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Published by: Neal Du Shane, Fort Collins, CO 80525

Third Edition

Published in the United States of America

WebMaster: Neal Du Shane

112607

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EDITORS NOTE – SPELLING:

Historic articles and death certificates spell it Tussick Spring – current maps, dictionary and references spell it Tussock Spring.

PRESCOTT JOURNAL-MINER, THURSDAY MORNING, AUGUST 24, 1922

MYSTERY FEUD BEGINS AND ENDS IN QUICK EXCHANGE OF SHOTS; TWO FRIENDS DIE

Hidden from the sight of all men and enveloped in the hot passion of jealousy or anger, two men shot each other to death at Tussick (Tussock) Springs, 15 miles below Wagoner at 7 o’clock (PM) Tuesday evening.

They were William S. Bourne, manager of the Independence mine and James S. McClure, a rancher-miner of that district. Mrs. McClure, thought by some to be the cause of the quarrel, was but a few feet away and out of sight when the men opened fire. Her two young daughters, imbued with a spirit found only among pioneers and mountain folk, rode mule-back to the nearest ranch to summon aid.

McClure’s unexpectedly early return from a trip to Colorado preceded the tragedy by a few hours.

But whether it was a quarrel over mining interest the men had together or that age-old problem of love and jealousy, it was impossible to determine. Though McClure lived six hours after suffering a bullet wound in the eye, he just lay gasping. The shock of his wound had prohibited speech.

A strange finale to this mountain feud that was so short-lived and so hotly ended, was the request of Mrs. McClure for permission to bury the two dead men near the little spring that makes possible their home in a land grim with thirst but full of the lure of gold and the open sky.

AT TUSSICK (Tussock) SPRINGS (Yavapai County, AZ)

William S. Bourne and his associate in Gallup had organized the Independence Mines Company to develop what was considered as an extension of the Pacific Mine south of Crown King. Wm. S. Bickel, a leading merchant of Gallup, N.M and R.M. Roberts formerly sheriff of McKinley county, New Mexico, were Mr. Bourne’s principal backers in the mining venture. At the mine there was no water, but at Tussick (Tussock) Springs, about two miles from the Independence workings there was an abundance of water. James. S. McClure has secured a homestead at Tussick (Tussock) Springs, and was friendly with Bourne, and the two had been living at the same camp for about five yours. McClure had been away about one year during the world war. During his absence, Mrs. McClure stayed and kept the boarding house for Bourne and the few miners at the mine during McClure’s absence in the army.

HAD BEEN NO QUARREL

Nothing in the nature of a quarrel had ever been noticed between the two men, according to statement made to Deputy Sheriff Grant Carter by Mrs. McClure, but it was learned he said in Walnut Grove, that outsiders had been expecting trouble between the two men for some time. McClure had, been away on business in Colorado for about a month, and as he was returning to camp, he met Mrs. McClure on her way to the post office for the mail. Mrs. McClure seemed to be “peeved about something” when he met her. But she went for the mail and when she returned with it, she started to take the mule down the road to turn it out to graze. She told Carter that McClure asked her to wait a minute and he would go with her that he wanted to get his hat. She said “all right” and went on down a steep bank that is just in front of the two cabins. One of stone and one of board. But, just as she got down the bank out of sight of the cabins, which she did as the banks are very steep, she heard the shooting. It was her opinion that the shot gun sounded first, and its report was followed by three pistol shots in close succession. She went back to the top of the steep bank and saw both men lying on the ground about six feet apart. Neither of them ever spoke after that. Bourne lived about 20 minutes and McClure died in the night about one o’clock the shooting having taken place at about 7 o’clock in the evening.

Mrs. McClure caught up a burro and sent her two daughters, who have only been at the camp since July 5^th, on the mule and the burro to the camp of Hi Calkins, which is about three miles away. The girls carried the news that Bourne was dead and that McClure was dying. Calkins carried the news to Wagoner and there encountered C.C. Stukey who went by automobile to Kirkland and telephoned the news of the double tragedy to Prescott.

PRESCOTT IS NOTIFIED

Dr. Looney and Graham Heibling sped toward the death scene by automobile. Coroner McClane summoned a jury and started by automobile. The men in the coroner’s care were Ross, the driver, William Byers, Chas. K. Scholey, O.H. Jett and Johnny Merritt. Ahead of the entire procession went Grant Carter and Sterling Plummer, deputy sheriffs. They drove to within four miles of Tussick (Tussock) Springs and walked the rest of the way, and so did the other parties following them.

