Sylvester Mowry Sylvester Mowry ( October 1830 - October 15 , 1871 ) was an American best known as a pioneer and the founder of Mowry , Arizona . He also served as an officer in the United States Army and was arrested as a traitor during the American Civil War . Biography . Born in 1830 at Providence , Rhode Island , Sylvester Mowry attended West Point in 1848 until graduating in 1852 as a lieutenant . Well educated , he spoke Latin and later became the author of the 1863 book " The geography and resources of Arizona and Sonora " . After West Point , Mowry went west and explored with the army for the Pacific Railroad until 1854 . In 1856 , Mowry was elected to be a delegate in the 35th Congress for the creation of Arizona Territory but because the bill did not pass , Mowry never took his seat . From then until 1857 , Sylvester was stationed at Benicia , California and Fort Yuma . During his military career , Mowry became enemies with another officer named James H . Carleton , who later arrested him during the Civil War . Mowry served at Old Fort Buchanan before resigning his commission on July 31 , 1858 . He then went and lived in Tubac where on July 8 , 1859 he fought a duel with Edward E . Cross who was an editor for the " Weekly Arizonian " and had written questionable things about Tucson and Mowry ' s mining operations . Both of the men were armed with rifles and they dueled on one of Tubac ' s streets . Four shots were fired but Cross disarmed himself sometime during the exchange and Mowry refused to continue shooting at an unarmed man . So the duel ended without bloodshed and the two apologized to each other . Cross was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 . In 1860 , he was appointed by President James Buchanan a commissioner to establish the border between California and Nevada , but he was removed in 1861 due to politics . During his time as commissioner , Mowry became interested in mining and prospecting and in 1860 he purchased the Patagonia silver mine just southeast of the Santa Rita Mountains in southern Arizona . After renaming it the Mowry Silver Mine , Mowry began constructing a mill and a smelter for extracting precious minerals . A small settlement formed around the mining works which today is the ghost town of Mowry , Arizona . Mining occupied Mowry ' s time until 1862 , by which time the Civil War had already begun and Confederate Arizona Territory had been established . Though a northerner and Republican , Mowry was a firm supporter of the new territory , as were many other Republicans in Arizona , during the Civil War , the majority of the Confederacy ' s political leadership were Democrats . The California Column began their advance across Confederate Arizona in 1862 from Fort Yuma ; now a general , Mowry ' s enemy James H . Carleton was in command . After the Union capture of Tucson on May 20 , 1862 , First Lieutenant Edward Banker Willis proceeded to arrest Sylvester Mowry at his mine . Charged with selling lead to Arizona ' s Confederate militia s , Mowry was detained at Fort Yuma from July 2 , 1862 to November 8 . He was released after a court appearance in which no evidence could be found that he had ever sold lead to rebels . Despite this fact , Mowry defended himself in court and justified his selling of lead to rebels even though he was found innocent . In his defense , he mentioned the basic American principles of life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness . Mowry also went on to describe New Mexico Territory , the eastern half being a great place of American progress on the frontier and the other a war zone , ravaged by the Apache and unfit for civilization . Mowry felt an obligation to sell lead to his fellow frontiersmen , regardless of political stance . In the early 1860s , the Apache were fighting all across southern Arizona . The Mowry Mine and its immediate surroundings was the scene of several Apache attacks before the town was mostly destroyed in 1863 . Mowry later angrily described a way in which to defeat the Apaches : Upon his release from Fort Yuma , Mowry was denied his land for several years and by the time of his return , the mine was too deteriorated so any attempt to restart operations would be very expensive . Mowry was once more elected to Congress after the Civil War but again he did not take his seat . Thus Mowry ended his life in the United States and eventually went to London , England to raise funds in order to return to Arizona . However , he died in London just before his birthday on October 15 , 1871 . News of Mowry ' s death reached Prescott , Arizona by October 19 , which was a significant communications feat at the time ; it usually took months to transfer information from Great Britain to the American frontier . Mowry ' s legacy is foremost the mine he left behind ; it was later resettled and continued to be populated until well after the turn of the 20th century . Mowry is also an important figure in American folklore and is well known in many other American states . As of 2010 , several adobe walls from the Mowry Mine are intact . Author John Ross Browne visited the ruins in 1864 and later wrote the book " Adventures in the Apache Country " , describing in detail the mine ' s infrastructure and history before it was destroyed .