Edward O. Schwartz (1842-1904) - Civil War Veteran and Adjutant General of Arizona

 

PCA Archives

Edward O. Schwartz was born in New York on February 19, 1842, to Louis Schwartz and Catherine Boese.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Schwartz enlisted in the 8th New York Militia in April 1861 and mustered out in August of that year. He then enlisted in the 4th New York Cavalry in January 1862.  Although he fell ill with typhoid fever later that year, he recovered sufficiently to achieve the rank of lieutenant.  A year later, he was promoted to captain and, in March 1864, he became a major. 

Schwartz fought in several major battles which included the battle of Cross Keys, Virginia; Second Bull Run (Manassas); Chancellorsville; and Gettysburg.  In 1864, he participated  in General Philip Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley campaign and was present at the June 11-12 battle of Trevilian Station.  He was honorably discharged at the end of the war.

After the war, Schwartz went West. He was part of a military detachment that escorted engineer and geologist Clarence King through northern Arizona and other parts of the West in the Fortieth Parallel Survey of 1867-1873. Schwartz later relocated to New Mexico where he left service and married Angeline Flint in Santa Fe in 1880.  Their union produced one daughter.

A few years later, the family moved to Phoenix, where Schwartz engaged in various business enterprises.  An engraver by trade, he was elected recorder of the City of Phoenix in 1890, a post he held for six years.  In 1891, he joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), becoming commander of the Arizona GAR that same year.  In April 1893, the new territorial governor, Louis Cameron Hughes, appointed Schwartz Adjutant General of Arizona. He served for six years and was regarded as an able commander.

The Schwartzes left Phoenix in 1897 and moved to Seattle. From there, they went to San Francisco before returning to Phoenix in 1899.  In a newspaper article, Schwartz declared, “Not until one leaves Phoenix does he appreciate the business advantages it presents.”

One of the last services Schwartz performed for his community was organizing the Decoration Day service for the GAR which took place on May 29, 1903, at the city cemetery.  There was no march, as it was deemed too much of a strain for the old soldiers, but Major Schwartz did invite veterans of the Confederacy to participate in the ceremonies too.

Major Edward Schwartz died at home on March 1, 1904.  On March 3rd, he was interred in the Porter Cemetery with full military honors.

 - by Mark Lamm

Alexander Chapman Lansdon (1834-1899) - Soldier, Miner, Carpenter

 

PCA Archives

Alexander Chapman Lansdon was born in Russellville, Kentucky, on July 18, 1834.  He was the son of Zachariah Lansdon and Frances Hambleton.   The family moved to Illinois sometime between 1834 and 1838.  The federal census of 1850 records the Lansdons living in Eden, Schuyler County, Illinois.

By 1861, Alexander was in California.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in Company B (Old), 2nd California Cavalry in San Francisco on September 21, 1861.  As a member of the historic California Column, he marched from Los Angeles County, California, to the Río Grande River early in the war.  Private Lansdon re-enlisted in Co. B (New), same regiment, at San Francisco on July 1, 1864. He was promoted to sergeant five months later and saw service at posts in New Mexico and Nevada.

On November 17, 1865, Lansdon was wounded in a fight with Indians at the Black Rock Mountains in Nevada.  He was court-martialed for an undisclosed reason and dishonorably discharged at Fort Churchill, Nevada, on April 20, 1866.

Around 1872, Alexander returned to New Mexico, where he met Maria Francisca Garcia.   She had previously been in a relationship with a Captain George A. Burkett, by whom she had three children born between 1867 and 1872: Camilla, John C. and Mary Inez.  Coincidentally, Burkett had been stationed at one of the posts where Lansdon had served, although there is no evidence that they were there at the same time.  Since no marriage record for Captain George A. Burkett and Francisca has been located, it is not known whether they were ever formally married.  At any rate, Lansdon and Francisca set up housekeeping in 1872 and remained together until his death many years later.

By 1880, Alexander and Francisca had left New Mexico for Arizona, initially living in Bisbee where Alexander worked in the copper mines.  Later, they settled in the small community of Dos Cabezas.  Their household included Francisca's three children from her alliance with Burkett, as well as three more children she had with Lansdon: James, Lola, and Marguerite (Maggie).   After the mine where Lansdon was working played out, the family moved to Willcox, where Alexander found work as a carpenter. He and Francisca had a fourth child, Henry, born in Willcox in 1889.