The experience of the officers and the others in getting to the scene of the murder was weird and long, but that of two girls, one on a burro and the other on a mule, making their way in a strange country to a lonely camp with news of the dead and dying was even more grew-some and trying. The girls are aged 15 and 17 years. They were new to the section and barely knew the trail to Calkins camp. But they delivered their blood-chilling message and returned to their mother, who was with her dying husband.

SAYS McCLURE SHOT FIRST

If Mrs. McClure’s theory is right, McClure must have fired on the sight of Bourne and Bourne must have returned the fire almost instantly for the death wound of either man, according to Carter would have made him unable to have done any shooting as the shot gun charge fired by McClure took effect just about an inch over Bourne’s heart and was fired at a distance of not over six or eight feet, as the bodies of the two men were lying not more than six feet apart. The body of Bourne lay just in the doorway of the stone cabin, and the body of McClure was just outside the cabin a few feet. The death wound of McClure took effect just in the edge of the right eye and passed through just under the left eye, bulging out the left eye slightly as it passed through. Carter thinks neither of the men ever knew anything after receiving his death wound.

AT TINY OASIS

Tussick (Tussock) Spring is a tiny oasis in the desert. It is the only living water for something like five miles from the place. It is in a deep gulch at the base of Silver mountain which is rugged, high and steep. When one approaches Tussick (Tussock) Spring from the Crown King side one sees it first as a green spot at the foot of a winding and precipitous trail which seems miles long. At the little oasis is a rudely constructed stone house and also a small cabin of boards and a small shed or two. The cabins stand by a steep gulch on the opposite side of which is a small garden spot where a little hay and vegetables are raised, and skirting the green spot are five or six large and spreading fig trees, which bear several crops of figs each year, and which have wide green leaves. The water from the spring is sparkling and cold and it is a resting place for a weary traveler.

MYSTERY AND TRAGEDY

After the smoke of battle, in the shadow of the spreading fig trees, Deputy Sheriff Carter tried to unearth the mystery of the sudden double tragedy. Mrs. McClure, heartbroken and wrenched, maintained steadfastly that her husband was not jealous of Bourne. She declared they had been fast friends for five years, and declared that she did not know why the shooting started. But make their fortunes out of the mine, and where they dreamed their dreams of success and had their moments of disappointment, and were finally in a fit of anger they were both torn from life and furled into the realms of the great unknown beyond. And Mrs. McClure’s request was granted. The tomb of the two erst-while friends who in death were enemies, will no doubt be close together.

PRINCIPALS IN THE SHORT-LIVED FEUD

Prescott Journal-Miner, Thursday Morning, August 24, 1922

William S. Bourne, killed in a gun battle with James McClure, 15 miles south of Wagoner, Tuesday night was 49 year of age and unmarried, so far as anyone knows here.

He was the general manager of the Independence Mining, Development and Recovery Company, a Gallup, N.M., corporation. He was associated with William S. Bickel, a leading merchant of Gallup, and R.L. Roberts, who has been sheriff of McKinley County, New Mexico, for several terms.

James McClure aged 36 years, was a miner, and at one time leased and worked some claims near the Independence. He was a volunteer soldier in the world war. On his return he patented the ranch where the tragedy occurred, taking it up in order to get title to the spring that supplies the only water for considerable territory thereabout.

Bourne has a brother, Robert Bourne, who lives somewhere in New Mexico.

Mrs. McClure, the possible cause of the tragedy, is a woman of medium stature, rather dark and sturdy, with black eyes and hair. Cheerful at all times, a good cook and willing worker. She was hopeful and always looking for something better.

Bourne had considerable mining experience and an unbounded faith in the Independence mine that usually consumes the prospector who goes to the hills to seek his fortune. He had pictured great bodies of rich ore, bearing silver, gold and copper, in the big veins on the Independence claims and thought that even their solitude and isolation from transportation could not keep them from making a wonderful camp at the foot of rugged old Silver Mountain. Some others joined him in his hopes and some doubted his rightness of mind.

