The Deaths of John Bridger and N H Robinson by Indians

On Friday morning, December 12, 1890, John Bridger, N. H. Robinson, and August Hickey rode up a canyon in southeastern Cochise County to look at a slaughtered cow.

Bridger had discovered the carcass two days earlier. Someone had taken the tenderloin, part of the entrails, and the hide. When the three men reached it, they began examining the remains.

Within a few hours, Bridger and Robinson were dead. Hickey escaped on foot and reached camp that night.

Three days later, Hickey gave his account before a coroner’s jury in Tombstone. The Tombstone Prospector published his testimony alongside statements from a man who helped recover the bodies and the physician who examined them. Together, those accounts describe the encounter and what was found afterward.[1]

Following the trail

Hickey was twenty-seven, Missouri-born, and a prospector. He had lived in the area for three years, knew Robinson well, and had been living in the same camp with him for four months. He also knew Bridger. Both men, he said, were cattlemen.

According to Hickey, the three were examining the cow when Robinson and Bridger spotted a man whom Hickey identified as an Indian. Hickey was following a fresh trail when Bridger called his attention to him.

Shots followed. Hickey said Robinson and Bridger fired, and the man went over the hill on horseback.

The three mounted and followed him about fifty yards uphill. They then tied their horses and continued on foot for approximately another fifty yards. As they came back toward the horses, shots came from several directions.

They took shelter among the rocks. Hickey and Robinson were sitting there about half an hour later when Bridger joined them and said they would have to find a way out.

Their horses were nearby, but reaching them meant leaving cover. Hickey thought their best chance was to make a break for the animals. Bridger did not want everyone to go at once, and Hickey offered to keep watch.

Then Hickey got up to try for the horses. He said three shots were fired at him. The others called him back, and he returned behind the rocks.[1]

Behind the rocks

Hickey’s testimony describes efforts to find a way out, interrupted by more shooting.

Bridger spotted a gun barrel behind a rock on the hillside and fired three times. Robinson fired once. Hickey counted six shots fired by their own party during that exchange.

The men discussed waiting until dark. They hoped darkness would give them a chance to reach their horses.

Hickey offered to try again, telling Robinson that he wanted to get the animals back. Robinson warned him that he might be hit accidentally.

Hickey recalled two shots coming from long range. He called to Bridger, who did not answer. He called several more times.

“John, why don’t you answer me?”

Robinson told Hickey he thought something had happened to Bridger. Hickey said he was going to find out.

Before he could do so, Robinson was struck in the side of the head. Hickey testified that Robinson put a hand to his head, leaned back against the rock, and died.

Hickey moved around the north side of the rock and brought his gun across it. He could not see anything to shoot at. He then ran.[1]

Hickey gets away

As Hickey fled, he counted eight shots coming from different directions. One knocked off his hat. Another cut away some of his hair.

He ran roughly fifty yards uphill, then dropped into the canyon. After another eighty or a hundred yards, he threw his gun behind a rock and continued into the mountains.

On his way out, he passed near Bridger. Hickey said Bridger was sitting with blood on his face, about fifteen feet from where Hickey had been when Robinson was shot.

Hickey estimated that the first man had been seen around eleven in the morning. He escaped at approximately two in the afternoon. After covering about fifteen miles, he reached camp around nine that night.

Although he believed there had been eight attackers, Hickey told the jury he had seen only one. The others, he said, were concealed. His estimate does not establish how many men were actually firing.[1]

Bringing the men home

An additional newspaper account, credited to the Tombstone Prospector, describes the first response to the news at Mud Springs.

Stab Shattuck and six others reportedly left for the scene, going by way of San Bernardino ranch to obtain more arms, ammunition, and a spring wagon. They expected to pack the bodies four miles to reach the wagon, then bring them to Tombstone.

B. F. Brown of the Erie Cattle Company and Dr. Chandler brought news of those arrangements to town. James Price also left Tombstone with a wagon and two coffins.[6]

That report corrected an earlier mistake: the survivor was Hickey, not “Mackey.” It also reported that the bodies reached Tombstone at half past three in the afternoon and were taken to the morgue, where a crowd gathered. The account was reprinted in the Arizona Weekly Enterprise on December 20, 1890.[6]

Hickey testified that he returned the day after the shooting with a party of about fifteen men. Milton B. Hall was among them. Hall had lived in Cochise County since 1878, had known Robinson for about two years, and was working for him when he died.[1]

The report of seven men leaving Mud Springs and Hickey’s account of a recovery party of about fifteen describe different stages or perspectives of the response; the available clippings do not explain how the parties came together.

What the recovery party found

Robinson was the first of the two men the party found. Hall said he lay partly on his side, face down.

Hall knew Robinson had been carrying papers. He searched his pockets and found a letter and a book in a side pocket of his jumper, but not the rest of the papers he expected.

Hall then examined Robinson’s head. There was a bullet hole behind the ear. He testified that part of the ear had been cut away. The party gathered Robinson’s remains and packed them onto a horse.

