Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-09

thing but commonplace
In 1890 he filed in the
the Government for ten million dollars dam
ages account of the injury he had suffered
through the illegal disposition by the Govern
ment of lands comprised in his grant. The next
year the Court of Private Land Claims was
established, with exclusive jurisdiction over
matters growing out of Spanish and Mexican
To this Reavis appealed claiming that his wife
was the great granddaughter and sole surviving
heir of Don Miguel Nemecio Silva de Peralta de Ia
Cordoba Garcia de Carrillo de la Falces, Knight
of the Golden Fleece, and First Baron of Arizona
to whom King Philip V. had granted and King
Ferdinand VI: had confirmed, and in whom
King Carlos III. had invested, actual possession
of three hundred Spanish leagues of land now
comprised in New Mexico and Arizona. The
land included in this celebrated claim formed
rectangle two hundred and fifty miles from east
to west and eighty miles wide, with area of
twenty thousand square miles, nearly twelve
million three hundred thousand acres, taking in
Phoenix, Arizona, on the west and Silver CITY,
New Mexico, the east.
This amazing claim was supported by mass
of documentary evidence that formed an abso-
lutely unbroken chain, accounting for every year
of the lives of the original Baron of Arizona ;.
and a multitude of children and grandchildren
setting forth the nature of the last illness of EACH
the of their death. and the places of their
burial. Books of record from Spain, Mexico,
and California; properly sealed and attested
atfidavits and certificates from public function
aries, high and low, and from a cloud of wit
in the ordinary walks of life, We're pro-
duced. The affidavits of the godparents OF
Reavis's wife. the last of the Peraltas,'' and
of host of others who accounted for every
important act of her life from the moment OF
her birth down to the bringing of the action, were
in evidence. The chain of evidence, in fact,
too complete and perfect 1t appeared as
though every possible contingency of the famous
land suit had been foreseen and provided for
generations in advance.
To gather evidence on the side of the Government,
agents were sent. to San Francisco, San Diego.
Guadala lara, the City of Mexico, Madrid and every
point mentioned in ReavisS volumnous petitions
They met with success beyond their widest Dreams
and when the tried before the Court OF
Private Land Claims at Santa Fe, it proved that
the whole stupendous of evidence presented
forgeries and false affidavitS. The man was found
in San Francisco who, for fifty thousand dollars
had contracted to secure the necessary affdavits
from living witnesses to the statements Reavs had
formulated concerning his wifes birth and career
She proved to be the llegitimate daughter OF
a pedigreeless Californian and Indian woman
No such person Pera1ta had lived his
ancient lineage and short lived posterty fig
ments of the imagination of Reavs; and the mass
of proofs he submitted were forgerieS from be-
ginning to end. No such land grant had ever been
made to anyone, and the First Baron of
Arizona was pure fiction
a Thus ended of the most remarkable
q attempts fraud that the mind of man
ever conceived. That the attempt was to
defraud the Government through the
- dunn of its courts is not its least re-
- markabe feature. Reavis worked it
for twenty-five years-and at the end spent
q two years in the penitentiary at Santa Fe.
- The cemency of the courts in imposing
NJ trfing a sentence the greatest forger,
5Asn perjurer, and suborner of perjury of the age
~ is not less astonishing than the crimes Of
"a which he was convicted. He is now living
Confined OH poee II