Mysteries of the Cemetery - Flower Vandals

Flower Vandals
Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.), 14 April 1895. 
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020558/1895-04-14/ed-1/seq-1/

University of Arizona - 1891

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Here is an article about the early years of the University of Arizona, which includes some of the courses of study.......

Professor Dayton Reed - Educators

Pioneers' Cemetery Association

Dayton Reed was born on 22 Dec 1841 in Millbrook, Wayne County, Ohio. He was one of seven children born to James and Mary Ann Reed. 

Dayton became a teacher and moved to Belleville, Ohio where he was a high school principal from 1866 to 1873.  During that time, his sister Eliza Douglass came to live with him bringing her son Beach.  Her marriage to William Douglass had ended in divorce. 

Dayton married Sarah Ordway on December 27, 1871 in Richland, Ohio.  That marriage seems to have ended with each one going their own way.  Sarah was living with her widowed father in Belleville, Ohio in 1880. 

Dayton moved to Los Angeles, California around 1873 where he continued to teach for 12 years.  He then moved to Arizona where he became principal for the Phoenix Public Schools in 1885.  He resigned that position in 1887 to enter into the more lucrative real estate and banking business in Phoenix.   

On June 28, 1890, Dayton became the third principal of the Arizona Territorial Normal School (Arizona State University) where he taught language, mathematics and pedagogy.During his short ten month tenure as principal, he supervised improving the appearance of the campus by having fencing, trees and plumbing installed.  His salary was $200 a month.

Dayton was forced to resign his position because he was suffering from consumption.  A long-time member of the Masons, he was elevated to Grand Master of the Phoenix lodge prior to his death.  He died July 12, 1894 and is buried in the Masons Cemetery of Phoenix Military and Memorial Park. 

Dayton’s sister, Eliza Douglass, died February 3, 1895 of cancer and is buried next to her brother.

Stock Brands - 1891

Brands
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Just in case you lose your farm animals........

Our homesteader, Rebecca Davenport, most likely had horses and cattle on her homestead.  This is a list of some of the brands established by owners at the time.  There are actually pages of these in many newspapers.  I guess there were more stray cows than one would think.  

Rebecca Reid Davenport - Homesteader - Enterprising Women

Gila River
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

Rebecca Reid Davenport was born October 1820 in Indiana.  Rebecca was married to Bailey McNess Davenport most likely in Missouri around 1840.  She was the mother of 10 children.

The family remained in Missouri until 1854, when they moved to California. The family prospered while in California, but sadly Bailey died on July 17, 1875 in Los Angeles County.  Rebecca administered the estate, and Bailey was buried with a beautiful headstone in the Santa Ana Cemetery.

Rebecca left California for Arizona around 1880.  Her son Jacob was married by then and working in Phoenix.  She would travel back and forth to California where her other children still lived.  In 1892, Rebecca began homesteading 158 acres in the area of what is now Citrus Valley Road and W. Sisson in Gila Bend.  Rebecca wrote in the homestead application that she first lived in a tent before the house was built a year later.  She would have been 74 years old.

Rebecca described her house as being built of lumber and having three rooms.  Another house was added along with a well, two corrals and a dairy room.  She indicated that 80 acres had been cleared and were in use.  Her sons Jacob and Thomas were living with her and working the land.  Some of those outbuildings can still be seen on the property.

Rebecca was living alone by 1899 according to her homestead application, and in 1900 she was granted a land patent.  She went to California for a short time and was living with daughter Martha Ivory.  

Rebecca returned to Phoenix where she transferred ownership of her property to son Charles prior to her death.

Rebecca is buried in the City Loosely Cemetery surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Fashion of the 1890s

"Men's Fashion 1890's"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.

http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.45062/

"Women's Fashion 1890s"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.45006

One of our last blog posts was about a tragic death of a young woman named Lunice Teel.  She worked at the Boston Store.  These would have been some fashions that may have been sold there during this time.....

Tragic Deaths - Lunice Teel

The Boston Store

Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.), 04 Nov. 1900. 

