Josephine Buck (1875-1902) - Sent to the Asylum

Arizona Insane Asylum, Arizona Memory Project

Josephine Buck was born around 1875, probably in Neosho County, Kansas.  She was one of at least nine children of Asahel Buck and his wife Mary Ann Hutchings.  The Buck family had been in New York state since Colonial times.  Asahel himself was a lawyer, educated in Albany, New York.

By 1880, the Buck family was living in Sedan, Chautauqua, Kansas.

Christmas Eve, 1890, found them in Phoenix, where 15-year-old Josephine and her older sister Irene entertained friends with music and dancing at the Buck home on East Van Buren Street.

In 1892, Asahel Buck, now known as Andrew, was practicing law from his office in the Cotton Building.  Son William Hamilton Buck was a pressman for the Daily Herald newspaper, and daughter Irene Buck was a music teacher.  Daughter Evaluna was married to Charles M. Rupp, carpenter.

Josephine seems to have had a normal childhood.  She was a member of the IOOF’s Rebekah Lodge, and her family certainly enjoyed a certain social standing in the city.  However, it appears that around 1892, she began to manifest mental problems, possibly schizophrenia which tends to become apparent during a patient’s late adolescence.   Initially, she was cared for at home but, in April 1894, shortly after her sister Irene’s marriage to George Simms, Josephine became a patient at the insane asylum in Phoenix.

Released from the asylum in early August, 1897, Josephine was scheduled to be conveyed to a private sanitarium in California.  However, she got hold of a revolver and threatened to kill her mother with it.  When the sheriff arrived to remove her from the family residence, she became violent and had to be physically restrained.  She was recommitted to the asylum by order of a judge on August 31st.   She was still a patient in the Arizona Insane Asylum in 1900, where she probably contracted the tuberculosis that caused her demise.            

Josephine Buck succumbed on June 23, 1902, at her family’s home on 4th Street and Polk.   She was buried in the IOOF Cemetery, Block 21, Lot 2, northeast corner of the southwest quadrant.

-by Donna L. Carr

 

 

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

 

Bing AI

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

 

 

Robert E. Lee Brown (1865-1902) - Mining Engineer and Adventurer

 

PCA Archives

R. E. L. Brown may be one of the most unique characters in the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park, both for his colorful life--and the speed with which he was forgotten after his demise.

Born May 31, 1865, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Laurence and Martha Brown, he trained as a mining engineer, then went out west to locate promising mines.

In 1889, Brown was surveying potential mining claims in Washington state. During a violent labor strike in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 1892, he started a newspaper called The Barbarian, which took the side of the mine owners versus the unionized miners.  This earned him the nickname “Barbarian Brown”.  Threatened with death during the strike, he caused a cannon to be wheeled into the street outside his office.

Much as he enjoyed the furor his newspaper editorials provoked, Brown remained first and foremost a mining engineer.  He speculated in mines and was well regarded internationally for his expertise.  Seeking new adventures, Brown journeyed to South Africa in hopes of securing some promising claims during a land rush in Witfontein in 1895. Competition was fierce for the best claims, but Brown hit upon a method that could outrun the swiftest horse:  a heliograph!  He set up heliograph stations by which he could transmit confirmation almost instantaneously to his confederates in the field who were waiting to stake his claims. 

On July 19, 1895, the day of the land rush, twelve thousand miners were gathered in Doornkoop to register their permits.  But Brown had devised a plan to ensure that he would be first in line.  A fan of American football, he recruited a group of rough men from local bars to form a “flying wedge” to cut through the crowd.  The ruse worked; however, the Pretoria government initially refused to honor his claims.  Brown sued the Boer government and eventually won a huge judgment, the exact value of which has never been ascertained.

Having worn out his welcome in South Africa, the brash engineer returned to North America where, on September 26, 1898, he wed Maud Higgins in Victoria, British Columbia. 

Brown was in London in 1901 when he apparently contracted tuberculosis.  In late 1902, he traveled to Phoenix in a private train car with his wife, his personal physician and a nurse.  Unfortunately, he had left it too late; he died on October 3, 1902, scarcely a week after his arrival.   Despite his fame and fortune, his death rated only a few lines in the local newspaper, and he was buried under a simple wooden headboard in Rosedale Cemetery.  

One can only speculate as to why Brown’s remains were not shipped back East and why a more elaborate headstone was never erected over his grave.

