MIDNIGHT IN OLD MEXICO
In 1915 Arizona’s Bisbee Daily Review praised M.T. “Doc” Donovan as “one of the handiest men with a gun in the pioneer days.” During his lifetime he was most celebrated for a daring midnight raid into Mexico in 1885, but today most of Donovan’s exploits in the Southwestern borderlands are either forgotten or shrouded in mystery, as is much of his life and his violent death in New Mexico.
On Oct. 7, 1885, Arizona Territory Governor Frederick Augustus Tritle submitted his resignation, allowing newly elected President Grover Cleveland to appoint longtime friend and political ally Conrad Meyer Zulick as the territory’s first Democratic governor. Pennsylvania-born Zulick had come highly recommended by influential party members both inside and outside of Arizona Territory. One supporter had gushed:
This is to certify that I have known…Col. C. Meyer Zulick… for the past 20 years during his residence in New Jersey. He is a good lawyer—an active and influential party man. A gentleman of high character and good social position. He is now a resident of Arizona and intents to make that his future home. If appointed, he will deal justly by all and so
