Pioneers' Cemetery Association Won Another Grant!

PCA is very excited to announce we were awarded a preservation grant from the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. The grant was sponsored by Cactus Wren Chapter DAR of Chandler.  The grant will allow for PCA to use the services of a conservator for the preservation of markers and the Loring Vault in our cemeteries. Thank you to Kandy Wagenbach, Gera King, W. Jobeth Fjell and Jenn Shaffer Merry for your help. 

Feliciana Baker (1883 - 1884) - Tragic Death - A Short Life

Pioneers' Cemetery Association Archive

Feliciana was the firstborn daughter of Albert Cornelius Baker and Maria de Jesus Alexander. She was born January 3, 1883 in Yuma, Arizona. Thereafter, the family moved to Phoenix.

On May 15, 1884, little Feliciana found a quantity of morphine pills, routinely prescribed at that time, and swallowed a fatal dose. The overdose was not discovered until she fell into a stupor, at which time a doctor was summoned. A galvanic battery was applied for three or four hours in hopes of reversing the effects of the drugs, but to no avail. Feliciana died at 7 AM the following morning.

Feliciana’s funeral took place that afternoon at the Catholic church. Hers was the very first burial in the newly opened Masons Cemetery.

Feliciana’s father, Albert Cornelius Baker, was a lawyer born in Crawford, Alabama on February 15, 1845. He enlisted as a color-bearer during the Civil War and was captured at the fall of Vicksburg. However, instead of sending the youth to a prisoner of war camp, his Union captors kept him to work as a bootblack.

Baker had intended to study for the Methodist ministry after the war; instead, he gravitated toward law and eventually went to San Diego and San Francisco to practice. Although he moved to Phoenix in 1879, he continued to visit friends in Yuma frequently and it was there that he met his future wife at the home of her father, Judge Henry Nash Alexander.

Baker’s law career included a two-year stint as a United States District Attorney, 1882-1884. In 1893, Baker was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the territory of Arizona; he held that office for the next four years. In 1918, he was elected Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. -  from original story of Donna Carr 

Come to the PMMP and visit Feliciana, and other "residents" at our park!

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.

Influenza - Pandemics - 1800's

"Hard Case"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.45308

An influenza pandemic occurred between 1889-1890, and had re-occurrences up until about 1899.  It killed a million people worldwide.  

It transferred to America by transatlantic travel, and then was transmitted by our transportation infrastructure throughout the states.   

It was called "Asiatic flu" or "Russian flu", and later determined that the strain was Influenza A, subtype H3N8.  

On an interesting sidenote, an H3 antigen influenza did re-occur in 1968 as H3N2.  It was called the "Hong Kong flu", and arrived in the United States.  Tests on the very elderly during this time demonstrated that the majority had H3 antibodies from exposure to H3 viruses circulating in 1891.  This age group remained relatively well protected during the 1968 pandemic.  This type of study is called "sero-archaeology". 

Old death certificates may list the late 1800's influenza pandemic as Grippe, La grippe, or Influenza. 

We have at least 13 people in the PMMP who died from influenza during this time period.  In some cases, cause of death may have been identified as something else that may have been related to influenza, such as pneumonia, etc.  

La Grippe
Click Here to Read the Article and See the Reference

A Popular House Plan - 1898

A Popular House Plan
Click Here to Read the Article and See the Reference

All for $2,000, minus mantles........

Emma McGehon (1862 - 1903) - Stage Coach Station Owner - Enterprising Women

Emma McGehon
Archives of Pioneer Cemetery Association 

Emma was born around 1862 in Santa Cruz, California, to Causten Van Rensler Beauchamp and Sarah Elizabeth Hinton, who were originally from Virginia.  It should be noted that the name‘Beauchamp’ is usually rendered as ‘Beechum’ in early documents, since that’s how it’s pronounced. The Beauchamp family moved to Phoenix from Santa Cruz, California, around 1878. 

They managed the Swilling Hotel.  Later, they operated the stage station on the Black Canyon Road near where it was crossed by the Arizona Canal.  As her parents aged, Emma took over more of the management on the stage station. She cooked for the stage passengers and provided a few amenities to women travelers.  She married William McGehon, a stage driver, in Phoenix in 1881.  They had two sons, one of which is buried next to Emma in City/Loosley, where she was laid to rest in Section B10, Lot 2, Grave 9.  Come visit Emma at the Pioneer Military and Memorial Park, and learn more about stage coaches, and the wild west!

