Mary “Minnie” Perry Bassett (1878-1903) - Schoolteacher

 

PCA Archives

Mary Adeline Perry was born December 21, 1878, in Badger Springs, Arizona to William Henry Perry and Mary Agnes Clark.  William Perry was a rancher whose land later became part of Perry Mesa within the Agua Fria National Monument.   Mary was one of nine children, according to a homestead claim her father filed in 1889.

She and her sisters--Grace, Maud, Agnes and Charlotte “Lottie”—eventually attended Tempe Normal School (now Arizona State University).  Education for women was obviously valued in the Perry household.  Mary graduated in 1899 and became a schoolteacher.  One of her first teaching posts was in Arizola, Arizona.

Mary often visited friends in the Arizola area.  There was known to be a mountain lion in the area which had been taking livestock for some time.  One day, Mary was alone and on foot near the  Bellamy ranch when the lion appeared in her path.  Mary was certain that she was going to be attacked until she suddenly remembered reading about “the power of the human eyes on savage beasts.”  Mary looked the lion right in the eye and it turned and fled.  The lion, when later shot by a hunting party, was found to measure eight feet from nose to tail.

While teaching in Cordes, Arizona, Mary met Joseph Reuben Bassett, a cowboy who was working cattle on a nearby ranch.  They were married in Phoenix on April 17, 1902.

The young couple was living in Safford, Arizona, when on January 24, 1903, they welcomed a son, Walter into their household.   Unfortunately, Mary never recovered from the birth.  She died on February 4, 1903 in Safford, with childbirth listed as the cause.  She was buried in Masons Cemetery in Phoenix.

Although Joseph R. Bassett remarried a few years later, apparently little Walter was raised by his sister and her husband.  Joseph died at the Pioneers’ Home in Prescott, Arizona, in 1957.

Mary’s father, William Henry Perry outlived her by many years.  When he died in 1929, his ashes were scattered over Perry Mesa.

- by Patricia 

 

Frank Albert Barnes (1868-1903) - Circus Seal Trainer

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Frank Albert Barnes was born November 11, 1868, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, to James Barnes and Mary Jane Cain.  James was an oilwell driller who had immigrated from England to work in Pennsylvania’s oil fields.  By the 1890s, the family was in Akron, Ohio.  They lived in a cottage near railroad tracks, from which the Barnes youngsters would have seen trains come and go every day.  Frank’s younger brother James, Jr., became a locomotive engineer.

It is not known exactly how Frank Barnes joined the circus.  In 1897, he was employed by the Barnum & Bailey Circus.  Soon thereafter, he joined the Ringling Brothers Circus where he became a seal trainer and performer.

On the evening of October 4, 1903, Barnes suffered a fractured skull when he fell from a Ringling Brothers circus train as it was passing through Gila Bend, Arizona, at about 20 miles an hour.  He had been riding on a flatcar, next to the cages of his flippered charges, when the accident occurred.  It is presumed that he had fallen asleep. 

Train employees telegraphed ahead to the Circus’s ‘advance man’, Mr. Nagle, who was already in Phoenix making arrangements for the circus train’s arrival, and he had an ambulance waiting at the station.  Barnes was conveyed at once to Sisters Hospital in Phoenix, but he died on October 7, never having regained consciousness.

Barnes’s funeral was conducted from the undertaking parlor of J. Bradley, with all expenses covered by the Ringling Brothers Circus.  His body was temporarily interred in Rosedale Cemetery until the following spring, when the Circus had it transported back to Akron for burial in his family’s plot. It is a well-known fact that circus performers are a close-knit group and look after each other in death as in life.  Barnes being something of a local celebrity, his demise was widely reported in Akron newspapers.

- by Donna Carr

 

 

I.D. Mack. or J.D. Mack - Where Are You?

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🔍 Cemetery Mystery: Who Was I.D. Mack?

