Annie McMurtry Trott (1859-1906) - Surveyor’s Wife

 

PCA Archives

Margaret Anna McMurtry is believed to have been born on July 8, between 1856 and 1858, in White County, Illinois, to James Harrell McMurtry and Martha McMurtry neé Sharp.  While the inscription on Annie’s grave marker says that she was born in 1859, her death record gives her birthyear as 1858.

The 1860 federal census found the widow McMurtry living in the household of a George W. Overton and working as a seamstress. 

Ten years later, the McMurtrys were farming in Gallatin County, Illinois, and Ann was recorded as being 13 years old.

On February 22, 1879, Annie married Franklin P. Trott, in El Dorado, Saline County, Illinois.  Trott was a civil engineer.  Their first child, a daughter named Nellie, was born about five months later.

The 1880 federal census recorded Annie and her baby daughter living with Martha, who was managing a boarding house in El Dorado.  Franklin, a station agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, was not in the household (he was temporarily in Benton, Franklin County, Illinois), although he must have rejoined it shortly thereafter, since the Trotts had another daughter, Bessie, born in 1881.

Shortly thereafter, the Trotts, accompanied by Annie’s widowed mother, moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where Franklin worked by turns as a civil engineer, county surveyor, deputy sheriff and water commissioner.  As head of the zanjeros in Maricopa County, Trott was generally well-regarded. 

The Trotts had a home at 472 North 2nd Street in Phoenix and seem to have enjoyed some years of relative prosperity during the 1880s.  Sadly, both of their daughters fell ill with scarlet fever in 1890.  Nellie recovered, but Bessie, aged nine, died in December and was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Like so many others of the time, Annie was eventually diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis.  Not wanting to spend the summer in Phoenix, she traveled to Los Angeles in 1906, accompanied by her daughter Nellie.  Annie died there on August 11, and her remains were returned to Phoenix for burial in the family plot.

Franklin P. Trott lived until May 2, 1936.  He and his daughter Nellie are buried in the Encanto Mausoleum at Greenwood Memory Lawn in Phoenix.

- by Donna L. Carr 

Norma Jackson Helm (1863-1891) - Southern Belle

 

PCA Archives

Norma Jackson was born December 1863 in Madison, Morgan County, Georgia, to newlyweds Jesse Wade Jackson and his wife, Julia Tunnell.  Although Madison is near Atlanta, it escaped destruction during General Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864 because it was home to a pro-Union congressman, Joshua Hill. 

Surprisingly for a white Southerner, Norma’s father was a Republican.  As a matter of fact, he became a personal friend of Ulysses S. Grant, who arranged an appointment in the U. S. Revenue Department for him in 1881.  The Jacksons resided in Washington, D. C. until March 1887, when Jesse passed away.  His body was returned for burial in the family plot at Buckhead, Georgia.

As her parents’ only child, the move to Washington had benefitted Norma.  Raised in the genteel traditions of the Old South, she was expected to act as a gracious hostess at the tea parties and social events befitting her station in society.  When she came down with consumption, she travelled to Los Angeles to visit an aunt.  While there, she met Dr. Scott Helm and became engaged to him.

In February 1890, a Los Angeles newspaper reported, “Miss Norma Jackson, of Capitol Hill, the only child of the late Jesse W. Jackson, was married on the 12th instant, at Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, to Dr. Scott Helm, a native of Kentucky, a graduate of Princeton College and Rush Medical College, [and] of Heidelberg, Germany.  Miss Norma is well-known in Washington, where her grace, beauty and accomplishments won her many admirers.  She was on the Pacific Slope visiting her aunt, where she was wooed, won and wed by the fortunate doctor.”

As the wife of Dr. Helm, the foremost surgeon in the Arizona Territory, Norma entertained frequently and became known for her charm and hospitality.  Her circle of acquaintances included her half-aunt, the much-married Mary Taylor Woolsey Sullivan Fry Baxter.

Norma’s health took a turn for the worse late in 1890.  In February 1891, the Helms celebrated their first—and last--wedding anniversary with an excursion to the Hole in the Rock near Scottsdale, where the party was serenaded by a local singer known as “Monsieur Mumm”.

Despite Dr. Helm’s expert ministrations, Norma died on April 30, 1891, at the age of 28, and was buried in Porter Cemetery.

