STEALING ARIZONA - TEN

 

I doubt anyone in the county courthouse (above) on Monday, 10 June, 1895 was surprise at the first words James Reavis-Peralta, spoke. 

When he rose, the self proclaimed Baron of Arizona, asked for a delay, while he sought a new attorney. When Mathew Reynolds, lawyer for the government, objected, Reavis was granted a one day continuance. Encouraged by that small success, Reavis made a motion to have the case dismissed entirely. This motion was just as quickly dismissed.  This Federal Judge was not going to be lead down any rabbit holes.

And when the trial reconvened on Tuesday, 11 June ,  the Baron announced that he was going to be doing a single: lawyer, plaintiff and witness all in one. He spent most of his direct testimony by describing his dealings with Huntington, Crocker, and various Senators and cabinet members. None would testify in his defense. Reavis did not ask to subpoena any of them. None would admit to even knowing him.  If the jury was impressed by his name dropping, they had little time to be, because Reynolds began his cross examination that very afternoon. 

No matter what question Reynolds asked,  Reavis' answers were endless and rambling. Did he not notice that the documents he claimed to have discovered in the San Xavier record books, were on a different paper than the other pages in the book, and at right angles to the standard pages? (above) 

What about the questionable testimony regarding Sophia's noble birth?  Did he pay anyone to lie in  their testimony?  But no matter how long Reavis talked, no matter how many twist and turns he made in responding, Reynolds just kept attacking. 

By Wednesday, 12 June, Reavis had been forced to admit that even he had doubts about some of his documents. His explanation was that he just filed them, he wasn't vouching for them.

On Monday, 17 June, the Baroness Sophia Reavis Peralta took the stand. She admitted she had no knowledge about any of the documents filed supporting her noble birth. Perhaps it was the paternalistic Victorian machismo at play, but the courtroom was convinced the lady was telling the truth, as she believed the truth to be.  

Presented with convincing evidence that she was in fact the daughter of John A. Treadway and an Indian squaw named Kate Loreta, she broke down in tears, but still insisted, through her sobs, that she was the wife and granddaughter of the Baron of Arizona.

Having put his wife through this emotional torture, on Tuesday 18 June,  1897,  Reavis introduced a portrait he claimed was of Don Miguel Nemecio de Peralta de la Cordoba (above), and noted the facial resemblance to his own two sons. 

After that he just ran out of gas, and was reduced to rants about grand conspiracies and lunatic explanations and justifications. During his closing Reavis did not even bother arguing his case, but rather entered a list of 52 objections to rulings the court had made. They would all be denied.

The government did not even bother to present a final argument. Ten days later, the Court of Private Land Claims, created by political allies to defend the Peralta Grant case, found “the claim is wholly fictitious and fraudulent”, and dismissed it entirely. That was, of course, not the end. James Reavis (above) had gone too far for that to be the end of the affair.

Reavis was arrested as he left the courtroom, and charged with 42 counts of forgery, presenting false documents to the Land Court and conspiracy to defraud the United States Government. Bail was set at a lowly $500. And although the court allowed him to telegraph his connections in California and Washington, D.C., nobody stepped up with the cash. James Reavis-Peralta  spent the next year in jail, awaiting the criminal trial. It finally began on Saturday, 27 June,  1896 and ended on Tuesday 30 June,  with a verdict of guilty. Two weeks later, on Friday 17 July, James Reavis-Peralta was sentenced to two years in jail – one year of which he had already served – and a $5,000 fine –about $130,000 today.

To pay the fine, the mansion in San Francisco was sold. Arizola, the home and fortress which was supposed to represent the reality of the Peralta grant, was seized by the U.S. government. It was later converted into a barn. 

When James Reavis was released from prison in April of 1898, he followed Sophia and his children to their new home in Denver,  where he tried for many years to find investors for his various schemes and plans. Few were even interested in buying his book, “The Confessions of the Baron of Arizona”. It had already been serialized in his old newspaper, "The San Francisco Call".  He probably did not even write it himself.

But whoever the actual author, it was presented as a classic Victorian morality tale. “The plan to secure the Peralta Grant and defraud the Government," wrote the author, "was not conceived in a day. It was the result of a series of crimes extending over nearly a score of years. At first the stake was small, but it grew and grew in magnitude until even I sometimes was appalled at the thought of the possibilities. 

"I was playing a game which to win meant greater wealth than that of a Vanderbilt. My hand constantly gained strength, noted men pleaded my cause, and unlimited capital was at my command. My opponent was the Government, and I baffled its agents at every turn. Gradually I became absolutely sure of success.”

