Jerry Neville (1848-1900) - Mine Owner

PCA Archives

Based solely on GAR insignia on his grave marker, it is thought that Jerry Neville is the same person as the Canada-born Jerry Nevill who enlisted in the Union army at Dowagiac, Michigan, on December 22, 1863.  Although he swore that he was over 18 years old when he enlisted, the inscription on his grave marker suggests that he might have been younger.  

For a bounty of $300, he signed up to serve for three years and was assigned to Company D, 6^th Michigan Heavy Artillery.  He was discharged in New Orleans on August 20, 1865.  Thereafter, he seems to have gone into the mining business out West, perhaps logical given that he would have been familiar with gunpowder and explosives.

According to the federal census, Jerry Neville was in Silver City, New Mexico, in 1880.  However, he was also registered to vote in Pima County, Arizona.  He and his partner, Norman H. Chapin, operated in the southeastern part of the state, where they owned copper mines called The Pride of the West and The Smuggler near Harshaw, Arizona.

On October 3, 1891, Chapin married Maria Barron in Nogales, Arizona.  A little over five years later, Neville married Maria’s younger sister, Refugia Barron, recently arrived from Mexico, on May 2, 1897.  This made Chapin and Neville brothers-in-law as well as business partners.

The Nevilles had a son George, born July 15, 1899, in Los Angeles.  Possibly they had a daughter named Ygnacia as well, but she may have died young, as she does not appear in the censuses of 1900 or 1910.

By 1899, Jerry Neville had contracted phthisis (tuberculosis) and was no longer able to attend to his mines.  The Pride of the West was reportedly sold to Gee & Wilfley of Denver for $120,000.

Toward the end of 1899, Neville was staying at Washington Camp in Santa Cruz County when he took a turn for the worse and came to Phoenix for medical treatment.  He died on January 4, 1900, in Sisters Hospital in Phoenix and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery.

His brother-in-law, Norman H. Chapin, came to Phoenix to settle Neville’s business affairs, but only a few short weeks later, he was stricken with pneumonia and died on January 10, 1900.  He was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

The 1900 federal census, conducted later that year, found the widowed sisters, Maria and Refugia, living together in Harshaw.  On August 29, 1901, Refugia remarried.  Her new husband, Oscar Keefe Franklin, then adopted little George and was named as his legal guardian.

There is no evidence that Jerry Neville ever received an invalid pension for his Civil War service or was a patient at the military hospital in Sawtelle, California.  Likewise, Refugia and her son George seem not to have applied for survivors pensions.  It has been conjectured that they were sufficiently well off not to need such benefits.

-Donna Carr