Upriver pioneer was no Yuma friend
When Arizona Was Young
Editor’s Note: The Yuma Sun is reprinting articles from past newspapers throughout the year as part of the Yuma Sun’s 150th anniversary, honoring Yuma’s unique history. This column is one in a series written by local historian Frank Love that appeared periodically in the newspaper.
The town that William H. Hardy created upriver from Yuma near presentday Bullhead City no longer exists, but it was once a rival to Yuma. Known as Hardyville, it may have been considered a threat to struggling Yuma 300 miles down-river. If it was, its founder was to blame because he had a strong dislike for Yuma.
“Capt. Bill” Hardy was an unusual Arizona pioneer. A document in the files at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson contains this description: “He neither drank nor gambled, nor caroused in any manner.
His language was without any taint of slang or profanity. For honesty, veracity, charity and general squareness, he had few peers...” But despite his sterling character, Hardy had little love for Yuma.
It is difficult to know for certain what triggered Hardy’s dislike of Yuma. Did Hardy see Yuma as a threat to his small village or did his dislike of Yuma sprang from some other causes? We will never know for certain. This writer suspects that it had its beginnings when the ferry that Hardy created on the upper Colorado had to compete with the ferry here at Yuma.
Like many other early American settlers in the Southwest, the California gold rush brought Hardy West. Although born in New York, his parents took him as a child to Wisconsin. There was no school where his family lived on the frontier, and he grew up lacking an education. Despite that handicap, he somehow had learned to read and write quite well by the time he got to Arizona.
Hardy joined the California gold rush in 1850 and spent several years prospecting near Georgetown. Having no success, he moved to Placer County where he had a general store for several years.
The earliest report that he was in Arizona Territory may have been one that appeared in Prescott’s Arizona Miner newspaper in December of
1864. It simply noted that he was operating a store at a place called Hardyville. A biographical sketch which appeared years later when he was serving as a member of the Territorial Legislature reported that he also operated a ferry near Fort Mohave when he first arrived in Arizona. His ferry landing on the Arizona side of the Colorado River may have been the beginning of the town he named Hardyville.
It seems likely that Hardy’s need to compete with the William Hooper store in Yuma may have added to his growing dislike for Yuma. As the largest mercantile firm in the Territory in the 1860s, Hooper’s firm had a near monopoly on the sale of goods purchased by Army posts in the territory. Unable to effectively compete with Hooper’s large store, Hardy lashed out at it in a letter to a Prescott newspaper on Nov. 22, 1873.
It accused the Hooper firm of being involved in a scheme to control federal business in the territory along with businessmen from Tucson. Hardy noted that some people believed the Hooper firm in Yuma was using its influence to prevent Hardyville and other northern Arizona communities from receiving satisfactory mail service. He continued his criticism of Yuma interests by alleging that certain unnamed parties controlled “the waters of the Colorado River.” He claimed they were in league with other conspirators who held contracts to feed Indians and controlled federal offices in the territory. Since the Colorado River Steam Navigation Company of Yuma had most of the river trade, he was clearly attacking Yuma interests.
Yuma’s Arizona Sentinel newspaper dismissed Hardy’s attack and accused him of political propaganda. It claimed he was using it to hide his desire to become Arizona’s delegate to Congress.
Hardy did have political ambitions. He ran for the position of delegate to Congress in 1876. It appears that he would have been elected if the county recorder had not certified ballots from two precincts in Yavapai County. The board of supervisors in that county believed the ballot results which gave Hiram Stevens 169 votes while Hardy got none were fraudulent. Despite the questionable results, they were accepted by the recorder. In that election, Yumans demonstrated their dislike for Hardy by giving Stevens 164 votes to Hardy’s 6.
Hardy nursed his dislike for Yuma his entire life. Near the end of his career in 1889, he was elected to the Legislature. It gave him an opportunity to again display his feelings about Yuma by opposing a bill to create a water works at the Territorial Prison which would also supply the town of Yuma. Despite his opposition, the bill passed.
Several months afterward, Hardy wrote a letter to the Phoenix Herald newspaper explaining his opposition. “If it was a good idea to build the water works for Yuma,” he wrote, “why not for every town in Arizona.” He claimed that if prisoners were to be put to work to build it, it might be justified. He suggested the prison build a water tread mill which used no fuel and could provide exercise for the prisoners at half the cost of the water works.