Dr. Helm did not remain a widower for long.  In November, 1892, he married Miss Jane Beeler of Kentucky.

 

- by Donna L. Carr

 

Louise Cora Clough Dunn (1840-1896) - Miner’s Wife

 

PCA Archive

Louise Cora Clough was born in Maine around 1840.  When she was a young girl, she appears to have been known as Caroline.  The family eventually moved to Douglas County, Kansas, where her father, the Rev. Mace Richard Clough, was a Methodist circuit preacher and farmer.  Judging from the birthplaces of their children, the move took place between 1850 and 1857.  At the time, Douglas County was at the epicenter of “Bleeding Kansas”, with settlements sharply divided between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. 

 Louise married William B. Walling on November 22, 1857, in Lawrence, Kansas.  Like herself, Walling was a New Englander, born January 31, 1835, in Vermont.  Walling seems to have been in the lumber industry, so it was only natural that, around 1859, the couple would leave treeless, windswept Kansas for the mining towns of Colorado. 

The Wallings settled near Central City, Colorado, where William built a sawmill.  Over the following years, he and Louise had several children:   an unnamed child who died at birth around 1858, Frederick A. (1859-1946), Herbert Benjamin (1864-1947), Edward (~1867-), Addie (~1868-), May (1870-1953), and Elmer Ellsworth (1871-1965).

After a dispute with his business partner which culminated in a shooting in self-defense, Walling moved his sawmill to Caribou, Colorado, and branched out into cattle-raising and real estate sales.  He constructed a small steamboat and, on the Fourth of July, 1872, launched it at a popular amusement park built on a small lake south of Central City.  Residents appreciated the novelty and lined up to buy tickets for excursions.

 But all was not well with the Walling marriage.  They divorced on June 16, 1875, and Louise married John Casper Dunn in Denver just thirteen days later, on June 29, 1875.

Dunn was a miner and a Union veteran of the Civil War.  The year 1880 found the Dunns living in Denver, where Louise’s youngest child, Elmer Ellsworth, had adopted the Dunn surname.   None of Louise’s other children, who had continued to use the Walling surname, were in the household. 

The Dunns may have moved to Phoenix, Arizona, after Louise developed pulmonary tuberculosis.  The family was living near Five Points when she died quite suddenly on September 9, 1896.  She had reportedly eaten a hearty supper and was washing dishes afterward when stricken with a hemorrhage from which she died a few minutes later.

 Louise was buried in Loosley Cemetery, Section 11, Grave 7.

 - by Donna L. Carr

Sophia Augusta Wall Ames (1861-1892) - Baptist Minister’s Wife

 

PCA Archive

Sophia Augusta Wall was born on June 24, 1861, in De Ruyter, Madison County, New York.  Her parents were William Frederick Wall and Mary Jane Coon, farmers. 

On June 22, 1886, she married a divinity student, John Fremont Ames, in a double ceremony with her sister Zella, who married Fred Hendee.  The newlyweds honeymooned at Niagara Falls, after which John accepted a call to work as an assistant pastor in Genoa, New York.  The Ameses’ first child, Francis, was born there on April 19, 1887.

Ames was ordained to the Baptist ministry on December 9, 1887.  He then decided to study theology at Rochester Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in June 1890. 

Having indicated that he wanted to serve a congregation that really needed him, even though it couldn’t afford to pay him a salary commensurate with his education, Ames accepted a call to a church in Madison, South Dakota.   While in South Dakota, the Ameses had a little daughter, Mary Lorena, born on August 2, 1891.  Unfortunately, Sophie developed an intractable cough and was shortly diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In hopes of improving Sophie’s health, the family moved in 1892 to Milton, Tennessee, where they rented a house from relatives.  However, Tennessee did not suit them.  The rainy weather aggravated Sophie’s cough, and John disliked the racial segregation which forbade him to preach to whites and blacks at the same gathering.   Ames was then offered the pastorate of a Baptist Church in Phoenix.   It seemed an attractive offer as the dry climate of Arizona was said to be salubrious for invalids.  So the Ameses moved once more.