"As I neared the verge of triumph”, wrote Reavis, “I was exultant and sure. Until the very moment of my downfall I gave no thought to failure. But my sins found me out, and as in the twinkling of an eye I saw the millions which had seemed already in my grasp fade away and I heard the courts doom me to a prison cell. Now I am growing old and the thing hangs upon me like a nightmare until I am driven to make a clean breast of it all, that I may end my days in peace.” 

No where in his “clean breast” account did James Reavis mention Mr. Huntington, or Charles Crocker or any of the other wealthy and powerful men who had financed and backed his scam in hopes of increasing their wealth. It seemed that Reavis had learned something from the affair, after all. 

Sophia (above) had also gained in knowledge. In 1902, she filed for divorce on the grounds of “non-support”. And the old forger,  who began his career at 18, faking passes for his army buddies, died alone, at the age of 71 on 20 November, 1914, in Denver Colorado. Cause of death was listed as bronchitis, but I suspect he just ran out of ideas. He was buried in a paupers unmarked grave. 

Sophia, once the child of royalty and then a single mother supporting herself and her children, lived the last years of her life under the name Lola Reavis.  The poor soul died on 4 April, 1934. Her obituary in the Rocky Mountain News failed to even mention the Peralta Grant. That was probably not an accident.

In 1963 the National Park Service decided that it was not financially feasible to save the the fortress south of Casa Grande. The ten room mansion of Arizola was allowed to slowly decay and collapse into the desert. The next year they erected a maker on Arizona route 84 at milepost 181, to explain the significance of the spot to any passersby.  

It reads (inaccurately), “James Addison Peralta Reavis was a brazen forger who claimed over 12 million acres of Central Arizona and Western New Mexico as an Old Spanish Land grant. He and his family lived here in royal style until his fraud was exposed. From the barony he went to federal prison in 1895". 

And that is all most people will ever know about this story. But now,  you know more.

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STEALING ARIZONA - EIGHT

 

I doubt James Reavis-Peralta (above), could have imagined a worse person to review his new filing for the Peralta grant than Royal A. Johnson. They New York lawyer's  son had come west out of curiosity, and been one of the clerks who had received the original voluminous Perlata Grant filing in 1883. And from that morning he'd been suspicious of Reevis.

Then in 1884 Democrat Grover Cleveland won the White House, and in the wholesale shifting of political favors, Royal was replaced as Surveyor General by the Democrat John C. Hise, a realtor and  the son of rancher from Payson, Arizona.  Thus, when Reavis-Peralta filed his new claim, it was John Hise who was to pass judgment on the it. However, Hise was also suspicious of Reavis, and delayed making his decision.   So  in1888, when the Republican Benjamin Harrison was elected President, in July of 1889 Royal Johnson, the one man who knew almost as much about the Peralta Grant as James Reavis, was back in as Surveyor General.

Even during the four years he was out of office, Royal had continued to investigate the grant. So in September, when the acting United States Commissioner of Land sent Royal a letter asking, "please report to me the exact condition of said grant...and all the information you can obtain in regard to it.", Royal was loaded and ready to fire. His broadside was released on 12 October (Columbus day), 1889 and the title said it all; “Adverse Report of the Surveyor General of Arizona, Royal A. Johnson, upon the alleged Peralta Grant”. The word “alleged” must have particularly stung Reavis.

First, Johnson noted that the Royal Cedula, the document which had supposedly started the entire enterprise, was written in a form different than every other Royal Cedula every issued, and in such bad Spanish that Royal suggested it must have been written by an American using “bad California Spanish”.  In addition, the seal on the Royal Cedula had been printed on the page, and not impressed into it, as it was in every other Cedula. Finally, the signatures had been made with a steel pen, not invented until a century after the 1748 date on the page.

Considering the report of the "Mexican Holy Inquisition", Royal observed that the seal was legitimate, but it had been glued on the page and not impressed, and it was cracked and had a brown tinge, suggesting it had been heated and removed from another document. And when discussing the Viceroy's decree directly awarding the grant, Royal wrote, “No certificate of a modern date nor any other reliable certification appears on the copies which would point to the originals being at present in the custody of some custodian of archives where they could be readily located and seen...to enable me to ascertain the whereabouts of originals or to prove their existence, and if they were to be obtained it is the duty of the claimants to produce them or to obtain and submit undoubted proof of their existence in their proper archives ... .”

In fact, at times the Surveyor General seemed to be scolding Reavis. “...it seems in poor taste that the old books of the San Xavier Mission, wherein were recorded the births, marriages and deaths of persons under the cognizance of the Church, should be selected to have inserted, and rudely inserted, among its withered leaves a copy of the grant of Peralta by the viceroy, and a copy of Peralta’s will." 

