Cherry Creek Ranch - Young, Arizona USA

The Pleasant Valley war most likely began as vendetta between two families that escalated to the point where neighbors, and at least according to some, government authorities were forced to choose sides. To others it was a clash between cattlemen and sheep men. Some contend the feud was over cattle rustling and involved vigilantism. Others describe it as giant east-coast Corporate interests (the Aztec Land And Cattle Company, more commonly known as "Hashknife" outfit) importing gunfighters to drive out competing small western ranchers. Zane Gray, in his book, "To the Last Man", portrayed the feud as being over a woman, and Earle Forest in his "Arizona's Dark and Bloody Ground" reports that a number of "old timers" subscribed to the theory that a woman was at the bottom of the blood feud (Forrest, 43). Perhaps there is an element of truth in all of the various theories. Clearly, there were accusations of rustling, bloody gunfights, lynchings, and multiple courtroom dramas.

Today the legend of the feud has sparked several books, hundreds of questions and mountains of speculation. The legend begins back in the day when cow boys ruled the wilderness and the law was dispensed with the crack of a whip and the barrel of a gun.

By all accounts what is now the Tilting H Ranch, then owned by James D. Tewksbury, the patriarch of the Tewksbury clan, was the site of one of the most infamous ambushes of the Pleasant Valley war. The Graham partisans (reportedly Tom Graham, Andy Cooper Blevins, and others) ambushed and killed John Tewksbury and William Jacobs, then, from the top of Ambush Hill, pinned down the remaining Tewksburys in the cabin for a number of days.

Please enjoy this creative narrative taken from the view points of Tom Graham and John Tewksbury that we have put together from a collection of stories surrounding the infamous cabin ambush. The sun was high, the plain grass dry as the scene on Ambush Hill unfolded…

Laying flat on his belly, Tom Graham peered over the brittle plain grass atop the knoll on Ambush Hill. Grunting, he shifted and dislodged one of the many small rocks scattered across the rolling hills that had managed to worm its way under his raw hide leather jacket. A wind whipping carelessly across the valley carried with it the first tinge of autumn chill, brisk in the low morning light.

“Are you sure about this?” Tom whispered to the man at his side.
“Are you not?” the man replied with the touch of a frown creasing his leathery face. “These sheep-lovers have caused us enough problems already, Tom. And I mean to see it end today.”

Andy “Cooper” Blevins was as tough of a man as there was by all accounts, known for his quick tempers and even quicker decisions to act on them. His baby face belied his reputation as a gunfighter. Normally fastidiously clean, he wore dusty, rumpled clothes. The last few days creeping through the Arizona brush afforded him little time to shave and no change of clothes.

It was the butt of a rifle rested between the crook of his arm, its point directed towards the creek bed beyond cabin at the base of the sloping hill, that had Tom’s attention though. The twin to his own held closely against the ground.
He looked up to make sure his brother John was in position. John was with the group at the top of the hill overlooking the Tewksbury cabin. Their job was to pin down the Tewksburys in the cabin, and make sure that they stay put. He waved at John, who acknowledged with a wave of his own.

Tom studied Andy for a moment more before returning his gaze to peer across the length of his own rifle.

Tewksbury Barn

Andy had it hot for those two, John Tewksbury and William Jacobs. He and his Hashknife cowboy friends had burned Jacobs cabin earlier that summer. Andy said it was because of Jacobs’ connection to the Mormon sheep men. Of course, the $50 that the Hashknife outfit gave him for “encouraging” Jacobs stop his competing use of the range, might have played into it. Now, the Tewksburys had killed Andy's brother, Hamp and his friend John Payne in a gunfight at the old Middleton Ranch.

To be honest, Tom relished the idea of putting Tewksbury and Jacobs under a mound of dirt himself. While the official word was that Sheriff Houck had shot his little brother Billy, but he was sure that the Tewksbury boys had a hand in it somehow.

The Tewksburys and their bunch had been hiding out somewhere in the forest since the gunfight at Middleton's ranch. They obviously had gotten word that Sheriff Mulvenon was in town with a posse. Tom and his brother John figured, correctly, that it was just a matter of time before the Tewksburys checked in with the ranch. One of Graham's bunch had spotted Tewksbury and Jacobs in a camp just off of Cherry Creek last night. Now, the men had broken camp and were moving slowly up Cherry Creek towards old man Tewksbury’s cabin.

