Why The Morleys?

To (l-r) Ada McPherson Morley (1881), Agnes Morley and Ray Morley(circa 1899).
Bottom: Agnes Morley Cleaveland in the late 1930's at Navajo Lodge in Datil, NM. 

The Morley Family's Life & Times near Datil, New Mexico, provide priceless perspectives into a looking glass of late 19th Century Southwestern cattle culture.  The Morley's fate & fortune reflect similar stories of Families spread across the rugged, far flung rangelands of New Mexico and Arizona.

As chance would have it, a major transcontinental highway--US 60--eventually sliced through the Heart of The Morley Family's Datil domain.  Today's travelers have scant few ways to learn about and understand how Families once lived in this area.  Luckily, Agnes Morley Cleaveland wrote a timeless classic book entitled "No Life for a Lady" that shines a bright beam of insight and wisdom on the lives of people living in and near the Datil Mountains soaring alongside US 60.

John Parsons created this blog in March 2022 as a means of providing historical information about The Morley Family.  We hope that it will be of value to US 60 Highway Heritage Fans and history enthusiasts seeking "the rest of the story" lying behind roadside historical markers.  Click here if you're curious to know how we became fascinated by this topic.

Parsons is not an expert on The Morley Family.  His interest lies solely in finding and sharing publicly-available information about them.  Much of the lands upon which their legacy was created is private property.  Please respect private property and obey all "No Trespassing" signs.  

Information presented on this blog is believed to be in public domain. We have attempted to cite all of our sources.  If you have edits, suggestions or wish to request a deletion, please contact John Parsons via: arizonahistorystories@gmail.com

First things first

Here is the caption that accompanied photo at left: "Morley's monument in its original location in the Masonic Cemetery in las Vegas. The monument, made of a rare Italian marble, includes 2 bronze plaques, which reads: "Wm. Raymond Morley, Born Sept. 15, 1846. Died Jan, 3. 1883. In whom were combined courage, loyalty, love and honor: every manly virtue and all noble qualities of heart. This monument is erected by his friends." Click here for source of the photo is from Find A Grave.

Our interest and fascination in The Morley Family began after reading David Ryan's mini-travelogue about US 60 from Socorro to Phoenix in 2016.

We became very curious about the Morley Memorial monument near Datil.  So, let's address that topic first.

The patriarch of The Datil Morleys was William Raymond Morley. We will cover his Life in a separate post.  Suffice to say he was both a brilliant and daring railroad location engineer, as well as an equally daring opponent of New Mexico's powerful Santa Fe Ring.

Morley died in Old Mexico in early January 1883.  The widely accepted reason for his untimely death at the age of 36 is credited to an accidental gunshot wound.  Morley's grandson, Normal Cleaveland, was a staunch voice that Morley was murdered.  Cleaveland's assertions are a lonely outlier to a prevailing consensus that it was death by accidental gunshot.

In any event, Morley's remains were transported from Old Mexico to New Mexico for internment in the Las Vegas Cemetery. Twenty two months after the funeral, an imposing Memorial Monument was erected over Morley's grave. 

According to one of two Find-A-Grave webpages for Morley, he was disinterred and moved to Datil, New Mexico in April 1990. Presumably the disinterment and the Las Vegas Memorial Monument movement to a point near Datil, was supposedly done by Morley's grandson, Norman Cleaveland.  Norman became (in his own words) "obsessed" with his Grandfather's Life & Death.  Based on what we have read of Norman's passionate obsession, it is easily understandable that he could have been motivated to move the Memorial Monument to Datil.

Note that this Smithsonian article states the Monument was moved in 1993 and rededicated October 27, 1993: https://www.si.edu/object/siris_ari_336469  However, we can find no media coverage of such an event.

As of March 2022, there is no record of  William R. Morley's grave in the Las Vegas Cemetery although Find-A-Grave still lists his grave in Section G Row 17.   Meanwhile there is a record of a William R. Morley in the small Datil Cemetery.

What was once apparently an imposing Memorial Monument in the Las Vegas Cemetery is now located beside US Highway 60 near Datil.  Moving such a large, heavy and unwieldy structure along with related accoutrements would have been a daunting and complicated project seemingly beyond the ability of a single individual to accomplish.

The Monument was originally erected in October-November 1884. It was unveiled on November 9, 1884.   The "Las Vegas Daly Gazette" carried a small notice of the event at the bottom of Column Two on Page 4 of the November 11th edition.

See: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1884-11-11/ed-1/seq-4/

Based on our extension study into the matter we conclude:

1) The Morley Memorial Monument near Datil was once located in the Las Vegas Cemetery.

2) Questions about "who, how & when" the Morley Memorial was moved are intriguing but largely irrelevant.

3) The Morley Memorial now stands as a reminder, gateway and challenge to learn about the compelling and timeless stories of  The Morleys of Datil.

4) The complex collection of historical "back stories" inherent in The Datil Morley Memorial together comprise one of the most intriguing cultural legacies noted alongside US Highway 60 along its entire length. 

A full investigation of the "who, how & when" Memorial movement questions is beyond the scope of this blog.  We will leave it to historical researchers of the future to shed light on those topics. 

William Raymond Morley

 

"...he leaves to them that which is beyond all price--the legacy of his great and noble life, wherein pre-eminent ability, successful achievement, fidelity to trust, devotion to duty, spotless honor and dauntless courage, loyalty to friends, love and tenderness to family, all blend in one harmonious picture of magnificent manhood..."