On July 31, 1892, Reverend Ames was in his buggy on his way to church in downtown Phoenix when he overtook and passed a steam threshing engine.  When the driver blew his whistle twice, the unexpected noise so frightened the reverend’s horse that it took off in a mad run.  As the buggy careened around a corner, Dr. Ames either tried to jump or was thrown from the buggy.   He suffered head trauma and his left leg was broken.  He was carried into Frakes’ Livery, where Drs. Hughes and Dameron stabilized him.  However, they were not optimistic about his chances for recovery.   Since Sophie herself was too ill and distraught to nurse her husband, Rev. Ames was attended by others.  He died on August 12, almost two weeks after his accident.

Already an invalid, Sophie was prostrated by her husband’s death.  She could not bear light or sound; throughout the hot summer evenings she sat on the porch with a wet cloth over her face.  Though cared for by her sister-in-law, Fannie Card Wall, Sophia declared in October 1892 she was ready to join her husband.   She lingered until November before passing away.  The Ameses were buried in the Masons Cemetery.

The orphaned Ames children were raised by George and Fannie Wall in Woodbury County, Iowa.

- by Donna L. Carr

Nicholas A. Connick (1838-1898) - Merchant and Accountant

 

Bing AI Generated

Nicholas A. Connick is believed to have been of Irish descent, but he was born about 1837 in Pennsylvania.  However, he didn’t remain there.  Unlike the majority of immigrant Irish who settled in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and the industrial northwest, Connick was living in Texas at the outbreak of the Civil War. 

He seems to have had a fairly good education since, on August 26, 1861, he enlisted as a sergeant in Capt. Charles Mason’s Company D, Cook’s Battalion, 1st Texas Heavy Artillery.  By October, 1861, he was with the Pelican Battery at Galveston, defending the Texas coast from ships of the Union Navy. 

Connick’s military service was short, however, as he was discharged on November 22, 1861, after being promoted to the rank of major.  Thereafter, he served the Confederate cause as chief clerk in a Houston commissary.  A Confederate coupon from 1864, worth two dollars in groceries, bears his signature, written in a fair hand.

On April 27, 1862, Connick married Nathalia F. Gaye in Christ Church, Houston, Texas. The 1880 federal census found Nicholas Connick living in the newly-formed county of Somervell, Texas, and working as a bookkeeper.  By this time, he was a widower.

Sometime before 1891, Connick arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, where he opened a saloon near the train depot.  The Great Flood of 1891 forced the relocation of the establishment to higher ground.

Early in January, 1891, Connick joined a newly formed group of ex-Confederates.  Twenty-three local men attended its first meeting.  Ivy Cox was elected president and Connick became the secretary.  Thomas Greenhaw and Dr. Oscar Mahoney formed a committee to look into permanent organization.  The group’s goal was to promote good fellowship and assist old comrades in distress.

Perhaps competition drove Connick out of the saloon business, as the 1892 city directory of Phoenix listed him as an accountant.  In addition to being proficient with figures, he was regarded as being a sociable, cultured man and a brilliant conversationalist, with vivid memories of the Civil War.

On November 18, 1898, Connick died of typhoid at the county hospital in Phoenix.  Although his death certificate suggests that he was to be buried in the county cemetery, his old comrades arranged to have him interred as a veteran in Porter Cemetery.  No grave marker survives.

- Donna L. Carr

 

 

Patrick Hamilton (1843-1888) - Newspaper Editor

 

Obituary from 

the Arizona Daily Star, December 23, 1888

Patrick Hamilton was born in January, 1843, in County Cork, Ireland.  According to his newspaper obituary, he and his parents arrived in New York in 1846, at the beginning of the Irish Potato Famine.  He received a liberal education in New York schools.

At age 20, he went west to Colorado, where fur trapping had given way to prospecting.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hamilton claimed to have joined the 3rd Colorado Volunteer Infantry and participated in several engagements.  However, no evidence of his actual enlistment has been discovered.  Possibly he was employed in some civilian capacity.

Hamilton was in Arizona by 1876, and the 1880 federal census records him as a miner in Prescott.  He became a member of the Correspondents’ Club and went into the newspaper business, managing the Prescott Democrat before buying The Expositor.

Hamilton had hoped to be named Arizona’s territorial secretary, but the legislature appointed him Commissioner of Immigration instead.  His duties included compiling a comprehensive list of Arizona’s natural resources with a view toward dispelling the image of Arizona as a vast wasteland and encouraging people to settle there.

