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Neil Erickson (1859-1937) was a Swedish born, American pioneer in Cochise County, Arizona.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/chir/hsr/contents.htm )〕 ==Biography== Neil Erickson was born in Skåne, Sweden. In 1879, he emigrated to America where he joined the United States Army. In the early 1880s, he traveled westward, serving five years in the 4th Cavalry Regiment battling Geronimo and his renegades. He met his future wife, Emma Sophia Peterson (1854 - 1950), in 1883 while he was stationed at Fort Bowie, where she was working as a maid for an army colonel. Shortly before her marriage to Erickson on January 24, 1887, Emma Peterson purchased a log cabin from a local pioneer named Ja Hu Stafford, and filed for a 160-acre homestead.〔 The log cabin was located fourteen miles southeast of Fort Bowie in Bonita Canyon, a gorge in the Chiricahua Mountains. Erickson moved into the cabin first; his wife and newborn daughter Lillian, joined him in the latter half of 1888. Erickson immediately began building improvements upon the property, and one of his first projects was to build a small fort to protect the homestead against Apache raids. The fort was a small one-room building made with thick stone walls, just a few yards from the cabin, although it was never used. Apart from an "Indian scare" in 1890, when the Apache warrior Massai stole a horse from the Ericksons' neighbor, Ja Hu Stafford, there were no encounters with hostile Indians in Bonita Canyon. The fort was later incorporated into the main ranch house as a cellar.〔 The Ericksons had trouble raising crops and they needed money to improve the ranch, so Erickson went to Bisbee to find work as a carpenter, leaving his wife and children alone at home in the ranch for months at a time. It wasn't until July 1903, when Erickson became the first Park ranger for the new Chiricahua National Forest, that he could finally move back to the ranch. Erickson spent about half of the year working from home and the rest at various ranger stations or the district headquarters in Paradise; located on the other side of the Chiricahua Mountains.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.nps.gov/chir/planyourvisit/faraway-ranch-historic-district.htm )〕 Between 1899 and 1915, Erickson and his family built a two and a half-story ranch house with adobe and board-and-batten walls, which replaced the original log cabin.〔 However, after only two years of enjoying his newly completed home, the Forest Service transferred him to Flagstaff, in northern Arizona, in 1917. Erickson and his wife moved out, leaving their daughter Lillian in charge of the ranch. Lillian turned the old homestead into a guest ranch business called the Faraway Ranch the same year. Erickson remained in Flagstaff with his wife until his retirement in 1927. They moved back to the ranch and lived there for the rest of their lives, helping improve upon the property and assisting their daughter manage her guest ranch business.〔 Neil Erickson died in 1937, followed by his wife in 1950. Both were buried in a small family cemetery not far from their home.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=erickson&GSfn=neil&GSbyrel=all&GSdy=1937&GSdyrel=in&GSst=5&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=24518818&df=all& )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=24518801 )〕 The Ericksons' ranch house survives and is now the centerpiece of the Faraway Ranch Historic District in the Chiricahua National Monument.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Neil Erickson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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