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
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