Hamilton threw himself into the project enthusiastically, moving to Tombstone to report on the silver mining boom there.  Having earned a reputation for colorful editorials in his newspaper, the Tombstone Independent, he got crosswise of Samuel Purdy, editor of the rival Tombstone Epitaph.  in September 1882, Purdy challenged Hamilton to a duel.  Since dueling was illegal in Arizona, the two men crossed the border into Sonora.  The entire incident came to naught, however, as they could not come to an agreement about which pistols to use.

While in Tombstone, Hamilton made the acquaintance of a widow, Mrs. Frances McBride, and they declared their intention to marry.  They finally achieved their objective on September 2, 1886 in San Diego.

Between 1881 and 1886, Hamilton travelled extensively throughout Arizona, first writing and then updating his 270-page book, The Natural Resources of Arizona.  It was well-received and went through several editions, with over 10,000 copies printed.  An inveterate Arizona ‘booster’, Hamilton had excerpts published in Arizona and California newspapers.

Like so many others, Hamilton contracted tuberculosis and died in Phoenix on December 20, 1888, of a pulmonary hemorrhage.  He was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.  There is no marker.

- Donna L. Carr

 

 

Daniel H. Wallace (1821-1894) - Banker and Judge

 

Donna Carr

Daniel Hendrickson Wallace was born November 3, 1821, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.  The son of Robert James Wallace and Margaret Hendrickson, he came from a large family--eight brothers and two sisters.

In 1845, he wed Mary Jane Elder and embarked upon domestic life.  Career advancement came gradually, however; in 1850, he was working as a jailer in his home town of Beaver.  However, by 1860, he was a banker in New Castle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, with personal property worth $10,000.

Although he was already successful businessman and nearly forty years old, Wallace enlisted in the 76th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry on August 28, 1861.  He soon achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel and was present at the capture of Fort Pulaski, Georgia, on April 11, 1862. Shortly after, he was severely injured in a fall from a horse and was discharged as incapacitated on August 19, 1862.  Thereafter, he returned home and resumed his lucrative banking practice.

Wallace and his wife Mary Jane had six children while residing in New Castle, two of whom died in early childhood.  Mary Jane herself passed away in July, 1867, after which Wallace married Rebecca Cunningham, with whom he had four more children.  By 1870, his personal fortune had reached $25,000.

Throughout his career, Wallace maintained contacts with fellow Republicans in Washington, D. C. and, in 1885, he accepted an appointment as receiver of the U. S. Land Office in Tucson, Arizona.  Although he lost his patronage post in the next general election, he then moved to Phoenix where he practiced land law and became a judge.  His widowed daughter Ada acted as his legal assistant.

Having already applied for a disability pension on the basis of his 1862 injury, Wallace joined the John Wren Owen GAR post.  He died on January 14, 1894, of pneumonia and a liver abscess.  Initially buried in Porter Cemetery, his remains were moved to Greenwood in 1917.

The judge’s daughter, Ada Wallace Irvin, achieved local prominence as a member of the Woman’s Relief Corps, an auxiliary to the G.A.R.  When she died in 1923, she was buried in the same plot in Greenwood.

 

- by Donna L. Carr

 

Anna Mary Fisher Dameron (1839-1894) - From Missouri to Arizona

 

Porter Cemetery - PCA Archives

Anna Mary Fisher was born March 27, 1839, in Lewis County, Missouri.  She was one of five children of James Fisher and Lucinda Doke, who were fairly well-to-do farmers.

On Valentine’s Day 1866, Anna married Willis Monroe Dameron in Adams County, Illinois.   Willis had been married previously to Sarah Dysart, the daughter of a clergyman. She had died in 1860, presumably from complications following childbirth.   Dameron, who was supporting his widowed mother and his little son Everett, seems not to have served on either side during the Civil War.

After their marriage, Willis and Anna farmed in La Belle, Lewis County, Missouri.  They had two sons of their own:  Logan Douglas, born in 1867, and Richard Monroe, born in 1872. Logan was named after his paternal uncle, a successful dry goods merchant.

The Damerons’ son Logan attended La Belle Academy and taught for five years before enrolling in Hospital Medical College in Louisville, Kentucky.  After graduating in 1891, he moved to Phoenix where he went into practice with Dr. H. A. Hughes.

