16. Larcena Pennington Page was left for dead by Apache raiders
Larcena Pennington Page (for whom Tucson’s Pennington Street is named) was a working as a tutor when she was stricken with malaria while at Canoa Ranch, in the Arizona Territory. In order to help her recover, her husband moved her to an area of higher elevation. While traveling, Larcena and the child she tutored were alone in their camp when it was attacked by a band of Apaches. Both were taken prisoner. When the Apaches decided to increase the speed of their escape march, wary of the pursuit by Larcena’s husband and others, Larcena was unable to keep up the pace the Indians wanted. Weakened by her malaria, she simply could not go on. The Apaches left her behind, after stabbing her with lances numerous times and forcing her off a more than fifteen foot rocky embankment.
For good measure, the Apaches had taken nearly all of Larcena’s clothing, including her boots, when they left her behind for dead. She had been stabbed multiple times, beaten with rocks, and suffered injuries from her fall. She awoke some hours later and with no alternative, stumbled and crawled fifteen miles to her camp, narrowly missing its departing occupants. The next day she managed to crawl to a nearby saw mill, where she was recognized only after she identified herself by name. Her wounds and the effects of exposure had rendered her otherwise unrecognizable. Larcena’s harrowing escape from death occurred in 1860; she lived another 53 years, dying in Arizona in 1913, one year after the territory became the nation’s 48th state.
