From Forrest we learn that in 1926 the secretary of the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society at Tucson wrote to P.P. Daggs, long retired and living in California, asking for his memories of the war. He answered:
I know you would not be unkind enough to lure me into anything for which I would be captured and shot at sunrise. I have one consolation: the enemy will not do it. They are all "sleeping with their boots on."
I ought to know something about the "Tonto Basin War." It cost me ninety thousand dollars. General Sherman once said, "War is hell." He was right.

The Graham-Tewksbury feud started in 1886 and came to a close a decade later when Edwin Tewksbury, last of the clan, was charged with the ambush and murder of Tom Graham, tried twice, and finally released. There were perhaps twenty deaths resulting directly from the feud. A grisly incident which has been the basis of many high colored stories and films occured when the Grahams surrounded a Tewksbury cabin in the early morning hours and coolly shot down John Tewksbury and William Jacobs as they started out for horses. The Grahams continued firing at the cabin for hours, with fire returned from within. As the battle continued a drove of hogs started devouring the bodies of Tewksbury and Jacobs; the Grahams did not offer a truce but continued shooting. Suddenly John Tewksbury's wife came out of the cabin with a shovel. The firing stopped while she scooped out shallow graves for her husband and his companion. Firing on both sides then resumed, but no further deaths occurred, and after a few hours the Grahams rode away.

Then a couple of days later occured a dramatic confrontation. Andy Cooper, a member of the Graham faction, was in Holbrook, where he openly boasted that he had shot both Tewksbury and Jacobs, which was very probably true. Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens of Apache County, who had a warrant for Cooper's arrest on an earlier charge, rode into town. He learned that Cooper was there, and Cooper learned that Owens had arrived, Cooper went to the Blevins home where he was staying, saddled his horse, then reentered the house preparatory to leaving ahead of the sheriff. At this point Owens came on the scene with a loaded rifle and with his pistol on his left side with the butt forward, a novel way of carrying a gun. But Owens was noted for his facility with arms. He came to the door and Cooper pushed it open a few inches. Owens demanded that he come with him. Cooper refused, and stepped back in the house. It seems very unlikely that Cooper did not have his pistol in his hand, under the circumstances. Owens fired, hitting Cooper who staggered back into the room. Almost simultaneously John Blevins came to the adjoining door and shot at Owens, but the shot missed and killed Cooper's horse. The sheriff swung his rifle and put Blevins out of action, breaking his arm. The sheriff then stepped back into the street.

At this point a fourteen-or fifteen-year-old youth, Samuel Houston Blevins, picked up Cooper's pistol and ran out the door. Owens shot him and he died in a few minutes. Owens then sighted a fourth man, Mose Roberts, slipping out of a window on the side of the house. Owens shot him through the body, and he died very soon, too.

This is very probably the most famous shooting affray in northern Arizona's history. It has been dealt with in fictional form many times.

Sheriff Owens died at Seligman May 10, 1919, many years he had retired as an officer. He is buried in Flagstaff. His widow told author Platt Cline in a letter written in 1944 that Owens wanted to be buried in a small plot near his home at Seligman, but after his death she felt his grave would be better cared for if she brought him to Flagstaff. "Commodore," incidentally, was Owen's given name.