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THE GRAHAMS IN AMERICA The family emigrated some time in the next three years settling in Ohio where Tom was born in 1854. They moved further west to Boone in Iowa and while on the wagon train a daugher Harriet was born. Mrs Graham survived only as far as Boone where she died. Two years later Samuel married again. His new wife was Mary Eve Goetzman who gave him seven more children including William born in 1866. When she died in 1874 Samuel married Malinda, the widow of his friend Judge McFarland. In 1872 John and Tom headed west becoming miners looking for the lucky strike. They did make some money and in the autumn of 1881 they reached Arizona.
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At first the Grahams and Tewksburys worked together as neighbours. When Ed Tewksbury was caught rebranding cattle owned by Jim Stinson it led to him shooting two men. John and Tom decided they no longer wanted to be associated with the Tewksburys and made a contract with Stinson to look after his herd. When they later took the Tewksburys to court for stealing cattle the charge was dismissed and the basis of the feud was established. THE GRAHAM-TEWKSBURY FEUD By 1886 the Grahams had the largest cattle herd in Pleasant Valley and the best range land. All this was threatened when John Tewksbury and the Daggs brothers brought thousands of sheep into the valley. The following year a Ute Indian herding sheep across the valley was murdered but the crime remained unsolved. AMBUSH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM On 17th August in 1887 William was gunned down at his home but lived long enought to identify Ed Tewksbury as the man who had ambushed and shot him twenty times. The jury found Tewksbury guilty in his absence and Sheriff Mulvenon set out for their ranch. He soon gave up the search seeming reluctant to pursue them into the hills. |
THE KILLING OF JOHN TEWKSBURY John was believed to have returned to the ranch as his wife was expecting a child. There were no witnesses to the killing but those in the house heard the shots. Some accounts say that the Grahams surrounded the cabin. After three days of searching they found the bodies of John Tewskbury and William Jacobs. Although the Grahams were accused of the shooting there was no evidence to that effect and the jury returned a verdict that they had been killed by persons unknown. THE DEATHS OF JOHN & TOM GRAHAM In September Sheriff Mulvenon however set off with a large posse to the Graham ranch. In his evidence he said that he shot John Graham who was resisting arrest. Tom later said that he had send his brother to see if the sheriff had a warrent and if so he should surrender. Tom left the valley to farm in Tempe believing the feud was over. However in August 1892 as he was unarmed and loading barley he was shot by Ed Tewksbury who was brought to Phoenix for trial. He was eventually released and the controversy has raged ever since. The full story is told in Leland Hanchett's Arizona's Graham-Tewksbury Feud |
