Lindley Hogue Orme (1848 - 1900) - Maricopa County Sheriff

 

The Orme family of Arizona has a long and distinguished history, making many of their descendants eligible for membership in the DAR and other patriotic societies.

Lindley Hogue Orme was born December 18/19, 1848, in Montgomery, Maryland.  He was the fourth of eight children of Charles Henry Crabbe Orme and Deborah Brooke Pleasants.

When Lindley’s older brother, Charles Henry Crabbe Orme, enlisted in the 35th Virginia Cavalry (CSA) on March 1, 1863, Lindley accompanied him, although he was only about fourteen at the time.  Military records say that the brothers served in White’s Battalion, known as “the Comanches”.   Lindley was a private in Company B, while Charles was in Company D.

When Richmond, Virginia, fell to the Union Army on April 2, 1865, Lindley was taken prisoner.  A few weeks later, he signed his oath of allegiance and was released.

According to his obituary, Lindley and his brothers drove a flock of sheep to California at some point thereafter.  Lindley then settled in Phoenix where he acquired three sections of land in central Phoenix and raised over 600 acres of grain.  He is credited with bringing the first threshing machine to the Salt River Valley. 

Orme wed Mary Florence Greenhaw on March 15, 1876.  Unfortunately, Mary Florence was suffering from tuberculosis, so she and Lindley had no children.  She died on March 16, 1883.  Lindley eventually married Mary A. Jeffries, with whom he had one son, Alfred.

Orme served as sheriff from 1880 to 1884. During this time he was also appointed a deputy U. S. marshal, not bad for a former Confederate.  Henry Garfias was one of his deputies.  In April of 1883, a smallpox epidemic broke out in Maricopa County.  As sheriff, Orme was directed to quarantine the afflicted families to prevent the spread of the disease. 

Water being essential to the future of Phoenix, Orme helped form the Agua Fria Water and Land Company in 1888.

In 1891 and 1893, Orme was again elected sheriff. The county was growing at such a rate that a new courthouse and jail equipped with electric lights were needed.  During Sheriff Orme's last term, he became something of a media celebrity when he foiled a plot by Dr. J. M. Rose to murder three members of a Williams family in Mesa.

Lindley Orme died 24 September 1900, at the age of 52, having been in poor health for some months prior.  He was buried next to his first wife in the IOOF Cemetery. 

-By Patty Gault, Val Wilson, Donna Carr

Photos PCA Archives

 

Lindley Hogue Orme (1848 - 1900) - Maricopa County Sheriff

 

The Orme family of Arizona has a long and distinguished history, making many of their descendants eligible for membership in the DAR and other patriotic societies.

Lindley Hogue Orme was born December 18/19, 1848, in Montgomery, Maryland.  He was the fourth of eight children of Charles Henry Crabbe Orme and Deborah Brooke Pleasants.

When Lindley’s older brother, Charles Henry Crabbe Orme, enlisted in the 35th Virginia Cavalry (CSA) on March 1, 1863, Lindley accompanied him, although he was only about fourteen at the time.  Military records say that the brothers served in White’s Battalion, known as “the Comanches”.   Lindley was a private in Company B, while Charles was in Company D.

When Richmond, Virginia, fell to the Union Army on April 2, 1865, Lindley was taken prisoner.  A few weeks later, he signed his oath of allegiance and was released.

According to his obituary, Lindley and his brothers drove a flock of sheep to California at some point thereafter.  Lindley then settled in Phoenix where he acquired three sections of land in central Phoenix and raised over 600 acres of grain.  He is credited with bringing the first threshing machine to the Salt River Valley. 

Orme wed Mary Florence Greenhaw on March 15, 1876.  Unfortunately, Mary Florence was suffering from tuberculosis, so she and Lindley had no children.  She died on March 16, 1883.  Lindley eventually married Mary A. Jeffries, with whom he had one son, Alfred.

Orme served as sheriff from 1880 to 1884. During this time he was also appointed a deputy U. S. marshal, not bad for a former Confederate.  Henry Garfias was one of his deputies.  In April of 1883, a smallpox epidemic broke out in Maricopa County.  As sheriff, Orme was directed to quarantine the afflicted families to prevent the spread of the disease. 

Water being essential to the future of Phoenix, Orme helped form the Agua Fria Water and Land Company in 1888.

In 1891 and 1893, Orme was again elected sheriff. The county was growing at such a rate that a new courthouse and jail equipped with electric lights were needed.  During Sheriff Orme's last term, he became something of a media celebrity when he foiled a plot by Dr. J. M. Rose to murder three members of a Williams family in Mesa.

Lindley Orme died 24 September 1900, at the age of 52, having been in poor health for some months prior.  He was buried next to his first wife in the IOOF Cemetery. 

-By Patty Gault, Val Wilson, Donna Carr

Photos PCA Archives

 

Jerry Neville (1848-1900) - Mine Owner

PCA Archives

Based solely on GAR insignia on his grave marker, it is thought that Jerry Neville is the same person as the Canada-born Jerry Nevill who enlisted in the Union army at Dowagiac, Michigan, on December 22, 1863.  Although he swore that he was over 18 years old when he enlisted, the inscription on his grave marker suggests that he might have been younger.  