Early in 1898, the Lansdons moved to Phoenix so that Alexander could seek medical attention for a throat affliction, likely the result of years of mining. They lived with Francisca's oldest son, John C. Burkett, who lived on West Lincoln Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Alexander died there on February 12, 1899, and was laid to rest in Rosedale Cemetery.  Francisca passed away on September 4, 1901, and was also buried in Rosedale.

-by Donna Carr

Happy Thanksgiving 2025!

 

Our Spotlight Today: Thankful for History!

 

PCA Archives

Our Spotlight Today: Thankful for History!

This Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for the people and stories that make Pioneer & Military Memorial Park so special.

• Our volunteers — who clean, restore, research, and guide visitors with passion.
• The families — who trust us with their history and the memories of their loved ones.
• Our pioneers and veterans — whose lives helped build Phoenix and Arizona.
• Our community — everyone who visits, shares, donates, or simply cares.

 Preserving history is an act of gratitude.

Thank you for helping us keep these stories alive.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at PMMP.!

Theodore Buck (1824-1896) - A Union Artilleryman at Vicksburg

 

PCA Archives

Theodore Buck claimed to have been born in 1824 in Prussia.

Buck was older than the average recruit when he enlisted in the Union Army on November 23, 1862, in Clinton, Illinois.   While serving as a private in Battery F, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery, he suffered deafness in both ears, likely caused by the incessant cannonading during the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863.  He was discharged July 27, 1865 with the rank of private. 

By 1878, Buck was in Phoenix, where he registered to vote.  The 1880 federal census of Phoenix, Arizona, shows a Theodor Buck, born Prussia 1825, unmarried, living in the household of Miguel Peralta, a general store proprietor.  Buck was working as a porter in the store.

Theodore Buck was a founding member of the John Wren Owen GAR post.  In 1887 and again in 1892, he visited the hospital at the Old Soldiers Home in Leavenworth, Kansas, for medical attention.  He applied for and received invalid pension #771,427.

When he died on October 24, 1896, Buck was living at the Star Lodging House and working as a janitor at the Five Points School.  He was buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 33, Grave C.  His grave has a military marker. 

- by Donna L. Carr

 

George Washington Sanders (1839-1904) - Union Veteran and Mining Superintendent

 

PCA Archives

George Washington Sanders was born September 6, 1839, in Fort Covington, New York.  He was the oldest of eleven children born to Eliphalet Pike Sanders and his first wife, Melissa Henry.   In 1846, the Sanders family moved to Ashtabula, Ohio.

On September 9, 1861, George Sanders enlisted in the Union Army at Trumbull, Ohio, and was assigned to Battery C of the 1st Regiment Ohio Light Artillery. However, he did not see much action as he was often sick and in hospital.  On September 26, 1862, he was discharged for disability at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio.  Despite his relatively short service, he became a devoted member of the Grand Army of the Republic, being elected commander of the Arizona Department in April 1903 at the San Francisco Grand Encampment.

Sanders moved to Polk, Iowa, in 1863.  In 1866, he married Mary Beebe, and they soon had two children, Albert and Ethel.   After Ethel’s birth, Sanders moved the family to Salt Lake City.  He and Mary had two more children in Utah; Ida and George.   

After Mary’s death in childbirth in 1877, Sanders took his family back to Iowa.  By 1880 he was remarried to a woman named Lizzie.

It wasn’t long before Sanders set his sights on the West again.  This time he travelled to Arizona.  By 1881, he and nine other men had created the Sanders Arizona Mining company which aimed to produce copper, silver, gold and other metals from mines in Pima County.

It was right at the turn of the century and near the end of his life that Sanders experienced his greatest achievements and his greatest losses. By 1899, he had divorced his second wife Lizzie and lost his daughter Ethel and grandson Sanders in what was believed to be a murder-suicide. But it was also that same year when he became superintendent of the Vulture Mine near Wickenburg and began work to get the mine back into production.

