Larcena Pennington: A Story of Survival

In the mid-1850s, America was expanding westward — fast, hungry, and ruthless. The ink was barely dry on the Gadsden Purchase when settlers began pouring into the unforgiving deserts of what would one day become southern Arizona. The land was harsh, lawless, and already inhabited by Native nations like the Apache, who fiercely resisted encroachment.

This episode begins in that volatile moment — where empires shifted, cultures clashed, and ordinary people stepped into extraordinary danger.

At the heart of this story is Larcena Pennington Page, a young woman who journeyed west with her family in search of a new life. What happened to her in the mountains outside Tucson — kidnapped by Apache warriors and left for dead in the wilderness — became one of the most remarkable survival stories in Arizona’s early history.

But before we get to that, we explore the world she lived in: a borderland shaped by conflict, hope, and unimaginable hardship.

This is more than a tale of survival. It’s about the collision of nations, the resilience of a frontier family, and the woman who walked back from the edge of death.

Transcript

The year is 1859.

The United States is a nation on the edge — expanding fast, fragmenting faster. Railroads slash through prairies. New states sprout from once foreign soil. And in the arid borderlands of what is now southern Arizona, a paper deal thousands of miles away redraws the map — and the lives of everyone who calls this harsh land home.

It’s called the Gadsden Purchase, and it carves out nearly 30,000 square miles of Mexico’s northern frontier — handed over for $10 million to a young and hungry United States. This land includes a stretch of desert and mountain ranges that will one day be known as southern Arizona. But back then, it’s simply part of the sprawling, lawless New Mexico Territory.

If you are a settler in the 1850s, this is the edge of everything. There are no states here. No real law. Just scattered military forts, dangerous trails, and pockets of mining or ranching communities strung across endless land. Towns like Tucson are adobe-walled outposts — more Mexican than American, more vulnerable than protected.

But to settlers, this land is opportunity. It’s space to build, to farm, to mine. It’s freedom — as long as you’re willing to fight for it.

And many did.

But while the stars on the American flag are multiplying, they’re not for everyone.

As the U.S. stretches westward, Native American nations are being pushed aside, violently and systematically. Treaties are broken. Lands are seized. Cultures are dismissed. In the Southwest, it’s the Apache — a fiercely independent people — who refuse to be driven off quietly.

To the Apache, the Gadsden Purchase meant nothing. This was still their land. It had always been their land. And now outsiders — first Spanish, then Mexican, now Anglo-American — were cutting into it with axes, wagon wheels, and fences. And so began what would become decades of brutal conflict — raids, massacres, kidnappings, retaliation — between Apache bands and settlers, miners, and soldiers.

The U.S. Army, already stretched thin with whispers of civil war back east, tried to impose order in this lawless new slice of territory. But control was an illusion. Forts were undermanned. Supply lines were fragile. And for civilians — families trying to carve out a life in the valleys near Tucson, Tubac, Sonoita — the threat of Apache attack was real. It was sudden. And it was everywhere.

Against this backdrop, families came anyway.

Families like the Penningtons — who traveled by wagon from Texas, through flooded rivers and unforgiving canyons, all the way to the shadow of the Santa Rita Mountains. They were Baptists. Farmers. Survivors. Like many, they hoped the promise of land would outweigh the risk of life on the frontier.

But this wasn’t homesteading in green Kentucky pastures or the gentle hills of Pennsylvania. This was the Sonoran Desert, with its summer heat, rattlesnakes, water scarcity, and the ever-present fear that a thin line of smoke in the distance or a strange sound in the mesquite might mean death.

Yet in the middle of all this — war, colonization, and chaos — there were also quiet human stories.

A young woman, perhaps tired of the dust of Tucson, asks her husband if she can come along on a wagon trip into the mountains. Just for a break. A change of scenery. A brief escape from the dangers of disease that linger in town.

She doesn’t know that within a day, she’ll be taken. That her story will become one of the most remarkable survival tales in Arizona history. That her name — Larcena Pennington Page — will endure long after most pioneers are forgotten.

But we’re not there yet.

