M. Robert Peel
Born: Wednesday, May 31, 1854
Died: Saturday, March 25, 1882 (Charleston, Arizona) – gunshot through the heart
Interred: Boothill Graveyard, Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona
Occupation: Mineral Surveyor, Mining Engineer
Charleston, A.T. (Arizona Territory) was an important Old West town because it was home to the mill workers at Millville directly across the San Pedro River some 20 miles from the hugely rich silver mines at Tombstone. Ms. Karen & Ms. Rosemary hiked there in March 2015.
We share this article by Lonnie DeCloedt, (deceased), Graving and genealogy enthusiast and member with Find a Grave. The Friends of the San Pedro River offer tours of Millville, Charleston and other places on the San Pedro.Â
Robert Peel was killed in a botched robbery attempt at the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company in Charleston, ten miles southwest of Tombstone, Arizona. He worked there as a Mining Engineer and Mineral Surveyor. On the day of his death, late in the evening, he was in the office with three other men: W. L. Austin, the Mill Manager; E. E. Hunt, the Company Assayer and George W. Chaney, the Company Clerk.
The four men were working as usual when the door was suddenly flung open and two masked men armed with rifles stormed in. Austin attempted to clandestinely reach for a nearby revolver when the taller of the two bandits opened fire. The first shot pierced Peel’s heart, killing him instantly. The rest of the office workers scrambled for cover by the time the second shot was fired, and the third shot from the robber’s gun blew out the light. Then, mysteriously, the two robbers turned and fled into the night, perhaps surprised when the light was shot out and concerned about the uncertainty of where the three surviving workers had hidden, seeking shelter. The several bars of silver bullion and large amount of cash in the office vault were never touched.
A man was sent to Tombstone to notify Sheriff Behan about the murder and attempted robbery while the rest of the mill workers formed search parties, riding the main nearby trails looking for signs of the fleeing criminals. Behan arrived in Charleston a few hours later with the County Coroner. After a quick examination of the scene, Behan then headed south, toward the Mexico border, following the killers’ trail, but they were not caught that day.
A white Stetson hat had been dropped by one of the bandits. That, along with some plaster casts Behan made of some boot prints at the scene, and the descriptions the three surviving office workers had given, led to the positive identification of the two bandits. The owner of the dropped Stetson was Zwing Hunt. His partner in crime, whose boots matched the prints left at the scene, was Billy Grounds. Both men had very long criminal records in Texas and had been known to ride with Curly Bill Brocious and his gang of hoodlums.
Sometime after the shooting, days later, Deputy Sheriff E. A. Harley learned that the two wanted men were hiding on Jack Chandler’s ranch near Tombstone. Behan was out of town so Harley took charge and organized a posse which included Billy Breakenridge, E. H. Allen, Jack Young and John A. Gillespie. Early in the morning, Harley sent this posse, led by Breakenridge, to Chandler’s ranch with orders to bring the two outlaws back to Tombstone “dead or alive”.
Breakenridge was familiar with the men they were looking for and was sure he could convince them to give up without any gun play. When they arrived near the ranch he ordered Gillespie and Young to hide behind the wood pile where they could watch the house’s back door while Allen and himself hid behind a low bank of a nearby creek, giving them a clear view of the front door. His plan was to wait for the men to come outside on their own, then confront them and convince them to return to Tombstone to stand trial.
Gillespie, a brand new Deputy Sheriff at the time, with less than 12 hours on the force, already had designs on becoming the top Sheriff, and he decided his chances for advancement in the department would be much better if he captured the outlaws single-handedly. Defying orders, he marched right up to the back door of the ranch house, announced himself and ordered the men to come outside. In response, Hunt flung open the door, firing as he did so, and Gillespie was killed instantly. Young was also shot, taking a bullet in his thigh. When the gun play at the rear of the house began, an innocent ranch hand fled out the front door, arms raised as he begged the deputies not to shoot. Grounds, who was in the house behind the door, began firing, hitting Allen in the shoulder. The force of the bullet’s impact drove Allen off his feet and he fell into the creek. Breakenridge, the only one in the posse now still in the fight, could not see Grounds in the darkness, but he fired several times in the direction of the flashes from the muzzle of Grounds’ gun, hitting him in the neck and face. Grounds tried one last time to raise his gun before he dropped to the ground, dead.
Hunt fled out the back door and scrambled up a small hill behind the house. At the top of the rise he became silhouetted in front of the faint light of the rising sun and Breakenridge and Allen (who by this time managed to climb out of the creek) both fired several shots at him. Hunt was hit by a single shot, the bullet passing through his body, puncturing a lung in the process. Though nearly fatally wounded, he still managed to continue fleeing into the brush.
Breakenridge tended to his wounded men then went up the hill to search for Hunt, finding him lying in the brush not far away. The dead and wounded were loaded into a wagon and Breakenridge transported them to Tombstone. Hunt’s injury was so severe it was thought he had no chance of survival, so he was taken straight to the morgue. But, after two days when he showed signs of improvement, he was eventually taken to the hospital.
As Hunt rested in the hospital, recovering under the care of Dr. Goodfellow, one day a friend stopped to visit and offered to take Hunt for a buggy ride for some fresh air. Inexplicably, Dr. Goodfellow allowed this, and neither man were ever seen in Tombstone again. It was later learned that the friend was actually Hunt’s brother, Hugh, who had traveled from Texas to arrange for his brother’s escape to a ranch in the Chiracahua Mountains to the east. The escape was short-lived, however. Apaches attacked them at their mountain camp a few weeks later. Zwing Hunt was shot through the head and killed, while Hugh Hunt managed to escape with his life. Zwing was buried by Army scouts at the spot where he fell, and the canyon has been known as Hunt’s Canyon since then.