- 
 -  by Donna L. Carr

 

 

Robert E. Lee Brown (1865-1902) - Mining Engineer and Adventurer

PCA Archives

R. E. L. Brown may be one of the most unique characters in the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park, both for his colorful life--and the speed with which he was forgotten after his demise.

Born May 31, 1865, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Laurence and Martha Brown, he trained as a mining engineer, then went out west to locate promising mines.

In 1889, Brown was surveying potential mining claims in Washington state. During a violent labor strike in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 1892, he started a newspaper called The Barbarian, which took the side of the mine owners versus the unionized miners.  This earned him the nickname “Barbarian Brown”.  Threatened with death during the strike, he caused a cannon to be wheeled into the street outside his office.

Much as he enjoyed the furor his newspaper editorials provoked, Brown remained first and foremost a mining engineer.  He speculated in mines and was well regarded internationally for his expertise.  Seeking new adventures, Brown journeyed to South Africa in hopes of securing some promising claims during a land rush in Witfontein in 1895. Competition was fierce for the best claims, but Brown hit upon a method that could outrun the swiftest horse:  a heliograph!  He set up heliograph stations by which he could transmit confirmation almost instantaneously to his confederates in the field who were waiting to stake his claims.

On July 19, 1895, the day of the land rush, twelve thousand miners were gathered in Doornkoop to register their permits.  But Brown had devised a plan to ensure that he would be first in line.  A fan of American football, he recruited a group of rough men from local bars to form a “flying wedge” to cut through the crowd.  The ruse worked;  however, the Pretoria government initially refused to honor his claims.  Brown sued the Boer government and eventually won a huge judgment, the exact value of which has never been ascertained.

Having worn out his welcome in South Africa, the brash engineer returned to North America where, on September 26, 1898, he wed Maud Higgins in Victoria, British Columbia. 

Brown was in London in 1901 when he apparently contracted tuberculosis.  In late 1902, he traveled to Phoenix in a private train car with his wife, his personal physician and a nurse.  Unfortunately, he had left it too late; he died on October 3, 1902, scarcely a week after his arrival.   Despite his fame and fortune, his death rated only a few lines in the local newspaper, and he was buried under a simple wooden headboard in Rosedale Cemetery.  

One can only speculate as to why Brown’s remains were not shipped back East and why a more elaborate headstone was never erected over his grave.

-Donna Carr

 

Professor H. Cresswell Shaw (1855 -1902) - Organist

 

Bing AI

Henry Cresswell Shaw was born November 1855 in Canada, possibly in Guelph, a city in Ontario about 43 miles from Toronto.  Guelph had a strong musical and arts tradition.  It was also home to the Bell Organ Company.  Founded in 1864, it manufactured reed and pump organs, pianos and melodeons, as well as a small number of pipe organs.  Perhaps it was not surprising, then, that Shaw studied music and became an organist.

In 1881, Shaw seems to have been a music dealer in Guelph when he transcribed for publication a piano arrangement of the song, The Palms (Les Rameaux par Faure).  It was dedicated to a Miss Bertie Geddes, a church organist in Hamilton and Guelph, Ontario.  A copy exists in the University of Michigan Library. 

In 1883, Shaw became the organist for St. Peter’s Church in Berlin, Ontario, a position he would hold for the next sixteen years.  (Berlin no longer appears on the map as a Canadian city; its name was changed to Kitchener in 1916, when Canada entered World War I as part of the British Empire.)  Shaw proved to be a devoted church worker and was especially popular with the young people’s groups.

Shaw’s hobby was horticulture.  In June 1895, he built Rosehurst Conservatories.  With the help of a gardener, the Conservatories grew roses, lilies and a variety of other hothouse flowers during Canada’s winters.

By 1896, Shaw was suffering from Bright’s Disease and sought a warmer climate during the winter.  He moved to Phoenix permanently in 1899, having secured a position as organist at the First Methodist Episcopal Church, which had recently had its pipe organ refurbished. 

In the summer of 1901, he made a brief trip—possibly his last--back home to Canada.

Shaw died on March 31, 1902, in his rooms at 524 South First Avenue11.  The Rev. E. A. Penick conducted his funeral, after which Shaw was buried in Rosedale, Section 147, Grave 2.