They found Bridger lying face up. Hall described his pants and boots as having been cut off. His shirt had been turned up toward his shoulders, and his drawers pulled down to his heels, leaving most of his body exposed.

Against the back of Bridger’s head was a burned juniper stump, approximately a foot and a half long. Hall believed it had been used to beat him.

Hickey likewise testified that the bodies were bruised, which he attributed to blows from a stick or club. He said clothing had been cut and Robinson’s coat was gone.

These were the observations and conclusions of the recovery witnesses. They describe additional violence, but the published testimony does not establish when it occurred or whether either man was still alive.

Hickey also reported that three horses and their saddles had been taken, along with two guns, cartridge belts, two revolvers, ammunition, and belongings carried by the dead men. His own gun was still behind the rock where he had thrown it. He recovered it on his return.[1]

The additional news account described a letter from Robinson’s mother remaining on his body. Hall’s sworn testimony confirms that he found a letter, but does not identify its writer.[6][1]

The physician and the verdict

Dr. George C. Willis examined both bodies at the morgue at the district attorney’s direction. His published testimony described two cases without attaching a name to either.

The first was a fair-haired man with a light mustache, estimated to be about twenty-eight. A bullet had entered the upper part of the frontal bone and exited at the base of the brain. The skull was shattered. Willis reported no wound on the body.

The second was a man with dark brown hair and a light mustache, estimated to be about twenty-five. The bullet had entered behind the right ear and had not exited. His skull was also shattered.

Willis concluded that both gunshot wounds were necessarily fatal.[1]

A brief Arizona Republic dispatch dated Tombstone, December 15, said the bodies had been brought in from the San Bernardino mountains and that their heads had been smashed with a club. That short report did not explain the gunshot wounds described by Willis.[4]

The fuller testimony distinguishes the physician’s findings of fatal gunshot wounds from the recovery witnesses’ accounts of bruising and possible beating.

The coroner’s jury concluded that Robinson and Bridger died from gunshot wounds at approximately two in the afternoon on December 12, near the Arizona–New Mexico boundary. The verdict attributed their deaths to “hostile Indians.” It did not identify individuals.[2]

Hickey placed the encounter about fifteen miles north of the monument marking the corner of Chihuahua, Arizona, and New Mexico, close to the Arizona–New Mexico line.[1]

Hall described Robinson as a Texas native, about twenty-six, whose family lived in San Saba County. Bridger, he said, had been born near Kansas City, Missouri, and was about twenty-four or twenty-five. Bridger was working for Robinson, while Robinson was working for himself. The jury gave their ages as approximately twenty-seven and twenty-five.[1][2]

The funeral and a later sighting

On December 16, the Prospector reported that Bridger’s funeral had taken place at three that afternoon. A large gathering of friends and acquaintances followed his remains to the burial place.[3]

Six days later, the newspaper reported that five Apaches had been seen at Miller’s ranch on the Oso Negro road two days earlier. Three rode American horses. Two wore shoes, including one pair described as unusually large.

The paper expressed confidence that they were the same men involved in the encounter with Bridger, Robinson, and Hickey.[5]

But it supplied no identification by Hickey, no recovery of the missing property, and no other evidence connecting the sighting to the killings. It records a contemporary suspicion, not a confirmed answer.

The inquest gives us the clearest account: three men followed a rider away from a slaughtered cow and came under fire. Two died. The survivor escaped, then returned with the men who brought their bodies out. The individual attackers remain unidentified in these reports.

Sources and research notes

[1] Tombstone Prospector, December 16, 1890, page 1, “The Inquest.” Published testimony of August Hickey, Dr. George C. Willis, and Milton B. Hall. Supplied newspaper clipping.

[2] Tombstone Prospector, December 16, 1890, page 2. Coroner’s jury verdict. Supplied clipping; the text following the verdict is incomplete.

[3] Tombstone Prospector, December 16, 1890, page 4. John Bridger funeral notice. Supplied clipping.

[4] Arizona Republic, December 16, 1890, page 1, “The Apache Victims.” Dispatch dated Tombstone, December 15. Supplied clipping.

[5] Tombstone Prospector, December 22, 1890, page 1. Miller’s ranch sighting. Supplied clipping.

[6] Arizona Weekly Enterprise, December 20, 1890, page 3, “The Apache Killing,” subheading “Additional News Concerning Their Last Devilment.” Credited to the Tombstone Prospector. Publication date and page supplied in the accompanying archive screenshot. Its reference to the inquest report in “to-morrow’s Prospector” belongs to the earlier underlying report, rather than the December 20 reprint date.

The inquest material is a contemporary newspaper publication of testimony, not an independently examined original inquest record. The Republic dispatch and the article credited to the Prospector may share reporting; they should not be treated as wholly independent confirmation. Descriptions of beating and mutilation are attributed to the witnesses, and their timing remains uncertain. No individual attacker is named in the supplied evidence.