Xl With Their Own Blood old Spanish road from Sonora to Tucson was a long, thin, ragged scar across this land. Larcena's residence began six years before the separation of Arizona Territory from New Mexico and spanned more than the Territory'S forty-nine years. She seemed the thread with which I could weave actual persons and events into a narrative documenting the harsh realities of that perilous frontier. She exemplified the inspiring power of the human spirit to endure and overcome adversity. Those are the aims of this book. It does not attempt to argue right or wrong in conflicts between Anglo-American pioneers- a small but vigorous minority- and natives of the region they settled, although those conflicts shaped the Penningtons ' experiences. The point of view, however, is admittedly that of the settlers. The Penningtons' names appear in an 1858 petition to Congress , in early newspapers, in military reports from the first United States army officers stationed in the Gadsden Puchase, in land and probate records of the Arizona Territory, and in census returns. These credible sources confirm that almost at once Larcena, her family, and their neighbors encountered grinding hardships and a series of turbulent, dismaying events that time and again forestalled their prosperity. In 1919 the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society published a booklet, The Penningtons, Pioneers ofEarly Arizona, by Robert H. Forbes, Larcena's son-in-law, a distinguished scientist and university professor. He based it on his personal trips to Pennington homes, interviews with Larcena, members ofher family , and other old-timers. It is a reliable, though limited, resource. Forbes' Pennington files, preserved by the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, contain valuable primary materials. The books of Constance Wynn Altshuler, specifically Latest JromArizona! The Hesperian Letters, 1859-1861 (1969), Chains of Command: Arizona and the Army, 1856-1875 (1981), and Starting with Defiance: Nineteenth Century Arizona Military Posts (1983), describe many events that impinged on the Penningtons. They were extremely helpful sources. xu [3.91.11.30] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:28 GMT) Preface At least eleven frontiersmen-such well-known Arizona characters as William Kirkland, Charles Genung, James Tevis, and John Spring-saw fit to mention Larcena Pennington in their memoirs. Even William Alexander Bell, a British geographer exploring the southwestern United States, described an encounter with her, in New Tracks in North America (1869). Persistence and remarkable luck led me to Pennington descendants , now widely separated, who generously shared old family records and photographs and undenook research on my behalf. They provided significant data for this book. I give heanfelt thanks to Marshall Lee Pennington of Lubbock, Texas, Eunice Rader ofGeorgetown, Texas, and her sister, Ruth Lesesne (now deceased), all grandchildren of Larcena's brother John Parker (Jack) Pennington; to Marjorie Handy Han of Piedmont , California, Larcena's great-granddaughter; and to Mrs. Han's daughter Margo Han Anderson of Piedmont. I thank Nelle Drummond of Midland, Texas, great-granddaughter-in-Iaw of Mary Frances Pennington Randolph, and Shirley Nichols Brueggeman of Loma, Colorado, great-granddaughter of Caroline Pennington'S second husband, Abner Nichols. Chiefamong persons who assisted me was...