The January 3, 1883, accidental death of William Raymond "Rayme" Morley at age 36 shocked and stunned his legions of Friends and Associates. One such Friend was the Editor of New Mexico's "Las Vegas Daily Gazette." J.H. Koogler wrote a 2,511 word obituary including the evocative expressions above.  Rather than attempt to encapsulate The Life & Times of W.R. Morley, we defer to Koogler's timeless words published January 7, 1883, on Page 4 of the Gazette.

Below is another excerpt from Koogler's eloquent Memorial to Morley.  We transcribed the entire obituary and have placed it on our Google Drive to facilitate easy reading.  Links to the transcription and the original newspaper are below.

"He was a man in whom individuality was marked to an extraordinary degree. It left its impression on the mind of every one who met him in whatever relation. No man who talked with him for five minutes failed to remember him ever afterwards, His intellectual activity was marvelous. His mind seemed never at rest, and he was never content with the knowledge or information possessed, but every sense was perpetually alert to discover some new fact or work out some fresh problem. What he did learn was his for all time, for he forgot nothing. Original in his methods and in his conceptions, he was no respecter of rules until he had proved them in his own way. He was possessed at an iron constitution and herculean frame, and to them he showed no mercy. The word “fail” was not in his vocabulary, and when he set out to accomplish a given undertaking he spared neither horses nor men, and least of all himself. In its pursuit he was disheartened by no repulse, discouraged by no obstacle, appalled by no danger; but amid circumstances the most trying, and difficulties the most formidable, the sanguine temperament and high courage of Morley might ever be seen, conspicuous above all manner of adversity, infecting the spirits of those around him with the magical influence, making the despondent hopeful and the timid brave, until the end was reached at last. Thus it was that the name of Morley came to be synonymous with success. He asked no man to go where he was not willing to lead, and such was his personal magnetism and such the affection and confidence he inspired by his unfailing care and thought for them that he came to be regarded by his immediate employees with a sort of idolatry. With them his wish was law, and his opinion absolutely beyond question, and all that flesh and blood could do they would do for him if asked. With all this perseverance, energy; and daring, his brilliancy in conception and promptness in execution; his fertility of resource and confidence in the success of his undertakings; his value to those in whose service he labored was beyond estimate. And never did an employer receive more faithful service than from him. No man ever trusted him in vain."

Here is the link to the PDF of the full 1883 obituary:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aF0G58tjPR0RQUIwt1xEwY9JdTkJt16O/view?usp=sharing

And here is the link to the original newspaper page on file at the Library of Congress:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1883-01-07/ed-1/seq-4/

Ada McPherson Morley

 
Ada led a strong and remarkable life.  While alive she was occasionally called "the brainiest woman in New Mexico!"  Ada had strong opinions and passions for her causes...which were many. She often delivered persuasive speeches on behalf of those causes, especially her vehement anti-alcohol advocacy.  Likewise, Ada was a voluminous writer of letters to the editors and politicians of her era.  How and where did Ada become such a capable orator, writer and proponent of social causes?

It all started when Ada McPherson was born on August 26, 1852, in Winterset, Iowa, to Marquis Lafayette and Mary E. Tibbies McPherson. Although we have found nothing (yet) about her childhood, Ada's father set the stage, tone and tenor of her life.

As a youth McPherson was tutored and mentored by a highly educated Englishman named Preston. He attended Indiana's Asbury University and became a lawyer, eventually settling in Winterset, Iowa, in 1850 where his law firm's reputation spread throughout Iowa. He had an unusual vocabulary, his pronunciation was good, and his reading had been extensive, particularly in history and in the literature of oratory, both ancient and modern. His powers of wit and humor, of sarcasm and invective and denunciation as well as of declamation and reasoning and his universally high repute enabled him to hold his own, even in counties where he was largely a stranger. McPherson was a man of the highest principles and was an uncompromising enemy of evil in all forms. He had a bitter hatred of saloons and the liquor traffic and delivered temperance addresses in the villages and at the country settlements in Madison and adjoining counties while living in Winterset. McPherson was elected twice to the Iowa State Senate serving eight years. He was one of the leaders in securing legislation which gave a married woman the right to own property, to make contracts, to sue and be sued, and which gave her the same right in her husband's property as the husband had in the wife's property at death. The legislation then adopted with reference to the rights of women has remained upon the statute books until the present day.

After reading about Ada's father, it's easy to understand why she enrolled in the State University of Iowa, the first public university in the U.S. to admit women.  Judging from her father's background, it's reasonable to presume Ada received a top notch early education and was instilled with her father's values, behaviors, beliefs and abilities.

Engraving shows State University of Iowa in the 1860's.  It is now known as The University of Iowa.

Since she was born in 1852, six years after W.R, Morley's birth, it's likely that Ada enrolled at State University of Iowa no earlier than 1868.  About that time W.R. Morley had reached his zenith as a Big Man on Campus.  We learn from someone who knew him as a classmate then that he "was one of the brightest students in the college. He (had) won the esteem of his instructors and respect and love of his classmates. In the recitation room or in the halls of the literary societies Morley could be always depended upon for a correct answer or an able speech." (See W.R.'s obit for source of quote.)

Ada and Morley must have quickly fallen in love during their time at State University of Iowa.  Morley left the school in 1869 to begin his illustrious railroad engineering career.  Ada remained in her studies presumably until she received an 1872 degree in English Literature. She and Morley were married shortly after her graduation.
 

