John C. Cremony

Major John C. Cremony (1815 – August 24, 1879

He enlisted in the Massachusetts Volunteers in 1846 at the onset of the Mexican–American War, and served as a Spanish-language interpreter and rose to the rank of lieutenant. After the war with Mexico, Cremony returned to Massachusetts and briefly worked as a newspaper reporter until 1850 when he returned to the west and served as a Spanish-language interpreter for the U.S. Boundary Commission which laid out the Mexican and United States Border between 1849 and 1852. When the Boundary Commission returned to the East, Cremony remained in San Diego, California and sought his fortune as a miner and prospector.

He eventually achieved the rank of major in 1864 and commanded the 1st Battalion of Native Cavalry, California Volunteers until 1866.

In the southwest Cremony served most of his military career in the Southwest and personally knew Apache Chiefs Mangas Coloradas and Cochise. As a result, Cremony was often able to resolve numerous issues between the military, reservation authorities, and the Apache tribes. Cremony authored Life Among the Apaches, published in 1868, in which he described his experiences with the tribe.

Cremony died of tuberculosis on August 24, 1879 and is buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park on the Laurel Hill Mound in San Francisco, California.

Legacy Although he was one of the first Americans who could speak the Apache language, Cremony never lived among the Apache in the way the title of his book suggests. Historians of the West have come to deem many of Cremony's accounts of his Indian campaigns extravagant or embellished. The Arizona Evening Star compared his veracity to that of Baron Munchausen, and a soldier who served under him did not "believe anything he says except when he says he wants whiskey."