Annie McMurtry Trott (1859-1906) - Surveyor’s Wife

 

PCA Archives

Margaret Anna McMurtry is believed to have been born on July 8, between 1856 and 1858, in White County, Illinois, to James Harrell McMurtry and Martha McMurtry neé Sharp.  While the inscription on Annie’s grave marker says that she was born in 1859, her death record gives her birthyear as 1858.

The 1860 federal census found the widow McMurtry living in the household of a George W. Overton and working as a seamstress. 

Ten years later, the McMurtrys were farming in Gallatin County, Illinois, and Ann was recorded as being 13 years old.

On February 22, 1879, Annie married Franklin P. Trott, in El Dorado, Saline County, Illinois.  Trott was a civil engineer.  Their first child, a daughter named Nellie, was born about five months later.

The 1880 federal census recorded Annie and her baby daughter living with Martha, who was managing a boarding house in El Dorado.  Franklin, a station agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, was not in the household (he was temporarily in Benton, Franklin County, Illinois), although he must have rejoined it shortly thereafter, since the Trotts had another daughter, Bessie, born in 1881.

Shortly thereafter, the Trotts, accompanied by Annie’s widowed mother, moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where Franklin worked by turns as a civil engineer, county surveyor, deputy sheriff and water commissioner.  As head of the zanjeros in Maricopa County, Trott was generally well-regarded. 

The Trotts had a home at 472 North 2nd Street in Phoenix and seem to have enjoyed some years of relative prosperity during the 1880s.  Sadly, both of their daughters fell ill with scarlet fever in 1890.  Nellie recovered, but Bessie, aged nine, died in December and was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Like so many others of the time, Annie was eventually diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis.  Not wanting to spend the summer in Phoenix, she traveled to Los Angeles in 1906, accompanied by her daughter Nellie.  Annie died there on August 11, and her remains were returned to Phoenix for burial in the family plot.

Franklin P. Trott lived until May 2, 1936.  He and his daughter Nellie are buried in the Encanto Mausoleum at Greenwood Memory Lawn in Phoenix.

- by Donna L. Carr 

Patrick Hamilton (1843-1888) - Newspaper Editor

 

Obituary from 

the Arizona Daily Star, December 23, 1888

Patrick Hamilton was born in January, 1843, in County Cork, Ireland.  According to his newspaper obituary, he and his parents arrived in New York in 1846, at the beginning of the Irish Potato Famine.  He received a liberal education in New York schools.

At age 20, he went west to Colorado, where fur trapping had given way to prospecting.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hamilton claimed to have joined the 3rd Colorado Volunteer Infantry and participated in several engagements.  However, no evidence of his actual enlistment has been discovered.  Possibly he was employed in some civilian capacity.

Hamilton was in Arizona by 1876, and the 1880 federal census records him as a miner in Prescott.  He became a member of the Correspondents’ Club and went into the newspaper business, managing the Prescott Democrat before buying The Expositor.

Hamilton had hoped to be named Arizona’s territorial secretary, but the legislature appointed him Commissioner of Immigration instead.  His duties included compiling a comprehensive list of Arizona’s natural resources with a view toward dispelling the image of Arizona as a vast wasteland and encouraging people to settle there.

Hamilton threw himself into the project enthusiastically, moving to Tombstone to report on the silver mining boom there.  Having earned a reputation for colorful editorials in his newspaper, the Tombstone Independent, he got crosswise of Samuel Purdy, editor of the rival Tombstone Epitaph.  in September 1882, Purdy challenged Hamilton to a duel.  Since dueling was illegal in Arizona, the two men crossed the border into Sonora.  The entire incident came to naught, however, as they could not come to an agreement about which pistols to use.

While in Tombstone, Hamilton made the acquaintance of a widow, Mrs. Frances McBride, and they declared their intention to marry.  They finally achieved their objective on September 2, 1886 in San Diego.

Between 1881 and 1886, Hamilton travelled extensively throughout Arizona, first writing and then updating his 270-page book, The Natural Resources of Arizona.  It was well-received and went through several editions, with over 10,000 copies printed.  An inveterate Arizona ‘booster’, Hamilton had excerpts published in Arizona and California newspapers.

