Searching for Rose III: Up the Coronado Trail to St. John

My great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney (Mom's maternal grandfather), lived in St. John, Arizona, for several years as he and his four wives fled from the U.S. Marshalls during the 1870s and 1880s.  They first moved from SLC to St. George, Utah, then to St. John, Arizona, and finally to Colonia Juarez, Mexico, where they could live as polygamists in peace. On January 15, 2022, Dave and I drove the Coronado trail from Clifton, Arizona, which is near Safford, due north to Eager and Springville, 2/3 of the way up the state.  We then drove still further north to St. John, where my great-grandparents lived as pioneers.

 

Clifton is next to the Morenci Mine, the second largest copper mine in the world.  Arizona was a mining state when Mom was growing up in Pima, and careers in mining held great promise.  Mom's brother, Henry Eyring, received a degree in mining engineering, metallurgy, and chemistry from the University of Arizona in Tucson, before focusing on chemical research at Berkeley and becoming a world famous chemist.  

Arizona sheltered other ethnic and religious minorities, besides the Mormons.  We stopped at this Catholic church in Clifton, which was the community center for the town's Hispanic population, who worked in the mine.

I stepped out of the car to take a photo of the church.  An old, Hispanic man welcomed me in.  There was a funeral mass starting at the church in a few minutes, he said, but there was time for me to look around.  The man said that he was the third generation of his family to live in Clifton, and that Hispanic men had been some of the first miners at the Morenci Mine.  The man took me to the church office and pulled out a history of the church which had been compiled for its 100^th anniversary.  He gave it to me and asked if I was Catholic and where I came from.  When I said, “Salt Lake City,” he responded, “Well, you know you’re always welcome back to the original church.”  I smiled and thanked him for his kindness.  

The old part of Clifton felt like a time warp.  I could imagine Mom or her brothers walking its streets during the 1920s or 1930s.  Perhaps Uncle Henry came here to check out the mine.

We drove north, past mine tailings.

The 120-mile Coronado Trail runs from Clifton, near the southeast border of Arizona, up the edge of New Mexico.  It is also known as the “Road with 460 Turns” and as the “Devil’s Highway”, since it used to be known as Route 666.  The road travels through a remote area of the White Mountains with virtually no towns, and has magnificent overlooks.  It supposedly follows the trail of Coronado, a Spanish explorer from the 1540s.  After my Grandpa Eyring fled Mexico during the 1912 Mexican Revolution, he looked for jobs in western New Mexico, before finally moving to Pima, Arizona.  There is another "trail" running through western New Mexico, parallel to the Coronado Trail.  I wonder if my Grandpa traveled along either of those roads, looking for farm land, ranch land, or for work.

Dave and I stopped at the Hannagan Meadow Lodge, a rustic lodge with a restaurant, partway up the Coronado Trail.  We were 9,000 feet high and there was snow on the ground.  

We enjoyed all the antiques in the empty restaurant, including old photographs and posters, a stuffed bear, and table lamps from the 1800s.  

By mid-afternoon, we drove into St. John.

We stopped at the Apache County Museum.

The museum was closed, but there were several outdoors historical markers and monuments.  This monument documents that the Dominguiz Escalante Expedition of Spanish explorers passed this way in 1776. 

There were also bricks, memorializing early pioneers in St. John.  This brick honors Miles Park Romney and his first wife, Hannah Hood Hill.  

My great-grandmother was Catherine Cottam Romney, Miles Park's third wife.  She hid in the cornfields near St. John with Miles Park's second wife, Annie, when the U.S. marshalls came hunting.

Most of the photos of Miles Park which I have seen are of him as an older man.  I didn't know he was as handsome as the photo at the beginning of this posting portrays.  I remember reading Miles Park's biography and being amazed by his near-death experience, which no one had told me about.  He nearly died in his field and experienced the bliss of heaven.  However, he chose to return to earth because he had a disabled son whom he felt responsible for.  As I recall, Miles Park said that returning to his body was like climbing back into a pair of muddy overalls.

I have always admired Miles Park's first wife, Hannah Hood Hill, who was particularly kindly and generous towards her sister wives.  As I researched my father's ancestors, I read about a three-year-old girl whose mother died at Winter Quarters as the LDS pioneers headed from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley.  She was taken by her aunt and uncle by wagon to Salt Lake City.  My great-grandmother, on my father's side, was born, to Hannah's aunt, in the bed of the wagon on that trip.  She and Hannah Hood Hill were cousins.  Some day, I want to meet Hannah Romney and Catherine Romney, both of whom are my ancestors.

Dave and I enjoyed inspecting the pioneer cottage and old wagons surrounding the Apache County Museum.

After leaving St. John, Dave and I cut diagonally across the state, driving southwest along the Mogollon Rim to Payson.  The Mogollon Rim is an escarpment, running diagonally across Arizona, with high plateaus on one side and scrub and sagebrush on the other.  Again, the views from the ridge down to the valleys was spectacular.  We stayed the night in Payson, a mountain village, and the next morning we continued southwest, past Phoenix to Wickenburg.