plained. A herd of animals had been attacked by the Indians and a signal had been given which one of the jurymen had seen. On arriving at the spot they found Tom Simmons fighting manfully. He had killed three Indians, and on the approach of the jury and others, the enemy ran away. The jury then returned to the courtroom, and the next day the Judge brought his firearms to court with him. Mr. Fish says that he obtained the foregoing information from W. H. Hardy, who was present at the affair. The Probate Court of Yavapai County was organized in 1864, and the first record of that Court is as follows: "Probate Court, Third Judicial District, Arizona Territory. "Court met Monday, September 5th, 1864, at 10 o'clock a. m.; present, His Honor Hezekiah Brooks, Judge; F. G. Christie, Clerk, and Van C. Smith, Sheriff. The appointment of Hezekiah Brooks as Judge of the Third Judicial District, A. T., was ordered to be read, and the appointment of F. G. Christie as Clerk of said Court was ordered to be entered on the minutes of said Court. There being no further business before the court, it adjourned for the term. Hezekiah Brooks, Judge." Charles B. Genung was the first administrator appointed by the Court, being appointed administrator of the estate of J. W. Beauchamp, deceased, in September, 1864. The foregoing is all that I have been able to obtain concerning the organization of courts in Arizona. The first session of the Supreme Court of the Territory was held in Prescott in January, 1866. The records of this court were very carelessly kept in the early days as will be seen from the following extract from the preface to the second volume of the Arizona Supreme Court Reports, by E. W. Lewis, the Supreme Court reporter: "Since the publication of volume one of the Arizona Reports in 1884 there have been no official reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Arizona. The difficulties in now preparing complete and accurate reports have not been few. In the earlier years the court held its sessions in various parts of the Territory, at Tucson, Prescott and Phoenix, and doubtless this largely accounts for the regrettable lack of completeness in the files and records of the court. In many of the cases filed prior to 1894, when the court established its permanent seat at the capital, the original papers are missing; in others but a portion are to be found. The records of the court in these early years in such minor details as the names of counsel, from what court the appeal was taken, and the name of the trial judge, are incomplete, and, in some instances, contradictory. No opinions have been recorded in permanent form from 1877 to 1886, and a few opinions which appear in the first volume of these reports, as well as in the later Pacific Reporters, cannot now be found. The older minute records show a number of opinions as filed or to be filed which either never were filed or have since been lost. Quite a number of opinions have been found filed among the original papers and unrecorded which have not been heretofore published. It is needless to say that every effort has been made to find the missing files, and to ascertain the true state of the record, and, though it is not to be hoped that there are no errors, it is believed that there are none of serious moment. For such as appear the generous indulgence, so characteristic of the court and the profession is asked." When it is considered that twenty years elapsed between the printing and publishing of the first and second volumes of the Reports of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Arizona, it will be seen that but very little attention was paid to this important part of the government of the Territory. There were three lawyers in Prescott, John Howard, who, as before noted, was a New Yorker, who had settled in Denver, and joined the Governor's party and came in with that party to Prescott, where he made his home up to within a few years of his death. It is said that while in Denver he was married and that his wife deserted him. A few days after she had left his bed and board, he found that she was living with another man. Howard made out a quitclaim deed of his wife to her new affinity for a nominal consideration, had it duly recorded, and sent it to his wife's paramour. All the old-timers knew John Howard, or "Blinky" Howard, as he was called, as a most lovable character, full of humor and native wit. He never sought public position. The other two lawyers were J. P. Hargrave, concerning whom very little is known, and J. T. Alsap, whose biography is given in a preceding volume, and who was both a good lawyer and a good physician. In Tucson there were two lawyers, W. Claude Jones, the Speaker of the first House of Representatives, and Coles Bashford. The lawyers at that time were without libraries. The Acts of Congress or the Laws of the United States, governed all the Territories, but there was not a copy of the Revised Statutes of the United States in all Arizona. Secretary McCormick brought out a library to the Territory, but it consisted mainly of works on history and general subjects. This library he sold to the Territory for a thousand dollars, and these volumes became a part of and were the commencement of the Territorial and State Library. CHAPTER X. POPULATION-EARLY SETTLEMENT-INDIAN TROUBLES. POPULATION 1863-64 1863-64-YUMA HARDYVILLE INDIAN TROUBLES KING According to Hinton (see "Handbook of Arizona," p. 44), the population of Arizona at the time when the Territory was organized, was, exclusive of Indians, 581. This is probably an error, or it embraced only the white population exclusive of Mexicans who became citizens under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. In the Fish manuscript it is stated that in 1864 about one hundred men were engaged in dry washing for placer gold on the west side of the Colorado near Fort Yuma. On the east side, near Castle Dome, there were about a hundred men engaged in silver mining. Castle Dome City then had four or five houses. On the east side of the river, and perhaps about twenty-five miles above Yuma, there were one hundred miners at Eureka District, and about ninety miles above Yuma was the Weaver District, which was a place of considerable activity. The number of men employed there is not stated. At La Paz it is estimated that there were probably five hundred miners at work. ma, at this time, was the distributing point le Territory. Here a Quartermaster's De |