Like so many others, Hamilton contracted tuberculosis and died in Phoenix on December 20, 1888, of a pulmonary hemorrhage.  He was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.  There is no marker.

- Donna L. Carr

 

 

Charles Henry Petersen (1851-1904) - Bricklayer

PCA Archives

Theodore Charles Heinrich Petersen was born on April 10, 1851, in Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia, to Jakob Petersen and Friederike Hansen. 

Although the Petersens were of Danish ethnicity, they had adopted some German customs, such as passing on the father’s surname unchanged.  In 1866, Germany asserted full control over Schleswig-Holstein and began conscripting Danish men into the German army.  That may have been why Petersen immigrated to the United States in 1874.

Family stories hold that Charles Petersen was working in Texas when he became a naturalized citizen.  On October 30, 1888, he married Pauline Amalie Nissen, who was also from Schleswig-Holstein.

The young couple took up residence in Campus, Livingston County, Illinois.  However, Pauline died less than a year later, two weeks after giving birth to a son named Paul.  Although born a U. S. citizen, baby Paul was apparently sent back to Bredstadt, Schleswig-Holstein, to be raised by his grandparents.

1892 found Charles Petersen in Phoenix, Arizona, where he married his second wife, Ernestina Lena Yostina Popken, on September 15.  They had several children in quick succession.  Petersen was in the brickmaking business and owned a 20-acre brickyard south of downtown Phoenix.  The Petersens lived on South Third Street, just a few blocks from Columbus Gray’s mansion. 

On November 6, 1900, Mrs. Petersen was at home alone with the children when noises in the back yard alerted her to the fact that a vagrant was trying to steal the family’s calf.  Armed with a shotgun, she ordered him to leave; however, when he charged at her, she fired, killing him.  The coroner’s jury reported that he had recently been released from jail.

While riding his bicycle down Washington Street on December 28, 1904, Charles Petersen turned in front of an oncoming streetcar, lost his balance and fell.   He was crushed between the streetcar and the rail beneath.  The newspaper reported that the widow’s grief was pitiful to behold; she was left with several children to raise, the oldest being only eleven, and she was nine months pregnant.

Petersen was buried in Block 12, Lot 1, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.  Just a day or so after his funeral, his widow gave birth to a posthumous daughter.

In 1909, Petersen’s son Paul returned to the United States to reclaim his American citizenship.  He served during World War I in the 38th U. S. Field Artillery against Germany.  It is not known whether he ever visited Arizona or had the opportunity to meet his half-siblings.

- by Donna L. Carr

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

 

 

James B. Lacy (abt. 1847 - 1896) - Owned the Phoenix Illuminating Electric and Gas Works

PCA Archives

James B. Lacy was born January 26, 1847 in Erinsville, Ontario, Canada.   The name of the town is appropriate, since it was founded by Irish, largely Roman Catholic, immigrants.   He was the third of eight children born to Bryan Lacey and his wife, Ellen Clancy.  The Laceys were farmers who had immigrated to Canada from County Wexford, Ireland.

In 1868, James Lacy had emigrated to the United States and was living in Mendocino County, California.  Around 1873, he moved to Virginia City, Nevada, possibly with a cousin named Bernard.  They were employed as miners, working the Comstock Lode.

Like many miners, Lacy followed the latest strikes.  By 1889, he was in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where he was employed as a watchman at the Contention Mine.  

Lacy eventually moved to Phoenix around 1894, where he purchased the Phoenix Illuminating Electric and Gas Company.  Being a prominent businessman, he was elected to a term on the City council.  He was said to have been genial and well-liked. 

At the age of 49, Lacy passed away rather unexpectedly of heart disease.   Whereas he had always appeared to be hale and hearty, a few days after Christmas 1895, he complained of edema in his right arm.   Soon it became clear that his kidneys were failing, too.  He was attended by Drs. Stroud, Helm and Goodfellow, but nothing could be done for him.

James Lacy died on January 1, 1896, and was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.  In accordance with his beliefs, his funeral service was conducted by a Free Thinker, not a Roman Catholic as might have been expected.

John F. Kearney, a cousin of Lacy’s, was a miner in Congress, Arizona.  On January 9, Kearney’s wife Katie entered Lacy’s will into probate, and J. W. Jensen was appointed executor.  Lacy’s estate was divided between his mother and his sister.

