The Robbery of the Riverside Stage & murder of John Collins

The stage was a short distance east of Riverside when the shooting started.

It was just after nightfall on August 10, 1883. The coach was traveling east on the Casa Grande–Globe route, carrying Wells Fargo express messenger John Collins. According to the Arizona Silver Belt, two men fired into the stage several times. Collins was killed.

The robbers took the express box and forced a passenger to break it open. The newspaper reported that it held $2,500 in silver, along with $600 in greenbacks. While opening the box, the passenger managed to conceal the paper money and save it for Wells Fargo.

The investigation would carry officers from Florence to the San Pedro, through the Rincon Mountains, and finally to the country around Willcox. Before it ended, Red Jack and Charles Hensley would escape two attempts to catch them.

The investigation begins

Within a week of the robbery, officers had brought suspects into Florence. A dispatch dated August 16 named Sheriff Doran, Deputy Scanlan, former sheriff Pete Gabriel, Deputy Fred Adams, Thomas F. Weedin of the Florence Enterprise, and Special Deputy William Harrington as participants in the arrests.

The correspondent named Frank Carpenter, Joe Tuttle, and Len Redfield in connection with the investigation. The report moved between suspected principals and accessories, leaving some ambiguity about the role assigned to each man. These were accusations made during the investigation.

Attention turned toward Redfield’s ranch on the San Pedro. The Florence correspondent described it as a gathering place for robbers and alleged that it belonged to a network of places where fleeing men could obtain fresh horses.

Wells Fargo detective John Brent was also in Florence, staying at the Silver King Hotel on business connected with recent robberies. Residents held a meeting to discuss the repeated attacks, the difficulty of obtaining convictions, and what could be done to bring the accused to justice. A preliminary examination was scheduled before Judge Hinson Thomas.

The dispatch also seemed to announce a breakthrough. Pete Gabriel had reportedly captured a confederate known as Jack Averill or Jack Elmer, generally called Red Jacket. Gabriel had not yet arrived with his prisoner, but was expected shortly.

The available reports do not explain what became of that announcement. By August 28, Red Jack was in a mountain camp with Hensley and another man, and officers were trying to catch them. The anticipated arrest may not have occurred, or there may have been an intervening escape. We cannot settle that from these accounts.

His name varied in print. The Silver Belt called him Jack Elmer near the beginning of one article and John Almer, alias Red Jacket, farther down. The pursuit reports also used the shorter name Red Jack.

The abandoned mountain camp

The August 28 attempt began with a charcoal burner near North Creek Canyon.

The Silver Belt reported that Hensley quarreled with the miner and attempted to aim a gun at him. The miner noticed and raised the alarm, bringing Sheriff Paul and George H. Davis, identified as a Wells Fargo detective, to his assistance.

When the officers saw Hensley, they opened fire. He ran toward camp.

Red Jack and the unidentified companion were lying on their blankets when they heard the shooting. They left without taking their horses, hats, or provisions. The newspaper described their flight from Sycamore Canyon toward Deer Creek. The officers eventually lost the trail.

Back at the abandoned camp, they recovered equipment, blankets, and food. There was a rifle and scabbard, along with flour, sugar, coffee, and beans. Two horses were still hobbled there.

Red Jack’s hat reportedly held a memorandum listing the rewards offered for the fugitives. The newspaper also recorded what the men had been reading. Red Jack had the September issue of Harper’s Monthly. His unidentified companion had been reading an account of the stage robbery in the Tombstone Republican.

The officers recovered those belongings. The three men themselves got away.

Waiting at Big Springs

In September, Paul and Gabriel tried again. This time, they believed they could intercept the fugitives at a mountain spring.

The account published under the headline “A Hot Chase” said the party left on September 17 and traveled to Page’s ranch on the eastern slope of the Rincon Mountains. Paul and George McClarty were later reported to have returned after an eleven-day chase.

The officers suspected that a man known as Prospector Bob knew where Hensley and Red Jack were hiding and was supplying them with provisions. Watching his movements, they concluded that he intended to meet the fugitives at Big Springs, high in the mountains.

On a Sunday night, eleven men surrounded the springs. The report described only two approaches. Paul guarded one, and Gabriel the other. The instructions were to remain quiet until late that night or until called out.

The newspaper blamed the failure of the ambush on an unnamed Mexican member of the posse. He had been placed near the spring and told to stay concealed. Around eleven o’clock, according to the account, he climbed onto the rocks and began looking around.

Hensley was coming toward the water when he saw him. The report said Hensley challenged the stranger, who ordered him to halt and brought his gun to bear. Hensley dropped out of sight.

Gabriel took part of the posse along the trail. Paul and his men moved across the fugitives’ direction, trying to intercept them. Once again, the officers recovered the men’s possessions: two horses, blankets, and their provisions.

McClarty’s bloodhound was put on the trail, but soon disappeared from sight and was lost. After three more days of searching, the posse returned without its prisoners. The newspaper asserted that Hensley and Red Jack had gone forty-eight hours without food.

Hensley and Red Jack were still at large. For the second time, the officers had taken their horses and supplies without catching them.

The prisoners in Florence

While the mountain pursuits continued, two of the accused men in Florence were killed by a mob.

The Silver Belt’s October 6 report stated that citizens of Florence had hanged Len Redfield and Joe Tuttle on September 3. Its reference was brief, giving the date without describing how the prisoners were seized.

The Arizona Weekly Star also referred to Tuttle’s hanging and to the late Len Redfield. By the time that item appeared on October 4, preparations for another expedition after Hensley and Red Jack were being reported.