After the wedding Ada and her new husband set forth to Cimarron, New Mexico, a largely lawless little hamlet of about 300 people, to take up residence in the old Lucien Maxwell adobe mansion. W.R. was chief engineer and general manager of the 1.7-million acre Maxwell Land Grant.   

Somehow, someway at sometime, W.R. and his bride Ada ran afoul of the infamous Santa Fe Ring. Details are dubious but the upshot seems to be that W.R. and Ada founded a small newspaper and began a purported campaign against the Ring.  Ada eventually got in some hot legal water while supposedly attempting to retrieve a letter critical of Catron.  Ada's grandson Norman Cleaveland goes so far as to say the Ring put out a contract to kill W.R.  The plotline of the Morley Family's Life & Times in Cimarron is murky and seems overly reliant on hearsay, sketchy stories and even some tall tales.

Three certifiable facts of The Morleys Time in Cimarron are that Agnes, Ray and Loraine were born there in the old Maxwell mansion.

W.R.'s classmate and Friend, newspaper publisher J.H. Koogler, glossed over the Morley's vicissitudes in Cimarron saying in W.R.'s obituary only that "In 1874 he made a trip to Europe to aid in reconciling the conflicting interests in the grant, but no real harmony could be secured among the rival parties. The affairs of the company necessarily languished in consequence of the panic of 1873 and internal dissensions, and Mr. Morley becoming tired of the inactivity thus occasioned, accepted service in 1876 as engineer on the Denver and Rio Grand railway, then building across the mountains from Cucharas to Alamosa. He did some fine engineering on this line, and the famous mule-shoe curve on the Veta Pass will always stand as a monument to his mathematical skill." (See W.R.'s obit for source of quote.)

Life moved on for Ada and her children.  The Family lived in Old Mexico from 1879 to 1882.Perhaps her crowning moment of joy during her time with W.R. was on October 25, 1882, in Nogales, Arizona.  That's when she was designated to drive the final ceremonial spike joining newly laid Mexican rails to their America counterparts.  Agnes tells the story in great detail on Pages 15-16 of "No Life for a Lady."  Nowhere else is such an account detailed in the historical records I have yet found.

After W.R. was killed by an accidental rifle discharge, Ada was temporarily cast adrift. She was surrounded by people trying to tell her what to do.  One smooth talking southerern charmed Ada into marriage and convinced her to invest heavily in the cattle business.  He rather quickly abandoned The Morley Family but Ada carried his last name "Jarrett" well into her later years.

Ada's happenstance metamorphosis into "ranch woman" is documented in "No Life for a Lady" and need not be repeated here. Agnes Morley Cleaveland wrote the book in the late 1930's with at least 50 years of hindsight to evaluate those times of change for The Morley Family.

After studying other available information sources about Ada, we feel Agnes gave rather short shrift to her Mother.  Glancing mentions are given to Ada's many causes and passions.  Ada had a busy and complex life away from the Datil Mountains.  Her name appears in various newspapers hundreds of times.  She spoke far and wide and wrote hundreds, if not thousands, of letters to various editors and politicians.  Her upbringing undoubtedly influenced her active role in the WCTU.  Ada is also given credit for starting a New Mexico chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.  Ada spent years working for women's rights and suffrage. She put herself out on the very forefront of those efforts, earning respect far and wide for her unstinting persistence.

Perhaps Ada's most intriguing, if not downright strange, life chapter was her association with "The Healer"  Francis Schlatter. Ada was so smitten with reports about Schlatter she went to join the throngs awaiting his miracles in Denver.  It was major national news when Schlatter disappeared.  No one could find him.  Somehow in ways I do not yet fully understand, Schlatter and his old white horse, Butte, found their way in a mid-1890's winter to Ada's Datil ranch house.  There he spent three months under Ada's care while secluded inside the big White House.  The incident is described in "No Life for a Lady."  Likewise, Ada went on a self-styled 1890's speaking tour describing the story and its odd, barely-believable circumstances.  Ada even self-published a small book she claimed was dictated to her by Schlatter.  Grand son Norman Cleaveland published a book about the story.

Sometime around 1905, plus or minus, Ada went blind and remained largely blind for the rest of her life.  Of course, being blind didn't stop her from pursuing her causes, writing her letters and even speaking here and there now and then.

Ada passed on December 9, 1917, in Magdalena.  Oddly, her death was barely mentioned in newspapers of that era.  Only "The Evening Herald" of Albuquerque bestowed a few words of eulogy on her saying: "No more brainy, idealist ever lived than this Tolstoi of the Datils."

Luckily, today there exists a New Mexico "Official Scenic Historic Marker" honoring Ada's Memory.
We hope someday a professional historian chooses to tackle The Life & Times of Ada McPherson Morley.  She certainly deserves more than the fragmentary sources have afforded her over the past 105 years since her passing.

Here's Ada's Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_McPherson_Morley
Note that the Wiki has several factual errors and editorializes on some of the information presented.

Agnes Morley Cleaveland

Agnes Morley as a Stanford Women's Basketball player circa 1899.

"I wrote the two eight-line stanzas in a careful, precise hand, and put the sheet of paper in the bottle, and sealed it with its pressed-glass stopper. Then I rode to the spot where I had met the Indians who were so interested in my hair. Under a tree, which stood a little apart from all the other trees, I buried my bottled poem.

I hope it is there yet, nestled in the safe embrace of the clinging earth, guarded by the silent mountains, sung to by the whispering trees, all undisturbed by the eerie howl of coyotes, or the agonizingly human cry of mountain lions!"

