Lorenzo Hubbell was born in Pajarito, New Mexico, on November 27, 1853. He was the son of James Lawrence and Julianita (Gutierrez) Hubbell. His father, of New England ancestry, settled in New Mexico after the Mexican War and became a sheep rancher.
Lorenzo spoke Spanish before he learned English, and his early education was conducted in that language under a Mexican tutor. At twelve he was sent to a Presbyterian school in Santa Fe, where he remained four years.
Leaving school, he was briefly a clerk in the Albuquerque post office, and then, craving adventure, he set out on horseback for southern Utah. For a time he was a clerk at a trading post at Kanab, but after a shooting affair in which he was all but fatally wounded, he left the district. In 1873 he entered Arizona. That summer he attended the Hopi Snake Dance, perhaps the first white man ever to be admitted to the Kiva to witness all the mysteries of the ceremony. He was invited to join the tribe but declined. In 1876 he established himself at the place now known as Ganado as trader to the Navajos. Later he opened seven branch posts on the reservation. He prospered and grew rich and for fifty years exercised a more powerful influence over both the Navajos and the Hopis than any other man. The Indians trusted him as their friend, counselor, protector, and intermediary in government affairs. Charles F. Lummis called him "the last and the greatest of the Patriarchs and Princes of the Frontier".
Hubbell brought about a renaissance in the art of the Navajos, built up a world market for their beautiful creations, and, by criticizing the work the Navajo women turned out from their looms, added something notable to the art of blanket-weaving. He encouraged them to produce only the finest work and to specialize on their most beautiful designs, and he rewarded them accordingly. At his request, artists who visited him painted the creations he most admired, and these he would frame and hang in his office as examples of desirable patterns to reproduce for the Eastern markets. Women who invented lovely designs and did their work well he would supply with wool and dyes of the finest quality, with the request that they continue making the same designs. So princely was Hubbell's hospitality, so stately and ingratiating his manners, that Hamlin Garland named him "Don Lorenzo the Magnificent. "
Travelers from everywhere visited him there on the remote desert. No one, great or small, was ever turned away, nor was anybody allowed to pay for his entertainment. In the early days everyone who attended the Snake Dance stopped at his home. Sometimes fifty guests would sit down to his table at once. On a single occasion he served a total of five hundred meals to Indians who had come to visit him. He was host to scores of the world's famous men – authors, artists, soldiers, scientists, and statesmen – even the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. But, though guests were not permitted to pay for their entertainment, they could not be prohibited from presenting gifts, so gradually the Hubbell hacienda became a museum of Indian baskets, pottery, jewelry, choice paintings, and prehistoric specimens. At the time of Hubbell's death, the total value of these gifts was thought to be at least $100, 000.
Hubbell was twice elected sheriff of Apache County during the eighties when the bloody sheep-and-cattle war was raging in that county. In this war three hundred men were killed – five of them Hubbell's deputies. He served two terms in the territorial legislature; was the first senator to represent his county in the state legislature; for four years was chairman of the Republican State Central Committee; and, in 1914, was the unsuccessful candidate of the Republican party for the United States Senate. He was an athlete and a man of great endurance and resolution. He once swam the Colorado River. As sheriff he was in hourly danger of assassination and more than once quelled turbulent Indians with only his muscular arm to defend him.
His death followed a stroke. He was buried on the summit of a hill, opposite his home, between his wife and Chief Many Horses.
His religious life deepened as he grew older, and he died in the Catholic faith.
He was shrewd, ambitious, and aggressive; but affable, generous, humane, and lovable. At his own table he was as full of wit, anecdote, and grace as a Spanish hidalgo. He never used either tobacco or liquor, though he gambled recklessly up to 1896, when, according to his own words, he lost $60, 000 in a single night at cards and never gambled thereafter.
In 1879 Hubbell was married to Lena Rubi, of ancient Spanish-American ancestry. Four children were born to them: Lorenzo, Jr. , Barbara, Dorothy, and Ramon.
1824–1885
1834–1899
1861–1913
1866–1911
1862–1929
1856–1919
