Mattie Riggs Johnson


probably 1920s

b. October 6, 1872 Trinidad, Colorado
d. January 26, 1939 Tucson, Arizona

  Mattie Riggs Johnson, a key figure in the history of Black Oak Cemetery, was born in 1872 in Trinidad, Colorado. Her story is one of resilence and persistence. In the early 1820s her grandparents Thomas and Rhoda Riggs and their children began a cross-country expedition starting in Alabama and heading west. Mattie's father James Monroe Riggs, who was the seventh child of fourteen, was born on the expedition in 1835 in northeastern Mississippi. By 1850, the pioneers had reached north central Arkansas. When the Civil War ended, James and his older brother Brannick moved to southern Texas to work with their father Thomas; not long after, Thomas died in a drowning accident and James and Brannick took over caring for their mother and four nieces and nephews.

 In 1870, the two brothers decided they could provide more for their families by leaving Texas and going to the gold fields of California. They traveled north through Texas and New Mexico and got as far as settling in Chicosa Canyon in the mountains near Trinidad, Colorado. In 1871 in Georgia, James married Elizabeth Drucella Hudson, and shortly after his arrival with her back in Trinidad, Mattie was born, followed by Mattie's brother John Dorsey, and sister, Elizabeth 'Lizzie'. They lived there raising cattle and running a sawmill where they made and sold shingles.

 By 1876, James felt he could do better elsewhere so he and his wife, with Mattie, her siblings, and her mother's son by a prior marriage, Richard Lee Hudson, moved from Trinidad to Dos Cabezas, Cochise County, Arizona Territory. In Dos Cabezas, they had two more children, Lula K., and Florence. James operated a store for a while. James and Elizabeth divorced in 1886 when Mattie was about fourteen; James returned to Texas where he died in 1912. Mattie's mother lived for some time with her son north of Benson; she then moved into Tucson where she lived until her death.

 (When they first arrived in Dos Cabezas, James had written to his brother Brannick encouraging him and his extended family to move to Arizona. They did so, eventually settling in the southeastern corner of the state in the Sulphur Springs Valley where their descendants still live.)

 In February 1889 when she was seventeen, Mattie married George Thomas Finley in Pima County, and they had one son, James Leslie Finley, born in 1890 in Tucson. In 1896 she and James Leslie left George, who is reported to have been abusive, and moved to Willcox; she and George divorced. Mattie was described as a tall and beautiful woman, and she was courted by the eligible bachelors in the area. In 1898, she married John L. Duncan; she and John joined her brother, John Dorsey Riggs who was ranching at NO Springs just south of Hooker Springs about 26 miles northwest of Willcox. (Mattie's sister Lula married John Duncan's brother, James.) In September 1899 John Duncan was shot and killed at NO Springs by Wiley Morgan; according to a story in The Cochise Quarterly, Vol.21, No. 3, Autumn 1992 the immediate motive was a dispute over ownership of a calf but Wiley is said to have been avenging Mattie's earlier rejection of Wiley's brother's advances.

 Mattie met Homer J. 'Doc' Goodin, a champion steer roper and sharpshooter, who had settled at Hooker Springs. On November 10, 1900 in Tucson, they were married. In 1902, Mattie was granted a patent for the 160 acres that she and John Duncan and her brother had been ranching, and she and Doc may have lived there for the next year or so. In 1903, she and Doc bought Joseph Bergier's 160 acre Santa Cruz County property near Canelo (which Bergier had bought in 1900 from Jim and Tom Rice); in an article on September 5, 1903, the Border Vidette of Nogales described the ranch as one of the best in the area. Mattie and Doc operated a registered Herefords ranch there. The article also described Doc as "one of the best known cattlemen in the territory [with] a world-wide reputation as a bronco-buster". In 1908, Doc got a large splinter in his leg when he fell through the floor of his tack room and he died shortly afterward from nephritis and uremia caused by sepsis resulting from the injury. From then on, Mattie operated the ranch on her own and in Hidden Treasures of Santa Cruz County, Betty Barr writes that "according to local lore, Mattie could ride sidesaddle as well or better than any man could ride astride".

 In 1909, City (Court Street) Cemetery in Tucson notified Mattie that it was being decommissioned and that she needed to relocate her sister Lula K. Duncan , her niece Lula F. Duncan, her mother Elizabeth, and her husband Doc, all of whom were buried there. She chose to re-bury them on a black oak and juniper covered mesa near Canelo which was part of her ranch. Ten acres of that area became Black Oak Cemetery in 1917 when she successfully petitioned the Forest Service to dedicate it as a formal cemetery. Her son James donated money to endow the operations.

 Sometime after 1910, Mattie married her fourth husband, Charles Johnson, who preceded her in death. She is shown as married and head of house in the 1920 Census; he isn't listed. She was a member of the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society, was interested in preserving the records of early Arizona history, and was elected 2nd Vice President of the Elgin Community Club in 1938 for which she had contributed $50 to help build a fireplace and chimney for the meeting house. Mattie continued to live on her ranch until her death in 1939 at St. Mary's Hospital, Tucson, at age 66 from colon and liver cancer, survived by her son and several of her siblings. A bronze plaque on the Elgin Community Club fireplace honors her and four other women who had been active in the club and who had died.

 In 1962, her son James and his wife Margaret Igo Finley sponsored the construction of the roofed chapel at Black Oak Cemetery "in memory of Mattie Riggs Johnson whose relatives were the first to be [layed] to rest in this cemetery".

Written by Corbin Smith from these sources and others: Brannick Riggs Family website, Ancestry.com and familysearch.com; "Glimpses Into Our Past: The Elgin Community Club" by Alison Bunting in Patagonia Regional Times, May 6, 2022; and The Cochise Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3, Autumn 1992, page 3 "Murder at NO Springs"; Photo above from Arizona Historical Society, Charles Morgan Wood Photograph Collection, PC 164.

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