James Reavis
James Addison Reavis, later using the name James Addison Peralta-Reavis, the so-called Baron of Arizona, was an American forger and fraudster. He is best known in association with the Peralta land grant, also known as the Barony of Arizona, a pair of fraudulent land claims, which if certified, would have granted him ownership of over of land in central Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory. During the course of the fraud, Reavis collected an estimated US$5.3 million in cash and promissory notes through the sale of quitclaims and proposed investment plans.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase, the United States was required to recognize and honor existing land grants made by either the Spanish or Mexican governments. Reavis used this provision by manufacturing a fictional claim and then generating a collection of documents demonstrating how the claim came into his possession. The documents were then covertly inserted into various records archives. In his initial claim, Reavis claimed title to the grant via a series of conveyances. When serious challenges to this claim developed, Reavis developed a second claim by marrying the purported last surviving lineal descendant of the original claim recipient.
During the course of his deception, Reavis convinced prominent people to support his efforts. He obtained legal and political support from Roscoe Conkling, Robert G. Ingersoll, and James Broadhead. Business leaders such as Charles Crocker and John W. Mackay, in turn, provided financial support. Initial exposure of the fraud occurred when an unfavorable surveyor general report caused the claim to be summarily dismissed. In response to this action, Reavis sued the U.S. government for US$11 million in damages. The suit, in turn, prompted the U.S. government to perform a detailed investigation that fully exposed the forgeries Reavis had planted in a variety of locations.
Early life
Reavis was born the second of five children to Fenton George Reavis and Mary Reavis on May 10, 1843, in Henry County, Missouri, near the town of Clinton. His father was a Welshman who had immigrated to the United States in the early 1820s. His mother was of Scottish and Spanish descent and proud of her Spanish heritage. The family lived on a small farm and owned a small tannery. Reavis received little formal education, but his mother read Spanish Romantic literature to him, and he developed a grandiose and eloquent writing pattern. In 1857, the family sold their farm and moved to Montevallo, Missouri, where they opened a store.Following the outbreak of the American Civil War, Reavis enlisted in Hunter's Regiment of the Confederate Army, 8th Division of the Missouri State Guard. Several months later, he went to Springfield and re-enlisted in Captain Lowe's company. Initially holding dreams of glory, the 18-year-old Reavis soon discovered the realities of military life did not match his romanticized ideals. About this time, he accidentally discovered that he could accurately reproduce his commanding officer's signature. Using this new-found skill, Reavis began producing passes to avoid the drudgery of army life, and instead spent time visiting his mother. When his fellow soldiers noticed the frequency and manner by which he obtained his passes, Reavis began selling forged passes to them. When some of his superiors became suspicious of Reavis, he obtained leave supposedly to get married, but instead used it to surrender to Union forces. Following his surrender, Reavis joined the Union Army and briefly served in an artillery regiment.
Following the war, Reavis traveled to Brazil and learned Portuguese. He returned to St. Louis, Missouri, near the end of 1866. There, he worked a series of jobs, including streetcar conductor, traveling salesman, and clerk at a variety of retail stores. Eventually, he found success as a real-estate agent. After several small real-estate deals, Reavis saved enough money to open his own office. He then discovered that the skills he learned forging army passes allowed him to adjust real-estate paperwork and correct imperfect property titles. In one established instance, he aided in this manner a man seeking to purchase a tract of land near St. Louis. Three generations of documents accumulated by the selling family were unable to establish clear title for the land. Reavis was able to produce a yellowed and fading 18th-century document that all previous searches had failed to notice. Accepted as valid by all parties to the transaction, this document allowed his client to complete the transaction.
George Willing
Reavis met George M. Willing Jr. in 1871. Willing was a physician-turned-prospector who supplemented his income selling patent medicine. He came to the real estate agent upon the recommendation of Colonel Byser, a previous customer of Reavis's, seeking assistance with a real estate purchase. According to Willing, he had purchased the rights to a large Spanish land grant from Miguel Peralta for US$20,000 in gold dust, prospecting equipment, and saddle mules. The transaction had occurred at a simple mining site in Black Canyon, southeast of Prescott, Arizona Territory without the usual documentation. As Willing explained, "When the trade was made, I had no paper on which to write the deed, so I scoured the camp and found a sheet of greasy, pencil-marked camp paper upon which I wrote... and as there were no justices or notaries present I had it acknowledged before witnesses." The deed of transfer was dated October 20, 1864.Willing reached Prescott in 1867 to record the transaction. He was short of funds at the time of his arrival, so offered to sell a half interest in the claim to the local stable owner, James D. Monihon. Willing suggested that the two of them could reap a sizable profit by selling nearby mines back to their owners. Monihon was incensed by the offer, and the local townsfolk were soon unfriendly to Willing. Fearing for his safety, Willing quickly settled his bills and left the next morning with a government surveying team destined for Santa Fe.
Reavis suggested that Willing leave the documents to allow him time to inspect them. Willing declined the offer, and instead returned the next day with an expert in Spanish land titles, William W. Gitt. Recently returned to St. Louis, Gitt was known as the "Old Spanish Land Title Lawyer" following a series of dubious land deals in Illinois and Missouri. The previous two decades he had lived in Guadalajara, Mexico, after an 1847 land claim lawsuit had resulted in a bench warrant being issued in the lawyer's name.