By then, Anna was in poor health.  When Logan returned to Missouri for a Christmas visit in December, 1892, he persuaded Anna and Willis to accompany him back to Phoenix.

Anna lived for two more years before dying of pneumonia on December 31, 1894.  After a Methodist Episcopal service conducted by Rev. W. A. Harris, she was buried in Porter Cemetery.  Her husband joined her in January, 1907.

Shortly after Anna’s death, her son Logan married Bettie Hughes, the daughter of his partner.  Having helped to start the Arizona chapter of the American Medical Association, he became its president in 1903.

 - by Donna L. Carr

 

 

Wong Fong (abt. 1891 - 1914) - Barber

 

Photo by Donna Carr

Late on the night of February 12, 1914, a shadowy figure loitered behind the house at 220 East Madison in Phoenix’s Chinatown.  While he waited for the people in the house to retire, he smoked a cigarette, emptied several spent cartridges from his revolver and reloaded.

Around midnight, he pried open the door to the screened porch and crept inside.  A man was sleeping there, bedclothes drawn up to his chin against the nighttime chill.  From only a few feet away, the gunman shot the unarmed man in the head, then fled into the darkness.

Awakened by the sound of the gunshot, neighbors summoned law officers.  They identified the victim as Wong Fong, a 23-year-old barber.  The house on Madison was the home of a prosperous Chinaman named Wong Fie, who may have been a relative of the deceased man.  At the time of the murder, Wong Fie was not at home.  The third occupant of the house was Wong Fie’s twenty-year-old wife, Quock Young.   So who had killed Wong Fong, and why?

Born in China, Wong Fong had been in the United States for at least six years.  While living in Globe, Arizona, he had converted to Christianity and had attended a Lutheran mission school there.  His facility with both English and Cantonese was such that he had even been considered for a post at a Lutheran mission school in Shanghai.  For the past eleven months, however, he had been living in Wong Fie’s household in Phoenix--long enough for him to have fallen in love with his kinsman’s much younger wife.

Presumably, Quock Young returned his affections, for she claimed that she had asked Wong Fie for a divorce.  She recounted that Wong Fie, furious at his possible ‘loss of face’, had withdrew a large sum of cash from the bank and gone to Morenci, ostensibly to consult the marriage broker who had arranged his match with Quock Young. 

When the coroner’s jury was empaneled the next day, Rev. Frey, a local Lutheran minister, presented a letter which he said he had received from Wong Fong on the very day of his death.  It read, “When I am killed, arrest Wong Fie.”  But Wong Fie had an alibi; he was visiting a friend at the time that Wong Fong was murdered.

Evidence at the crime scene suggested that someone had lain in wait for Wong Fong for at least an hour.  On the strength of his alibi, Wong Fie was released from custody.  While the newspapers made much of the ill-fated romance, Coroner C. Johnstone had no choice but to rule that Wong Fong had met his death at the hands of an unknown assailant.  

On March 10th, Wong Fong was buried in the Chinese section of City/Loosley Cemetery.   His murderer was never apprehended.  Quock Young seems to have reconciled with her husband, for she was seen in Phoenix months later, wearing several gold rings and necklaces. Evidently Wong Fie still held her—and her silence?—in high esteem.

 

- by Donna Carr

 

Edward Ohmer Rouzer (1879-1906) and Mary E. Smith Rouzer (1883-1906) - Honeymoon Ends in Tragedy

Photo:  Donna Carr

Hotel Del Monte 1906 - Library of Congress

Edward Ohmer Rouzer was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1879.  He was the son of Charles Conover Rouzer and Jennie Ellen Morton.  Charles was in the hotel business and was for many years the manager of Indianapolis’s exclusive Columbia Club.

In 1901, the Rouzers moved to Bisbee, Arizona, where Charles became the manager of the Copper Queen Hotel.  The 44-room hotel boasted Italianate architecture and opulent furnishings suitable for the mining magnates and businessmen that made up its clientele.  As the front desk clerk, Rouzer’s son Edward earned an enviable reputation for amiability, courtesy and efficiency.  By 1904, Charles Rouzer had returned to Indianapolis, leaving Edward in charge of the Copper Queen.

