The Coconino sun., 1925-08-21

officer than F. J. Wattron. Frater-
nally he was a member of the Wins
| low lodge of the order of Elks. In
1886 he was united in marriage with
Miss E. M. Herstein, native of Nash
vile, Tenn. They are the parents of
| five children, namely: Frank j. Jr.,
Robin, Enid, Marie and Erma.
The remains were shipped to Los
Angeles for interment.
1t was the good fortune of the edi-
| tor of The Sun to meet Frank nearly
| 80 years ago. He had previously
served Navajo county as sheriff a
! couple terms and had recently been
elected probate judge. 1t was at a
| time when the editor was more or less
/ guilty of apostasy and had Tilted the
newspaper game temporarily for a
government job as forest supervisor.
Frank by virtue of his judgeship
was also U. S. court commissioner and
we had set a couple homestead cases
for hearing before him. 1t wasn't a
very popular job, this contesting
| lhomesteads and so far as the cases
were concerned, we hope the home
steaders won.
| The meeting with Judge Wattron
was mighty refreshing. Going out to
the court house, which set away out
alone away from town then, we hunt
ed around and discovered Frank in his
office working at his usual occupation
pacing back and forth as though his
office was a cage. On rather diff
IDENTIFY admitting that we were the ne
/ farious government agent who had
come all the way from Flagstaff to
skin a couple homesteaders out Of
their acres according to general or
ders No. 170,021, Frank stopped in his
ceaseless walk for moment, ran his
eagle eye over, around and part way
through our meager personality and
exclaimed:
Hell, | was down when the train
came in and didn't see any pompous
looking old dub with carpetbag full
of papers get off the train, so con-
cluded these cases would have to be
postponed. Well, git agoin' kid, let's
clean 'em up. ! saw the folks from
down Alpine way in, so | reckon we're
all set"
| There was something about the man
that gripped your heart and the
rougher he talked to you the better he
loved you.
The poor old homestead cases are
tonly dim distances now except for the
| distaste they created. There is but
one other thing in that connection
that still sticks in our memory. There
were contestants and witnesses in the
cases who came up from the wilds OF
| the southern country, who up to that
time had never seen a railroad train,
| though some were past middle age.
! The government paid our expenses to
get to the hearing. The hardships OF
| the trip these contestants made
through a wilderness with buckboards
over rough roads and camping along
! the trail nights, was worth whole
passel of homesteads.
InAAny event there was no attemnt
at pulling cute tricks and legal tech
lnicalities. Judge Wattron could make
no decisions nor could we. Just
record that went up for final action
by the u. S. land office. Whatever
happened our judicial functions
stopped at merely making a record OF
the facts for others to act upon.
1t may have been along about that
time it appealed to us there were too
many laws, and, too many ways of
putting folks on the "bum," so to
speak. If they didn't have the back
| ing to put the ''hi-jacker" out of bust
ness, poor folks just had to use what
| firearms they had left from keeping
the Indians away from their homes.
1t was a hideous sort of a thing to
the witnesses and the homesteaders
One would have thought they were all
hauled up for murder. In those days
and among these people, murder was
real serious offense. 1t wasn't COM
mitted in a frivolous manner. The
corpse was usually some person who
had unfair ideas and mean temper
The cofoner's jury took those things
into consideration and so far as we
know, never arrested the corpse Tor
his shiftless conduct.
Wattron was sheriff when the ia
NOUS, or otherwise, Hash Knife" cat
tie outfit moved into that neighbor-
hood with several thousand head of
cattle from Texas. Along with the
outfit came large gathering of cow
punchers, many of whom had an idea
that they couldn't sleep comfortable
unless bedded down with cactus and
an armful of rattlesnakes to sing 'em
to sleep. Now, they were not all that
away for few of them still remain
around these parts and are highly re-
spected citizens, but there was a
numerous quantity of them who seem
ed to feel that popping up their SUR
roundings was a part of their duties
while "off herd"
Naturally it was not long before a
small war was on between the old
residents of Holbrook and the new
comers.
The "Hash Knife" outfit folks just
naturally used the south side of the
Santa Fe railroad for entrenching
themselves. 1t was even then fairly
good sized embankment and very pos
sibly has lot of lead in it yet from
several as parties pulled off during
that early period of construction.
1t was rather strange that Sheriff
Wattron did not get loaded down dur
ing some of these sessions. Strange
still in spite of all these rather un-
pleasant affairs, it is not recorded