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Susan Shelby Magoffin |
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Portrait of Susan Shelby Magoffin
Traveler’s Journal on the
Santa Fe/Chihuahua Trail, 1846-1847©
Revised April 11, 2007
By Nicholas P. Houser, MPH, MA, Project Historian
XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest
Note: See Research Bibliography - James Wiley Magoffin and Susan Shelby Magoffin.
She was born on July 30, 1827 to a wealthy family near Danville, Kentucky. She received a quality formal education, a rarity in her day, especially for women. In 1845, she married Samuel Magoffin, a native Kentuckian and veteran Santa Fe trader. His older brother, James Wiley Magoffin, introduced him to the Sanra Fe trade. James later founded Magoffinville, which later became a vital part of the future city of El Paso, Texas.
In June 1846, one month following the outbreak of hostilities between Mexico and the United States, Susan and Samuel embarked on a long trek down the Santa Fe Trail. His merchant caravan was laden with American goods to be sold in Santa Fe (New Mexico), Chihuahua City and Saltillo. Susan traveled in relative luxury with a private carriage, books and notions. Her husband provided her with a maid, a driver and two servants. She wrote at the beginning of her adventure; "It is the life of a wandering princess." However, she was unaware that the journey would involve the rigors of travel, fatigue, illness and war.
Her caravan reached Bent's Fort, where she suffered from a miscarriage. There, on July 26, she and her husband were united with James Magoffin, who hurried ahead of Kearny’s army and the merchant caravans, on a secret mission to prepare New Mexico to join the Americans. That effort met with success in Santa Fe. By the end of August, she arrived at the New Mexican capital only twelve days after the peaceful entry by U.S. troops. The journey from Santa Fe and across the arid Jornada del Muerte (Journey of Death) was tiring, fraught with illness and rumors of American defeat.
On February 15, 1847, she and her husband left the wagons with the teamsters, crossed the Rio Grande and entered El Paso del Norte (modern-day Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua). Although a Protestant, she regularly attended mass at the old Guadalupe Mission. She and her husband were initially the guests of Don Agapito, her husband’s good friend, and later of the sisters of Padre Ramón Ortíz, El Paso’s beloved curate. She wrote the following about the Ortíz family:
“The more I see this family the more I love them, they are so kind and attentive, so desirous to make us easy, so anxious for our welfare in the disturbances of the country. I can’t help loving them.”
After a two-month visit at the Pass of the North (modern-day Cd. Juárez), she and Samuel journeyed southward, briefly stopping at Socorro and San Elizario in El Paso’s Lower Valley. They traveled to Chihuahua City, Saltillo and then by boat at Matamoras where she ended her journal on September 8, 1847. There she became seriously ill with yellow fever and gave birth to a baby boy who soon expired. Her health had been broken by the long journey. She died in 1855 at the age of 28 after giving birth to her second daughter. She is buried in historic Fort Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
The diary of this observant, young teenage traveler provides an invaluable description of daily life in El Paso del Norte during a crucial period in the history of the region. An 1845 daguerreotype is one of two images of the young attractive woman who visited the Pass of the North and was so well received by the hospitable Paseños.
James Wiley Magoffin
Santa Fe Trader & El Paso Pioneer
Bio-Sketch©
By Nicholas P. Houser, Project Historian, MPH, MA
XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest
August 16, 2007
Note: See Research Bibliography - James Wiley Magoffin and Susan Shelby Magoffin.
James Wiley Magoffin was born in Harrodsburg (Mercer County) Kentucky in 1799. His father, Beriah Magoffin, was a merchant who had emigrated from County Down, Ireland. His mother, Jane McAfee, was from a native of Kentucky. James was the eldest of eight children (one of whom was Beriah Jr., who became the governor of Kentucky during the Civil War). The Magoffins were a prominent, prosperous family with land and business interests.
In 1821, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain, the old, restricted trade practices were replaced by a new policy that supported international commerce and opened the Santa Fe Trail. Some of the enterprising merchants who entered the overland trade included from the United States - William Becknell, Josiah Gregg, Edward J. Glasgow and Henry Connelly, and from Mexico - Gabriel Valdez, José Mauro Luján, Ynocente Ochoa and José Cordero. Their heavily laden wagons transported merchandise to be exchanged in New Mexico, Chihuahua, and the interior of Mexico as well as in Colorado and Missouri. Prosperous traders returned to St. Louis with bags of sliver and Mexican products. Mexican recipients of the trade purchased calico, cotton and silk and dry goods from the north.
By 1821, James Magoffin moved to Matamoros, Mexico from Kentucky to enter the prosperous Mexican trade. In Matamoros his mercantile business linked New Orleans to the Texas ports (Texas-Coahuila) and to Mexico’s interior. This lucrative, triangle trade involved the shipment of lumber, tools, cotton, tobacco and other goods from New Orleans to the Mexican markets where they were exchanged for Mexican silver and other products.
In 1832 James traveled to Chihuahua to explore the region’s mining and mercantile potentials. Fluent in Spanish, with an affable personality, he was affectionately known in Mexico as “Don Santiago”. In 1834, he married María Gertrudis de los Santos Valdez de Veramendi, a young woman from a prominent family of San Antonio de Bexar. Her brother, Gabriel Valdez, was a successful Santa Fe trader, and her cousin, Manuel Armijo, was a wealthy merchant of Albuquerque, who became the Governor of New Mexico. The family contacts were advantageous to James’ business affairs and social life and would later serve him well during the War with Mexico.
