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

 

Albert S. Wray (1865-1900) - Dairy Proprietor and Murdered by Horse

 

Courtesy of the Wray Family

Albert S. Wray was born 21 September 1865 in Belle Prairie Township, Morrison County, Minnesota.  His father is believed to have been William S. Wray, born 1833 in Henderson, Pennsylvania.   Albert’s mother, Sarah Ellen Reid, was born 1843 in Kentucky.  Albert was the fifth of her ten children. 

By 1875, the Wray family was farming in Lake Mary, Douglas County, Minnesota.  However, by 1880, the family had broken up.  Albert’s father William was still married but living in the household of his parents, Robert and Mary Wray.  Albert’s mother Sarah was committed to an insane asylum in 1883.

Left to make his own way in the world, Albert S. Wray enlisted in the U. S. Army at St. Paul, Minnesota, on 4 February 1890.  At that time, he was described as having blue eyes, blonde hair and a fair complexion.  He gave his occupation as ‘clerk’.  Albert was assigned to the 8th Cavalry at Fort Yates, North Dakota.  On 15 December 1890, the great chief Sitting Bull was killed on the nearby Standing Rock Reservation.  Family stories say that Wray helped carry Sitting Bull’s coffin, made by the post carpenter, to his grave.  Wray was discharged in April 1891 with a disability for which he later received an invalid pension.

On 10 August 1898, Wray married Isabelle Grantham in Phoenix, Arizona Territory.  Isabelle had been born in Canada to Irish immigrant parents.  A photograph of Wray taken around this time shows a bespectacled young man with wavy hair and a luxuriant mustache. The couple eventually had a daughter, Myrtle, born May 1899.  By 1900, Wray was the proprietor of the West End Dairy.  Paradoxically, it was located east of town. 

Wray was killed 26 June 1900 in a runaway accident .  Around 4 PM, Mr. Wray was driving east on Washington Street in a one-horse open buggy.  With him was a friend, Thomas Treadwell .  As they passed in front of the Gazette newspaper office, the horse began to kick and plunge.  Although Wray endeavored to quiet the animal, the breeching strap broke and the buggy pushed against the horse, spooking him into running north on First Avenue.  Seeing the buggy about to collide with another, Treadwell jumped out.  The ensuing collision threw Wray partway out of the buggy, although he held onto the lines and tried to crawl back in over the dashboard.  The horse meanwhile was kicking furiously.  Another jerk threw Wray completely out of the buggy, and he landed on his head so hard that bystanders heard the thud. 

Dr. Wylie, the first medical man on the scene,  assisted Wray into Mr. Melezer’s store.  Although Wray had not suffered any obvious injuries and was able to speak, albeit in a somewhat incoherent manner, he was taken around 5 PM to the office of his family physician Dr. Hawley on West Washington for further observation.  His condition deteriorated, and his wife was called.  She and little Myrtle arrived shortly before Wray expired at 8:45 PM, presumably from a concussion or subdural hematoma caused by the accident.

Wray, being an Army veteran, was buried in Porter Cemetery, Lot 10, Grave C. 

Less than a month after his death, a posthumous son, Albert Steven, was born to Isabella.

-By Debe Branning

 

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

Mary Lee (1862 - 1900) - Restaurant Owner (Re-post)

Mary's success was remarkable for her time, as women were not often seen in business roles.

The border vidette. (Nogales, Ariz.), 18 Feb. 1899. 
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Library of Congress

Mary A. Lee was born about 1862, and was a restaurateur in Territorial Phoenix  and Tucson during the late 1890s.  She was a single, African-American woman who was reported in the December 5, 1897 Arizona Daily Star as "...the famous caterer who is known to prepare the finest dinner, breakfast, or luncheon in Arizona.."  Not much is known about her early life, or where she was born.  However, she appeared to have rose to the Phoenix scene around 1892 in a partnership she formed with Samuel W. Slade, called "Lee and Slade".  The partnership maintained The Opera House cafe which featured "game, fish, and oysters".  At the later part of the year, they acquired a five year lease for $18,000 from the owner of the Ford Hotel to maintain a restaurant on the premises.  The partnership dissolved in 1896, and Mary ventured to Tucson where she became of the proprietor of Williams Hotel, The Alhambra, and the Orndorff Cafe.  Mary returned to Phoenix suffering from an illness, and died of tuberculosis October 26, 1900.  Curiously, her probate records states that she had an account at the National Bank of Arizona at Tucson for $325 and a trunk of personal effects in Phoenix.  Her executor later stated that these items "could not be found."  She is buried in Rosedale with no marker.  

This Mary's Cafe Fare menu is dedicated to her.  It consists of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners found often in the home and restaurants of the 1890s, and consists of three planned meals with recipes.  The recipes are found from cookbooks of the era that are posted on Project Gutenberg.  References available on request.  

Click the menu below for a copy.  There are a few other menus on this blog as well.  Just search for "Cafe".  