When Sanders first took charge, the Vulture Mine didn’t have enough water. By cyaniding the tailings, he recovered enough gold to finance drilling the mine deeper to locate an existing water source.  In 1901, the mine struck a new vein of gold ore.  As one of the financiers, Sanders received much of the initial profits.  

It was also during 1901 that Sanders was married for the third time--to Clara Glenn.

On March 20, 1902, Sanders sustained serious injuries when he was thrown from a streetcar of the Phoenix Railway Company.  He died on February 6, 1904, of heart complications attributed to his 1902 accident.  He was buried in Porter Cemetery under the auspices of the local GAR post.

 - by Tricia Alexander

 

John Wren Owen (1822-1877) - Union Veteran and County Treasurer

 

PCA Archives

John Wren Owen was born December 16, 1822, in Franklin County, Illinois, the son of Thomas Harvey Owen and Mary Paine Wren, hence his middle name. 

In 1850, shortly after the beginning of the California Gold Rush, his parents moved their family to Solano County, California, where they engaged in farming.  By 1860, John Wren Owen was working as a real estate speculator at Suisun, Solano County.  

On November 30, 1864, Owen enlisted in the Union Army at the Presidio in San Francisco, California.  He was commissioned a captain and given command of Company F, 7th California Infantry, on December 15, 1864.  He transferred to Camp McDowell in Arizona Territory on August 2, 1865, after the Civil War had ended, and mustered out with his company at the Presidio on April 18, 1866.

Apparently, Owen’s time in Arizona had made an impression on him for he returned to Pima County. He was elected to the Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1868. The 1870 federal census shows him working as a clerk at Camp Crittenden in Pima County.

In 1874, Owen was elected treasurer of Maricopa County and reelected in 1876.  As treasurer, he was responsible for paying certain bills out of the county taxes; however, he seems to have exercised those responsibilities loosely.  He made no quarterly report of the funds in his possession to the territorial treasurer on June 30 or on September 30, 1877.

When Owen requested money for the public schools, the territorial treasurer authorized him to use the funds already in his possession, promising that he would be compensated later.  On October 11, 1877, Owen replied that he did not have the money to hand but would have it by the end of the month.  He then fell ill and died on November 4th.  When his body was prepared for burial in the first City Cemetery, he had only $2 in his pocket.

His fellow veterans turned out for his funeral and he was eulogized as "a man of few faults and many virtues."  It appears that John Wren Owen never married, and his obituaries did not mention any next of kin.

Following his death, a thorough search of his dwelling did not turn up any of the county's money.  His friends speculated that perhaps Owen had loaned the money to someone and that that individual was keeping mum about it.  A less charitable speculation was that he had spent it himself.  At any rate, no money was ever recovered.

Notwithstanding the missing County funds, the late Captain Owen seems to have enjoyed a good enough reputation that, when Union veterans established a post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in Phoenix in September 1885, it was named in his honor.

 - by Donna L. Carr

 

Did You Know? Phoenix 1800s Veterans' Cemetery Owner: Lulu Porter

 

PCA Archives

Did you know one of Phoenix’s oldest veterans' cemeteries was owned by a woman in the 1800s?

Lulu Porter, wife of Mayor DeForest Porter, owned the southern half of Block 22 in Neahr’s Addition. This land would become Porter Cemetery.

The land was purchased by the Porters in 1887, although it was not denoted which of the Porter's owned it. DeForest Porter died in 1889, and Lulu moved his body from the Knights of Pythias Cemetery in 1890. She also reinterred her father there, James M. Cotten, a Phoenix pioneer. These burials marked the beginning of what would grow into a community cemetery.

Later, early city plat maps from 1891 labeled it “Mrs. Porter Cemetery,” recognizing Lulu as the owner.

Today, Porter Cemetery is one of the most historically significant parts of Pioneer & Military Memorial Park, not just for its founders, but for its veterans.

It holds nearly one-third of all military burials in PMMP.

To find out more, read "Histories of Pioneer Cemeteries in Phoenix, Arizona" by Ed Dobbins at the Internet Archive. 

Honoring Veterans This Month - And Always!