In 1903, the body of an old prospector was discovered near Peoria, Arizona. His name? I.D. (or possibly J.D.) Mack. His identity was revealed through a dictionary and letter addressed to a mining woman named Mrs. Fanny Pogue of Tucson.

Mack had big dreams. The letter suggested that Mrs. Pogue fund a mining expedition and even suggested she join him in the hills. Mrs. Pogue apparently had sold many successful claims in the past. But before anything could come of it, he was found dead.

He was brought into Phoenix by the sheriff and Mohn and Dorris, undertakers, on August 20, 1903. The cause of death was "natural", and the body was "buried here last night" according to an August 21, 1903 article in the Arizona Republic. Newspapers later said the money from auctioning his few possessions would pay for a "decent burial and small headstone." But… where is he buried? No funeral record has surfaced. No headstone has been found. And the trail goes cold in Phoenix.

Was he ever truly laid to rest?

🕵️‍♀️ Have info on I.D. Mack? Drop us a comment or message. We're on the trail of another cemetery mystery!

#2 Baldomedo Peralta (abt 1852-1903) - A Christmas Eve Tragedy

 

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Descendants of Baldomedo Peralta believe that he was born in Rio De San Pedro, Cuevas de Batuco, Sonora, Mexico.  He may have been the son of a Pedro Peralta.  His birth year seems to have been somewhere between 1849 and 1854, but verifiable records do not begin until he arrived in Phoenix in 1880.

Apparently, Peralta and Guadalupe Baldenegro had been keeping company since at least 1879.  They were on their way by wagon train from Superior to Phoenix in August, 1880, when their first child, Rosario, was born at a wagon stop called La Poste (now Apache Junction).

Upon reaching Phoenix, the couple was married on September 19, 1880, in a civil ceremony—possibly because there was no Catholic priest available. 

Thereafter, the Peraltas had children at regular intervals.  Descendants think there were twelve, although only six lived to adulthood.   It is not known for sure where they were all born, although the Peraltas seem to have resided in Phoenix continuously and not migrated back and forth between Mexico and Arizona.  A two-year-old daughter, Louisa, died in 1900 and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery.  Her older sister Guadalupe, aged 9, died in 1902 and was also buried in Rosedale.

Despite the vagueness of his origins, Baldomedo Peralta seems to have had some education.   Apparently regarded as ‘white’, he registered to vote in 1884, 1890, 1892, 1894 and 1900.  He was active in a Latino mutual-aid society and was also a member of Phoenix’s volunteer fire brigade.

On Christmas Eve, 1903, the Peralta family was enjoying a festive meal at their home when a kerosene lamp exploded, setting fire to the room.  Although the family ran outside into the yard, Baldomedo and Guadalupe quickly realized that one of the children was missing.  Peralta reentered the burning house, located the child and passed him through an open window to the family outside.  He then attempted to save some of the family’s belongings.  When he emerged from the house, his hair and clothing were on fire.  Although he stanched the blood flowing from a vein in his neck and walked to a doctor to be bandaged, his burns turned out to be more severe than was first thought.  He was admitted to Sisters’ Hospital, where he died on December 27th.  He was buried in the Catholic section of Loosley Cemetery.

After Baldomedo’s death, the oldest Peralta son, Porfirio, became the head of the family.  He too would eventually join the fire brigade.  Porfirio and his family remained in Phoenix until 1921, when they followed some of the other Peralta siblings to California.

- by Donna Carr

 

 

Samuel Korrick (1871 - 1903) - Territorial Phoenix Businessman

Charles and Sam Korrick, about 1901

Courtesy of the Korrick family

Samuel Korrick was born in April, 1871, in Grodno, then part of tsarist Russia. After coming to the United States around 1890, he worked briefly as a dry goods clerk in New York before moving on to another store in El Paso. In 1895, Korrick was on his way to California when he stopped in Phoenix. Something about the up-and-coming city attracted him, and he decided to stay. Despite his relative youth, he was able to combine his previous experience in the dry goods business with a flair for merchandising, determination and hard work. He set up his first store in a narrow space at 218 East Washington Street. 

