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Earliest Homesteaders Earliest American civilian settlement probably came in 1865 when six families from Tucson headed by Mark Aldrich, Jarvis Jackson, John Montgomery, H. Brown, John H. Archibald, and T. Berthold, P/247 The above located lands in the lower San Pedro valley. In February 1866 they commenced a ditch to carry water. In April 1866 they were ready to plant a crop of corn. Houses had been erected and a few troops came for their protection, and in a short time there were 100 men, women and children in the valley. Depredation began in 1867 made a settlement at Redington. Although this group was possibly the earliest, archival records have not been found to affirm that these settlers were there as a consequence of the Homestead Act of 1862 or the Preemption Act of 1841. Laguna Niguel, California Arizona State Land Archival Records Laguna Niguel, California.
Arizona State Land Records RG 49. have been extensively researched
and no record of this cattle and agricultural enterprise was located.
There was no Land Office in the Arizona The Arizona Land District was created in 1867 with a Land Office established at Prescott that same year. A second Land District, the Gila Land District with a Land Office at Florence, was created on June 2, 1873. Henry Cousins, Register, C.E. Dailey, Receiver. The first survey in the Arizona Territory took place in 1867, followed by a second survey in 1868. The Aldrich enterprise History of Arizona Volume 4 Thomas Parish 1915 P/247 on the San Pedro valley, was adversely affected and frustrated. Aldrich and partners were compelled to abandon. In 1866 they had marketed in Tucson 400,000 pounds of wheat, barley and corn. The following year, the Apaches swept down, killing, burning, and effectively destroyed the young and emerging settlement. A strong and unmistakable message to other would-be settlers had been served. |