Created by Val

Edna Laziola (1872 - 1900) - A Pioneer "Party Girl"

 

Edna Laziola

(click on Edna's name above for video)

Happy New Year!  In the spirit of the new year, we present to you a video on one of Territorial Phoenix's true party girls, edna Laziola!

Edna was born October 23, 1872 in Branford, Connecticut to William and Anna Oblenis.Edna’s father died prior to 1880 and Edna’s mother, Anna, now had five girls to support.  The census showed Anna and sister Minnie were employed sewing corsets.  However they were accused of doing more than sewing.

Click on "Edna Laziola" above to watch a video about these amazing and rowdy sisters! (we have used artist renditions of the characters in the video)

Edna Laziola (1872 - 1900) - Burlesque Girl

Theatrical Poster of a Burlesque Girl

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Edna was born October 23, 1872 in Branford, Connecticut to William and Anna Oblenis.Edna’s father died prior to 1880 and Edna’s mother, Anna, now had five girls to support.  The census showed Anna and sister Minnie were employed sewing corsets.  However they were accused of doing more than sewing.

According to Rev. Ross, a neighbor, Mrs. Oblenis and her older daughters Minnie and Helen were entertaining men.  On March 8, 1880 their house was raided and the women and three men were accused of participating in a house of “ill fame.”A music teacher who came to the house weekly stated that she never observed anything illicit going on.  

Edna and her sisters became theatrical performers around 1890.  They were known for their singing and the skirt dance, popular with the burlesque shows.  The sisters used the stage name of Laziola (Lazeola), which became the name all the siblings eventually adopted.  They would tour with various theatre companies throughout the east and by 1892 were at the Original Vienna Buffet in Los Angeles, California.  Edna and sisters would arrive in Phoenix around 1894.

Edna was singing at the Palace in Phoenix, while Minnie and Annie would go to Yuma and play at The Place, which was owned by Louis Iaeger.  They would then return to Phoenix to perform at the Palace with Edna. The sisters were described as very popular with patrons at both establishments.  

Edna and Annie even created quite a stir in Tucson at one point when their train arrived at the same time as two political candidates.  The two men thought all the excitement was about their arrival, but were not happy to learn everyone was there waiting for the Laziola sisters.

The sisters embarked in many other adventures in their early years, and Edna would die under tragic circumstances in 1900.  

For more information, come down and see us.  We will be glad to introduce you to Edna!

PCA Archive

William Isaac (1827 - 1900) - Isaac School Founder

 

William Isaac and Jane "Jennie" Netherton

PCA Archives

William Isaac was born 8 March 1827 in Tennessee. The Isaac family moved west, ending up in Platte County, Missouri, where William married Jane "Jennie" Netherton on 11 July 1848.

William and Jennie’s first child, a son named Eli Egbert, was born in Platte County in 1849. Three daughters and another son followed at two-year intervals.

Between 1858 and 1860, the Isaacs moved to California, where they were recorded on the federal census of 1860 for Contra Costa County. William was a farmer. Besides his own wife and five children, William was supporting his widowed mother Mary as well as several of his younger siblings. Six more children were born to the Isaacs in California.

By the 1870 federal census, the Isaacs were living in Gilroy Township, Santa Clara County, and William’s occupation was listed as ‘surveyor’. He also served as a Baptist minister and member of the San Jose Board of Education.

The William Isaac family left Salinas, California, in the spring of 1875, bound for the Arizona Territory. Arriving in Prescott, they stayed there for the summer. In the fall, William Isaac and his grown sons rode south to the Salt River Valley, where they staked out a homestead west of Phoenix.

In the spring of 1876, the Isaacs moved to Phoenix. They resided in an adobe structure at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Jackson Street while the men constructed a house on their new homestead, near what is now 35th Avenue and McDowell Road.

Among the household items the Isaacs had brought with them from California was a four-octave melodeon. On Sundays, the legs were removed and it was conveyed by buggy to the South Methodist (now Central Methodist) Church in Phoenix, where it provided music during the worship services.

To ensure that his younger children got an education, William Isaac founded the Isaac school. He assisted Captain Hancock in surveying the Grand Canal and was active in the local Masonic lodge.

William Isaac retired from active farming around 1890. He died 23 March 1900 of 'dilatation of the heart' and was buried in the Masons Cemetery. - adapted from a story by Donna Carr and Dean Isaac

Find out more about the amazing person by coming to the PMMP!

Lindley Orme (1847 - 1900) - Lawman

PCA Archives

Lindley Hogue Orme was born in Maryland on December 19, 1848 to Charles and Deborah Orme, who were both part of the original Colonial families of the United States.  He served in the Company B, 35th Virginia Cavalry Regt, Virginia, Confederate States Army as a private, and was admitted to the hospital for measles at one point.  In his early years after the war, he lived in California, and arrived in Arizona in 1870, with his brother John following him in 1877, and his brother Henry in 1879.