 

In recognition of Veterans Day, we will be sharing the stories of the brave pioneers buried in Pioneer & Military Memorial Park who served our nation. Their courage helped shape Arizona’s earliest communities, and their sacrifices deserve to be remembered.

Join us throughout the month as we highlight their lives, service, and legacy.

Photo: Puck Magazine, 1899 - Library of Congress

Jensen Vault - Then and Now

Photos:  PCA Archives

Then & Now: The Jensen Vault (City/Loosley Cemetery)

This vault belonged to John Jensen, who once ran a roadhouse along the old Tempe Road and Maricopa Canal. Originally, the vault had five compartments and was domed in brick. Part of the dome can be seen in the older photo. By the 1940s, the roof had already collapsed, and today it is completely gone.

Jensen’s son Fred was buried here in 1888. John is believed to have been interred after 1912, and his headstone was found and returned to the vault in 1940.

These “then and now” photos show how time reshapes even stone.

Click on photos to get a closer look.

Thomas Hayden (1880 - 1940) - Preservationist and Founder of Pioneers' Cemetery Association

 

PCA Archives

Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Thomas Hayden!

Not all who rest in Pioneer & Military Memorial Park were early Phoenix settlers. Some earned their place through devotion. Thomas Albert Hayden (1880–1940) was one of them.

Originally from Nova Scotia, Hayden came to the Southwest for his health and worked as a civil engineer in New Mexico and later Phoenix. He loved to walk from his office near the State Capitol to his home on Palm Lane, and on those walks, he noticed a neglected cemetery at 14th Ave & Jefferson.

Instead of simply passing by, he took action:

• Surveyed and mapped all remaining graves

• Documented the names and histories

• Advocated for preservation

• Helped form the Pioneer Cemetery Association in 1939 with figures like Carl Hayden, Lindley Bell Orme, and Barry Goldwater

Though he passed in 1940, his cremains were not interred until 1988, finally resting in the very cemetery he fought to protect.

Today, we remember him as a guardian of Phoenix history: someone who saw value where others saw weeds.

Thank you, Thomas Albert Hayden.

Victorian "Ghost" Photography - Victorian Era and Death

"Haunted Lane" - 1889

"Spirit" - 1901

"Houdini and Abraham Lincoln" - about 1920

Spiritualism: When the Victorians Tried to Connect with the Dead

In the late 1800s, photography was new, science was advancing, and grief was everywhere. The Victorians, haunted by high mortality rates and the loss of loved ones, turned to Spiritualism, hoping that death was not the end but simply another doorway.

Enter spirit photography: eerie portraits showing ghostly figures beside the living. Whether clever double exposures or heartfelt attempts to reach the beyond, these images captured more than faces.  They revealed a society searching for comfort in faith, science, and mystery.

From séances in parlors to photographs claiming to show a loved one’s lingering presence, the Victorians tried to connect mourning with marvel.

Take a look at these haunting examples of spirit photography from the 19th century.

- Photos from Library of Congress.

 

William Belcher (1846 – 1898) - “The Cockney”

 

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William A. Belcher was born in London, England around 1846.  Not much is known about him prior to 1880, when he was living in Missoula, Montana.  At that time he was working as a watchmaker and living on Front Street. According to news reports, William inherited $5570 from his mother who had died in England.  William quit his profession and began enjoying his money.

William migrated to Phoenix, Arizona and began bartending for Rose Gregory, aka Minnie Powers, a well-known madam.  They began living together and, because William had a problem with alcohol, Rose became his money manager. 

William and Rose had a tumultuous relationship because of his drinking and her profession.  William would end up in jail because of his behavior and while he was gone, Rose would entertain other gentlemen callers.  He would become jealous of her relationships with men and threaten to kill her. 

After his release from jail on September 17, 1898, he went for a few drinks and obtained a .44 caliber handgun.  He then went to where Rose and he were living at 720 Railroad Avenue in Phoenix and entered the residence around 9 a.m.

William found Rose alone and asleep in bed.  He shot her in the head and then shot himself, falling across her.  They were not discovered until 1 p.m. when Flora Wilson, one of the other women living in the house, found the bodies. 

William and Rose were buried in Rosedale Cemetery.  William’s location in the cemetery is unknown, as there is no grave marker.  

- by Patty