To understand what happened to her — and why it mattered — you have to understand the time. A country dividing. A territory in chaos. A people being displaced. And a woman who walked straight into the wilderness — and into history.

Welcome to year six of the Curator135 Podcast, My name is Nathan Olli and this is Episode 98 - Larcena Pennington: A Story of Survival

Elias Green Pennington of South Carolina and Julia Ann Flood of North Carolina, married in 1831. The newlyweds packed up their belongings and headed westward through the Appalachian Mountains towards the Mississippi River. They made their first home together in Nashville, Tennessee where they stayed for nearly five years.   

Tempted by tales of wealth and prosperity further west they loaded up their household goods and tools and steered their oxen led wagon away from their current home. At this point, the couple had three children, Jim, Caroline, and Larcena. After a long journey, the family arrived in Honey Grove, Texas.  

The Penningtons remained in Honey Grove for nearly fifteen years, farming and running freight. During that time the family grew from five to twelve, with six girls and four boys. Due to the town becoming more densely populated in the ever expanding frontier, and trouble with nearby Comanche tribes, Elias Pennington left his family behind and traveled further west. 

In 1855, while Elias was away securing property for a new homestead, his wife, Julia passed away. This left the older of the Pennington children in charge of caring for the younger half which, at the time, included young Sarah, who was still an infant.

Reunited with their father once again, the family stayed in their new home, still in Texas, until 1857. That’s when they decided to join a wagon train that was heading for California.

The wagon train moved into New Mexico territory without incident until they reached a flooded Pecos River. Jim Pennington, the strongest of the boys, guided the family’s three wagons safely through the river. The wagon train lost a good number of cattle, but other than some wet belongings, they made it through unscathed. 

From the Pecos River they continued to travel through New Mexico territory  westward into Doubtful Canyon and finally to the border of what is now Arizona. 

Three years earlier, the Gadsden Purchase had taken place, an 1854 treaty where the U.S. bought 29,600 square miles from Mexico for $10 million, adding present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico to the U.S. and finalizing the continental border. The goal of the Gadsden Purchase was to secure land for a southern transcontinental railroad route, resolving lingering issues from the Mexican-American War and facilitating westward expansion. 

The wagon train moved through San Simon, pushed across the Sulphur Spring Valley into Dragoon Springs, south of what is now Benson, before finally settling at Fort Buchanan in Sonoita. 

At Fort Buchanan, the hardships of the journey began to take their toll. Larcena Pennington, now twenty-years-old, fell ill with mountain fever. The family, with their three wagons and their cattle, stayed behind at Fort Buchanan as the rest of the wagon train moved on. While waiting for Larcena to recover, the men of the family took on contracts for the fort, collecting and delivering wild hay.  The Arizona wilderness was much more lush back then. 

After the money came in the family moved south towards the new U.S./Mexico border, near Nogales, along the Santa Cruz river. 

In December of 1858, after falling in love with a man named John Hempstead Page, Larcena moved north to the city of Tucson, which at that time was a small town with a population of a couple hundred people, most of which were Mexicans. On Christmas Eve that year, the two married, becoming the first American citizens to be wed in Tucson.

John Page was doing well for himself, sawing pine lumber in Madera Canyon and hauling it to Tucson. It was a dangerous but profitable business. The Page’s lived at  Canoa Ranch, south of present-day Green Valley. At the time, Canoa Ranch was owned by a man named Bill Kirkland. The ranch was only 13 miles east of Madera Canyon and the Santa Rita Mountains, where he and his partner, William Randall, had a small lumber mill. There they processed pine trees to transport to Tucson by wagon for sale.

Larcena took on a job as a teacher for Kirkland's eleven-year-old ward, a sweet, young, Mexican girl named Mercedes. 

In March of 1860 John Page, William Randall, Larcena and Mercedes left together for a trip to Madera Canyon. Larcena hadn’t felt right since her illness and John hoped the higher elevation would help her to feel better. 

On the night they arrived at Madera Canyon, the party set up camp near a stream. The night passed by without incident, and the four ate breakfast together before the men headed out. The business partner, William Randall, took his gun and went out to hunt. John Page, just after 10:00 am took a ride by horse up into the canyon to check on his next load of lumber. 