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020558/1900-11-04/ed-1/seq-6/

Lunice, nicknamed "Linnie", was born in McFall, Gentry County, Missouri, in April 1883 to Thomas Ross Teel and Rebecca Ann Graham.  She was the second of eight children, of whom Chloe, Linnie, Elizabeth ("Lizzie") and Alfred were born in Missouri.  Sometime between 1891 and 1893, the family moved to Phoenix where Edith, Mabel, Sadie and Ross Graham were born. 

It's unclear whether this Teel family was related to the Peter Teel family that migrated from Texas to Arizona in the 1870s, although census records show that some of them had also been in Illinois and Missouri before settling in Texas. 

In Missouri, Thomas R. Teel's family had been farmers  and owned a flour mill.  Later, in Arizona census records, Thomas was listed as a farm laborer and his death certificate describes him as a "miller". 

Lunice E. Teel, just 3 months short of her 22nd birthday, died of pneumonia on January 13, 1905, at her parents' home at 507 North 4th Street, Phoenix, Arizona.  She was buried in Rosedale Cemetery. 

Linnie's obituary noted she was employed at the Boston Store and that she was "an estimable young woman" and "well-known and respected by a large circle of acquaintances". - Story by Sue Wilcox

Saloma Newland - Lady Prospector - Enterprising Women

Globe Mining District
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
//hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pan.6a17352

Saloma E. Larcombe Newland was a female prospector in territorial Arizona. She was born around 1838 in Massachusetts.  It is unknown who her parents were, or if she had any siblings.  Prior to 1880, there are no census records that list her, and what has been discovered comes mostly from newspaper articles. 

She lived in Ohio at some point, as her daughter Flora Larcombe was born on January 14th, 1859 in Steubenville, Ohio. Flora had married Barry Baldwin in 1875 who was a United States Marshal for the Northern District of California. 

Saloma also lived in California on and off for several years as Mrs. S.E. Larcombe, having married a Thomas B. Larcombe, a miner, at some point.  She divorced him in 1870.  In 1864, she worked as a sales agent in Virginia, Nevada Territory for the Florence sewing machine.  In 1866, she worked as the manager of the Western Union Telegraph Office in Santa Barbara, along with another job as operator at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.  She left California in 1877, and came to Arizona to pursue her interest in prospecting. 

She would continue her mining endeavours in Globe while managing a hotel in “Watsonville”, a mining camp near Ramboz peak.  After marrying Thomas Newland in 1878, together, they mined several claims, which included prospecting the Defiance, Pioneer, and Saloma Mines in the area of Globe.  In 1896, Thomas died of  chronic pneumonia at 66 years of age.  Saloma continued mining their prospects, earning her notoriety in the Arizona Republic, and an article written about her in the The San Francisco Call in 1897 called “Arizona’s Lady Prospector”. 

Saloma Larcombe Newland died of cancer December 31, 1898, and is buried in Loosley.  She has no headstone.  For more information on her, come to the Pioneer Military and Memorial Park to learn about this fascinating “lady miner”. 

Spanish Flu - Pandemics - Early 1900s

"Influenza Ward"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a39569

The Spanish Flu was an influenza pandemic that arrived in the United States around 1918.  It was first identified in military personnel, and infected about 500 million people worldwide, with 675,000 deaths occurring in the United States alone.  There were national quarantines, as well as school and business closures.  The strain was H1N1, and had an avian origin.

There is no one in the PMMP listed as having died of the Spanish Flu.  The cemetery had closed about four years prior to the outbreak.  However, in reading this article it is interesting to note that the United States went through some similar events that we are now experiencing at this time.  

Quarantine Lifted
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Mask Order
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Pioneers' Cemetery Association Won Another Grant!

PCA is very excited to announce we were awarded a preservation grant from the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. The grant was sponsored by Cactus Wren Chapter DAR of Chandler.  The grant will allow for PCA to use the services of a conservator for the preservation of markers and the Loring Vault in our cemeteries. Thank you to Kandy Wagenbach, Gera King, W. Jobeth Fjell and Jenn Shaffer Merry for your help. 

Tragic Death - A Short Life

Pioneers' Cemetery Association Archive

Feliciana was the firstborn daughter of Albert Cornelius Baker and Maria de Jesus Alexander. She was born January 3, 1883 in Yuma, Arizona. Thereafter, the family moved to Phoenix.

