McComas’ Route to Lordsburg
McComas’ journey to Lordsburg from Silver City took him over what was by that time the stage route between those two places; a route which in March of 1883 was quite new, and which was primarily a passenger-only route. The transportation of the mail by stage coach between Lordsburg and Silver City had ceased in March of 1881, with the establishment of Deming Junction.
Several of the newspaper reports on McComas’ death state that he and his family were attacked between Paschal and Lordsburg, in Thompson Canyon, after they had spent the night of March 27th at J. M. Dennis’ Mountain Home Ranch in the Burro Mountains.
Instead of approximating the route of present day NM 90 as it had done previously, the stage road at the time of McComas’ death turned sharply to the west a short distance south of the recently established Oak Grove station, it then continued on in a westerly direction to take in the settlement and mining camp of Paschal, “built as if by magic” just over one year before¹²⁷. After Paschal, the route took in yet another newly included stop, that at the Mountain Home Ranch, known today as the Burro Mountain Homestead. A few miles further west, the road made an abrupt turn south and followed the present day Tyrone Thompson Canyon Road for a few short miles until veering further west, down into Thompson Canyon itself. It then followed the floor of Thompson Canyon until it opened out onto the Lordsburg Flats, subsequently rejoining the old route (present day NM 90) a few miles north of Lordsburg.
The new route had been adopted in early December of 1882. On December 9, 1882, the New Southwest and Grant County Herald described changes to the Silver City to Lordsburg (passenger) stage route operated by Ed. Marriage. The route would “henceforth run from Silver City by Oak Grove to Paschal and thence to Dennis’ Mountain Home Ranch and via Thompson’s Cañon to Lordsburg.” At the Mountain Home Ranch teams would be changed, and passengers would be served meals. This change to the route meant that Cherry Creek and Park’s (Knight’s) Ranch were no longer stage stations.
The same edition of the New Southwest and Grant County Herald also carried an advertisement for J. M. Dennis’ Mountain Home Ranch, stating that it:
Is now on the regular Stage Road to Lordsburg. All stages stop there and change, and passengers both ways can take supper at the station. Travellers from Lordsburg, Oak Grove, Shakespeare, Paschal, Silver City, and all other places will find good accommodations at this house.
The deaths of Hamilton and Juniata McComas and the abduction of their son shocked the citizens of Silver City and the nation as a whole. Hamilton McComas had become well known in Grant County. No one has ever been able to provide a completely satisfactory answer to the question of why Hamilton C. McComas felt compelled to take along his wife and youngest child on a journey so filled with the potential for an attack by Apaches – a fact which featured prominently in the claim against the McComas estate made by Graham, Bowen & Co. of the Stock Exchange Corral in Silver City. On June 8, 1883, the Silver City Enterprise reported that their claim had been allowed, and the Company was awarded $364 – the value of the horses lost during the attack – from the estate on the grounds that “the deceased was aware of the presence of Indians in the country.”
A few months before his death, in November of 1882 McComas had been elected Grant County Commissioner for the 1st District, beating out C. P. Crawford for the position by 821 votes to 795¹²⁸. At the inaugural meeting of the newly elected Board of Commissioners on March 5, 1883, McComas was elected Chairman¹²⁹. Just prior to his death he had been nominated to stand for the position of City Councilman in the upcoming city election, to take place on Tuesday, April 3, 1883. The Southwest Sentinel of March 31, published the names of those nominated for the various positions open for election, with Judge H. C. McComas, John Swift, Alva E. Walcott, and John A. Miller nominated for councilmen. Immediately below appeared a short paragraph headed “Special Request” which reported that, at the request of various men, Judge H. C. McComas’ name was to be removed from the list of nominees and replaced by that of Max Schutz.
REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT
¹²⁷New Southwest and Grant County Herald. February 25, 1882.
¹²⁸County Commissioners Record 1868-1888. Page 163. (GCCO).
¹²⁹Ibid. Page 171.
This is the final installment of our account of Hamilton C. McComas. The circumstances and details of his death and that of his wife Juniata, and the abduction of their young son have all been covered in many other publications and in numerous newspaper reports at the time they occurred.
As stated at the beginning of this section, our aim was to focus on his business affairs and his work as an attorney. You will have seen that during the course of this we introduced some new information and corrected more than a few errors in existing writings, and have, hopefully, provided a new perspective on McComas.
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