Samuel Calvin McElhaney was born 9 October 1861 in
Alabama. As a young man, he drove a herd
of cattle and horses from Texas to Phoenix and settled near the Salt River,
with its assured supply of water.
On January 10, 1889, McElhaney was among those who
incorporated as the Fairmount Water Storage Company, for the purpose of selling
water for irrigation and mining purposes in Maricopa County. Another shareholder was Reuben Hill, soon to
become his father-in-law. Sam married
Sarah Ella Hill, daughter of Reuben Hill and Mary Perry, on April 10,
1889.
The newlyweds moved to Holbrook, where they enjoyed a few
years of success before a severe drought forced ranchers to leave the high
country. The McElhaneys then drove their
stock back down to the Salt River Valley and established a farm in the old
Fowler district just south of Glendale, where Sam built a house for his growing
family. Son Randolph Hill Mc
Elhaney was born in 15 July 1890. He was
soon followed by a daughter, Nina Inez, born 24 January 1892.
Sam McElhaney and George Keefer were obviously good friends,
seeing as how Sam named his second son, born in 1894, Louis Keefer
McElhaney. That child died in January
1897.
More children followed.
Daughter Pearl was born 21 November 1898. Another son, Coyt Ruben, was born about
1901. Byron Samuel McElhaney was born 7
April 1903.
From an early age, Randolph was his father’s right-hand
man. On November 28, 1905, while loading
some fat hogs into a wagon to be taken to market, Sam severely jammed his
thumb, causing him agonizing pain. Although he repeatedly assured his son
that he was hurt in no place but the thumb, the pain was so unbearable that he
fainted twice while attempting to walk the short distance to the house. He was
dead, presumably of shock, by the time the doctor arrived. Following the
funeral at First Baptist Church, Sam McElhaney, aged 43, was buried in Loosley
Cemetery.
This left Sam’s widow Ella and son Randolph to manage their
farm. Ella’s last child, Samuel Jr., was
born posthumously in 1906. When she died
on 18 March 1911, she too was buried in the family plot in Loosley.
Both Randolph and Samuel Jr. went on establish large ranches
of their own in the 1930s. Randolph
settled in Chino Valley and Samuel founded the McElhaney Cattle Company of
Wellton, Arizona, which remained under family control until 2010.
-Debe Branning and Donna Carr
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