The herald., 1893-02-19
An EPISODE IN OLD MEXICO.
A "Reminiscences in Which Sam
Brannan Figures.
The Murder of Two PrOspectOrs and
the After Events.
a Story of Crime Which Contains
All the Elements of a Wild
Frontier Ro-
nance.


mosillo many strangers, and as the road
progressed these two cities assumed an
air of prosperity and activity never be-
fore witnessed in those sleepy cities and
now we'll nigh forgotten. Those who
came to Sonora were not all mechanics
connected with the railroad company.
There were others who opened restaur-
ants, saloons and stores, among the lat
ter being a firm of which Maj. W. B.
Hooper, now of the Occidental hotel,
WAS the head, who dealt in oils, hard
ware, lamps, etc. Adventures, too, OF
both sexes, whose business was not that
of commerce, focked to Sonora to prey
upon natives and foreigners alike. One
of the strangest of the latter class wa5
old Sam Brannan, the renegade Nor
with $4,000 in Mexican government
drafts on the custom house in his
pocket. The old mau was then fast be-
coming a wreck. Dissipation had rem
dered him absolutely reckless to out
ward appearances, and it was
not long before Americans and
Mexicans alike held him in
utter contempt for his open excessea.
His Yaqui river colonization scheme
petered out. An attempt to float COM
pany with $4,000, 900 worth of stock on
the Sahparipa river also fell through,
and finally, to cap the climax, he mar
ried the mother of his landlady, an ell
derly Mexican woman of the lower
class. Her personal charms had left
her, but she was the owner of several
thousand acres of desert land near No
gales, and this Brsnnsn believed he
might sell advantageouely by booming
them in true western style. His habits,
however, were such that even she apan-
doned him, and the booming scheme
failing, Brannan drifted to Old San
Diego and thence to Escondido, where
he died in poverty, without a friend to
close his eyes.
Large numbers of prospectors, too, at
tracted by the. stories of the mineral
wealth of the Sonora chains OF mount
aims arrived, and lost their money in ex-
cursions that, for the most part, resulted
in failure. Many of these had an op-
portuity to become acquainted with
Louis Huller, lately deceased in the
city of Mexico. When he died, presi-
dent of big colonization company, he
was worth considerable money, but II
years ago, when the Sonora railway was
anything. He was German-Jew, who
kept little tiny store at Cumuripa, on
the Yaqui river, his principal
stock in trade being mescal. which
he sold at 81 per bottle. He was also q
freighter, and when machinery arrived
at Guaymas for any of the mines in his
district, Huller's spare form could be
depended on as fitting back and forth
on the plaza, from the American conau-
late to "Big Pete's" saloon, fifty times q
day, until hie mules were loaded end ne
was ready to depart. He hada wife and
several children at Cumuripa, whom,
report states, he forgot in hie daye of
prosperity. Huller was a natural born
land grabber, but he met with poor sue
cess until he engaged in his colonization
scheme, which, however, landed him
once in the prison of Belem for short
time.
Many of the prospectors who entered
Sonora were poor and had to be grub
staked; others worked for time on the
railroad until they had accumulated
enough wealth to start on their own
hook, while few had brought no in
considerable sums OF money to defray
their expenses.
Among the latter class were the two
Dorrity brothers, American miners, who
came with capital of nearly $1,000 in
greenbacks. They remained but short
time in Guaymas, and then proceeded
on their voyage to wealth, as they be-
lieved-to pitiful death, as it actually
turned out.
These two young men were utterly
unacquainted with the villainy and
treachery of certain class of the popu-
tQfInY n n w hi n
all the faults of Spanish and Indian an
cestors predominate, while none OF their
virtues have been transmitted. 1t is
not intended to intimate that the whole
of the lower claes of Mexico is bad.
There are many shining examples of
honesty, kindness and abnegation on
record among that order, but when a
Mexican peon is bad, he is absolutely
80, and his cupidity once aroused. moth
ing, except personal safety, will restrain
him from the most atrocious actions.
The Dorrity boys had been warned
against these amiable traits in the
class from which they would have to
select their guides, but it seems that
their natural guilelessness prevented
them from paying much attention to the
well meant couneels of those who knew.
Their road lay along the railway, to La
Noria del Vale, thence in an easterly
direction towards Punta de Aguas and
Bonanzila through desert country in
which none but few travelling Yaqui
Indians are ever met, and thus on until
Cumuripa is reached.
This little town. on the banks of the
Yaqui river, consists merely of a square
environed on three sides by adobe
houses and on the fourth by an old
mission church of the same material,
much the worse for wear. The village
lies on the road to all the mining dis
tricts in the Sierra Madre, such as La
Trinidad, Santa Rosa, Mulatos, Sahuar-
ipa and others, and derives its living
from what may be sold to mule trains
passing up from Guaymas or going back
to the coast for merchandise and
machinery.
From there the prospectors followed
the river until they reached a small
ruined Mexican mining village called Ell
Aguje, where they engaged man to act
as their guide. Here they crossed the
Yaqui river, then wide swift flowing
stream, the rainy season being just at
an end.
The crossing is made by means of a
very large fatboat, handled by six
brawny Indians, and the horses are
swum across, at the stern of the boat.
The force of the current is such that the
landing is made nearly one mile below
the starting point, although the river is
I. n i