In 1835, James Magoffin abandoned Matamoros when business for American merchants began to decline. He relocated to Chihuahua City where trade and business opportunities abounded. James established his trading headquarters at Guerrero, the town situated west of the capital, where he and his family resided for the next eight years.
In 1839, Samuel Magoffin, his brother, left his business in Matamoros to join James in Chihuahua. The Magoffin brothers and their Mexican and American business partners engaged in the Santa Fe trade that favored the route was from Missouri, Santa Fe, El Paso del Norte and south to Chihuahua. At times trade along the Santa Fe/Chihuahua Trail was suspended as result of Apache attacks. Don Santiago temporarily served as a member of the Ayutamiento (town council) in Chihuahua City. He may have even been a naturalized citizen of Mexico.
In 1844, James Magoffin returned to Missouri with his family so that his seven children could attend school in the United States. The year before, he had purchased an estate in Blue Mills Land (Missouri) for a homestead and to raise mules for the Santa Fe trade. Five years later, he sold the property to his brother, Samuel and his young bride, Susan Shelby. In 1845, James’ wife died.
The annexation of Texas by the United States suspended diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States. Subsequently, war was declared on May 13, 1846 and, shortly thereafter, more than three hundred wagons left Missouri, rolling down the Santa Fe Trail with at least a million dollars in goods. One of the caravans belonged to Samuel Magoffin and his wife Susan. James Magoffin owned the other, which was supervised by his younger brother, William and his brother-in-law, Gabriel Valdez.
As the war fever intensified, James Wiley returned to Missouri over the Santa Fe Trail from Chihuahua. Immediately, he was urgently summoned to Washington D.C. by Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. The senator knew that Magoffin’s Mexican contacts and familiarity with that country would be of invaluable services to the United States. James met with President James K. Polk, who enlisted his services and ordered him to join Colonel Stephen W. Kearny’s army that was traveling to New Mexico. James became an agent for the government and was commissioned as a colonel of cavalry. President Polk believed that he could render “important services” to the military operations. Thus, James Magoffin served in a clandestine capacity that has never been fully revealed or understood.
James Magoffin, Captain Philip St. George Cooke and an interpreter quickly traveled to Santa Fe to meet with Governor Armijo, the cousin of James’ wife. They informed the governor that the U.S. forces had come to New Mexico in peace, and that there was to be no bloodshed unless Armijo acted contrary to these “good” intensions. The governor reluctantly agreed, fearing a bloody conflict. Thus, on August 18th, the American forces entered Santa Fe without firing a shot.
While in Santa Fe, James Wiley was reunited with his brother Samuel and his sister-in-law, Susan, and with their younger brother William. There, they celebrated the family reunion with oysters and champagne. Shortly thereafter, James departed from the New Mexican capital and traveled southward to El Paso del Norte where he attempted to continue practice his “diplomacy skills” with Mexican authorities.
But, instead, he was arrested near Doña Ana in the latter part of August. He was dispatched to Chihuahua and imprisoned as an enemy alien until March 1847. Yet, as result of luck, influence, old friends and “generous gifts” (bottles of champagne), he was spared death by execution. It is likely that an important bargaining chip that favored his survival was Ramón Ortíz, the beloved curate of El Paso del Norte, who was held captive by American forces. James was transferred from Chihuahua to Durango, under arrest and subsequently released in June 1847 after the cessation of hostilities.
James Magoffin returned to Independence, Missouri to re-enter the Chihuahua trade, but soon abandoned the enterprise upon becoming aware that the controlling bureaucratic practices of the Mexican customs at El Paso del Norte had jeopardized the trade. In the spring of 1849, he settled on the north bank (American side) opposite the town of El Paso del Norte. There, he established Magoffinsville, which consisted of a ranch, gristmill, mule and trading station.
This new American settlement, with neighboring ranches and communities, would be the geneses for El Paso, Texas. Magoffinsville became the second site of Fort Bliss. In August 1850, James married Dolores Valdez, his late wife’s youngest sister. He built a large adobe home with an interior plaza that later was destroyed by the flooding river and damaged Fort Bliss.
James Magoffin played an essential pioneering role in preparing the development of the future City of El Paso. He and his neighbors participated in frontier defense, protecting the citizenry from Apaches attack and bandit incursions. He and his neighbors instituted law and order and created county government.
With the advent of the Civil War, James joined the Confederacy. Following cessation of hostilities, he was a victim of the reconstruction government’s harsh measures and temporarily lost U.S. Citizenship as well as his home and Fort Bliss, but the greatest loss was that of his son, Samuel, who was killed by Union forces.
His other Son, Joseph Magoffin, became a major founding father of El Paso, Texas and served as mayor and many other civic offices. In 1875, he built the family residence which today is the State Historic Site known as the Magoffin House. James Wiley Magoffin died in San Antonio, Texas on September 27, 1868 after a period of ill health. He is buried on the ranch of his son-in-law, Joseph Dwyer, in the family vault.
James Wiley Magoffin and Susan Shelby Magoffin are worthy of being celebrated in a bronze monument that honors an enduring legacy that contributed to the cultural and historical develpment of the American Southwest.
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