 - by Donna Carr

 

 

Catherine A. Lacy (1860 - 1896) - Died in a House Fire

 

PCA Archives

Catherine A. Lacy was born March 1, 1860, in Erinsville, Ontario, Canada.   The name of the town is appropriate, since it was founded by Irish, largely Roman Catholic, immigrants.   Catherine was the youngest of eight children born to Bryan Lacey and his wife, Ellen Clancy.  The Laceys were farmers who had immigrated to Canada from County Wexford, Ireland.

While living in Canada, Catherine’s father seems to have Anglicized his name to Bernard  He died on January 23, 1878, and was buried in the local Catholic cemetery.

In 1881, Catherine was still living on the family farm near Sheffield with her widowed mother and several siblings.  Her older brother James, however, had emigrated to the United States and was working as a miner in Virginia City, Nevada, possibly with a cousin named Bernard. 

Catherine seems to have joined James after he had moved to Phoenix, Arizona Territory.  James passed away rather unexpectedly in Phoenix on January 1, 1896, of heart disease.  He was buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Catherine herself died just a few months later on May 15, 1896, of burns received in a house fire.  Ironically, her apartment was located in a building behind the Phoenix Gas Works, previously owned by her brother James.

She had arisen early and lit a portable gas stove with a match to heat water for her bath.  She may have left the stove or match unattended for a moment, for the curtains ignited.  As she attempted to extinguish the flames, her robe also caught fire, enveloping her in flames.  She tried desperately to get the door open but apparently the smoke was so thick she couldn’t find the doorknob.  Passersby noticed flames, broke out the window and put out the fire, but by then she was unconscious and burned almost beyond recognition.  She died an hour later. 

After a Catholic funeral service, Catherine Lacy was buried near her brother in the IOOF Cemetery.  Neither one of them had ever married.

- by Donna Carr

 

Jay H. Miller (1865-1895) - A Mystery of Long Standing

PCA Archive

For over a century, the Knights of Pythias Cemetery has held an unusual grave marker.  Unlike the typical headstone, it was a large, smooth, pink granite boulder inscribed with a barely visible inscription: “In Adoring Memory of Jay.”  But who was Jay? 

In the late afternoon of November 25, 2006, longtime PCA volunteer Diane Sumrall was picking up trash in the cemetery.  As she passed Jay’s boulder, she chanced to glance up at the underside of the stone.  The setting sun was just at the right angle to reveal another faint inscription that had been hidden from view.  It read “H. Miller.”  Mystery solved!

Jay H. Miller was born in California on January 7, 1865, to James Miller of Tennessee and Susan Sawyer Miller.  Mr. Miller seems to have died before 1870, as the 1870 census records only Susan, a seamstress, her son Jay, and her mother Abigale in Sacramento.   By 1880, Susan was living with teenaged Jay and her new husband, John W. Hughes.  

Jay Miller moved to Phoenix around 1887, where he began working for the newly established Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad.  He eventually became the Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad’s commercial agent in Phoenix, responsible for running its freight department.  

With increased responsibility came a better salary.  Around 1892, Miller acquired a large lot at the southeast corner of Seventh and Pierce Streets. He hired C. J. Dyer to create a plat map and subdivided the lot into 10 individual smaller lots.  By 1895, the Phoenix Street Railway system had been extended so it ran along Pierce Street in front of Miller’s property; easy access to the streetcar line must have increased its value and potential for development.

On the evening of September 7, 1895, Miller shared some drinks with companions at the Cabinet Saloon on the northwest corner of Central Avenue and Washington Street.  Around 10 PM, he stepped out into the alley behind his office with a Mr. Conroy.  A few moments later, two shots rang out and Conroy ran for help, saying that Miller had killed himself.

The Arizona Republican newspaper covered the coroner’s inquest in great detail.  Almost 50 individuals testified about Miller’s activities that night, and several indicated that he sometimes seemed despondent and had spoken of suicide in the past.

Jay Miller was buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery.   Since he had died intestate, his mother was his sole heir.  Undoubtedly it was she who had the pink granite boulder inscribed with his name and installed on his grave as a tombstone.

