Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Tall Tale or True Story: O’Neill Hills and O’Neill’s Grave


Dave O’Neill and Dan Drift knew each other from before, long before, they dug a pass through the Eastern foothills of the Cabeza Prieta Mountains.

Dave O’Neill’s grandfather was the not entirely recognized as legitimate son of Don Arturo O’Neill de Tyrone. Born in Dublin in 1736, Don Arturo had left home to join the Spanish colonial army in 1752. He was appointed Governor of the Yucatan in 1792 and there in 1794, plain old Arturo O’Neill was born on the Governor’s hacienda. In 1803, Don Arturo returned to Spain, soon after little Arturo and his mother turned their steps northwards looking for work, food and shelter. Mother and son arrived at Bahia de Galveston, still at that time under the control of the Spanish colonial regime, sometime in the early 1810s.

Young Arturo joined Luis Michel Aury’s effort to provide support for the Mexican revolutionaries in 1816, married and, in 1819, he had a son, Luis O’Neill. When Luis was 3 years old, he became a Mexican citizen, following the success of the revolution in 1821. Luis had a taste for independence. He joined the Texas army fighting for independence from Mexico in 1836, and he was not exactly thrilled when, after all that effort to be free from the King of Spain and President Santa Ana, less than 10 years later Texas annexed itself to the United States as the 28th State of the Union in 1845. Two years after the annexation, Luis’ son David O’Neill was born.

Moriston Family crest
Dan Drift also came from Irish beginnings. His grandfather, born in 1797, in County Armagh was from a minor branch of the Moriston clan. On arriving at Bahia de Galveston in 1816, Rory Moriston also joined with Aury. In his feelings about the royalist connotations of his last name, Rory changed it to Drift, a play on his own drifting across the Atlantic and the driftwood tree that adorned the Moriston family crest. Rory’s first son, Daniel Drift, was born a Spanish subject in 1820, became a Mexican citizen and the tender age of 1. By 16, Daniel was a Texan and he celebrated his 25th birthday as a US-American. Two years later, the first natural born US-citizen in the Drift family, Daniel Drift Jr. arrived in the world on May 10, 1847.

All of that was just a really complex way of explaining how two little boys came to be friends playing on the sandbars of Galveston Island. In the interests of time, we will gloss over their youthful adventures, their service together in the Mexican army fighting French ambitions of empire in 1866, and their various travels and travails that bought them together to the Sonoran Desert.

Dave O’Neill and Dan Drift arrived in the Sonoran Desert in 1888. The desert was awash with prospectors, ranchers and land-grabbers of all sorts. Our good friend, notorious Mexican outlaw, turned Caudillo of Santo Domingo, Cipriano Ortega was rumored to have mined close to $80,000 worth of silver and gold from his La Americana Mine and there were many green-eyed souls who hoped to replicate that feat. Dan and Dave paid them little mind, they briefly rested their horses in Ajo, and struck South for Sonoyta down the old Ajo to Sonoyta highway. They crossed the border/not border, remember at this time the boundary survey commission had only recently completed their work placing markers along the new line established by the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, and almost no one knew or cared where that new line really was. From Sonoyta they set out on the Camino del Diablo, stopping at Santo Domingo for mining supplies. A few miles further west they crossed the line back into the US at Quitobaquito Springs, where they stocked up on food and water, generously supplied, as it had been to travelers for centuries by the Hia C’ed O’odham community at the Springs.
The two friends wandered westwards, past Agua Dulce, across the miniature desert with its proliferation of hedgehog cactus, over the Pinacate lava flows, and into the Tule Mountains. Sometimes they rode in companionable silence, sometimes they “remembered when,” sharing stories whose minute details and madcap moments were a source of entertainment only to them.

Drift Hills, named for Dan Drift, Senita Tank
and Christmas Pass
Turning their horses north through the mountains they stopped at Senita Tank. Here was a good spot to prospect. In addition to the natural water source at the tank, the rock of the surrounding hills looked promising. Dan and Dave set up camp.