No one knows when Agnes learned to write so well.  Chances are it was sometime deep in her girlhood. Her first mention of writing comes in what we call "The Perfume Bottle Story" early in "No Life for a Lady" and partially quoted above.

Clearly, Agnes had a stellar gift in her way with words.  She could write circles around anyone in her early life.  We speculate Agnes picked up her writing skills from Mom Ada who seemed to be writing all the time to someone somewhere about something.  After all, Mom Ada had a degree in English Literature!

Without Agnes, it's debatable if The Morley Family Story would ever have been known.  There's no doubt that Ray Morley would have achieved the fame and fortune that he did.  But what would our world be without "No Life for a Lady?"  A dimmer world for sure!

Since we haven't yet read "Open Range," the biography of Agnes, we're missing yet a lot of pieces of her total life.  However, we will attempt to tell her story with what we have.

The Lucien Maxwell House in Cimarron, New Mexico.

Not only did Agnes have great writing skills, she had that rare ability to remember things in great detail. Take, for example, her earliest recollection of living in Cimarron:

"A hot midday sun beats down on the adobe walls of the old Maxwell House.  I am sitting in the triangle of shade cast by one side of the deep doorway. In my two hands I hold a slice of bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar. There sounds a hoarse cry. Startled, I drop my slice of bread in th4e dfust at the foot of the doorstep."

Agnes describes a brutal, violent killing that takes place and the dead man falls in front of her. Agnes continues her recollection:

"I gaze upon with two tragedies with equal distress---the dead man a few feet away from me and the slice of buttered and sugared bread in the dust at me feet."

Mom Ada's home schooling isn't mentioned in "No Life for a Lady" but we're confident it was part of Child Life for Agnes, Ray and Lora.  So, when Agnes was sent off to a Quaker school in Philadelphia, it's little wonder, the Principal remarked to her, "Thee expresses thyself well, my child. Be care that three does not let thy imagination run away with three."

Luckily for us and untold thousands of her readers, Agnes didn't heed the Quaker's advice.  Agnes inscribed a wide ranging writer's legacy far beyond her forever famous "No Life for a Lady."  We've enjoyed every one of her words that we've found.  Her literary skills were a great gift not only to readers of her Life & Time but will remain a treasure into the far flung future.

Agnes finished her higher education at Stanford where she also made history playing women's basketball, a huge paradigm shift from chasing cows in the Datils!  Agnes graduated in 1900 and married Newton Cleaveland  shortly thereafter. Agnes was blessed with a loving husband who supported her many trips "back home" to Datil.  Her son Norman regales his first trip there as an infant in 1901.

"We got well out onto the plains, nearly halfway to Granny's when a coyote trotted across the road in front of us. To my mother's horror, the lad dropped the reins, reached under the seat, and grabbed a rifle. My mother shouted, "Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot!" She couldn't restrain him physically, because I was in her arms. The lad shot. The team bolted, broke the traces, and away they went

across the plains.  The lad ran after them. My mother sat there for about three hours before a freighter comes along with a covered wagon, but he was fully loaded. The only place he could put further

passengers was on top a coop of chickens in the back end of the wagon, where my mother couldn't sit up straight, because of the cover. The rocking of the wagon was sickening, the smell of the

chickens was also sickening. But worst of all, the milk turned sour, and I would not abide sour milk. So I nearly squalled my lungs out. Then Mom ran out of diapers, so she was in a horrible mess." 

"No Life for a Lady" is, of course, a timeless classic book but it tells nothing of  The Agnes Story much beyond Datil.  We learn of her marriage and Motherhood only from other sources.  Finding other examples of her writing is likewise a sort of an treasure hunt that brings reward only after digging deeply through many sources.

We're looking forward to reading "Open Range: The Life of Agnes Morley Cleaveland" by Darlis A. Miller.  We hope that Miller's work opens some more doors into that labyrinth of The Life of Agnes Morley Cleaveland.

This is a photo of Agnes circa late 1930's most likely taken near Navajo Lodge in Datil.  
This would have been about the time when Agnes decided to begin writing her book.

Fortunately, Agnes has her own roadside Historical marker near Datil.  It may be one of the few such roadside historical markers anywhere with Mother and Daughter  sharing both sides of the marker!

Courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/No-LIfe-for-a-Lady-121678261185971/

If you are interested in Agnes, please begin by reading "No Life for a Lady."  That's mandatory.

Miller's book would be a good second step.  Meanwhile, here are some links to assist your study:

 The Agnes Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Morley_Cleaveland

A short bio & commentary on Miller's book:
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/last-survivor-of-the-old-days/article_6215bc37-2083-5f3a-91b9-5662a150c2e8.html

https://www.nmhistoricwomen.org/location/agnes-morley-cleaveland/

J. Frank Dobie's 1941 review of "No Life for a Lady".

Dobie, J. Frank. Southwest Review, vol. 27, no. 1, Southern Methodist University, 1941, pp. 161–63, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43462695

Good Luck and Have Fun in your own search for more information about Agnes!

  

William Raymond Morley, Jr.

 

Oh! My! GOSH!  This guy was amazing in so many ways, shapes and forms.  Where do we start?  What do we say? How can we summarize his Life?  Yikes!  Yes, it is very daunting to tell his story.