Royal went on to point out the obvious signs of a forgery committed under time constraints and in difficult places. "In the first place, the (forgery) is pasted in at right angles to the other sheets and is one-third larger than the regular sheets. The upper end of the pasted-in sheet is inserted in that part of the binding that holds the back of the large book together, instead of being in regular order...”

Royal further noted that under the laws existing during the 16^th century, the King would not have communicated to the Viceroy of New Spain, but rather through the bureaucracy, to the Council of the Indies, who would have then contacted the Viceroy.  And there was no copy of the Peralta Grant in the Council's archives. And, asked Johnson, why was there no record or even mention of the noble deeds achieved by Maguel Peralta to justify this grant, anywhere in any other records? 

Given that this was the largest individual land grant made in the Americas by the Spanish crown, should not the achievement equal its reward?  Noted Johnson, Spanish law at the time said, “No memorial from any person whatever shall be received for services which shall not be supported by certificates from viceroys, Generals, or other chiefs under whom such services shall have been performed, except those persons who shall have served in the councils.” And, again, the Council of the Indies had no record of the Peralta grant.

Royal also noted that although the Inquisition was extremely powerful in Mexico, no obsessive Spanish bureaucrat – and any good bureaucrat is obsessive - would have asked that body to investigate the Peralta Grant. It should have been reviewed by the Audiencia Guadalajara Nuev Galidia.  And in those records there was, again, no mention of the Peralta Grant.

Then, Royal Johnson dealt with the conflicts between the 1883 and 1887 claims. Noted the Surveyor General, if the 1864 Willing bill of sale was legitimate, then that superseded Sophia's inheritance.  

And,  as to the photograph of Sophia standing next to the “Inicial Monument” (above), Johnson showed that the Peralta family crest carved into the rock was, in reality, a native American holography.

The report went on to detail the vagueness of the boundaries of the claim, pointing out that under long established property law in America and in Mexico, you cannot claim what you cannot locate. “Speedy and final action should be had on this base claim in order that the people of this territory may enjoy their homes with peace of mind. And parties guilty of forgery or the fabrication of papers that have caused so much trouble should be vigorously prosecuted by the government and that without delay. I recommend that the alleged grant should not be confirmed as it is prayed for, it being to my mind without the slightest foundation in fact and utterly void.”

The Baron of Arizona, James Reavis-Peralta,  responded as any good con man would respond when he was caught red handed. He sued the United States government for $11 million.

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STEALING ARIZONA - SEVEN

 

I think the most heinous crime James Reavis committed was what was he did to the woman known only as Sophia. She was an orphan, a woman and Latino, living in a sexist, racist culture.  And then she met a stranger who told her that she was from a noble family. And after a decade of teasing her and supporting her personal fairy tale, all he asked in return was that she marry him. 

In 1877 Sophia was an orphan servant girl in a hotel in the Stanislaus River ferry crossing village of Knights Landing (above), California –  20 miles north-west of Sacramento. She was facing a bleak future. The opening of the transcontinental railroad sent the community into a decline, the hotels and rooming houses closing one by one.  The appearance of Reavis saved her.

They were married on 31 December, 1882, right after his second scheme to steal from the citizens of Arizona faltered. And in January, she was enrolled in a convent school, to train her in the social skills expected of a well born lady. And while the girl began her studies, Reavis continued on to San Francisco.  

There were lengthy planning sessions with Collis Huntington and Charles Crocker (above) and other financial supporters. After a few weeks Reavis  collected letters of introduction to several important Washington power players. He also met with San Francisco banker Maurice Herr, who put up $25,000 to fund "The Arizona Development Corporation".  Where Reavis' "Peralta Grant" had only sought to blackmail the people of Arizona, this corporation could add investors world wide to its list of victims.  Reavis had finally learned the fundamental lesson of capitalism - that a thief is a man who robs a bank, while a financial wizard is a a man who robs everybody. 

At the same time James Reavis met John W. Mackay (above), whose holdings in the Comestock Lode produced half of all the silver mined in the United States each year.  Mackay wanted to get an inside track on the Peralta Grant, and offered to finance Reavis' new Spanish research, paying him a stipend of $500 (the modern equivalent of $11,500). a month.  And , after pausing to collect his "wife", the James Reavis party set out for Spain, traveling in style. 

They first stopped off in New York, where Reavis used his letters of introduction to bond with powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling,  former Congressman and lobbyist Dwight Townsend and Bankers Henry Potter and Hector de Castro. A few weeks later the Reavis party boarded ship for Spain; the reprobate ex-lawyer Cyril Baratt, the short, violent thug Pedro Cuervo, the newly minted lady, Baroness Sophia Reavis ne Peralta , and a new version of James Reavis himself, with his new title – James Reavis -Peralta, Baron of Arizona.