On May 15, 1884, little Feliciana found a quantity of morphine pills, routinely prescribed at that time, and swallowed a fatal dose. The overdose was not discovered until she fell into a stupor, at which time a doctor was summoned. A galvanic battery was applied for three or four hours in hopes of reversing the effects of the drugs, but to no avail. Feliciana died at 7 AM the following morning.

Feliciana’s funeral took place that afternoon at the Catholic church. Hers was the very first burial in the newly opened Masons Cemetery.

Feliciana’s father, Albert Cornelius Baker, was a lawyer born in Crawford, Alabama on February 15, 1845. He enlisted as a color-bearer during the Civil War and was captured at the fall of Vicksburg. However, instead of sending the youth to a prisoner of war camp, his Union captors kept him to work as a bootblack.

Baker had intended to study for the Methodist ministry after the war; instead, he gravitated toward law and eventually went to San Diego and San Francisco to practice. Although he moved to Phoenix in 1879, he continued to visit friends in Yuma frequently and it was there that he met his future wife at the home of her father, Judge Henry Nash Alexander.

Baker’s law career included a two-year stint as a United States District Attorney, 1882-1884. In 1893, Baker was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the territory of Arizona; he held that office for the next four years. In 1918, he was elected Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. -  from original story of Donna Carr 

Come to the PMMP and visit Feliciana, and other "residents" at our park!

Mary A. Lee - Restaurateur - Enterprising Women

This bio is present on one of our pages, but we thought we would highlight it here too.  Mary's success was remarkable for her time, as women were not often seen in business roles.

The border vidette. (Nogales, Ariz.), 18 Feb. 1899. 
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Library of Congress
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn96060796/1899-02-18/ed-1/seq-4/>

Mary A. Lee was born about 1862, and was a restaurateur in Territorial Phoenix and Tucson during the late 1890s.  She was a single, African-American woman who was reported in the December 5, 1897 Arizona Daily Star as "...the famous caterer who is known to prepare the finest dinner, breakfast, or luncheon in Arizona.."  Not much is known about her early life, or where she was born.  However, she appeared to have rose to the Phoenix scene around 1892 in a partnership she formed with Samuel W. Slade, called "Lee and Slade".  The partnership maintained The Opera House cafe which featured "game, fish, and oysters".  At the later part of the year, they acquired a five year lease for $18,000 from the owner of the Ford Hotel to maintain a restaurant on the premises.  The partnership dissolved in 1896, and Mary ventured to Tucson where she became of the proprietor of Williams Hotel, The Alhambra, and the Orndorff Cafe.  Mary returned to Phoenix suffering from an illness, and died of tuberculosis October 26, 1900.  Curiously, her probate records states that she had an account at the National Bank of Arizona at Tucson for $325 and a trunk of personal effects in Phoenix.  Her executor later stated that these items "could not be found."  She is buried in Rosedale with no marker.  

The Mary's Cafe Fare menu is dedicated to her.  It consists of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners found often in the home and restaurants of the 1890s, and consists of three planned meals with recipes.  The recipes are found from cookbooks of the era that are posted on Project Gutenberg.  References available on request.  The menu is written and designed by Val Wilson.

Influenza - Pandemics - 1800's

"Hard Case"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.45308

An influenza pandemic occurred between 1889-1890, and had re-occurrences up until about 1899.  It killed a million people worldwide.  

It transferred to America by transatlantic travel, and then was transmitted by our transportation infrastructure throughout the states.   

It was called "Asiatic flu" or "Russian flu", and later determined that the strain was Influenza A, subtype H3N8.  

On an interesting sidenote, an H3 antigen influenza did re-occur in 1968 as H3N2.  It was called the "Hong Kong flu", and arrived in the United States.  Tests on the very elderly during this time demonstrated that the majority had H3 antibodies from exposure to H3 viruses circulating in 1891.  This age group remained relatively well protected during the 1968 pandemic.  This type of study is called "sero-archaeology". 

Old death certificates may list the late 1800's influenza pandemic as Grippe, La grippe, or Influenza. 

We have at least 13 people in the PMMP who died from influenza during this time period.  In some cases, cause of death may have been identified as something else that may have been related to influenza, such as pneumonia, etc.  

La Grippe
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