Larcena and Mercedes were left alone that morning, or so they thought. Unbeknownst to them a group of Apache Indians had been watching the small party since the day before. 

Larcena was resting in her rocking chair inside the tent when her little dog began to bark. A moment later she heard Mercedes scream from just outside the tent. The little girl tried to run but was quickly apprehended. Larcena watched a group of Apache enter her tent. She jumped from the rocking chair and retrieved the pistol that lay on her bed. Before she could get off a shot, the gun was wrestled away from her. 

Through broken English, bits of Spanish and hand signals, the Apache informed Larcena that they’d killed her husband at a nearby spring. She began to scream for help until one of the men thrust his lance at her and threatened to kill her if she didn’t stop. 

The other Apache proceeded to loot the camp, cutting open sacks of flour, scattering the party’s provisions, and gathering whatever they could to bring with them. With Larcena and Mercedes in tow, they left the destroyed camp site and headed north along the mountain. 

The captors consisted of five Apache men. Four of them were young, the oldest spoke Spanish which Mercedes translated for Larcena. They were armed with bows, arrows, and lances. So far, aside from being frightened, the girls had not been harmed. Occasionally, one of the men would aim the stolen pistol at Larcena and laugh, or hide behind a tree and jump out to scare them as they were marched along the trail.  

When the girls got thirsty, one of the Apache men would melt snow in his hands for them to drink. When they’d come to a steep portion of the trail, Larcena would be pushed or pulled while Mercedes was carried piggyback. 

Throughout the afternoon they continued to the northeast through hilly countryside. At some point, Larcena began to quietly tear off bits of her dress and bend branches along the trail, clues, she hoped, for any search party. The two females would try to whisper and speak until they were both threatened and warned not to do so again. 

The elder Apache told stories to the girls about a time when the land belonged to them. Before the white man came and began killing their people. 

As the sun began to set on the group, one of the men, who had trailed behind the main party to serve as a lookout, returned to the group. White men were coming. The Apaches quickened their pace, pulling along their captives. At this point in the day, Larcena was exhausted and could go no faster. 

As they went up a narrow ridge with a steep slope on one side, they made Larcena remove her Spencer jacket and heavy skirt, urging her to continue on. They reminded her that the white man had killed many Apache, and they would not hesitate to do the same to her. 

When she refused to move faster she felt one of the men’s lances dig into her back. Startled, she leapt forward and fell down the steep embankment. The Apaches followed her down, stabbing at her with their lances and pelting her with rocks. Her fall came to a stop when her body hit a large pine tree. One of the men then hit her a final time, in the head, with a stone. 

Believing that Larcena was dead, they dragged her body behind a grouping of trees and brush where she wouldn’t be spotted. They removed her shoes which the smallest of the Apache then put on. If they were indeed being followed, whoever it was would continue to follow Larcena’s footprints. 

A short time later, Larcena awoke to the sound of men speaking on the trail above. A group of white men, one of which she swore to be her husband. 

“Here it is, boys.” One of them said, It was her husband, she was sure of it. 

The Apache had lied. She tried to move and speak, but was too weak to make them hear. They continued along the trail, fooled by the Apache wearing her shoes. The rescue party followed along the trail beyond the Catalina Mountains to the east of Tucson, where it was lost. They would return to Tucson to reequip themselves and at least two more search parties were sent out. 

Meanwhile, after the rescue party had passed, 23-year-old Larcena Pennington Page, lost consciousness for nearly three days. She awoke near the pine tree, cold, bruised by the stones and cut and stabbed in sixteen different places by the lances. She was without food and water, and nearly without clothing. 

She knew roughly where she was. To the west she could see a sharp, pointed hill that she knew to be Huerfano Hill. Her camp, she figured, was a good twelve to fifteen miles back south. 

Larcena patched up her wounds the best she could, drank melted snow, and crawled further down the slope to level ground. As the sun was setting, she pulled herself into a ball and slept once more.  

