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