Ray was two year younger than Agnes and she therefore lorded herself over him until he grew bigger and wouldn't take her teasing and sarcasm.  He and Big Sister Agnes were as close as siblings can be.
Agnes tells many anecdotes about Ray in her timeless classic book "No Life for a Lady."  It's hard to pick just one of those vignettes but I think my favorite is what I call "Ray and The Horse Thieves."  WOWzer, now that's a story!

Mom Ada insisted on sending her offspring off to name brand schools.  Ray got shipped off to Michigan and that's where he learned to play football.  Ray was a cowboy first and foremost so it had to be an adjustment to learn how to run, block and tackle.  But Ray learned so well he's now in the NCAA College Football Hall of Fame.  Seriously.

Here's Ray's best football story--at least that we have found...so far.  It's a really good thing Ray didn't actually kill anyone that day!  This is from a 1926 account written by W.W. Wheeler for "The Santa Fe New Mexican" newspaper.

"W. R. Morley, of Datil runs cattle and sheep over 475,000 acres. He is the New Mexican who as a young fellow got mad in New York because for three days no one would speak to him. He took his fury out on the Columbia football team, in consequence became the "Red" Grange of the time-Ray Morley, Columbia captain and all-American halfback, 1900 and 1901. Morley was born in New Mexico on the ranch he now owns. He decided to be a mining engineer and in 1899 went to New York City to enter the Columbia School of Mines.

"I found New York City nothing like New Mexico when it came to making friends. I spoke to a young fellow in the boarding house. He looked at me and edged away. I tried to talk to students on the campus and they would promptly walk off.

"There among four million people I was lonelier than I had ever been. After two days of it I saw in the paper a call for football candidates. I felt better then, for I was sure that Ton the athletic field I would find company. Before night I was following football players around like an orphan calf after a cow. They gave me the cold stare, just like the others.

"I couldn't eat any super. I went to bed but couldn't sleep. After hours of tossing, feeling that I couldn't stand another day, I decided to leave Columbia and go instead to the School of Mines at Houghton, Mich. But toward the end of that sleepless night I began to get mad, REAL MAD 

"Then came another decision. I made up my mind to go back to the football field and kill off as many players as I could before leaving. I packed my trunk, arranged for an expressman to get it and bought my ticket for Michigan. Then I went out to the athletic field and demanded to be put into the play. The coach told me to go back and sit down until called for. 

I asked again. Before long he called me out. The rest of that afternoon began some Columbia football history. Morley was put on the scrub team. Time after time he hurled himself furiously into the regular lines. Within ten minutes three of the first team players had been carried off the field.

"Here!" the coach shouted. "You get over on the first team and report to training quarters tonight."

Morley snorted. "I am through with all of you," he said. "I have done what I wanted to do and I am leaving this place tonight."

"Have dinner with me," the coach invited. Morley declined. The coach went with him to his boarding house and ate with him. He followed to Morley's room. When the expressman came for the trunks the coach sent him away and stayed with Morley until morning. Finally Morley agreed to stay and play football. The team made a brilliant record. In 1900 and 1901 Morley was captain and in both years Walter Camp pronounced him the best hall-back in all America."

To fully appreciate Ray's Life Story, you must real "No Life for a Lady" written by his Big Sister Agnes.  Then you will realize it was The Cowboy Way that hardened Ray for a rough and tumble life of whatever came his way.  We found an excellent article about Ray written in 1917.  We excerpted it and put it into PDF format here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11DJttjK9SN4DkMFYpMsgZPpMsPkiiPVl/view?usp=sharing

The entire 1926 article by W.W. Wheeler is well worth reading, too.  It is located here:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98049217/full-ray-morley-story-1926/

Perhaps ray never thought about it but one of his great contributions to the telling of The Morley family Story was the 1920 relocation of his boyhood home to the Datil roadside of the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway.  Agnes helped Ray run The Navajo Lodge, as it was named.  When Ray died in 1932, Agnes took on a bigger role and became much more involved in day-to-day operation of The Lodge.  The final chapter in "No Life for a Lady" recounts how Agnes one day met an old man who stopped at the Lodge. The old man reminded her of a childhood vignette she had forgotten.  "It was then that this record began to formulate itself," Agnes wrote, "that I began to want to put into some semblance of permanent form the story of the girl who had vanished, and her life, the life that was not for what the world calls a lady."

We will undoubtedly find more documentation of Ray's Life & Times.  When we do, we will add that material to this post.

Norman Cleaveland

Norman Cleaveland, son of Agnes, was the real wild card and fly-in-the-ointment of The Morley Family Story.  He had a heaping helping of Morley DNA and lived his life to the fullest---all 96 years of it.   Basically, we can distill Norman's Life into four phases. His early years were heavily tied to The Morleys of Datil and he spent much time "learning the ropes," so to speak.  His second phase was mostly "All Rugby All.The.Time"  Norman won a rugby Gold Medal in the 1924 Paris Olympics!  His third phase was mining and he was widely respected for his skills and engineering achievements.  Finally, Norman became a self-styled historian and fierce antagonist of the infamous Santa Fe Ring.

In Normans final phase he became a downright curmudgeon about patriarch William Raymond Morley's 1883 death.  Norman himself said he was "obsessed" with the topic and he went over the deep end about it, writing scathing letters to editors, demeaning his peers and wallpapering New Mexico with pamphlets promoting his decidedly dubious interpretations of days gone by.

Norman was a classic student and stalwart devotee of the "My Way or The Highway" School of Male Behavior. Despite Norman's aggressive, in-your-face promotion of his theories. his fellow historians actually gave him an award in 1989!  And they even wrote a poem to accompany the award...and poke a little good-natured fun at Norman.!

