Autograph Letter Signed as Probate Judge, Pima County, Tucson, April 28, 1873. 1pg. With docketing on verso. To Lt. W.[illiam] C. Forbush, Camp Lowell, Arizona Territory.
Written on behalf of Antonio Grijalba and another young Mexican-born farmer whose ranches bordered the Army camp, originally located on the east side of Tucson, but moved "for sanitary reasons" seven miles away from the town; With Printed and handwritten Document, Arizona Territory, Office of the Live Stock Sanitary Board, Phoenix, August 24, 1906. 1pg., granting to Grijalba's widow and family a brand, pictured on the document, to be used on horses near the San Pedro River and Tres Alamos (now a ghost town)
Judge Osborn wrote that Grijalba “goes out to the Rillito [a township adjacent to Tucson] to extend the Acquia [a watercourse used for irrigation] on down the valley for Mr. [Juan] Borgues so that he can open a new place in lieu of this Ranch in front of your Camp which is impracticable to cultivate on account of its proximity to the Post. I hope the parties interested will experience no opposition to that enterprise as they will in no wise interfere with the requirements of the service." The docketing note, signed by a 5th Cavalry officer, states there would be "no objection" to the "proposition, provided that "the post has the first right to the water."
Camp Lowell, established at the end of the Civil War - renamed Fort Lowell a year after this letter was written – was an active military outpost of the 5th Cavalry, protecting Tucson against Apache incursions.
Lt. Forbush, with his Arizona experience, went on, before and after Custer's defeat, to fight Indians in the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expeditions of 1876. Antonio Grijalba remained in Arizona, as did his family after his death, owning the horse brand documented here.