Redfield and Tuttle were dead, but Hensley and Red Jack remained beyond the officers’ reach.

A lead near Willcox

In early October, information placed Hensley and Red Jack near Willcox. The railroad supplied an engine to carry Paul and his party from Tucson, while arrangements at Willcox provided horses and provisions.

The October 6 Silver Belt printed what it called the substance of Paul’s report. After reaching Willcox, his party rode to Hooker’s ranch, reported as twenty-two miles away.

Paul went to Percy’s ranch the following morning. There he learned that Hensley and Red Jack were expected that night.

He stayed. Around eight o’clock, Paul, Jim Percy, John McClosky, and George Laird concealed themselves about two hundred yards from the house. The fugitives appeared around nine.

According to Paul’s account as printed in the Silver Belt, the posse opened fire. Hensley and Red Jack returned it. The report estimated that they fired thirty or forty shots before both fell.

The officers believed the men were mortally wounded but did not immediately approach. Paul explained that they had reportedly said they would die before being taken. A separate dispatch attributed a similar declaration to an unnamed person who had spoken with them a few nights earlier.

Laird was the only posse member reported wounded. His injury was described as a slight flesh wound.

Around midnight, Moore and McClosky went looking for the fugitives’ horses. They found Red Jack dead. Hensley had crawled away.

Paul sent a message dated October 4 from Percy’s ranch via Willcox. It reported that Elmer had been killed the previous night and that Hensley had escaped in darkness, badly wounded. The officers were starting after him.

That signed message places Red Jack’s death on the night of October 3.

Following Hensley

The next morning, a smaller party followed Hensley’s trail. The Silver Belt named the pursuers as Otto, Moore, McClosky, and Paul.

After following the trail about eight miles, they saw a horse in a canyon sixty or seventy yards ahead. They circled and moved closer. When they came within roughly sixty yards of Hensley, he fired. Until then, the report said, they had not known his position.

The posse returned fire. One of Hensley’s shots struck Paul’s horse in the breast.

The Weekly Citizen placed Hensley in a gulch near Point of Mountain, about ten miles from Willcox. It reported that he had already been wounded in the breast and abdomen during the previous night’s fight. Both the Citizen and the Silver Belt described him firing at the approaching officers and striking Paul’s horse.

When the officers reached him, he was dead.

The first brief announcement said Hensley had been “captured” and had met the same fate as Red Jack. The fuller reports described the shooting that preceded his death.

Word went to Willcox. Justice Nichols sent a wagon, and the bodies were brought in.

The inquest at Willcox

An inquest was held over the bodies at Willcox on October 4. W. F. Nichols, justice of the peace, acted as coroner. The jury heard testimony and recorded its verdict that day.

The verdict named the dead men as Charles Hensley and Jack Elmer. Their ages and places of birth were unknown to the jurors. It stated that the bodies had been brought to Willcox from the vicinity of Hugh Percy’s ranch, about ten miles northwest of town.

The jury found that the men died on the night of October 3 and the morning of October 4 from gunshot wounds inflicted by R. H. Paul, sheriff of Pima County, and his posse while attempting to arrest them. The verdict did not name the person who fired either fatal shot.

On October 8, Nichols certified that the written copy was a true and correct reproduction of the jury’s verdict. The Arizona Weekly Citizen published it on October 13 under the heading “The Verdict.” That record supplies firmer dates than the conflicting weekday references in the first reports of the fighting.

The pursuit had ended. Collins had been killed on August 10. After two reported escapes in the Rincons, Red Jack died on October 3 and Hensley the following morning. The anticipated August arrest of Red Jack and the identity of the third man at the mountain camp remained unexplained in these reports.

Sources and notes

Arizona Silver Belt, August 18, 1883, page 3, “Another Hold Up.”

Arizona Weekly Citizen, August 18, 1883, page 2, Florence dispatch dated August 16.

Arizona Silver Belt, September 8, 1883, page 2, account of the August 28 pursuit.

Arizona Weekly Citizen, September 29, 1883, page 3, “A Hot Chase.”

Arizona Weekly Star, October 4, 1883, page 4.

Arizona Weekly Citizen, October 6, 1883, page 2, Paul’s signed message and Willcox dispatches.

Arizona Silver Belt, October 6, 1883, page 3, “At Last—Hensley and Red Jack Dead.”

The Arizona Sentinel, October 6, 1883, page 3.

Arizona Weekly Citizen, October 13, 1883, page 4, “The Verdict,” reproducing the October 4 inquest verdict and Nichols’s October 8 certification.

Death dates: The inquest verdict, reproduced in the Arizona Weekly Citizen on October 13, records deaths on the night of October 3 and morning of October 4. Read with Paul’s signed October 4 message and the pursuit reports, it supports October 3 for Red Jack and October 4 for Hensley. Conflicting Tuesday references remain in earlier dispatches. The September expedition’s departure is stated as the seventeenth; other exact dates are left general because the weekly newspaper may have reproduced an earlier report.

Florence lynchings: The October 6 Silver Belt gives September 3. A later historical study gives September 2. September 3 is retained here with explicit attribution to the contemporary newspaper; the discrepancy remains unresolved.

Names and details: Newspapers vary Red Jack’s name and the spelling of some participants’ names. They disagree about Hensley’s shot count and the location of Laird’s wound. Similar dispatches appearing in several papers are not assumed to be independent eyewitness accounts. The damaged portion of the August pursuit clipping has not been reconstructed.