You can read a description of the award here:

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=lacronica

While Norman's Grandmother Ada's life was heavily tied into Datil, his Grandfather's was not.  Somehow Norman's wide-ranging reading convinced him that W.R. Morley's death was not an accident but pre-meditated murder.  Norman struggled tirelessly, probably to his dying breath, to prove his interpretation of various aspects of W.R. Morley's death.  Norman even went so far as to claim that the Santa Fe Ring planned to kill Morley and some other people but were foiled by the premature birth of Morley's son, Raymond Junior.

Norman wasn't content to simply think such thoughts.  Nope.  Norman used practically every resource at his disposal to promote his postulations, even to the point of publicly calling out event speakers.  Norman published three books in addition to his seemingly incessant pamphleteering.

When the Bancroft Library reached out to conduct an oral history interview about his Mining Career, Norman agreed to participate only if they would also record his vehement opinions about the murder of his Grandfather.  As a result, Norman's most excellent interview about his Mining Legacy is officially entitled: "DREDGE MINING FOR GOLD, MALAYSIAN TIN, DIAMONDS, 1921-1966; EXPOSING THE 1883 MURDER OF WILLIAM RAYMOND MORLEY"  This interview title is undoubtedly the most unique, if not the most bizarre, title of the entire Western Mining in the Twentieth Century Oral History Series. 

Norman was extremely physically fit for practically his entire life.  His life of strenuous physical activity undoubtedly began in Datil where he spent much of his youth.  Norman and his fellow rugby team members shocked the world when they trounced the French for Olympic Gold in 1924.  Norman continued to play rugby into his 90's!

We think that any serious student of The Morleys of Datil will thoroughly enjoy reading about Norman's Life and Times.  He was a charmingly charismatic character and an entertaining writer, too.

We have trouble processing his vitriol about the Santa Fe Ring and his far-fetched fantasies about the purported murder of his Grandfather.  For one thing, his Grandfather's death was about 100 years in the past when Norman got involved.  All those associated with W.R. Morley's death, regardless of the cause, were long since dead themselves.  Meanwhile, the dastardly Santa Fe Ring had already been described and detailed in numerous scholarly and amateur publications. 

What good could come from Norman's strident efforts?  How could his hell-raising public persona add to The Morley Family Legacy?  Why did Norman seem to think everyone else was wrong and only he was right? Who did Norman think would be charmed by his bombastic advocacy of an outlier idea?
Where did Norman suppose his eclectic behavior would lead?

Conspiracy theories are part and parcel of humanity.  It wouldn't surprise us if the Neanderthal People had their own conspiracy theories.  We have a lot of personal puzzlement as to the "whys and where fors" of Norman's totally over-the-top obsession with what we call "The Morley Murder Mystery" conspiracy theory.
 

We've read practically everything we can find about Norman and his assertions seem to us to lack credence and come up short in their accusations.  In the meantime, Norman's aggressive behaviors and writing definitely muddied the Morley Family's waters, at least in our opinion.

We strongly suspect Norman now has his devoted and ardent believers who feel certain he was on the self-righteous path of truth.  We would be fairly certain that his own Family would have supported his Don Quixote-style tilting at the windmills of the powerful.

In the meantime, Norman's 1924 Rugby exploits are the genuine stuff of well-deserved world class legend. Likewise, his stellar engineering and mining career is widely recognized and respected by his peers on those fields.

We're not planning to take on Norman's "obsessive" side.  Interested readers may do so themselves.

We're more interested in explaining why he could have been motivated to move that Memorial Monument from Las Vegas to Datil.  That's our biggest interest in Norman's Story.

In reading about Norman's Life, we can easily understand a certain sense of entitlement to take it upon himself to move the Morley Memorial Monument.  We certainly can't think of or visualize anyone else who could have harbored the passion to make such a move happen.

The "why" of that movement will continue to haunt us until we find some sense of closure to such an unusual, if not downright bizarre, historical oddity.


For further reading and study of Norman Cleaveland see:

https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/cleaveland_norman.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Cleaveland

https://theolympians.co/2017/10/21/the-1924-olympic-rugby-finals-americans-in-paris-most-unwelcome/

http://therugbyhistorysociety.co.uk/cleaveland.html

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98186743/plot-to-kill-morley-1994/

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98217902/norman-1993-interview/

Norman's Books:

THE MORLEYS young upstarts on the Southwest Frontier

Bang! bang! in Ampang: Dredging tin during Malaya's "emergency."

The Healer: The Story of Francis Schlatter

White House - Navajo Lodge

Navajo Lodge interior photos April 1940 by Russell Lee*

The original Morley home was built in 1885-86 from hand hewn logs cut in a nearby old growth forest. Ada raised Agnes, Ray and Lora in the big building called The White House** while sometimes hosting visitors who stayed weeks.  Agnes describes construction of The Family's original home: 

"Building our new house was itself an adventure. It began immediately after our arrival. The logs were felled on the nearby mountain-sides and dragged by ox teams to the site in the cañon bottom, itself eighty-three hundred feet above sea level.  Four expert axemen – superb craftsmen - had been brought from Michigan logging camps to hew the logs. The original ten room house still stands, although, log by log, it has been moved to another site and enlarged, serving now as a tourist 'motel.' Its walls are true and plumb, with the axe marks scarcely visible; but if the logs could talk, and still remember the days when they were being snaked down the mountain by six yoke of oxen, poled by cowpunchers who hated themselves for doing it, I shudder to think what the ears of the present tourist might be subjected to." (Page 34 "No Life for a Lady)

