Arizona republican., 1909-10-14
MAJOR f. R. bURNHAM
 4 PIONEER ARR0N|AN
Dropped Off Presidents Train to Spend Day With Phoenix
 Friends.


 Major Frederick R. Burnham of
 Pasadena, associated with John Hays
 Hammond in many enterprises, and
 conducting many others on his own
 account, being himself a well known
 mining engineer. arrived here yester-
 day morning with the presidents par
 ty He will leave here this evening
 for Fl Paso. where he will attend to
 some preliminary matters and rejoin
 the party there. Major Burnham is
 an Arizonian of those other days,
 when to hail from this section was
 really an excuse for people to regard
 one as rather extraordinary if not d
 little peculiar. He is not only a Has
 sayamper, but a pioneer of the Salt
 River valley, something that most
 people do not know, since his name
 has become a familiar one on two
 continents, beside the little isle of
 Britain, which in some respects reaches clear around the world But
 his old-time friends know it, and
 there are a lot of them here. who are pleased at the opportunity to
 shake his hand again.
 It was largely for that purpose that he remained in Phoenix while the presidential party went on to the canyon. The canyon is an old story to him, and he did not care to see it. while he did want to see a few of the old Arizona boys. One of the best of them is H. M. Lewis, whose guest he is while here. When the world was about twenty-five years younger than it is now Major Burn ham and Mir. Lewis. it was then plain Fred and Mahlon, used to throw dirt together. digging the old Mesa canal. and they were both of them then honest and poverty-stricken farmers. Not only that. but they raised hogs together. or alongside of each other, and had there been a good reason for it, they would doubtless have stolen hogs or horses or anything else together. but there wasn't In fact. there was nothing much worth stealing in this section in those days except what someone was guarding with a shotgun. And that makes timely a little story Major Burnham told last night about his og-raising days.
 He says he has the proud distinc- tion of having started. with a rifle, the first packing house in Mesa City. Almost everybody up there raised hogs, and the pesky critters got so cheap nobody would buy them for enough to pay for the feed. Every dark night it was the custom of the farmers to go out and throw a pig or two over the fence into the lot of the nearest neighbOr. just to get rid of the hogs. Mir. Burnham said he got tired of that procedure. for the would throw them back faster than he could slough them off. He, did not have the heart to kill them. until he became angered at their conduct in roofing down the old mud fence around the lot. Then he got a Winchester rifle. resolved to kill every swine that assailed the fence They all assailed it. and when MT. Burnham had finished his work he sent for a meat expert named who lived at Stringtown. to come and perform the last sad rites for the dead. There was more cheap ham in the valley at that time than there ever will be again.
 Mir. sBurnham was a married man when he came here. and Mrs. Burn ham was one of the early day school in Mesa City, being as well known among the old settlers there IS is her husband. She taught while he farmed. until they both got tired. In the meantime he managed to see T Tn fact had been running all over the west for some time before that He says that his life on the American frontier, under the tutelage of the earlier generation of plainsmen and was his best educa- ion for the somewhat stirring and eXciting experiences he had a little ater with John Hays Hammond and many others whose names are now | part of history in South Africa. MT. Burnham went to South Africa n 1893. and. then followed the events ,f the Jamieson raid. the Wilson raid and other transactions in which the 3oers and Matabeles figured. . and which events were really the prelim- naries of the BOer war. They are -Oo well known for repetition here. In 1900, when MT. Lewis was in Flu -ope he met Fred. then Major, Burn nam, and was entertained at his nome. MT. Lewis says the papers were then full of the events with which the major had been connected, md he was one of the lions of the lour. MT. Lewis says he swelled up | little himself with reflected glory, )y living in the same house, and nore so when a famous artist came o paint the major and asked him o tell his experiences of earlier life, o get his mind off the subject of he hour and appear natural. It was hen that the major reverted to Phoe- nix and Mesa City, and for every statement he appealed to MT. Lewis IS an affidavit man. To return that is one of the reasons he major is stopping a day in Phoe- iix. Incidentally, MT. Burnham was llso associated in business in Phoe- | lix for a time. with P. K. Hickey. l yho is still a well known local busi- | less man.
 It would take book to exploit ali | I, ,rfe nf he CnIt