Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

(brother) and the Indians called him the Apache equivalent for “Sandy Whiskers.”
It was Tom Jeffords who persuaded Cochise to attend the peace parley with General
Howard that ended Cochise’s war on the U.S. Army. Cochise made peace in 1872, a peace
which he faithfully kept.
At Cochise’s insistence, Jeffords became Indian Agent of the Sulphur Springs Indian
Reservation. In telling of the death of Cochise on June 8, 1874, Jeffords related, “Cochise died
here and was buried at the mouth of the canyon overlooking Sulphur spring Valley. After burial
the Apaches rode their ponies back and forth over the area about the grave, completely obliterating
it.”
Sometime after he left his job as post trader at Camp Huachuca, he settled at Owls Head
Camp, 45 miles south of Florence in Pinal County. Jeffords died in Tucson, Arizona, on 19
February 1914 at 82 years of age.
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
Thomas Jonathan Jeffords
Voices: “The Country is Rapidly Settling Up”
The area is described at length in Hinton’s Handbook of Arizona, a 1877 publication, that
depended upon “a careful and conscientious examination of all sources of information, verified by
actual observation and examination.” One of Hinton’s correspondents wrote for his handbook:
We scouted around the southern base of the Huachuca mountains—this portion of country
it is needless to describe, as it is (at present) outside our jurisdiction. This country is much
better for farming and cattle raising than we have heretofore given it credit for, and there is
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