A 'MISS' INSCRIPTION

Very few women left their inscriptions at El Morro; Miss A. F. Baley was one of them. America Frances Baley and her sister Amelia were part of a wagon party headed from Missouri to California in 1858. Their group followed a recent newly surveyed route done by the U. S. Army; at that time this route was known as Beale'sWagon Road.

Her travels soon after would have made her reconsider her intentions. Just east of the Colorado River, eight hundred Mojave Indians attacked the wagon party and killed nine and injured seventeen of the members. The Mojave suffered heavy casualties themselves, eighty-seven in all. The wagon party returned to New Mexico to spend the winter in Albuquerque or Santa Fe. Eventually both sisters made it to Fresno County, California.