“They're coming, Tom. They’ll be along this way any time now” muttered Andy. “Wait ‘till they both make it out past Crouch Creek we’ll take ‘em before they even know what hit ‘em.”

Tom surveyed Andy’s stern countenance that Andy . His face was contorted into a feral snarl. Once again, Tom was glad that Andy was on his side. The man had a gleam in his eye that sent a shiver down his spine.

The resonant sound of horses hooves on rock alerted Tom to their targets approach. He gave a quick signal to his brother on the hilltop, and readied his rifle.
***
Pleasant Valley War Victims

John Tewksbury was not a tall man, but carried himself with all the confidence and propriety of a man twice his size as he led his horse along the dry creek bed. Square jawed, sun bronzed and normally clean-shaven, he quickly took in the brisk morning atmosphere.

“Let’s be on with this John,” mumbled the voice from behind him. "Let's check in with the womenfolk, and head on out to Rock Springs before Mulvenon shows up …"

"I'm not worried about Mulvenon. Ed was talking about surrendering to him anyway, once things calm down, and we can be sure the Grahams won't shoot us down when we turn over our guns. I'm more concerned about an ambush... the Grahams just jumping out from behind a rock and shooting." Little did he know that his words were prophetic.

The barn and corral came into view as the pair passed the gully known as Crouch Creek. A frown creeped onto John’s face as a premonition made the hairs upon his neck shoot out, trying to crawl their way up his scalp.

“Something’s not…” he heard Bill say before he felt a smashing impact, then heard twin sounds of thunder piercing the silence of the morning, crashing against the valley rim.

The sky is so blue today, thought John, curiously wondering why he suddenly found himself on his back. Is it raining, why is my coat wet? Lifting a hand to his jacket, he pulled away a calloused hand coated in red.
Blood? My blood.

A trickle of noise floated into his ears, muffled as if giant cotton swaps were stuffed in them. He heard the sound of rocks shifting underfoot, and the shadow of a man passed over him. He saw Tom Graham poised over him, readying to crush his skull with a small boulder.

He heard the sharp squeals of his father's half wild hogs, disturbed from their foraging along the creek by the gunfire, and the sound of a woman screaming. The boulder came rushing towards his head. The last thought that ran across his mind before falling into blackness was what would become of his wife Mary Ann, and their unborn child?

John Tewksbury & Bill Jacobs died that day in what would set off a firestorm across Pleasant Valley. The Graham partisans, kept the Tewksbury family pinned down in their cabin with a steady barrage of fire for a number of days. During that time the essentially feral hogs that had the run of the Tewksbury Ranch came across the bodies of Tewksbury and Jacobs and partially devoured them. the Grahams gunfire prevented the Tewksbury women from attending to their dead.

The rocky ground along Cherry Creek made it essentially impossible to dig a grave. The best that Mary Ann Tewksbury could do was to cover the bodies with blankets weighted down with rocks. Later, after the siege was finally lifted, what was left of the bodies of John Tewksbury and William Jacobs were carried a few hundred yards on the far side of Cherry Creek and buried in a common grave.

Days later, while in Holbrook Andy Cooper bragged openly about shooting both Tewksbury and Jacobs. What would follow is one of the most notorious shootings in Arizona.

Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens of Apache Junction was in Holbrook when he heard word of Cooper’s tale. Owens, who already had an arrest warrant out for Cooper, went to the Blevins family home. When Owens reached the Blevins home, armed with both pistol and rifle, Cooper refused to let him enter, opening the door only a crack for him to look out. Cooper moved to raise his six shooter and Owens shot through the crack with his rifle and killed him. By the time of the shooting stopped, Sheriff Owens had killed not only Andy Cooper, but also Cooper’s 15-year-old brother Sam Blevins and Mose Roberts and seriously wounded Cooper's brother John Blevins. This was perhaps the most noted gunfight in all Arizona's frontier history.

Within a few weeks of the gunfight in Holbrook, John Graham and Charlie Blevins were gunned down by the Mulvenon posse when resisting arrest at Perkins store in Pleasant Valley (now Young).

A few years later, Tom Graham was gunned down in Tempe, reportedly by Ed Tewksbury and John Rhodes (both of whom were ultimately acquitted of murder charges).

When the dust settled after five years of heated conflict, anywhere from 17 to 28 people were killed, depending upon the account that you read. None of the Graham and only one of the Blevins fighters involved in the feud survived. The story of the Pleasant Valley War lives on in history as one of the deadliest feuds in all of the West.