For the next ten days and nights, Larcena, weak from blood loss, without shoes, sustaining herself with seeds, flowers, and wild onions, crawled along the base of the mountains back towards her camp. At one point she came to a bear’s nest inside a cave, imagining what it would be like to lie down in the clump of soft grass and leaves but she didn’t dare. Her feet and hands were peppered with small stones, her bare shoulders were blistered from the hot sun, her hair and scalp were a mass of clotted blood. Yet she continued. 

On what must have been about the fourteenth day she came to a point on a high ridge overlooking the road that led into Madera Canyon. Below she heard men with an ox team along the road. She could hear the blows of a hammer repairing a wagon wheel.  She tied her petticoat to a stick and waved it, screaming out with a voice that was no longer there. The men continued with their repairs and passed on. 

After two more days of alternating between crawling and sleeping she made it back to the ruined camp. Someone had been there recently, the embers of a camp fire still glowing. Near the tent she scraped up some flour and coffee from the ground. Tearing a square piece from her clothing and putting the flour on it, she went down to the stream nearby and mixed a little ball of dough and baked it on the fire. 

After resting by the fire she awoke the next morning and made her way towards a camp that they’d passed on the original journey. As she neared the camp she was spotted. With clotted hair and gaping wounds, nearly naked, emaciated and sunburned, she was at first mistaken for an outcast native. When she announced that she was Larcena Page, one man decided that she was a ghost, for no woman could have survived in the wilderness for sixteen days. 

The men carried her into camp where she was properly fed, washed, and clothed. One younger man was sent into Tucson to fetch a doctor. As the messenger reached Tucson, he found not only a doctor, but the woman’s husband, who was assembling another search party. 

On April 2nd, Larcena was taken to Tucson where she fully recovered under the care of Dr. C.B. Hughes. The young Mexican girl, Mercedes, was later found by the United States Army and traded for Apache prisoners at Fort Buchanan.

A year later, in April of 1861, John Page was ambushed and killed by Apaches north of Tucson while transporting goods to old Camp Grant. He was buried where he fell, and all that his wife, who was four months pregnant at the time, ever saw of him was his handkerchief, his purse, and a lock of his hair. 

Her daughter, Mary, was born in September of that year, and shortly afterward she rejoined her family at their stone house along the Santa Cruz. With the American Civil War beginning, the New Mexico Territory was left virtually unprotected by the Federal government. 

Where the Pennington family called home was an extremely dangerous area. On one occasion, Larcena fled to a nearby fort at the Mowry Mine with her daughter. Not long after, smallpox broke out among those who sought refuge at the fort. Larcena and Mary were both affected but recovered. 

The next few years passed without much incident but tragedy would soon strike the Pennington family as they bounced back and forth between their stone house along the Santa Cruz and Tubac. In 1867 Larcena's sister, Ann, died of malaria. The following year, her brother Jim was killed during attacks against the Apache. In June of 1869, her father and brother Elias were both murdered while working at a farm by Apaches, and in December of that year, her sister Laura died from pneumonia. 

While Larcena decided to stay in the Tucson area, the rest of the remaining Pennington children left the area for the relative safety of Texas or California. Margaret Pennington died in Texas in 1872 at the age of 27. John Pennington passed away in 1904 at the age of 63. 

As for the rest of the Pennington clan, Larcena’s sister Amanda Jean passed away in California in 1919 at the age of 73. The second oldest of the children, Caroline, lost her first husband in the war, remarried, and then in 1877 was admitted to a mental hospital in Texas for "Acute Mania due to childbirth". She died in that hospital in 1921 at the age of 82. 

Sisters Sarah and Mary both passed away in late 1935. Sarah was 81 and Mary, 82. They had sixteen children between them, carrying on the Pennington way. 

As for young Mercedes, she later married a man named Charles Shibell and had four children, but died at the age of only 26 in 1875. Charles Shibell appointed his good friend Wyatt Earp deputy Sheriff in Pima County in 1880. In his later years he ran and owned the Palace and Occidental Hotels in Tucson, served again as deputy Sheriff and later recorder for Pima County until his death.

That brings us back to Larcena Pennington. 

