Charles H. Knapp (1845-1898) - Veteran, Court Clerk, Mason

 

PCA Archives

Charles H. Knapp was a longtime court clerk in frontier Phoenix, Arizona.

Knapp was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1845, to Charles Knapp and Susan Ludlow. While yet a child, he moved with his parents to Terra Haute, Indiana in the spring of 1850.   He was subsequently educated at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

He was but 19 when he accepted a bounty to enlist in the Union army on March 11, 1864, for a term of three years.   Assigned to Company I, Eleventh Regiment, Indiana Volunteer infantry, he was promoted to corporal on May 2, 1865, and discharged on July 26, 1865, the Civil War having ended. 

Following the war, he lived for a time in Chillicothe, Missouri, before moving to McPherson, Kansas.  On October 8, 1873, Knapp married Anna Rezzer in Newton, Kansas.  They had one son and four daughters.

In April of 1881, the Knapps moved to Phoenix.  Charles served as either deputy clerk or clerk of District Court for the rest of his life.  He was said to have been a popular and capable official, discharging his duties in a most satisfactory manner.

In 1884, the Knapps had a fourth daughter, Anne, but she died on June 26, 1886, at the age of two.  Mrs. Knapp died on January 30, 1889, ten days after giving birth to a fifth daughter.  Both was interred next to little Anne in the family plot in Masons Cemetery. 

Two years later, Charles Knapp married Mary Ann Davidson.  She was twenty years his junior and from Alexander, Louisiana.

Charles Knapp was a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic, (GAR) and became a commander of the Phoenix Knights Templar.  Being only 53 at the time of his death on November 28, 1898, he had not yet filed for a military pension.  He was laid to rest with his first wife and children in the Masons cemetery, Block 10, Lot 2, Grave 2.  His grave has a military headstone.

His widow applied for a widow’s pension, but her application was initially rejected.   She tried again later and it was accepted on October 19, 1916.

- by Val

 

 

Newton Jasper Coyle (1843-1912) - Veteran and miner

 

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Coyle was born in Estill County, Kentucky, probably in March, 1842.  He was one of several children born to Tilford Coyle and Malvina Alcorn. Although he was mistakenly indexed as Andrew on the 1850 federal census on FamilySearch, it is obvious that the entry was for Newton Jasper.  Coyle’s father died in 1858, and his mother remarried twice thereafter.

On September 4, 1861, young Newton enlisted in the Union Army and was assigned to the 4th Kentucky Mounted Infantry.  This unit saw action in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.  Early in 1864, he fractured his clavicle and was placed on leave.  He was formally discharged at Camp Chase, Ohio, on June 16, 1865.

By February 24, 1864, Newton Coyle was back home in Irvine, where he married 17-year-old Susan Williams.  Their first two children were born in Kentucky. 

The Coyles then moved to Arkansas by 1877 and on to Montgomery County, Kansas, by 1880.  Apparently Coyle could not make a go of farming in Kansas, and the family returned to Benton County, Arkansas, the following year.  Susan bore three more children before her death in 1887.

Perhaps fed up with farming, Newton Coyle seems to have struck out alone for Montana, leaving his by then adult children to care for the younger ones.  On October 13, 1891, he married a widow, Lizzie Perry, in Missoula County.  The marriage didn’t last; by 1900, Newton was divorced and working as a silver miner.

Montana’s winters and hard work in the mines took a toll on Coyle’s health.  In 1904, he checked into the Old Soldiers’ Home in Leavenworth, Kansas.  After applying for an invalid pension, he was moved to a veterans’ hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee.  Records show that he was blind in one eye and had significant hearing loss.  The 1910 census found him back in the Old Soldiers’ Home in Leavenworth.

By 1912, Coyle’s youngest son Joseph was in Phoenix, Arizona, trying to find work on a ranch.   Joseph and Newton were sharing a dwelling on Cave Creek Road when Newton passed away on October 5th of pneumonia.  He was buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery.  Records do not indicate whether this was the old K of P Cemetery at 13th Avenue, between Madison and Harrison Streets or the Knights of Pythias section of Forest Lawn north of 23rd Avenue and Van Buren.

Afterward, Joseph returned to his wife and children in Arkansas.  When their next baby was born in 1913, he was named Newton Jasper, for his grandfather.

- by Donna Carr

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