Edward probably met Mary Elizabeth Smith while she was visiting her married sister, Winifred Smith Buxton, in Bisbee.  Mary had been born in Phoenix on July 9, 1883.  She was the daughter of John Y. T. Smith and his wife Ellen “Nellie” Shaver.  Smith owned a flour mill in Phoenix.  Mary herself had graduated from Pomona College in California in 1905.   The engagement of Mary Smith to Edward Rouzer was announced in January, 1906.

Friends and relatives traveled to Los Angeles to see the happy couple united in marriage by Rev. John Fry on April 11, 1906.  The Rouzers planned to honeymoon in San Francisco before returning to Bisbee in May.  They checked into an upstairs room with a view of the ocean at the Del Monte Hotel in Monterey, California, on April 17th.

In the predawn hours of April 18th, an earthquake of 7.9 magnitude struck the west coast of California.  A chimney on the Del Monte Hotel toppled onto the room where the Rouzers were sleeping; they were crushed instantly under tons of bricks.  No one else in the hotel was injured. 

Owing to the general confusion following the earthquake, it was a day or so before the Rouzers’ families were notified of their demise.  The bodies were returned to Phoenix by train and held at the Easterling & Whitney funeral home until the Rouzers could arrive from Indianapolis and Mary’s mother and brother-in-law from Los Angeles, where they had gone to attend the wedding only a week earlier.  Rev. John Fry, the same minister who had officiated at the nuptials, conducted the funeral service on April 25th, and Edward and Mary were buried together in Rosedale Cemetery.  Friends of Edward Rouzer, who had pooled their funds to buy the Rouzers a wedding present, used the money for flowers instead.

In 1914, the Rouzers’ remains were moved to Greenwood, where Mary’s mother, Mrs. Nellie Smith, had purchased a family plot.

- by Donna L. Carr

 

 

DeForest Porter (1839-1889) - Territorial Justice and Mayor of Phoenix

Donna Carr

 

The man who would one day be the mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, was born on February 2, 1839, in western New York state.  He was the youngest of nine children belonging to George A. Porter and his wife, Anna Gillett.

Young DeForest grew up in Albion, Orleans County, New York.  He enrolled in St. Lawrence University with the intention of becoming a Unitarian minister.  However, while campaigning for Lincoln in 1860, his imagination was fired by politics.  Upon graduation, he was ordained but decided to go into law instead, as had his older brother George, Jr.

According to sources, Porter enlisted in the Union Army and received a severe wound at the Battle of Gettysburg.  After the war, he married Julia Sophia Trowbridge and they settled in Brownville, Nemaha County, Nebraska, where Porter opened his law office and began his political career.

In 1872, Ulysses S. Grant nominated Porter to the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court. He moved to Arizona City (now Yuma) in April to become an associate justice.  Because the summers were so hot, Porter’s wife Julia was staying in California when their son, DeForest Jr., was born in 1875.  In 1876, Maricopa County was added to Porter’s judicial district and he moved to Phoenix, an agricultural area where it was marginally cooler.

After Julia’s death in 1878, Porter married Lois "Lulu" Gertrude Cotton on December 29, 1880.  They had one daughter, Marian.  Porter acquired considerable land in Phoenix, and he also had mining interests.

Porter resigned from the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court in 1882, hoping to be elected to some legislative office.  Although initially unsuccessful in that, he was elected mayor of Phoenix in 1883.  Among the achievements of his first term was the establishment of the fraternal cemeteries that occupy Block 32 [Neahr's Addition] of the Phoenix townsite. They are now part of the PMMP. 

Porter served briefly in the territorial legislature in 1885-1886 before being elected to a another term as Phoenix mayor.  During his second term, the Normal school in Tempe (now ASU) was established as well as the Territorial Insane Asylum, and Porter lobbied the heads of the Southern Pacific Railroad to lay rails to Tempe from Maricopa.

Porter's health was adversely affected by Arizona's hot climate.  On Feb. 17, 1889, he  died following a severe bout of erysipelas.   Although originally buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery, he was moved to Porter Cemetery in March 1890, after his widow had had the new Porter cemetery laid out.  His remains, and those of his first wife, were moved to Greenwood in 1916, where the Porter and Cotten families share an impressive monument.

