Frank B. Moss (1852-1906) - Mayor and Fire Chief

Phoenix Fire Department

Frank Benjamin Moss was born on September 15, 1852, in Slades Corners, Kenosha County, Wisconsin, to Francis Maas and Christina Schmidt.  He grew up in Wheatland, Wisconsin, where he began at the age of 16 to learn the blacksmithing trade from his father.

As a young man, he moved to the boom town of Virginia City, Nevada, where he worked at his trade and also ran a lumberyard.  He moved to Tombstone in 1878, where he initially worked as a teamster.  Wagon trains crossing southern Arizona traveled mostly at night to avoid the day’s heat and attacks by Apache Indians.  Reportedly, Moss came under fire on two occasions but escaped unharmed. 

About 1880, Moss relocated to Phoenix where he set up a blacksmith and wagon-making shop at the northeast corner of First Avenue and Adams Street.  On May 31, 1885, he married Ida May Harriman in Mesa.  They had three sons: Earl, Ralph and Ernest.

Business was good and Moss prospered.  He invested in real estate, ranched and raised cattle, did some mining and owned and trained race horses.  He also joined the volunteer Phoenix Fire Department, where his skills as a blacksmith and wagon-maker were appreciated.  By 1890, he was an assistant chief and by 1892 he was the chief. After being injured on the job, he had to give up his position as fire chief.  Moss then turned his attention to city politics and, in 1894, won a seat on the Phoenix City Council.

The political climate in the growing city was sometimes volatile.  Fed up with the wrangling, Dr. Roland Rosson resigned as mayor on April 6, 1896.  Moss was appointed acting mayor, a position he held until a special election was held on June 2, 1896.   Moss returned to work in his new blacksmith shop on the corner of Washington Street and Fourth Avenue.

On December 4, 1898, for unknown reasons, Moss moved out of his home and separated from his wife.   Citing abandonment as the cause, Ida filed for divorce on June 14, 1899.  Scarcely a month after the divorce became final, she married Orrin W. Lawrence, a Phoenix policeman. 

On July 10, 1905, Moss again became acting mayor. This time, he held the seat for almost a year.  During his stint, he signed into law several progressive city ordinances.

On the evening of March 19, 1906, Mayor Moss rode his bicycle to City Hall.  While climbing the steps, he complained of chest pain and medical help was summoned.  Moss died between 9 and 10 PM, likely of a heart attack.  He was 53 years old.

 Throngs of citizens viewed Moss’s body as it lay in state at City Hall.   After the funeral, he was interred in the Odd Fellows Cemetery. 

 -by Mark Lamm and Derek Horn

 

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

#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.

I.O.O.F Cemetery Scavenger Hunt

Photo by Sterling Foster

the I.O.O.F. Cemetery was created after the independent order of odd fellows purchased a piece of land to bury their dead, as well as others.  

Lindley Orme, a sheriff from one of our lawmen posts, is buried in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery.  

Below, you will see several clues to the I.O.O.F.  

The answers can be found on Find a Grave.  Our volunteers have placed all of our interred on this platform.  However, we do hope you will join us in Person soon.  

Post Your Answers in the Reply Section.  Good Luck!

Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records

1.  What does I.O.O.F stand for?

2.  Murdered on his way to Florence in 1873.  Grave marker is a replica.  

3.  Born in 1876.  Father made coffins.  Buried with his mother.

4.  Owned the Phoenix Illuminating Gas and Electric Company.  Born in 1847.

5.  Stabbed by a knife in 1879.  Was originally buried in the 1st City 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