Harvey Reid Leonard (1826-1896) - Civil Engineer and Architect

 

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An architect and bridge builder, Harvey Reid Leonard spent most of his professional life on the Pacific Coast.  Born in Illinois, he seems to have used the names Harvey and Henry interchangeably, at least at first.  The federal census of 1860 records him as a simply a carpenter in Sacramento, California, where he was living with his wife Amanda and infant son.

Between at least 1860 and 1869, Leonard partnered with other architects who were active in the city at the time.  According to San Francisco city directories, he maintained offices at 432 Montgomery Street and, later, 240 Montgomery Street.

Between 1871 and 1873, Leonard was in Portland, Oregon, with offices located at the corner of 1st and Ash Streets.  While in Portland, he designed an engine roundhouse and a railroad bridge.  By 1882, he was back in California as an employee of the Pacific Bridge Building Company, specializing in railroad bridges.

It appears that, sometime after 1880, Leonard’s wife Amanda died and he remarried.  Perhaps it was not a happy match, as his second wife, E. M. De Lisle, eventually divorced him on grounds that he had deserted her when he moved to Arizona. 

H. R. Leonard relocated to Phoenix about 1890, probably with the intention of retiring.  However, he found ample scope for his talents in the Salt River Valley and continued to work well into old age.  In 1890, he was working with William Hancock to map sites for reservoirs.  He designed a schoolhouse in Mesa in 1890 and one in Tempe in 1891.

Brick was a popular building material in Phoenix, as very little lumber was available locally.  Initially, manufacturers used molds of different sizes.  In January 1893, Leonard joined with several other Valley architects to call for the standardization of brick sizes. 

On May 6, 1893, Leonard undertook a reclamation expedition to see about the feasibility of building a water reservoir for northwest Yuma County.  It must have been an arduous undertaking for a man in or approaching his seventies.

In February 1894, concerns were expressed about the structural soundness of the Phoenix Opera House for an upcoming performance.  Architects Leonard and Petit were appointed to examine the structure.  Leonard ruled that the performance could proceed, but the building should be remodeled with more exits and safety features incorporated.

When H. R. Leonard died on February 2, 1896, of cirrhosis hepatitis at the age of 85, he was buried in City/Loosley Cemetery.  There is no grave marker.

- by Donna Carr

 

Rev. Hans Jurgen Ehlers (1826 -1902) - Presbyterian Minister

 

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Hans Jurgen Ehlers was born around 1826 in the Duchy of Holstein.  It might have been the lure of gold that brought him to the United States, for he became a naturalized citizen on September 20, 1860, in Yreka, California. 

The 1870 federal census of Yreka shows him engaged in mining and living with a woman named Olive.  How Ehlers’ relationship with Olive ended is not known but, on November 30, 1879, he married Elizabeth Gorrsen in San Francisco. 

Initially, Ehlers was a Methodist, but eventually he became affiliated with the Presbyterian church.  Ehlers seems not to have been a particularly successful (or devoted?) minister of the Gospel, as he apparently held other jobs during his lifetime.

In 1880, Ehlers was recorded as preaching in Florence, Arizona.  By 1886, he was living in Yuma, Arizona, where he served for a time as a chaplain at the territorial penitentiary there.  

The Ehlers family moved to Phoenix in October, 1889.  In 1890, he was elected one of several school trustees in Maricopa County. 

On December 12, 1893, Ehlers filed final proof on a homestead.  On July 7, 1896, the Ehlerses’ seven-year-old son, Joseph William, accidentally shot himself with a rifle.   A doctor was summoned, but the boy died before he arrived.  Little Joseph was probably buried in City Loosley Cemetery, it being the closest.  Shortly thereafter, Ehlers and his wife quitclaimed their homestead to E. Irvine and moved into Phoenix.

The Ehlerses’ oldest son Henry was a rebellious youth.  By age 16, he had been involved in numerous petty thefts before being convicted of second-degree burglary.  On November 20, 1898, he was sentenced to two years in the territorial prison at Yuma.   Discharged at the end of his sentence, he evidently had not learned his lesson.  He and an accomplice were believed to have robbed the New River and Goddard stage stations only a short time later.   Ehlers then fled to California.  He is said to have committed suicide in 1902 after murdering his wife.

Rev. Ehlers was about 76 when he died in Phoenix of pneumonia.  He was buried in Rosedale Cemetery, although there is no grave marker.   No probate record has been found, so perhaps he had little to leave.  Not long thereafter, his widow Elizabeth took their remaining two children and relocated to California.

by Patricia G. and Donna Carr