During his residency in Phoenix, he became a well known citizen, serving the area in an official capacity for several years.  In 1880, he was elected sheriff, and elected again in 1882.  From there, he served on the Territorial Council, and was elected again as sheriff in 1891, serving two terms. 

During his devoted service to the community, he built the first Phoenix jail with incandescent lamps, conducted quarantines for smallpox, assisted in securing the state capital to Phoenix, and serving justice to civil and criminal offenses alike.

At one point, he even interrupted a plot to rob a bank!

For More information on this loyal lawman, come find out more at the PMMP! - Val W.

Prisoners on a Chain Gang

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA 

School in 1900

Tempe Arizona Normal School
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. USA
https://lccn.loc.gov/2007661425

• Most schools were one-room schoolhouses in rural areas
• Students were usually between five to twenty five years old
• The most common methods of teaching were memorization and repetition
• Very few students advanced beyond grade school
• Only 11% enrolled in high school
• Most Americans at the end of 1910 had only completed grade eight

- paraphrased from Encyclopeida.com

Spanish Flu - Pandemics - Early 1900s

"Influenza Ward"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a39569

The Spanish Flu was an influenza pandemic that arrived in the United States around 1918.  It was first identified in military personnel, and infected about 500 million people worldwide, with 675,000 deaths occurring in the United States alone.  There were national quarantines, as well as school and business closures.  The strain was H1N1, and had an avian origin.

There is no one in the PMMP listed as having died of the Spanish Flu.  The cemetery had closed about four years prior to the outbreak.  However, in reading this article it is interesting to note that the United States went through some similar events that we are now experiencing at this time.  

Quarantine Lifted
Click Here to Read Article and See Reference

Mask Order
Click Here to Read the Article and See the Reference

Mary A. Lee (1862 - 1900) - Restaurateur - Enterprising Women

This bio is present on one of our pages, but we thought we would highlight it here too.  Mary's success was remarkable for her time, as women were not often seen in business roles.

The border vidette. (Nogales, Ariz.), 18 Feb. 1899. 
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Library of Congress
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn96060796/1899-02-18/ed-1/seq-4/>

Mary A. Lee was born about 1862, and was a restaurateur in Territorial Phoenix and Tucson during the late 1890s.  She was a single, African-American woman who was reported in the December 5, 1897 Arizona Daily Star as "...the famous caterer who is known to prepare the finest dinner, breakfast, or luncheon in Arizona.."  Not much is known about her early life, or where she was born.  However, she appeared to have rose to the Phoenix scene around 1892 in a partnership she formed with Samuel W. Slade, called "Lee and Slade".  The partnership maintained The Opera House cafe which featured "game, fish, and oysters".  At the later part of the year, they acquired a five year lease for $18,000 from the owner of the Ford Hotel to maintain a restaurant on the premises.  The partnership dissolved in 1896, and Mary ventured to Tucson where she became of the proprietor of Williams Hotel, The Alhambra, and the Orndorff Cafe.  Mary returned to Phoenix suffering from an illness, and died of tuberculosis October 26, 1900.  Curiously, her probate records states that she had an account at the National Bank of Arizona at Tucson for $325 and a trunk of personal effects in Phoenix.  Her executor later stated that these items "could not be found."  She is buried in Rosedale with no marker.  

The Mary's Cafe Fare menu is dedicated to her.  It consists of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners found often in the home and restaurants of the 1890s, and consists of three planned meals with recipes.  The recipes are found from cookbooks of the era that are posted on Project Gutenberg.  References available on request.  The menu is written and designed by Val Wilson.

Cure for Malaria - 1900

              **We do not endorse any ad for medical treatments.  Ads                    are placed for historical and anecdotal purposes only.  

Picture From:  Holbrook argus. (Holbrook, Ariz.), 13 Oct. 1900.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

<https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn94051342/1900-10-13/ed-1/seq-4/>

Willie Meade (1894 - 1900) - Tragic Death

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
//hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b19075

William “Willie” Meade began life in 1894 as the son of William “Billy” Meade and Laura Dawson.  His father was known as a genius at the roulette table.  

His mother worked as a waitress at the Louvre Garden Café that by 1895 was owned by Rose Gregory, a well-known Madam in Phoenix. 

The following facts are what we know about Willie.

Willie developed scarlet fever shortly after his birth and the disease eventually destroyed his hearing and vocal cords.

When Willie was six, his mother was living with her parents.

Willie’s grandparents lived near the railroad tracks in Phoenix.

On Feb 17, 1900, Willie was playing with other children near the tracks at Jackson St - between 3^rd and 4^th St.

As he started to run across the track in pursuit of his dog, a train engine began to move, startling Willie.  Willie tried to jump up onto the front of the train.

The engineer did not see Willie as he started the engine and when he began to move the train car, Willie was thrown underneath, killing him instantly.

Willie’s father belonged to the Improved Order of RedMen and the Independent Order of Foresters.

Willie is buried close to the railroad tracks in Rosedale Cemetery where the train is still heard in the background.