Where Did All the Camels Go?
nineteenth century are said to have escaped or been released into the wild when the US Camel Corps was disbanded in 1863. For many years thereafter, sightings of wild camels were reported in the American Southwest. Southwestern folklore contains at least one tale of a deadly wild camel roaming the American Southwest following the end of the US Army’s experiment with camels. This camel, which was known as the “Red Ghost,” was first sighted in Arizona in 1883, twenty years after the US Camel Corps was dissolved. Since cam- els can live for up to forty years, the “Red Ghost” could have been one of the US Camel Corps cam- els or one of these camels’ descen- dants. The “Red Ghost” was said to have killed a woman by tram- pling her to death and was ru- mored to wander the Arizona desert carrying a headless corpse strapped to its back.
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It is believed that as late as 1905 there were camels descended from the US Camel Corps camels living in the wild in the Ameri- can Southwest, and according to a report in the Oakland Tribune, the last descendant of the US Camel Corps camels, a camel named Topsy, died at Griffith Park Zoo in Los Angeles in 1934. Another claimant to the title of last descendant of the US Camel Corps camels is said to have died at the San Francisco Zoo in 1961. Genuine sightings of camels in
the wilds of Texas, California, and Arizona probably ceased in the early twentieth century, but sto- ries of wild sightings of the off- spring of US Camel Corps camels or of their tracks continued until the 1950s. Even today,
some
people believe they are still out there roaming around. —NANCY K. WILLIAMS
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
OME of the camels that were part of the army’s US Camel Corps in the mid-
Hi Jolly of the US Camel Corps
H
ADJI ALI, known to the US soldiers he worked with as “Hi Jolly,” was one of the most skilled camel drivers brought from Turkey and the Middle East with the camels of the US Camel Corps. He is believed to have re- tained some of the army’s camels when the US Camel Corps was dis- banded in 1863. He is said to have used these animals to go into busi- ness transporting cargo from ports on the Colorado River to mining camps in southern Arizona. Hi Jolly, who was possibly Greek, Syrian, or both, is also said to have eventually married a woman from Tucson, Ari- zona, and become a US citizen in 1880. When Hi Jolly’s freight busi- ness failed, he is believed to have become a US Army scout. In 1886, Hi Jolly left the military and moved to Quartzsite, Arizona,
This plaque and colorful pyramid, located in Quartzsite, Arizona, mark the grave of Hadji Ali. He was known to the US soldiers he worked with as “Hi Jolly” and was one of the camel drivers brought to the United States from the Middle East with the cam- els of the US Camel Corps in 1856.
where he became a prospector, prowling the dry hills around Quartzsite in a fruitless search for gold until his death around 1902. In 1935, the Arizona Highway Department erected a monument on his grave in Quartzsite. The monument, which consists of a pyramid made of quartz and petrified wood, is topped with a bronze camel and has a plaque reading “The Last Camp of Hi Jolly.” —NANCY K. WILLIAMS
to his home in Washington, DC, he divided his time between his Califor- nia business interests and politics. Beale died in 1893, but his name lives on, as does the memory of the camels that helped him make history.
If the US Camel Corps was ultimately a failure, it was one of the most successful and interesting failures in US history, one that helped open the West and left an indelible mark on the American landscape. ■
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