Ada died at Magdalena in December 1917. We suspect the children didn't want to see their girl and boyhood home sit empty and forlorn in a such a lonely location. Ray apparently decided to move the house in 1920 to a Datil site alongside the  Ocean-To-Ocean Highway. In 1926 W.W. Wheeler's words created a fond image of Navajo Lodge in the "Santa Fe New Mexican" newspaper:

"Datil, where Morley lives, is 30 miles from the end of a railroad spur at Magdalena and 60 miles west of the main line at Socorro. From Datil west it is 200 miles to the next railroad station. The post office and a store are located in one wing of Morley's home, Navajo Lodge. Except for three or four cabins, that is all of Datil. A transcontinental highway passes here. Navajo Lodge was or built by Morley a few years ago to serve the purposes of a home for himself and an inn for motorists. The big central room with its blazing fireplace, its fitting adornments of guns, saddles, hunting trophies and sport equipment, and with the host in his big chair entertaining the company with stories of cow camp and mines, make a picture no guest ever forgets. The floors and walls of the lodge display handsome Navajo rugs woven on the spot. A group of Navajo Indians camp across the road from the lodge each summer and put the raw wool of Morley's sheep through all the processes to the fully completed rugs. Some of the wool used by the Navajos comes from karakul sheep. Morley a few years ago established a flock of this breed and among other experiments has produced karakul fur, the highly valuable pelt from the newborn lambs."

We checked with experts at the Antique Automobile Club of America.  The car closest to the photographer is a 1920 Model T sedan.  The car beyond is a Dodge but the year hasn't been determined. So far, this is the oldest (earliest) postcard we've yet found of Navajo Lodge

Navajo Indians figure prominently in postcard views of Navajo Lodge

A casual Western motif is also common on the early postcards of Navajo Lodge.

The card above offers a rare glimpse of how the Navajo weavers were situated in relation to the Navajo Lodge.

Ray died in 1932 and Agnes continued to run Navajo Lodge until just before it burned to the ground in early January 1944.  Although the original Morley Family Home was expanded during its tenure as Navajo Lodge, photos of the establishment help us better understand what the home was like during the Family's formative years as described in "No Life for a Lady."

To read the full story about the fire see:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98007305/fire-destroys-navajo-lodge-1944

To read a truly wonderful three-page article by Agnes Morley Cleaveland about how they staged a rodeo to celebrate the New Navajo Lodge use the citation and link below.  Note that you can get a free JSTOR account to read the article free of charge.

"Salt on the Tail of Yesterday"

by Agnes Morley Cleaveland

Southwest Review

Vol. 31, No. 3 (SUMMER 1946), pp. 251-253 (3 pages)

Published by: Southern Methodist University

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43463116

End Notes:

*During the 1930's and 1940's The U.S. Farm Service Agency sent professional photographers across America to document rural land conditions, property and people.  Russell Lee was one such famous photographer.  The U.S. Library of Congress has on file 18 photos Lee created showing exterior and interior of Navajo Lodge.  Lee's photos give a priceless glimpse of what it might have been like when The Morley children came of age in that big house in the Datil Mountains.

We placed all of Lee's photo in a special Google album.  We picked one photo of the front desk and downloaded a 144 megabyte file of it.  We then created 13 views for a second Google photo album.  They are located here:

Navajo Lodge

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LKpLwt7QK26aZVT59

Front desk

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xkJgpus32YgnmVCt6

Here is the link to find the original phhoto: Russell Lee 1940 FSA LOC
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=datil&co=fsa

A note about the other photos.  All other photos of Navajo Lodge came from eBay postcard listings.  Simply search for "Datil New Mexico postcard" and you will generally find a mini-trove of old postcards of Navajo Lodge.

**The Mexican freighters gave the home its name "White House" because all of the window and door trim was painted white.  The logs were unpainted.  It became so well know that "White House Canyon" is now a permanent geographical place name for the area the house was located 10 miles from what's now Datil.

 

What sparked our interest?

Photo Copyright 2016 David Ryan

Howdy, I am John Parsons, creator & maintainer of this blog.  I happen to be a Highway Heritage Fan. I've always loved old highways beginning way back in my "kiddie daze" of the 1950's.  I am now in my mid-70's and have ample time to dig as deeply into Highway Heritage as I may wish.  I have a lot of important personal history with Route 66.  In 2017, I began intensive study of US Highway 89.  In March 2018 my wife, Susun, and I began to drive all of Old & Current US 89 from Mexico to Canada.  It was easily the most fun Road Trip of our lives (so far).

I also have a lot of personal history with US Highway 60, especially between Show Low and Mesa, Arizona, and most especially in Salt River Canyon about 40 miles north of Globe.

In March 2022 I happened to be studying the 1934 construction of a bridge across The Salt River in the bottom of Salt River Canyon.  Naturally, I was Googling "all things Salt River Canyon."  That's how I stumbled onto The Morley Family.  Here's how it happened.

While digging into every link I could find on Salt River Canyon, I came across David Ryan's fun article on driving US 60 from Socorro to Phoenix.  David Ryan has an endearing way with words and I very much enjoy his writing.  He makes you feel like you are riding along with him.