-         - by Diane Sumrall, Debe Branning, Derek Horn

 

 

#3 Angeline “Angie” Piper (1876-1899) - Schoolteacher

 

Stock Photo

Angeline Piper was born 1876 in Kansas to Ray Piper and Sarah née Fortney.  Angie’s parents had been married in Bourbon, Kansas, on October 22, 1874.  Angie had a younger brother John, who was born in 1878, but he died in 1881.  Nearly two years later, Angie’s father also died, leaving her mother to raise Angie and her sister Raye, born after Mr. Piper’s death.  Since Angie’s mother did not remarry, perhaps she had sufficient means to raise two children on her own.

In 1887, a rabid dog bit Angie, her mother and sister.  According to one news report, only a “mad stone” (a bezoar stone found in the digestive tract of some animals) would save them from contracting rabies.  One was found in Chetopa, Kansas, and all must have gone well, as they all survived.

 Angie began attending Oswego College for Young Ladies in 1893 and obtained a teaching certificate.  At some point, she joined the Royal Neighbors Society.  The Society, established in 1895, was a progressive women’s fraternal benefit association and an auxiliary to Modern Woodmen of America.  It focused on assisting women and children in need and offering life insurance for women--an option never before available to women.  Today, Royal Neighbor is the largest women-led life insurer in the country.

In April 1898, Angie became quite sick while teaching in Fort Scott, Kansas, and her mother was sent for.  Under her mother’s care, Angie recovered and, in November, her mother left for Arizona to visit relatives.  Angie remained in Fort Scott at the home of an uncle, but later joined her mother in Arizona.

Angie went to Arizona primarily to recuperate.  Unfortunately, she developed typhoid fever and died December 30, 1899.  Although she was initially buried in Rosedale Cemetery, her mother later had her remains moved to the IOOF Cemetery when Angie’s Royal Neighbors Society insurance policy paid out.

by Patricia G.

 

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

Louis Roth (1859 - 1894) - Shopkeeper

 

Tim Kovacs

Louis Roth, son of Yosef Avraham and his wife Tcharne, was born about 1859 in what is now Kovácsvágás, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Hungary.  He was later known as Louis, Lajos or Leo.

After the Austrian Hapsburgs teamed up with Tsar Nicholas I of Russia to put down the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Hungarian Jews lost the few civil rights they had enjoyed and became subject to the Russian military draft.  Louis’s older brother Jacob was conscripted in this fashion, prompting their father to urge his other sons to emigrate as soon as possible.

Accordingly, Louis and Max, the next two oldest sons, came to America in 1879.  Louis appears to have filed a declaration of intent to become a naturalized U. S. citizen under the name of Lewis Roth in Fairfield County, Ohio, on January 30, 1885.  By 1888, Louis and his younger siblings had reunited in Los Angeles, where he had found work with the Kline Clothing Company and the Excelsior Clothing Company.  The Roth family—Max, Rosa, Kelly, Mike and Isidor—ultimately became very involved in Los Angeles’s Hungarian Jewish community.

In January, 1888, Louis’s financial position was stable enough for him to marry Miss Fannie Gerson.  Unfortunately, the marriage did not last; they divorced just five months later.

By January 1891, Louis was in Phoenix, Arizona, operating his own cigar and confectionary shop on Washington Street, near the Monihon Building.  It’s possible that he came to Arizona for his health, considering that he died of consumption on April 12, 1894.

Louis’s brother Max traveled to Phoenix to see him properly buried in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery and to close out his business affairs.  When Beth Israel Cemetery opened in 1903, the family had his remains moved there and a fine marble monument erected in his memory.

Fast forward to January 2019, when Tim Kovacs was visiting the Beth Israel Cemetery.  While there, he happened upon a broken marker on which he recognized the place name Kovacs Vagas—a Hungarian village about 33 miles from where his own ancestors originated.

On February 9, 2021, Tim received a surprising message from Geri Roth Jacobson, Louis Roth’s great-niece.  She had spent thirty years looking for a grave marker for her “Uncle Leo” in California, but to no avail.  Only by luck had she come upon his memorial on Find A Grave.

Because Roth had originally been buried in the IOOF Cemetery, Geri appealed to the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association for help with repairs, and its preservation team responded.  The restoration was a success and, on December 21, 2022, Geri and a contingent of relatives from California visited the grave for the first time ever to view the results.