The three men began meeting for several hours each week to examine the grant paperwork. In addition to the deed between Willing and Peralta, they had an expediente, a copy of the legal papers relating to the Peralta grant. Accompanying the copies was a letter dated 1853 and bearing the signature of Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna claiming a diligent search had been performed to locate all related documents and that the expediente established secure title of the grant. Reavis used this time and association with Gitt to learn about Mexican and Spanish land documents. He also developed a friendship with Willing's wife, Mary Ann, whom the young real estate agent regarded as a second mother.
After a few years, Reavis and Willing formed a partnership aimed at promoting the claim. The two men planned to travel separately, allowing Willing to retain Reavis as a real estate expert upon his arrival. Willing left with the paperwork in January 1874, taking the overland route to Arizona Territory. Reavis traveled by sea to California via Panama. In California, Reavis visited Florin Massol, a Sacramento merchant with whom Willing had left papers assigning mining rights within the Peralta grant as collateral against a loan.
Reavis married Ada Pope of Montevallo on May 5, 1874. The couple had known each other since the days when Reavis' family operated their store. Following a brief honeymoon, he departed for the west and the couple did not see each other again for over six years. Dissatisfied with the state of their marriage, she received a divorce on grounds of desertion in 1883.
Establishing the grant
Willing arrived in Prescott in March 1874 and filed his claim in the Yavapai County Courthouse. The next morning, he was found dead. No official investigation as to the cause of Willing's death was ever performed. Suggested causes include poison, "exposure and privation", or simply "strange and unwitnessed circumstances". Reavis learned of his partner's death upon his arrival in San Francisco. He had expected a bundle of correspondence awaiting his arrival, but instead found only two letters. The first, from Willing, announcing the doctor's safe arrival in Prescott. The second, informing Reavis of Willing's death, was from the Yavapai County sheriff who sent a letter to the only address in the doctor's papers.Reavis needed Willing's papers to continue the scheme. In poor health from the journey and low on funds, Reavis worked as a schoolteacher in Downey, California, during 1875 and 1876. He then worked as a journalist in Northern California, serving as a correspondent for The San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Call with occasional work for a New York City paper. As a result of his journalism jobs, Reavis met railroad tycoons Collis Huntington and Charles Crocker. He was also able to observe the operation of the Public Land Commission. At the time the commission had approved over 500 of the 800 claims presented to it, and even frivolous claims were considered as long as examination expenses were paid by the filer, and bribery was a commonly accepted practice. Assuming practices in Arizona Territory were similar to those in California gave Reavis great hope for confirmation of the Peralta grant.
Reavis' first visit to Arizona Territory came with a May 1880 trip to Phoenix. Posing as a subscription agent for the San Francisco Examiner, he toured the area and even made a trip out to the confluence of Salt and Gila Rivers. From Phoenix, Reavis took a stagecoach to Prescott. Upon his arrival in the territorial capital, he inquired into Dr. Willing's death. After locating the probate judge who had overseen the case, Reavis presented a letter from Willing's widow authorizing him to take custody of any papers that had been in Willing's possession. A search by the probate judge located Willing's possessions and gave Reavis control of the Peralta grant paperwork. After completing this business, Reavis returned to California.
Under Willing, the grant had been a "floater", a grant for a certain amount of territory, but lacking a fixed location. Such grants, while common, were useful as legal nuisances capable of scaring an unsophisticated land owner, but of little real value. Reavis decided to change this and fixed the location of the grant. To deal with ambiguities regarding various historical measurements, he chose the definitions most advantageous to his goals. As a result, the grant for a 10 by 30-league area turned into a territory running north to south and east to west. The size later grew to With the center of its western boundary set near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers, the grant contained the towns of Phoenix, Globe, Casa Grande, Florence, and Tempe and stretched to the outskirts of Silver City, New Mexico. Other points of interest within the grant boundaries were the Silver King Mine and a section of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
To achieve his vision, Reavis had to first clear some outstanding business issues and obtain additional documentation. His first step was a July 1881 visit to the family of Florin Massol, where he obtained a release of the mining rights that Willing had signed over, in exchange for a contract to pay US$3000 plus interest to Massol on the condition that the Peralta grant be confirmed. Additionally, Massol, using a power of attorney, signed over Willing's interest in the grant to Reavis. Reavis then traveled to the East Coast. The record book for Mission San Xavier del Bac, which had been sent to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition, was at the time in Washington, DC, pending its return to Bishop Salpointe. While in Washington, Reavis obtained permission to examine the book in detail.
After examining the San Xavier record book, Reavis traveled to Mexico, where from September to November 1881, he searched the archives in Guadalajara and Mexico City for information related to the Peralta grant. In Mexico, he resumed the role of a newspaper correspondent looking for items of interest to Los Angeles and San Francisco readers. He also cultivated friendships with the archivists in both cities, relationships that enabled him to gain easy access to the materials he was interested in inspecting. By the time he left Mexico, Reavis had a collection of photographs and certified copies of papers related to the Peralta grant. Reavis then traveled to see Mary Ann Willing, who was then living in Kentucky. During his visit, on May 1, 1882, the widow signed over her interest in the grant for US$30,000 paid over time.