Goals

Introduction

The Wickenburg Massacre was the seminal event in the Yavapai War which terminated in massacres at Skeleton Cave and Turret Peak. As such, it is a highly important event in US History. However, it was largely forgotten, even by the residents of Wickenburg. The unmarked graves of the victims became lost over time, as did the actual site itself.

It was purportedly rediscovered by the President of the Wickenburg Historical Society in the mid-1940's. A cairn holding a mesquite wood cross was erected by the Wickenburg Saddle Club in 1947, over what was believed to be the grave of Frederick W. Loring, one of the victims. During this time-frame, construction workers on a project in Wickenburg unearthed "rotting wood and bones." The discovery greatly disturbed the workers, but no official inquiry was ever made. About this same time, the graves of the victims were reportedly "disturbed."

In 2007, the purported massacre site was explored by Neal Du Shane and members of the Arizona Pioneer Cemetery Research Project (APCRP), and several purported graves were located by "dowsing." Mr. Du Shane's group marked and labeled the graves, although their identification of the graves can only be considered conjecture.

In January, 2012, Gary and Betty Griffiths mapped the graves, and replicated Mr. Du Shane's findings vis-a-vis dowsing. Undoubtedly, there is something at those locations which cause dowsing rods to react in a manner similar to graves in a cemetery. However, there are twelve or more graves at the site, including one very large area which could be a mass grave of six to ten individuals. Since this site is not in the vicinity of any ranch buildings or other habitation, and history records the massacre victims were buried in town, it is not logical that there should be human graves at this site. If the victims were indeed buried at the site and records falsified to appease relatives "back East" then what do the other burials represent? A far more likely scenario is that the graves represent reburials of the massacre victims plus any other bodies subsequently buried near them in the unmarked cemetery in Wickenburg, clandestinely done by the construction crew that discovered them in the 1940s, so that they would not "impede progress" by tying the project up in red tape. Reburial at the site, in some semblance of where they originally fell would also provide "plausible deniability" to the contractor. After a relatively short time, who could say that they hadn't been there all along?

Goals

Locate the Victims

The chief goal of the Wickenburg Project is to locate and identify the remains of the victims of the Wickenburg Massacre and inter them in marked graves at a suitable location where descendants and members of the public may visit them and pay their respects.

Locate the Massacre Site

The secondary goal is to verify the massacre site by searching for artifacts such as spent bullets, fired shell casings, etc., document their location and condition (a 150-year delayed crime scene processing) and recover them for eventual study and display by the Arizona State Museum or its designated institution.