They were not wrong about the prospecting. Together they dug more than 20 mine shafts and they ground, washed and panned a good amount of copper, silver and gold. Dave would ride back along the Camino to Santo Domingo or Sonoyta to sell the ore and bring back supplies. Dan, more wary of other people and struggling with the trauma of his war time experiences in Mexico, preferred to stay in the desert. Dave was a lousy cook, but Dan could make magic with tepary beans, tortillas and cholla fruit. Dave was always full of crazy ideas for new places to prospect, Dan was the one who could actually figure out how to get to them. Together they had, what my mother contends, are the ingredients for a successful relationship, shared values and complimentary skills. Through all the seasons of life in the desert, Dave and Dan remained the firmest and bestest of friends.

Dan and Dave had one major problem, the same problem that beset Peter Brady in his mining ventures, and that problem was transporting their ore. The route from their Senita Tank home to Sonoyta was long, dry and perilous. It would be better to go north towards Wellton, where the Southern Pacific Railroad offered easy access to the bustling towns of Yuma and Gila Bend. The trail into the Tank from the South was good, but it stopped abruptly just to the North, the way barred by a rocky outcrop and a deep, cliff sided wash.

What to do? Dig through, of course. For weeks, months, almost a year the two friends worked on their road through the rock. Every evening after the days mining was over, dinner eaten, and dishes cleaned out with sand, Dan and Dave worked side by side chipping away at the rocky outcrop. It was not a fun activity. For a long time there was no sign that they were even making any progress. “Can you see any difference on my side?” One would ask the other. “Maybe a little.” The other would answer, not wanting to be discouraging. But eventually there was a difference on both sides, a clear difference, indicated by the fact that they had to bend over, making their backs ache, to remove the rubble.

Finally, on Christmas Day 1910 the digging was done. “its not a very flat road or a very wide road,” observed Dan. Dave looked at him out of the sides of his eyes. “Can we get the wagon through?” he asked. “Yes.” “Well then it’s a road.” Showing an enormous lack of imagination, Dan and Dave named their road “Christmas Pass.” Because they “finished” it on Christmas Day.

Life went on. Happy, friendly, unbothered life for another five years.

Then in 1915, Dave had gone to Sonoyta, maybe for better Mexican tortillas, maybe for better, and cheaper, mezcal. As he often did on the way home, he picked up a little work guiding would be prospectors along the Camino del Diablo. He left Sonoyta with two men. Somewhere just past Agua Dulce the men set on Dave, they beat him to death, stole his belongings and his horse and buried him in a shallow grave in what are known today as the O’Neill Hills.

Back at Christmas Pass, Dan waited, growing progressively more anxious with each passing day, but Dave never appeared. Not for a moment did it cross Dan’s mind that Dave had left him. They had been friends for more than 50 years! A week went by and Dan determined to get his act together and go looking for Dave. Dan left Christmas Pass for the first time since 1888, winding his way slowly East on the Camino, checking under palo verde trees and in washes for signs of familiar boot prints, tobacco or Dave’s favorite Mexican paletas.

Dave O'Neill's Grave in the O'Neill Hills on the Camino del Diablo
Nearing Agua Dulce, on the North side of the Camino, Dan noticed an unnatural looking pile of rocks. He went over, moved a few and quickly uncovered Dave’s remains. Holding himself together he reached into Dave’s pocket and found the coyote skin tobacco pouch he had made for his friend. He put the pouch in his pocket, dug a proper grave and marked the spot with a proper cross. Dan did such a good job that he cross marking O'Neill's Grave remains at the spot to this day.

Dan returned to Sentia Tank. He made the fire and sat smoking Dave’s tobacco and talking to the coyote skin pouch. ”Remember when you sat on that cholla bud?” “Remember when we climbed that ridge and you almost fell through that hole in the rock?” “Remember when you forgot that shade in the evening means sun in the morning?’ “Remember when you thought it was a good idea to climb Arch Canyon?” “Remember when….so many small memories that make up a friendship…

Is this a TALL TALE or a TRUE STORY? You decide in the comments below......

1 comment:

  1. This is a tall tale. Dan Drift and Dave O'Neill were real people, but they never met and their stories here are fictional. What is true is the power of true friendship.

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