The Wickenburg Massacre was the November 5, 1871, murder of six stagecoach passengers en route westbound from Wickenburg,
The Wickenburg Massacre was the November 5, 1871, murder of six stagecoach passengers en route westbound from Wickenburg, Arizona Territory, headed for San Bernardino, California, on the La Paz road. Around mid-morning, about six miles from Wickenburg, the stagecoach was supposedly attacked by 15 Yavapai warriors, who were sometimes mistakenly called Apache-Mohaves, from the Date Creek Reservation. Six men, including the driver, were shot and killed. Among them was Frederick Wadsworth Loring, a young writer from Boston working as a correspondent for Appleton's Journal assigned to cover a cartographic expedition led by Lieutenant George Wheeler. One male passenger, William Kruger, and the only female passenger, Mollie Sheppard, managed to escape. According to Kruger, Sheppard eventually died of the wounds she received. For a time the identity of the attackers was disputed. Over the next two years, General George Crook conducted an investigation into the attack, and eventually ident...