Ohio County, West Virginia         Biography of James Henry TEVIS

This biography was submitted by Elizabeth Burns,
E-mail address:  <burns@asu.edu>

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JAMES HENRY TEVIS, born at Wheeling, West Virginia, July 11, 1836, was a
son of John D. and Elizabeth (McNamee) Tevis.  He married Emma Boston at
St. Louis Missouri on December 24, 1866.  Children:  Albert Lyle,
Granville Cury, Louis Daily, Josephine (Mrs. James Boyers) Belle Walker
(Mrs. Gustavus A. Thurman), Mary Maverick (Mrs. James Wood Walker)
Minnie Ella (Mrs. Tom Davenport) and Lettie Ann (Mrs. William W.
Edwards).

Mr. Tevis moved to the Arizona Territory with the Overland Mail Company
in 1857 and helped to construct and was placed in charge of the stage
station at Apache Pass.  In 1899 he wrote:  "When I made my advent into
Arizona there were only 24 white residents in the whole territory."

Mr. Tevis went to Pinos Altos New Mexico immediately after the discovery
of gold there in May 1860 and built the first house in the area.  He
served in the Arizona Guards under Capt. Thomas J. Mastin and
participated in may engagements with the Indians, including the battle
with the Apaches on the Membres River when Mastin was killed on October
8, 1861.  In a letter to C.M. Zulick, then governor of Arizona on
January 8, 1886 he wrote:  "Now Governor, I am no tenderfoot--I resided
at Apache Gap (now Fort Bowie) years before the Civil War when Cochise
made it his headquarters.  The warriors then numbered 1500 under Chief
Cochise, Old Jack and Gonelia.  I had a trading post there at the time
and with the exception of a few people at the Santa Rita Del Cobre on
the headwaters of the Rio Mimbres, therer were no settlements between
the Rio Grande and Tucson."

"I afterwards commanded the Rangers against the Apaches, the first
Rangers ever organized in the Territory.  I disbanded them at the
breaking out of the Civil War and we all took a hand in a four years'
term of a little civilized fighting which was easier."

"At the breaking out of the rebellion, I was the only white man in
Arizona who spoke the Apache language and understood the signals, hence
my success in my engagements with them."

After the close of the Civil War he went to St. Louis until 1877 when he
went to Kansas, returning to Arizona about 1880 and located 19 mining
claims late that year in the Chiricahua Mountains -- Cochise County in
Tombstone.  In 1883 he moved to Tres Cebollas (Bowie Station) and later
in 1884 he opened a hotel.  On March 18, 1911 he died at Tucson at the
age of 69 and is buried in the family plot at Teviston (Bowie) Arizona.

Pioneer Biographies, Arizona Historical Foundation


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