- by Donna L. Carr

Manuel Harvey Reno (1831-1899) - Kentucky Judge

 

PCA Archives

Manuel H. Reno was born January 28, 1831, in Ballard County, Kentucky.  He was one of nine children belonging to Richard D. Reno and Celia Bohannon, a farming couple.  The federal census of 1850 suggests that the Renos had moved to Kentucky around 1830 from Alabama.

Around 1855, Reno married Ann D. Ellis in Ballard County, Kentucky.   Their first child, a daughter named Mary Belle, was born on March 23, 1856.  She was followed quickly by Susan Theodocia, born 1857, William Richard, born 1858, and Maggie, born 1862.

No evidence has been found that Reno was ever in the Confederate army.  Kentucky being a border state, it is possible that his sentiments aligned with the Union.  He seems to have remained a small farmer throughout the war. 

By 1880, the Renos were farming in Clinton, Hickman County, Kentucky.  Although there is no mention of where he read law, Reno eventually became a county judge in Kentucky.

The Renos retired to Phoenix around 1892.   Although Reno doesn’t seem to have practiced law in Arizona, he was active in local politics.  Originally a member of the Grange Party, he later became a member of the Populist Party which supported Buckey O’Neill’s short-lived political career.

In 1894, Reno launched an Arizona chapter of the Child’s Aid Society, which seems to have been an insurance company benefitting the children of deceased members when they came into their majority by providing them with a small fund to get a start in life.  In an era when fathers could not necessarily count on living long enough to see their children grow up, this might have been an attractive option.

Reno was an officer of the Hopeton Baptist Church and taught Sunday school there.

He died on December 11, 1899, of valvular heart disease.  After a funeral sermon preached by Rev. Lewis Halsey of the Baptist Church, he was buried in Ancient Order of United Workmen Cemetery. 

At the time of Reno’s death, his eldest daughter, Mary Belle, was teaching school at the Sacaton Indian Agency.  Although she had married James Zimmerman in Kentucky in 1883, she may have been a widow by 1899.

- by Donna L. Carr

Ivy H. Cox (1825-1898) - Methodist Minister and Judge

 

PCA Archives

Ivy Henderson Cox was born December 29, 1825, in Dungannon, Scott County, Virginia.   He was the son of James Longhollow Cox and Nancy Finney, originally of Russell County, Virginia.

Upon graduating from William and Mary College, Ivy Cox was ordained a minister. He then went to Texas, where he was eventually elected the presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal circuit.  He married Mary Jane Cook of Alabama on July 5, 1852, in Fayette County, Texas.   They had eight children, the first six born in Texas and the last two in California.

Notwithstanding that he was a family man approaching the age of forty, Ivy Cox felt it his duty to serve during the Civil War.  Accordingly, he became a chaplain in the 8th Texas Infantry (Hobby’s Regiment), C.S.A.  The regiment was charged with defending the seacoast installations at Galveston and Port Bolivar.  Cox’s military career ended in May 1864 when he took an extended leave and did not return to his regiment.

After the war, the Coxes moved to California.  By 1877, they were in Florence, Arizona. Shortly thereafter, they came to Phoenix.  The federal census of 1880 records Cox as a lawyer but, because he was also a minister, he continued to officiate at weddings.  Cox was said to be a pure soul, a lover of justice, but quite tolerant in public matters.  He served on County Board of Supervisors from 1879 to 1880 and again in 1895.   He also became a judge.  

By the time they arrived in Phoenix, most of the Cox children had reached adulthood.  Sons Melancthon and William went into the construction business, while Franklin Ivy became an attorney for the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The five Cox daughters married into local families.  Most of them were still living In the Ivy Cox household in 1880.

Judge Cox’s wife Mary Jane died 29 December 1886 and was buried in Loosley Cemetery.   Sometime thereafter, Cox went to Quitman, Texas, to marry a woman named Ann, who survived him.

The last years of Judge Cox’s life were spent on the family ranch four miles north of Phoenix, where he engaged in growing fruit and keeping bees.  Late in 1898, he was living at the residence of Joseph DuPree Reed.  He died there on December 20, 1898, of congestion of the brain and paralysis.  He was buried in Loosley Cemetery next to his first wife.

- by Donna L. Carr