Pollard Pearson and fellow Arizona Ranger Fred Barefoot once tracked an accused mule thief almost 300 miles. Finding him in New Mexico’s Mogollon Mountains, they brought him back for trial. Another time, in Globe, Pearson arrested two burglars and a man “corralled for misdemeanor.” One of his more noted feats as a Ranger, though, was helping round up several members of a New Mexico outlaw band.

The Fort Sumner Robbery

The gang was led by “one of the bad citizens of New Mexico,” Henry Hawkins. On Jan. 27, 1902 they robbed the Pecos Mercantile store/post office in Fort Sumner and held up several citizens. During the robbery, a teenager named Felipe Beaubien was gunned down when he tried to run. Afterward, some of the outlaws made their way to Arizona. The Arizona Rangers were soon on their trail.

There was some confusion over the gang’s composition. A number of newspapers linked them to a more notorious outlaw, George West Musgrave, though there is no evidence any of them rode with Musgrave. Some even claimed he led the Fort Sumner robbery, though it seems he had left the area by then. “He has not been in New Mexico for six years,” said U.S. Marshal Creighton Foraker. And while Musgrave had a few known aliases, Henry Hawkins wasn’t one of them.

Some of this mix-up likely came from the arrest of a young gang member named George Massagee, captured on the Mescalero Apache Reservation about a week after the robbery. In fact, in its March 6, 1902 edition the Albuquerque Daily Citizen said Massagee and Musgrave were the same man.

As noted in last week’s article, Ranger Pollard Pearson and Graham County deputy John Parks captured one of the band, J.W. Smith (alias Sam Bass) near the end of March 1902. But Smith wasn’t the first man caught.

Earlier that month, Parks learned an accomplice named Witt Neill had a girlfriend near the Blue River, north of Clifton. The deputy formed a posse that included Pearson, Barefoot and a third Ranger, Henry Gray. Proceeding to the woman’s house, the posse found Neill asleep in a bed on the porch. They apprehended their man without a fight, though he had a Winchester rifle with him – “showing that he was ready for business at a moment’s notice,” wrote the Tucson Citizen. The paper went on to say Neill “was given no notice at all, and was compelled to leave his ‘bride’ in bed and surrender.”

Pearson and five others then went after two more outlaws, George Cook and Joe Roberts, catching up to them in the same Blue River country. With several rifles trained on them, Cook and Roberts wisely surrendered. They were taken to the Solomonville jail along with Neill. The trio was then released into federal custody for return to New Mexico. At some point Roberts apparently slipped away from his captors. His fate remains unknown, but Pearson had an idea. in 1936 the skeletons of a man and a horse, with a saddle and shotgun, were found in some hills north of Glendale. The ex-Ranger speculated that these could have been Roberts’ remains.

Back in New Mexico, the others saw their day in court. J.W. Smith, who pinned the Beaubien killing on an accomplice named Frank Potter, received a five-year sentence. So did George Massagee, who testified that he stayed outside the store for most of the holdup. George Cook and Witt Neill, who were also charged with a second post office robbery, got life in prison. Apparently neither the alleged shooter, Potter, nor Henry Hawkins were ever caught.

An Election Year

It was 1904, and Pollard Pearson’s eye was on the office of Gila County Sheriff. His was “the only name we now hear mentioned on the republican [sic] side for sheriff,” the Arizona Silver Belt reported at the end of June. But first Pearson would bring in an accused murderer – the last man to be hanged in Globe, as it turned out.

Pearson resigned from the Rangers on April 1, 1903, to concentrate on his duties as a deputy sheriff (he was appointed to that position on Jan. 1, 1903). “He has been considered one of the most efficient men on the force, and his loss will be felt,” the Bisbee Daily Review declared. By the end of the year he had risen to undersheriff. Around this time (exactly when is unclear), he made the move from Nutrioso to Globe.

He began 1904 in Payson, where he went to fetch two accused murderers, Zack and John Booth, for transport to Globe. The Booth brothers were charged with killing two sheepherders, Wiley Berry and Juan Vigil, near Gisela in December 1903. In a preliminary hearing Zack Booth admitted to the shooting, claiming self-defense. According to the Mesa Free Press, he had “long posed as a ‘bad man,’ ” calling himself the “Wooly Kid.”

The Silver Belt described the party’s arrival in Globe: “Having had supper, the prisoners were taken to the sheriff’s office and searched, preliminary to being locked up. After he had been examined, Zack suggested to the officers that they search him again to be sure that he didn’t have any ‘shooting-irons,’ saws, files, etc. Zack Booth has the reputation of being one of the shrewdest and trickiest criminals in Arizona. For this reason, and the Gila county jail not being any too safe, it was deemed advisable to have Zack transferred to some other place having a more secure jail . . .”

A judge ordered Booth moved to the Maricopa County jail, and Pearson escorted him there by train the next day. The brothers’ trial began in mid-June, with Zack claiming that Berry shot first. On the 16th, Bailiff Ed Shanley announced the jury had reached a verdict. Zack Booth was found guilty of murder, while John was acquitted. Zack’s death sentence was upheld by the Territorial Supreme Court. He would go to the gallows, in Globe’s final hanging, on Sept. 15, 1905.

On Sept. 10, 1904 the Gila County Republican convention nominated Pearson for sheriff. His Democratic opponent that November would be Ed Shanley. September was a busy month for Pearson; in addition to election business, there were a pair of deaths to investigate.

Along Pinto Creek, “in a lonely spot a few miles above Horrell’s ranch,” two men found the body of a prospector. After authorities were informed, Pearson and a coroner accompanied one of them back to the scene. The prospector had apparently died of natural causes; according to the coroner, he was about 70 years old. There were signs he hadn’t been alone; two shovels, two picks and evidence two tied-up burros had broken loose. After their examination, the party buried him nearby.

The second case was that of a 17-year-old girl who shot herself at a ranch in the Salt River area. That night Pearson and the coroner went to the area; next morning an inquest was held. Though the cause of death was clear, the coroner’s jury concluded that the reasons behind it were less so. “Whether by accident or suicidal intent there was no means of ascertaining,” their verdict stated.

In his quest to become sheriff, Pearson would be disappointed that November. The victory went to Shanley, who got 697 votes to Pearson’s 466. But it would not be the former Arizona Ranger’s last run for the office.

This story will continue in next week’s Silver Belt.