Robert H. Birch

Robert Birch became involved in crime, as a teenager, being described by Bonney, as "suspected of robbery and even of murder ever since he had attained the age of fifteen". Robert Birch was a close associate of bandit, William Fox, as both were considered notorious "prairie pirates" and longtime members of what were called the Banditti of the Prairie. Birch was a self-styled Mormon, who conveniently, used his church membership, as a Latter Day Saint, to gain protection in Nauvoo, Illinois, when the law was hot on his trail.

A drawing of the infamous southern criminal gang leader John A. Murrell from the only known, accurate portrait made of him during his lifetime. Robert Birch was said to have had criminal connections with Murrell but this is highly improbable since he would have been only a seven-year-old child or possibly Birch's criminal father was associated with John A. Murrell.

Robert Birch accompanied Jacob Snively in 1858 in helping found Arizona's first gold rush boom town Gila City in which Birch became the first postmaster. He would later join Snively and James W. Hicks in discovering gold deposits on Bear Creek. The ghost town Pinos Altos was first named Birchville in his honor.

In the beginning of the American Civil War, Robert Birch enlisted in the Confederate Army in the Rebel-held, southern half of the Union New Mexico Territory, known as the Confederate Territory of Arizona with Company A, Arizona Rangers. The Rangers would later occupy Tucson in February 1862, raising the national flag of the Confederate States of America.

Robert Birch later transferred and served under Colonel John Salmon Ford in the Texas 2nd Cavalry of the Confederate Army on the Rio Grande

Robert Birch, may have had ties to Tennessee outlaw, John A. Murrell and his Mystic Clan, using a number of criminal aliases including; Robert Harris, R. Harris, R. Haris, Haris, Owin, Haines, Gains, Thomas Brown, Tom Brown, Robert Blecher, R. H. Blecher. But, this claim does not hold up to scrutiny, as Birch would have been only seven years old, in 1834, when Murrell was arrested and began serving his ten-year prison sentence. Robert Birch, more likely, might have had older relatives, such as his father, uncles, or cousins, who were on the Mystic Clan's membership rolls in the U.S. Southern states or were connected to outlaws who were Murrell associates. After the demise of Murrell, many of the members of the future "Banditti" were driven out of "The South" and to avoid arrest, execution, or death at the hands of regulators and moved farther north, relocating their criminal activities in the still, lawless, frontier of the Middle West, mainly in the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

When Robert Birch was 18 years old, he was alleged by James Henry Tevis of being involved in the torture-murder of Colonel George Davenport at his home on July 4, 1845.[3] Robert Birch was one of several members later identified by Edward Bonney who had infiltrated the gang as a bogus counterfeiter. Ironically, three years earlier, Bonney had been arrested and charged with counterfeiting in Indiana but escaped before his conviction. Birch was soon apprehended, in part due to information from Bonney, and he soon agreed to testify against the others in exchange for a reduced sentence. Granville Young and brothers John and Aaron Long were later executed for the murder. After several court delays, Robert Birch broke out of jail, through outside help or bribery, in Knoxville, Illinois, March 22, 1847.

Disappearing into the frontier, of the Midwest United States, Robert Birch resurfaced, almost, a decade later, a reformed, honest man and an associate of Jacob Snively,[4] the founder of Arizona's first gold rush boom town Gila City, and became the first postmaster on December 24, 1858. Two years later, Birch followed Snively and James W. Hicks to the New Mexico Territory where they discovered gold deposits on Bear Creek. A mining camp soon sprang up around the claim, on the site of what is today the ghost town of Pinos Altos, and was originally named Birchville in his honor.