To make his shop sound more sophisticated, he called it the New York Store. Korrick was a savvy businessman. Newspaper advertisements for his store trumpeted quality merchandise, low prices, seasonal and annual clearance sales. The ads noted his buying trips to Eastern markets, which must have added a certain cachet for his customers. 

Korrick was more than just a successful merchant. He joined the Freemasons and the Elks, and he donated handsomely to Sisters’ Hospital, now St. Joseph’s. He was active in the local Jewish community and ran newspaper notices announcing the Jewish high holy days. Running the New York Store left Korrick little time for a private life; he never married. As the business expanded, he brought his younger brother Charles over from Russia in 1899. Charles became his understudy in running the business. 

Tragically, Korrick’s health began to decline in 1901 and he died on March 23, 1903, at the age of 32. According to Korrick’s obituary, no other man had "left such a deep impression upon the mercantile life of Phoenix." Customers and competitors alike esteemed him as an honest and upright businessman. Korrick’s funeral service was an ecumenical affair. After the reading of Jewish rites, a Methodist minister delivered a eulogy. The hearse was accompanied by a long cortege, and Korrick was interred in accordance with Masonic rites in the Masons Cemetery. 

 © Derek Horn and Debe Branning. Last revised May 21, 2023. 

check out the PCA website at azhistcemeteries.org

James Moore Hall (1838 - 1903) - Troubles Unbearable

James Moore Hall was born August 1838 in Tennessee. He was the son of John Mabin Hall and Elizabeth White Moore.

Judging from the birthplaces of James’s siblings, the Hall family moved to Mississippi around 1844. Their mother Elizabeth Moore died soon thereafter. In 1846, the family moved to Locust Bayou, Ouachita County, Arkansas, where John Mabin Hall wed his second wife, Elizabeth Jane Dowdle.

James’s father died in 1864 and his adult siblings scattered. By 1870, he was married to Mary Hudson and living in the household of his brother-in-law, Warren F. Hudson.

James and Mary remained in Texas until at least 1881, with perhaps a brief sojourn in New Mexico between 1875 and 1878. This is based on the birthplaces of their children as listed on the 1880 federal census.

The Halls moved to Phoenix around 1884. In June 1899, James, Mary and their daughter Lula Bell were among the founding members of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Phoenix. Perhaps this afforded Mary some spiritual solace, as she died 8 October 1899 of cancer.

Following the death of his wife, Hall is reported to have suffered from bouts of despondency. In 1903, he sold most of his property to his son John, then gambled away the money he had received in the vain hope of recouping his lost fortune, and died tragically in 1903. - adapted from a story by Donna carr.  

For more information on James Hall, come visit us!

Czar James Dyer (1846 - 1903) - Renaissance Men

Czar James Dyer Map of Phoenix - Arizona Memory Project

Although he was an authentic Arizona pioneer, the gentleman with the extraordinary first name--Czar--was born in 1846 in the state of Michigan and grew to manhood there.

Dyer enlisted in the U. S. Navy at the age of 18 and served from August 20, 1864, to July 28, 1865 as a 'powder monkey' aboard the U.S.S. Mattabassett.   After his year of service in the Union Navy, Dyer's travels took him to California.

The federal census of 1880 shows C. J. Dyer residing in Oakland, Alameda County, California, in the household of Frank and Nellie Jones. He gave his age as 31 and his occupation as 'artist'.  Shortly thereafter, he moved to Prescott in the Arizona Territory. Within a few years, he had moved further south to the young settlement of Phoenix, arriving on the scene as the city was in a period of rapid growth and development. A personable fellow, "C. J.", as he was popularly known, made the acquaintance of many key individuals in town, thus immediately involving himself in local commerce and government affairs. 

An artist, specifically a cartographer by profession, Dyer was soon appointed mapmaker for the growing city.  - Adapted from a story by Rose Sullivan

What was unique about James Dyer?  Find out at the PMMP!