Wickenburg Massacre

33.963072°N 112.797253°W / 33.963072; -112.797253 (Wickenburg Massacre Historical Monument)

Wickenburg Massacre
Frederick Wadsworth Loring in a photograph taken two days before his death
LocationWickenburg, Arizona
DateNovember 5, 1871
Attack type
Killing
Deaths6
Injured2
VictimWhite European Settlers
Perpetratorunknown

The Wickenburg Massacre was the November 5, 1871, murder of six stagecoach passengers en route westbound from Wickenburg, Arizona Territory, headed for San Bernardino, California, on the La Paz road.

Massacre

Around mid-morning, about six miles from Wickenburg, the stagecoach was allegedly attacked by 15 Yavapai warriors, who were sometimes mistakenly called Apache-Mohaves, from the Date Creek Reservation.[1][2] Six men, including the driver, were shot and killed. Among them was Frederick Wadsworth Loring,[3] a young writer from Boston working as a correspondent for Appleton's Journal and assigned to cover a cartographic expedition led by Lieutenant George Wheeler.[4] One male passenger, William Kruger, and the only female passenger, Mollie Sheppard, managed to escape.[5] According to Kruger, Sheppard eventually died of the wounds she received.[6]

Memorial plaques have been installed near the site several times, including in 1937 by the Arizona Highway Department and in 1948 and 1988 by the Wickenburg Saddle Club.[7]

Wickenburg Massacre

The Wickenburg Massacre was featured on a April 12, 1996, episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

See also

References
  1. "The Indian Attack Upon an Arizona Stage – The Driver and Five Passengers Killed". The New York Times. November 20, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  2. "The Indians; Verdict of the Coroner's Jury in the Wickenburg Massacre". The New York Times. November 22, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  3. July 29, 1876 The Arizona Citizen, front page
  4. "The Late Frederick W. Loring". The New York Times. November 24, 1871. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  5. Own, Our (January 1, 1872). "The Wickenburg Massacre; First Authentic Account from an Eye-Witness". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  6. "What Really Happened to Mollie Sheppard?"; by: Jan MacKell Collins
  7. Collins, Jan MacKell (2015). Wild Women of Prescott, Arizona. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press. p. 92. ISBN 9781626198630.

Further reading
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