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Show Luna, New Hexico Luna, some 15 mi.Les east of Alpine, and perhaps 6 miles over the New Mexico Like So many Erie, has a much to ie» elevation than Alpine---about 1 mile. this vias we have also ot.her places vicinity mentioned, occupied before the Luna the arrival of the Mormons---by brothers, sheepmen, whose interest in been limited to have Hormons the resenting their apparent intrusion on may In order to clear even their uncertain "squatters r t'1 eir s'1eep razing ranges. ric;htsfl to t.he land, the first Hormons---the Swapp brothers and Lorenzo Watson, W10 arrived there February 28, l883,---found it necessaz-y to buyout the rights of 2 prospectors, also ahead of them. occupation, the name Grant , honoring the Normon Apot;t Le Grant' 5, farther northward and now on the Santa Fe of that name, was given; made conflict of names in New Hexico, so the :1Gn e "Cr ant." was changed Railrad to "Heber" for Heber C. Kimball, anot.her dig;nitary of t.he Hormon Church, but Heber, in t.h e present Navajo County, Arizona---a r-ormon sett lement already established---ca'Jsed conflicts in Church records. Accordingly, both Church names were dropped, and the original nsme "Luna'' for the sheepmen already Li.v i.ng n At the first Hormon in the vicinity n since teen maintained. has Frederick Hamblin, a brother of well known tlLeatherstocking of the South west, was one of the residents here for some time. Like David of early Israel The event took. place of the Bible, Frederick was a successful bear-fig1ter. _ -i the largest grizzly ever seen the neigh borhocd , or in t.his rugged section of the HogolLon Hountains or so it is said. 2" tall; but bear, st andi.ng on his hind feet to fiht was Hamb Li.n was 6' \1[ith t he stock knocked off his gun, which had proved ineffect even taller. r-ammed the gun-barrel down the 'bear's throat. ive against, t'1e brute, Hamblin embattled the blows of From the flailing pioneer, the grizzly tost many of the and his teeth; fight. A neighbor killed the grizzly--finally gave up in November, 1888; and the bear was gun-barrel definitely identified fought, like David, single-handed. five balls were some tlrsrizzlytt stories, too---in one of them, know I O-Vell, shot into the body of the huge animal as hs advanced to attack, but fell dead on te oPPosite side of a fallen tree from the ugun-pumperu.--more than once, during my lifetime, have I thought of the trutl1 cf that old axiom "the truth is stranger than fiction" at times.) the ml sai.ng teeth and t.he marks on t.he the bea st, as the same that Hamb LLn had Pleasanton \Ale have already spoken in t.he Little Co Lor edo story of t.he Normon founding in the upper drainage of that river, in Pl eaeant.on, New l'1exico---Ramah, end the smaller "vi.Ll.as" preceding it. about half way between Alpine and Silver City, ·New Mexico was the most southerly of these early settlements. The small town is some distance down the San of colonies of the northern villages River, one of te upper confluents of the Gila, in Williams Valley":--te first settler came in 1879. This was George C. 1'iilliams, Francisco who-perhaps lft is name with the valley, but not \v.ith the village. Jacoc Hnblin spent te last years of his life atPleasanton; and here he Allust 31, 1886 His body vias interred here until 1$89, when it was removed to Alpine, Arizona. He was born April 2, 1819, making h im 67 years old. died |
