A Western Adventurer

Confederate Colonel Granville Henderson Oury took his oath of allegiance to the United States Government October 8^th 1865 at Fort Mason, Arizona.

Granville Henderson Oury was born March 12^th 1825 in Abingdon, Virginia.  The family moved in 1836 to Bowling Green, Missouri.  He studied law and was admitted to the bar 1848, the same year he moved to San Antonio, Texas.  He caught gold fever and moved in 1849 to Marysville, California to mine.  Oury gave up mining in 1856 and moved to Tucson in the New Mexico Territory, where he would be appointed district judge.  He was involved in the Crabb Massacre in April 1857, in which General Henry Crabb crossed the Mexican border and he and about 100 men with him were killed.

When the Civil War started Oury was elected to the Confederate Provisional Congress from the Arizona Territory.  At about the same time a band of Apaches attacked the town of Tubac, Arizona, and Oury raised a small party of Confederate militia, saving the people of the town.  Oury resigned his seat in the Confederate Congress in 1862 and joined Herbert’s Battalion of cavalry as a Captain.  He was promoted to Colonel and served as a staff officer for Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley in Texas and Louisiana.  When the war ended Oury took the oath allegiance at Fort Mason in Arizona on October 8^th 1865.

After the war Oury went back to his law practice in Tucson, Arizona.  He served in the Arizona Territorial Legislature, was the Speaker of the House, and in 1869 was the Attorney General of the Territory.  Moving to Phoenix, Arizona in 1871 he became the Maricopa County District Attorney.  He would serve the state as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives from 1881 through 1885.  Oury died January 11^th 1891 in Tucson, Arizona from throat cancer.  He is buried in the Adamsville Cemetery in Florence, Arizona.