-by Donna Carr

 

#8 - John Bolton (1866 approx. - 1902) - First African American Mail Carrier

 

PCA Archives

John Bolton was born March 1866 or 1867 In Tennessee. When he first came to Phoenix, he was employed as a barber in Frank Shirley’s shop, The Fashion. Bolton married a woman called Hattie and in 1893, they had a son they named Chrenskey. Bolton eventually became one of the first African American mail carriers in Phoenix. A prominent member of Phoenix’s African American community, he was elected president of the Colored Literary Society. He died on December 26, 1902, and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery. 

#2 - Ann Murray Alsap (1855 - 1902) - Socialite

 

PCA Archives

Anna Murray Alsap was born in 1855 in Texas to William Pinckney Murray and his wife Margaret White. The Murrays had nine daughters who became known as “the Murray girls”.  They all married, and several are remembered as the matriarchs of prominent Phoenix families.   In 1876, Anna became the second wife of Judge John Tabor Alsap, who was considerably older than she. During Judge Alsap’s brief tenure as the first mayor of Phoenix, she undoubtedly gave dinner parties attended by the town’s elite. The Alsaps had five children before Judge Alsap’s death in 1886. Anna died on December 20, 1902, and was buried in the Masons Cemetery.

Jennie Isaac (1827 - 1902) - Women's History Month

Jennie Isaac with Husband, PCA Archives

Jane “Jennie” Netherton Isaac was born 1827 in Tennessee. She married William in 1848 and they would eventually have 11 children, 8 survived to adulthood. The family moved to California around 1860 and in 1870 were in Gilroy where they were farmers. William would also serve as a Baptist Minister and on the Board of Education. Education would continue to be a priority for this family. 

In the Spring of 1875, Jennie packed up her household and all headed for Prescott with two wagons, each pulled by four horses. It took two months to arrive, at one point crossing the Colorado River. The family would remain in Prescott until the Spring of 1876, moving temporarily to a small adobe house in Phoenix. A home was built on 400 acres of land at what is now 35th Ave. & McDowell Rd. The Isaacs needing to educate their children, donated the land founding Isaac School. That school is still in existence. 

The Isaacs prospered and in 1884 Jennie began conducting business in her own name dealing with stock and farming products. The Arizona Legislature had given married women that right in 1865. In 1887 Jennie helped start a chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star as William was a Mason. Jennie held the office of the “Electa,” who shares the lesson of Charity and Hospitality. Jennie’s husband William died March 23, 1900. Jennie lived alone until she developed grippe, the flu, and died after seven days on February 10, 1902.  Jennie is buried in the Masons Cemetery next to her husband.

-Donna Carr

John Bolton (1866 - 1902) - Politician

PCA Archives

John Bolton arrived in Phoenix about 1890. During his short life of 36 years, he journeyed from Kansas to San Diego, California, before relocating to Phoenix for his health. 

Bolton had been born in Tennessee. African-American and a barber by trade, Bolton began his career in Phoenix by working in Frank Shirley’s barber shop, The Fashion. Bolton’s wife Hattie worked at the Alhambra on Papago.
           

Bolton was not a man to be easily intimidated. While walking home from work late in December, 1892, he was accosted by a thief. Seizing a brick, Bolton hit the footpad in the face and made his escape unscathed.
           
Soon after his arrival in Phoenix, Bolton became active in local politics. He was elected as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention from Maricopa County in April, 1896, the year in which William McKinley won his first term as president.
           
In June 1897, Bolton contracted to have a one-story brick residence built at Fillmore and North 2nd Street. A well-read man, Bolton was elected president of the Colored Literary Society in December, 1897. 
           
As Bolton prospered in his profession, he opened a barber shop in a more prestigious location, the new Adams Hotel in downtown Phoenix. In September 1898, he also took a civil service exam and became one of the first black letter carriers in the city. 
           
Bolton seems to have been a bit of a practical jokester. When he made the acquaintance of African American men recently arrived in Phoenix, he was not above engaging in a little hazing. First, Bolton would suggest that his new companion accompany him to a local park to meet some of the town’s young ladies. Once there, a confederate would jump out of the bushes and fire a couple of gunshots, causing the poor chap to take to his heels with Bolton close behind. Not until the newcomer stopped to draw breath would Bolton innocently remark that the shooter must have been the overprotective father of one of the young ladies.
           
Unfortunately, the desert air was not restorative for John Bolton and he died at his home on North Second Street of a lung hemorrhage on December 26, 1902, leaving behind his wife and son. The funeral was attended by his many friends and customers. His grave in Rosedale Cemetery North is marked with a simple headstone.

-Derek Horn and Donna Carr.