Did It Happen: Tom Jeffords and Cochise
According to Arizona lore and the plot of the James Stewart movie Broken Arrow , a stage coach driver and post rider by the name of Tom Jeffords gets fed up with the Apache raids disrupting traffic on his mail lines in Arizona Territory. So he heads into the Chiricahua Mountains to look up Cochise, walks into Cochise's camp and asks him to knock it off. Impressed by Jeffords bravery, the two become friends and Jeffords talks Cochise into making peace with the White Man. Did it happen? A qualified yes. Thomas Jefferson Jeffords, 1832-1914, was born in Chautauqua County, New York, in what had once been Iroquois country. As a boy, his family moved to Ashtabula, Ohio. Tom worked as a sailor on the Great Lakes and even captained ships himself before deciding to follow a series of smaller gold rushes further and further out west. He eventually ended up in New Mexico, working as a civilian courier at Fort Craig. During the Civil War, Jeffords...