Well, as I was reading his short travelogue on US 60, I came to a section about a roadside Memorial near Datil, New Mexico.  David said, "Not long after entering the ponderosa pines there will be a large monument to the left. I thought it might be the “Tomb of the Unknown Rancher. When I got out of the car to check it out, a sign on the fence said, “No Trespassing for Any Reason.” I did get close enough to see that monument was for a man named Morley. How many times have you visited a town and seen a huge statue in a public park for a man from the late 19th century saying something along the lines of, “he was a true leader and visionary who will not be forgotten.” And you wonder to yourself, “who the heck was he.” When I saw this monument, I started saying to myself, “My name is Ozymandias,…” I soon hopped back into the car, went over the Continental Divide, and immediately ran into (Pie Town).

Of course, my first urge after reading David Ryan's description of the Memorial was to refresh my memory on Ozymandius.  I printed out the 1818 poem and paired it with an Egyptian ruin that might have sparked the verses. (It is shown below.)

Then, of course, I started my digging into the Memorial.  This blog is a direct result of that digging.  It proved to be very time consuming and rather frustrating to determine the "back story" on the roadside Memorial.  And, in fact, several vexing questions remain to be answered about the Memorial.

The more I continued digging, the more I realized the scope of the compelling stories behind that roadside Memorial.  Of course, it didn't take long to realize I had to buy and read "No Life for a Lady."

And yet other books remain to be read as well.  The Morley Family Story is somewhat of a paradox.  It's unique in that so much of it is so well told.  But it's also unique in that so much of it isn't told...at least in a readily available venue and format.

So, as my digging continued unabated, I decided The Morley Family Story needed something like this blog--something that could help an inquisitive US 60 Highway Heritage Fan learn the basics of The Story while providing a framework for further study, digging and perhaps even scholarly research.

This blog is the proverbial "work-in-progress" and I sincerely hope that readers see fit to contribute materials and information to enhance the worthiness of this effort.  

US Highway 60 once spanned thousands of miles in its coast-to-coast saunter across America. Without doubt there have been thousands of Families living alongside US 60 whose stories are unique.

What sets The Morley Family Story aside, especially in context of the US 60 continuum, is that they lived and helped describe a rich slice of an illustrious bygone era---The Cattle Culture of The Great Southwest.  Although perhaps countless books and articles have been written about that era, details of The Morley Family Story have been brought to life by the artful, eloquent words of Agnes Morley Cleaveland.

In reading those words, US 60 travelers alongside the towering Datil Mountains may now relive and savor the imagery of those words.  The rich history of that area can once again be seen through the lens of The Morley Family Story.

Below is how we formatted the 1818 poem by Shelley.   Somehow there is a faint similarity between the Morley Memorial near Datil and the inspiration for Shelley's poem.  Likewise, the words of the poem ring ever-so-true to The Life & Times of The Morley family of Datil.

Magdalena

Magdalena, New Mexico, figures prominently in "The Morley Family Story."  The little community served many needs.  It was THE supply point to buy whatever you needed.  It's where cattle were shipped to market. It was the nearest railhead.  It's where you went to begin your travels into a wider world.  When Ada and her children showed up on the scene in the mid-1880's, Magdalena had to be a dusty fly speck on the New Mexico landscape. Even by 1900 the town's population was only 273 but it counted 1,220 people in 1910.  Census figures show Datil has a population of 134 by 1910!

We found an excellent 1917 description of Magdalena and reproduced it as a PDF placed on our Google Drive.  It's a fun read.  You can access it here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16PyViqU5YB49d7HYLMMM1vCUCCD03wQH/view?usp=sharing

We obtained the photos used here from both eBay postcard listings and New Mexico State archives.

The Library of Congress archives several early Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Magdalena.

You can access those maps here:
https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/city.php?CITY=Magdalena&stateID=38

 

Sources:

Most of these sources have been worked into the various chapters of this blog. 

Morley Family Home was located appox. in area of red circle.

Datil, New Mexico, is shown with red push pin

Agnes Morley Cleaveland chopping wood:

https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/collection/acpa/id/13339/rec/1

Above map from Acme Mapper
https://mapper.acme.com/

Norman Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Cleaveland

Ada wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_McPherson_Morley

Ray wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Morley

Agnes on porch rail
https://csl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/view/delivery/01CSL_INST/12136943410005115

William Raymond Morley Findagrave:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117005122/william-raymond-morley 

Ada Findagrave:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/35866670/ada-morley

Agnes Findagrave
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/228033116/agnes-cleaveland

Ray Findagrave
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23600375/william-raymond-morley

Ray bio-Google Book Page 363
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=gLwUAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PA363&hl=en
(458 in reader)

The Leading Facts of New Mexican History: Volume 4 Ralph Emerson Twitchell Jan 1917 Torch Press

Salt on the Tail of Yesterday, Agnes Morley Cleaveland, Southwest Review

Vol. 31, No. 3 (SUMMER 1946), pp. 251-253 (3 pages) Published by: Southern Methodist University

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43463116

Reserve woman's Review of "Open Range."

COGGESHALL, NANCY. The Journal of Arizona History, vol. 52, no. 3, Arizona Historical Society, 2011, pp. 306–07, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41697382.

New Mexico Census 1900-1910
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1900/bulletins/demographic/37-population-nm.pdf

Norman Cleaveland, "Dredge Mining for Gold, Malaysian Tin, Diamonds, 1921-1966; Exposing the 1883 Murder of William Raymond Morley," an oral history conducted in 1994 by Eleanor Swent, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1995.

https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/cleaveland_norman.pdf

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1884-11-11/ed-1/seq-4/