For a bounty of $300, he signed up to serve for three years and was assigned to Company D, 6^th Michigan Heavy Artillery.  He was discharged in New Orleans on August 20, 1865.  Thereafter, he seems to have gone into the mining business out West, perhaps logical given that he would have been familiar with gunpowder and explosives.

According to the federal census, Jerry Neville was in Silver City, New Mexico, in 1880.  However, he was also registered to vote in Pima County, Arizona.  He and his partner, Norman H. Chapin, operated in the southeastern part of the state, where they owned copper mines called The Pride of the West and The Smuggler near Harshaw, Arizona.

On October 3, 1891, Chapin married Maria Barron in Nogales, Arizona.  A little over five years later, Neville married Maria’s younger sister, Refugia Barron, recently arrived from Mexico, on May 2, 1897.  This made Chapin and Neville brothers-in-law as well as business partners.

The Nevilles had a son George, born July 15, 1899, in Los Angeles.  Possibly they had a daughter named Ygnacia as well, but she may have died young, as she does not appear in the censuses of 1900 or 1910.

By 1899, Jerry Neville had contracted phthisis (tuberculosis) and was no longer able to attend to his mines.  The Pride of the West was reportedly sold to Gee & Wilfley of Denver for $120,000.

Toward the end of 1899, Neville was staying at Washington Camp in Santa Cruz County when he took a turn for the worse and came to Phoenix for medical treatment.  He died on January 4, 1900, in Sisters Hospital in Phoenix and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery.

His brother-in-law, Norman H. Chapin, came to Phoenix to settle Neville’s business affairs, but only a few short weeks later, he was stricken with pneumonia and died on January 10, 1900.  He was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

The 1900 federal census, conducted later that year, found the widowed sisters, Maria and Refugia, living together in Harshaw.  On August 29, 1901, Refugia remarried.  Her new husband, Oscar Keefe Franklin, then adopted little George and was named as his legal guardian.

There is no evidence that Jerry Neville ever received an invalid pension for his Civil War service or was a patient at the military hospital in Sawtelle, California.  Likewise, Refugia and her son George seem not to have applied for survivors pensions.  It has been conjectured that they were sufficiently well off not to need such benefits.

-Donna Carr

John Proops (1848-1896) - Baker, Miner, Firefighter

Bing AI

John Proops was born on January 17, 1848, in Bristol, England.  After the death of his mother in 1856, his father moved the family to Charles Dickens’ London.  Young John was apprenticed to a baker and, in 1867, he shipped out to Adelaide, Australia, as a baker.

Settled by English debtors and convicts in the 1700s, Australia was a wild ‘n wooly outpost of the British Empire.  From Adelaide on the southern coast, Proops walked to Melbourne, stopping to work at sheep and cattle stations along the way.  From there, he went to Ballarat, where the discovery of gold had sparked a gold rush similar to the 1849 one in California.  Later, Proops returned to Melbourne to work as a journeyman baker.

While in Melbourne, Proops met and married Hannah Franks on February 18, 1873.   Their daughter Rose was born in 1874.  Thereafter, Proops became the chief cook and baker at the Government Orphan Asylum at Randwick, near Sydney, where sons Harry and Charley were born.

In 1881, Proops moved his family to San Francisco and then to Tombstone, but misfortune dogged his steps.  Only ten days after arriving there, his son Charley died of gastric fever.  Proops opened a bakery in Tombstone, but it did not pay enough to support his family.  After two years, he gave it up and turned to hauling freight from Kingston to Globe until his team of horses was stolen.  Eventually, he found work at the new courthouse in Tombstone. 

In May 1887, Proops came to Phoenix in the course of delivering a load of furniture for Mr. B. A. Fickas from his house in Tombstone.  He found employment first as a porter at the Commercial Hotel and then as the janitor of the city hall and gardener of the adjacent plaza.

Proops was said to have borne his previous financial misfortunes with a light heart and cheerful disposition.  A sociable fellow, Proops joined the volunteer fire company, the Ancient Order of United Workmen (A.O.U.W.) and the Foresters.

It was in the performance of his duty as a firefighter that he contracted his final illness.  On Friday, December 29 or 30, 1895, the volunteer company was called to a fire on East Madison Street.  Thoroughly drenched by the hoses and going home in the morning cold, Proops took a chill that turned into pneumonia.  He succumbed on January 6, 1896.

On the day of Proops’s funeral, the fire house lowered its flag to half-mast.  His comrades from fire company, the Foresters and the Ancient Order of United Workmen turned out to bury him in Phoenix’s A.O.U.W. Cemetery.

And there he remained until his widow Hannah died in 1903.  She was one of the first to be buried in the newly-opened Beth Israel (Jewish) Cemetery at 35th Avenue and Van Buren, and their son Harry had his father’s remains moved there as well.

 -by donna carr

#3 - C.H. Clausen (1848 - 1897) - Photographer

 

PCA Archive

C. H. Clausen was born January 11, 1848. A photographer, he was working in Oakland, California, in 1889. By 1895, he had moved to Phoenix (possibly for his health) and had opened a studio at 438 E. Monroe Street. Some of his photographic portraits survive; one of Father Michael Vandermaesen is in the archives of the Roman Catholic diocese of Tucson. Clausen died December 24, 1897, and was buried in Porter Cemetery.