Emma's stage coach stop would have been somewhere around here.  

Yellow Fever - Pandemics - 1800s

"Fleeing from Yellow Fever"
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
//hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.13083

Yellow fever was a flu-like illness that was later discovered to be spread by mosquitoes.  It was characterized by high fever, aches, chills, and jaundice, which is why it was called "yellow" fever.  Yellow fever spread throughout the United States during the 18th and 19th century.  Cities with primary ports suffered greatly, as the fever arrived from Africa.   It also spread down the Mississippi River.  Boston, New Orleans, Savannah, and Memphis were stricken down with the illness, and the disease caused wide spread panic and disruption.   

The PMMP has no known burials due to Yellow Fever.  However, it is possible that someone did die of the illness, and the obituary or death certificate listed it as something else.  
Old death certificates can list it as Bronze John, American Plague, Dock Fever, Stranger's Fever, or Yellow Jack or Jacket. 

"How One Family Eluded the Yellow Jack"
Click Here to Read Article and See Reference

"Ideas - Stacks of Them" - Letters to the War Department
Click Here to Read Article and See Reference

\

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/>

Ong Sing Yuen (1913) - Renaissance Men

Arizona Vital Records - Genealogy - Death Certificate

In the middle of City/Loosley Cemetery stands a solitary marble headstone bearing an inscription in Chinese. It is testimony to the fact that, for a brief time, Chinese immigrants made up nearly 10% of the population of early Phoenix. Some were railroad workers who had been laid off after construction on local rail lines was completed. Others came because the political climate for Chinese was better in sparsely populated Arizona than it was in the gold-mining towns of California and Nevada. 

They worked in small, family-run businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, hand laundries and vegetable farms. Although many of Phoenix's early Chinese residents eventually returned to China, about fifty were buried in the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park.

In 1993, archaeologist K. J. Schroeder asked William Tang, an associate professor at Arizona State University, to translate the inscription on the marble headstone in Loosley. Tang, a Mandarin speaker from northern China, translated it as that of Tang Xian Yuan, born in Canton province, Hoiping district, Da Lou village.

Years later, PCA researchers discovered the death certificate of Ong Sing Yuen, aged about 51, who died 8 June 1913 and was buried in Loosley. Since the man buried in Loosley had been born in province, he would almost certainly have been a speaker of Cantonese, and 'Ong Sing Yuen' is in fact the Cantonese equivalent of the Mandarin 'Tang Xian Yuan'. - Adapted from a story by Donna Carr

Ong was a merchant living at 529 S. 7th Avenue, and there are many more things to know about him.

If you would like to learn more about Ong, visit the Chinese Pioneer Memorial and us at our Pioneer Military and Memorial Park library!

Cholera - Pandemics - Early 1800s

"Ginger Brandy"
 Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b47948

In the 1800's, Cholera reared its ugly head in the States.  It was believed to arrive in New York harbor in 1832. It presented itself as watery diarrhea and vomiting, and was contracted by drinking contaminated water, milk, or by eating contaminated food. It spread throughout the United States via canals, railroads, and boats.

Cholera was often listed on death certificates as Choleric Fever, Cholera Morbus, or Dysentery.

Another ailment with these symptoms was called Cholera Infantum.  Several infants in the PMMP are listed as having died of it, but this was a different illness.  The term was used because the symptoms were similar to Cholera, but were not contagious.  The illness occurred between April and October, mainly to infants who had been weaned.  When proper refrigeration of food came about, less was seen of the illness.

This ailment was often listed as Cholera Infantus, Water Gripes, Summer Complaint, or Weaning Brash on death certificates.  

Read these two stories in Arizona newspapers:

"It Was Heaven's Will"
Click Here to Read Article and See Reference

"How We Guard Against Cholera"
Click Here to Read Article and See Reference

U of A Tuition Free! - 1893

How things have changed........

Picture from:  The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]), 03 March 1894.

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

<https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84021912/1894-03-03/ed-1/seq-2/>

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!

Mary's Cafe Fare - Week of April 20

A few new recipes from "Mary".  

Click the picture to download the menu.....