The border vidette. (Nogales, Ariz.) 1894-1934, 1903-04-04

Special Correspondence to THE vrDErrE.
In the neglected "burying ground
near the allegel town of Buenos
Ayres, Pima County, Arizona, an un-
marked and almost obliterated mound
of red gravel and earth covers all
that remains of young man once well
known through out Southern Arizona
and especially In Cochise county. 1t
is the last resting place of Harry NJ.
Woods, one of Arizona's pioneer news
paper men. He was deputy sheriff
under John Behan at time when it
required unquestionable courage to as
sumo such an Office and to walk the
! streets of Tombstone wearing peace
officers badge. But this was not the
only occupation in which Harry Woods
was engaged while a resident in what
was then the most fourishing mining
camp of the west. Many old timers
will remember the journalistic work
of Harry Woods, in the local press of
Cochise county, when public criticism
often required an armed backing that
sometimes led to street dual and &C
casionally killing. He was an earn
est backer of Hon. Mark Smith, and
all the politicians of the eighties, that
made their stamping ground in the
southern counties of the Territory, can
recall the commendation or criticism
of this young writer's pen.
When the Hon. Samuel F. Webb
was appointed to the Office of Collector
of Customs for the District of Ariz
ona, he selected Harry NJ. Woods as
one of his deputies and in the month
of December, 1894, placed him .in
charge of the SUPPORT of Buenos
Ayres.
The honesty and integrity of Hairy
Woods was unquestioDable and his
official life at this out-of the-way place
was uneventful. For many years
Harry Woods was a sufferer from the
worst form of rhumatism which had
partially paralized one side and ulti-
mate;y was the cause of lis death.
He never lost his nerve and without
murmur dragged one almost helpless
limb as he fulfilled his duties. On
occasion while suffering ''the turtures
of the damned" he mounted his horse |
at Nogales and from fear that he
would be unable to remount, rode the |
sixty odd miles to his station without
alighting from the horse en- route, and |
when his destination had been reached |
it was necessary for friends to lift him
from the saddle He never gave up
and although suffering pains worse,
than death he remained at his post of |
duty where be "crossed the great !
divide while seated at his desk
During the winter of 1895 and '96 his |
form and in February of the latter
year while seated one evening in his
office, he suddenly gasped for breath
and while his companion was soaking
assistance, his slight went out" and
they found Harry Woods seated in
the old arm chair,-a corpse. Like the
majority of early Arizonians, Harry
Woods made plenty of money and
spent it as freely. After his small
debts had been settled, the little
balance remaining was sent to sister
in California.
What irony of fate. One of Ariz-
ona's "forest blazers" in the ranks of
the press. One of her peace officers,
when such an Office required cool
head and steady hand, and lastly, a
Government officer, representing the
Treasury Department of these United
States, as Deputy Collector of Custom,
who died in the harness and whose
remains now rest in an unmarked and
forgotten grave among the final rest
ing place of seven Mexicans, one of
whom is said to have been a horse
thief and smuggler who paid the penal
ty by stopping an intented bullet All
of the silent reminders of past life and
action unevenly grouped together in
a 80 by 80 enclosure formed by two
stra nds of barbed wire, hung on rot
ting mesquite POSTS and pieced out