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

 

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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