Once again, luck was with Reavis. His party arrived in Spain at the perfect moment. The 27 year old Alfonso XII (above - aka “The King without good fortune":) was entering his 10^th gilded year on the throne, his monarchy having been restored at the end of December 1874. Valuing noble blood was de regueire  in Spain at this time.  And fortuitously for Spanish society, at this opportune moment, a long lost New World royal cousin appeared, the lovely, regal Sophia Peralta, and her charming, debonair paramour, the man who had rescued her from commonality, James Reavis-Peralta. The public and the nobility were both primed to see her as Reavis wanted her seen - as a fairy tale come true.

Reavis made a tour of the great cathedrals of Madrid. The civil government of the Spanish municipios had only begun recording births and deaths in 1831. Records of all christenings, deaths and weddings before that could be found only in church records, in the cathedrals, like Iglesia de San Andrés or the San Pedro el Viejo for example. It took weeks before James was able to "discover" the codicil to the will of Don Miguel Perlata,  leaving everything he owned, including the Peralta grant, to his only surviving daughter, Sophia. 

When he was not laboring alone over the ancient dusty documents (and covering new ones with dust), Reavis-Peralta was wandering through the second hand shops and flea markets of Madrid, buying the occasional painting or daguerreotype of a forgotten nobility, who had lost their fortune during the brief Spanish Republic - before Alfonso's restoration. James picked those which showed a resemblance to Sophia, in other words those which could be presented as being her ancestors. And in his weaving the tale to his young bride, they became her ancestors. And the living members of the actual Peralta family were as willing to believe that this rich American had discovered an image of their long lost distant cousins. Wasn't she graceful? Didn't she carry herself like a baroness? You do not learn grace and culture in a California Catholic finishing school. Sophia Peralta Revis was obviously born with noble blood.

In December of 1885 the King, Alfonso XII, fell ill with tuberculosis and died.  He was succeeded by his pregnant wife, Queen Maria Christina. Her son, and the new king, would not be born until five months later. By then, the delightful Baroness Sophia Peralta Revis and her gracious American husband were so accepted by the nobility, they were even presented to the Queen. Then, in a cloud of fond farewells, the noble couple returned to America, arriving in New York City in November of 1886

As they say, everybody loves a winner, and the Peralta brand was clearly winning. On their return to America they received the endorsement the powerful Missouri Republican James Broadhead (above), who endorsed the claim, referring to James Reavis-Peralta as, “a man of remarkable energy and persistence."

Powerful Republican Senator Roscoe Conkling (above) vouched for the validity of the claim, and said he believed Sophia “to be the person she believes herself to be...the lineal descendant of the original grantee.”  Back in California in 1887, James was able to add to his list of supporting documents a testimonial from Alfred Sherwood, of San Diego County, who swore he had known Sophia all her life, and even knew her parents as well.

In August, the Revis-Peralta's journeyed by Southern Pacific train to Arizona. And fortuitously, while pausing in Phoenix, they took a carriage ride into the mountains, and stumbled across yet even more evidence, the "Inicial Monument”, the very great stone upon which Don Miguel Peralta had carved his family crest back in 1758. Wasn't that lucky. James even posed Sophia next to the carving (above), and included the photo in his new claim,  filed in Tucson on 2 September, 1887. 

Now his claim was simple and direct, and no longer rested on a single scrap of paper - that bill of sale (above) from the mining camp.  

He was the grantee, by benefit of his marriage to the direct ancestor of old Don Miguel Peralta,  Doña Sophia Micaela Maso Reavis y Peralta de la Córdoba, third Baroness of Arizona.

James Reavis-Peralta, Baron of Arizona, announced the formation of the "Casa Grande Improvement Company", to exploit his land. He sold $3 million in stock (above), based on his plans to build a massive damn on the Salt River (which he owned), which would allow irrigation systems to make the desert (which he owned) bloom. Never mind that most of the year, the Salt River was a bed with no water in it. But for all his plans, James barely paused in his fortress at Arizola. They had built or bought homes where Sophia's investors lived – in San Francisco, St. Louis, New York and Chihuahua, Mexico. It was while in New York City that Sophia adopted a two month old orphan and named him Fenton, after James' father.

It looked as if the land commissioners in Arizona had little choice but to approve the grant, and make James Reavis Peralta  a multi-millionaire and Sophia a real live princess. And I have no doubt that would have happened – except for one man – the Surveyor General for Arizona, Royal Johnson.

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