In August of 1870, she married William Fisher Scott, a Scottish lawyer and judge. Together, the pair had two children. William Pennington Scott, born in September of  1871 and Georgie Hazel born in October of 1872. 

Larcena’s first daughter Mary was 16 when she married a prominent local physician named Dr. John Handy in 1876. Together they gave Larcena five grandchildren. Unfortunately Dr. Handy had a reputation of being the Jekyll and Hyde type. After 12 years of an abusive marriage, Mary divorced her husband in 1888. Some years later, her lawyer, Frank Heney gunned down Dr. Handy in a duel and was exonerated because he said he was attacked first. Mary died a year later of cancer having not seen her children for two years as her husband had sent them to live in San Francisco with his mother. 

When Larcena’s daughter Georgie started school in Tucson there were no English speaking schools available yet. In her youth she spoke Spanish better than she did English. She entered the University of Arizona when it opened in 1891 and went on to teach in the Tucson Public School system. She married Dr. Robert Forbes in January of 1902. She lived to be 73, passing away in 1946. 

Son William worked in the mining industry, had four children and passed away at the age of 52 in 1924 from cirrhosis of the liver. 

Despite everything, Larcena refused to leave Arizona. Despite all the hardships she went through, Tucson and southern Arizona was her home for decades. 

Larcena lived a relatively quiet life until her death in 1913. Her obituary was a touching tribute to her life. 

“PIONEER OF ARIZONA HAS PASSED AWAY - Mrs. William F. Scott, died at the family home, early on Monday morning, aged seventy-six years. Mrs. Scott was one of the Penningtons, who came to Arizona in 1857.

She was born at Nashville Tenn. in 1837, being carried as a child in arms to Honey Grove, Texas, shortly after Texas gained its independence. After nearly twenty years' residence in Texas, her father, with his family, joined an emigrant train for California. At Fort Crittenden, south of Tucson, they changed their plans and made their first home in Arizona. During the thirteen years following they lived at the stone house on the Santa Cruz near Nogales, and at Tubac, enduring the hardships and dangers of pioneer life in Arizona fifty years ago.

Larcena Ann Pennington (afterwards Mrs. Scott) first married John Hempstead Page in 1858 and lived a short time in Tucson which was then a little Mexican town surrounded by an adobe wall for defense against hostile Indians. During the 1860s, however, repeated disasters overtook the Penningtons, and Mrs. Page lost her husband, a brother, and then her father and another brother, all killed by the Apaches. Two sisters also died at this time: and she herself survived terrible hardships.

In 1870 she married Judge William F. Scout, and is survived by him and by two children Wm. P. Scott, and Mrs. R. H. Forbes. She was honorary president of the ladies auxiliary of the Pioneers Society, and was a member of the Congregational church since its organization. 

Mrs. Scott. was characterized by her courageousness, and her cheerful disposition. She was a woman of high character and was of a naturally religious disposition -always patient and sweet tempered and helpful to those around her. She combined the best qualities of the pioneer women who in the early days shared without flinching the difficulties and dangers endured by the men. She belonged to a class that is fast passing away. Funeral services will be held at 10 o'clock, Tuesday morning, at the family home 256 South Main street. All friends of the family are respectfully invited to be present.”

Pennington Street in downtown Tucson is named after Larcena and her family. Scott Avenue is named for her second husband William F. Scott. In the early 2000s, a residential community named Stone House was built southeast of Sahuarita, Arizona. It was named after the Penningtons' stone house along the Santa Cruz River.

So what do you think? Could you have survived frontier life in the mid 1800s? A Civil War taking place, a war with the Apache Indians that went on for decades? Would you be able to crawl through the Arizona desert on your hands and knees for over two weeks just to get back to your loved ones? Never knowing if a bear, or mountain lion, or group of Apache indians waited around the next bend? 

These were incredible times, and Larcena Ann Pennington was an incredible woman. I’m excited to get back to visit my dad soon, as much of this story takes place in areas near his home in Green Valley. 

Let me know what you think. I’ll have photos and news article clippings on the website soon, Curator135.com. 

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