McClure and his wife believed in Bourne. They believed in his hopes and ambitions that the mines would make good. They believed in his theory that they would some day get the money necessary to develop and equip the property. They stuck by him for five years.

McClure took a trip to Denver. He stayed a month. He was coming back. He met his wife roughly clad as the people of the hills go, on her way in a desert country for the mail. He felt peeved at her, she said. He went on to camp and she went for the mail. He arrived at camp and went to work cutting hay. She came back. He saw her, sun-tanned and weary, going with the mule to turn it out to graze. Did he feel a jealousy toward Bourne, whom he found in camp evidently not hard at work, and letting the woman go for the mail and take the mule to graze? Or did he have a disillusionment of his hopes and dreams of wealth which had so often been pictured to him by Bourne, and did he then and there decide to slay the man who had caused him his disillusionment? Did the disappointments of the past five years drive the man to this desperate act? Or was it jealousy?

Mrs. McClure says “No”. But other people in the district, according to Grant Carter and Sterling Plummer say “Yes”.

MOUNTAINEERS CARRY BODIES OF FRIENDS

Prescott Journal-Miner, Thursday Morning, August 24, 1922

The pallbearers at the Bourne-McClure funeral were chosen with great care and regard for the friend-ships of many days in the sparsely settled hills. There were four of them and one man extra to look on as the widow and her two daughters saw the coffins lowered into the grave: Hi Calkins, Lewis Meadors, Jim Cameron and George Tewksberry, and the unnamed witness to the sad funeral’s ending.

Whether or not the Bible was read, whether or not a funeral service was said, nature in her great heart throbbed as her erring children were lowered into the bosom of earth, and God looked down and understood it all.

THE VERDICT

The coroner’s jury found the facts as outlined by the officers, each man being credited with the slaying of the other.

Little is known where about the relatives of the two dead men. Bourne has a brother in New Mexico and McClure a sister in Colorado.

NIGHT DRIVE THRU STORM FOR STUKEY

Prescott Journal-Miner, Thursday Morning August 24, 1922

C.C. Stukey of the board of supervisors was the link between the double tragedy at the Independence mine and the outside world.

Visiting Wagoner on business, Mr. Stukey was the one called upon to drive into Kirkland in the dead of night and in a storm of rain and wind, to summon the officers and physicians.

Mr. Stukey returned to Prescott yesterday afternoon and gave the Journal-Miner an exclusive account of as stirring a night drama as occurred in this county in years.

“I was at Collins’ store and post office at Wagoner,” the supervisor said, “with Mr. Tewksberry. We sat up late talking, and went to bed about 12:30 Tuesday night (actually would have been Wednesday Morning). It was storming terribly. About 1 o’clock (AM) a cowboy road in on an exhausted horse. He had battled the storm from the McClure place, 15 miles below, and had been riding since early in the evening. He told us that Bourne was dead and McClure fatally hurt and asked us to get a doctor, the coroner and the sheriff’s office.

“He said Mrs. McClure had walked three miles to notify him and get him to go for help.

“I dressed and got in my car and drove to Kirkland, arriving about 3:30 (AM) I telephoned to Prescott to the sheriff’s office and then drove back to Wagoner, reaching that place about 6 o’clock (AM). Two hours later Grant Carter and Sterling Plummer came and Dr. Looney arrived about an hour later.”

Mr. Stukey did not go to the scene of the shooting, but started back to Prescott at 10 o’clock (AM), reaching here early in the afternoon.

Praised Bourne as a Fine Man; M’Clure’s Strangest Behavior Before Shooting

Like a message from across the void, bringing to light interesting information about the relationship between James McClure and William Bourne, came a statement yesterday by H.H. Keays of this city, probably the last man who talked with McClure before he returned to his little camp at Tussick (Tussock) Springs last Monday.

Keays, who returned to Prescott yesterday, received his first indication about the double homicide from Journal Miner encounter of the affair yesterday stated, “McClure, he declared, certainly did not talk like a man who expected to go home and shoot a friend with a pistol, either in business or love.”

Keays was on a campaigning trip to the Walnut Grove and Wagoner country and other places. McClure was returning from Colorado, and took Keays in his car as far as Wagoner. The reason he wanted me to spend the night there was that he thought I ought to meet is partner, William Bourne.

He told me: “Bourne is an intelligent man, a good talker – he could talk on any subject – and you will certainly be entertained”.

“If