- By Tim Kovacs and Donna Carr

 

#5 - Grant LeBarr (1864 - 1890) - Freighter

PCA Archive

Grant LeBarr was born in 1864 in California to Johnnie and Mary LeBarr. By 1879, the family was living in Phoenix. A freighter, LeBarr was shot by John Stoops on December 21, 1890, in front of Jakey’s saloon at the Peck Mine. His body was returned to Phoenix for burial next to his father in the IOOF Cemetery.

Frederick Balsz (1831 - 1910) - Butcher and Meat Cutter

 

Picture Courtesy of PCA

Frederick “Fred” was born August 18, 1831 in Jugenheim, Germany, to Bartholomew Balsz and Phillipine Gerisch.  The couple had eleven children born between 1814 and 1836, several of whom came to the United States.  Frederick’s mother Philippine is believed to have died around 1836 in Germany shortly after the birth of her last child, David.  Bartholomew, a butcher, then immigrated to the United States with some of their younger children, settling in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Young Fred is thought to have married at the age of 17 in St. Louis and had a son he named Frederick, Jr.  The name of Fred’s first wife is unknown, but she died about 1849.

Soon thereafter, Fred left his son with family and went west with his brother David, who would have been 13 years old.  The brothers drove a team of oxen along the California Trail to Sacramento, where they found work as butchers.  They remained there until Fred eloped with his second wife, Mercedes Gonzales, around 1860.  The couple had three boys and one girl before Mercedes died about 1867.  Shortly after, Fred married Eliza Tapia who was about 16 years of age on November 12, 1867. She bore him five more children before her death in 1878.

By this time, Fred’s younger brother David had opened a slaughterhouse north of Phoenix in the Arizona Territory, so Fred moved his family there. Between Fred the butcher and David the cattleman, they had the perfect vertical business model.

Fred married his fourth wife, Sotela Bracamonte, on October 29, 1879 in Phoenix.  She was about 17 years old; he was 48.  Fred and Sotela would add at least ten more children to the family.  Between Fred’s family and David’s family, they had enough children to open their own school--Balsz School—which still exists today in Phoenix.

Fred continued to work as a butcher, going into business for a short time with Frank D. Wells in Phoenix.  That partnership was dissolved in 1884, by which time Fred’s sons were in business with him. 

Sotela died February 8, 1899, in Phoenix of heart disease and was buried in the family plot in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.   Fred did not remarry this time, but he had plenty of children to care for him in his final years.  The number of children he fathered fluctuates by different accounts, but in 1906 he said he had had 19 children by his four wives.

Fred died at the home of his son Joseph on June 13, 1910.  He had suffered a bout of pneumonia the year prior and never fully recovered.  He was buried next to Sotela.

© 2020 by Patty Gault.  Last revised June 28, 2020

To obtain a copy of the sources used for this article, please contact the PCA to make a suggested donation.  azhistcemeteries.org

Alexander Peter Petit (1819 - 1895) - Architect

rosson house, Library of Congress

Alexander Peter Petit was a well-known architect of his time in 1850s California designing theaters such as the National Theater and the New Pacific Theater.  Born in Pennsylvania around 1819 he and wife Catherine arrived in Phoenix about 1878 from California. 

Shortly after his arrival, he designed the Irvine Building on First and Washington Streets, one of the first two story brick buildings in Phoenix.  Petit and his wife moved to Tucson where he designed and built some of the commercial buildings along Congress Street, including the Henry Buehman Photography Studio and Gallery and a school near Military Plaza.  The Arizona Daily Star erected in 1883 is the only remaining evidence of Petit’s work in Tucson.

The Petits returned to Phoenix where in February 1891 Catherine died after a short illness.  She was buried in the IOOF Cemetery at the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park. 

Petit continued his work and his last design was the Rosson House located at 6^th Street and Monroe.  The Rosson House was completed a month before Petit died in March 1895. 

Alexander Petit’s contributions to Arizona have faded over time and one must search for his history.  The Petits’ graves were unmarked for many years in the cemetery making finding the Petits even harder to any historian.  In 2015 the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, through our Memorial Marker Program, placed two new markers on the Petits’ graves in the I.O.O.F. 

-Donna Carr

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