Monthly Archives: October 1997

Prescott area towns hard-hit by ‘Spanish Influenza’ in 1918

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by Pat Atchison

The flu. Nobody wants it. Everyone tries to keep from getting it. We have all used it as a reason for missing work, school or a meeting.

In the fall of 1918, an influenza epidemic struck the United States with a force that was never again equaled. It had raged through Europe in May, June and July before reaching the U.S. Commonly called “Spanish Influenza,” its place of origin was never officially determined.

Victims had the usual flu symptoms including chills due to fevers that ranged from 100 to 104 degrees. Once the fever passed, usually in three to four days, the patient recovered. However, in many cases, complications arose which often resulted in death.

Residents of Prescott received word that relatives living elsewhere had died as a result of the epidemic. In Arizona, Bisbee and Globe were hard hit. While out breaks of Influenza occurred throughout the state and nation, Prescott seemed immune to the disease.

On October 3, 1918, an article appeared in the Prescott Journal Miner stating that eight cases of Spanish Flu had developed at Ft. Whipple within a contingent of invalid soldiers, which had come from Camp Dodge, Iowa. By the next day, there were five more cases. October 8th brought news that the disease had spread to the enlisted men. Ft. Whipple was quarantined, prohibiting civilian visitors from entering the grounds.

Despite the preventive measures in force at Ft. Whipple, citizens of Prescott were falling ill. On October 8th, the city health officer issued an order stating that until further notice no public gathering of any sort was to be allowed in the city. The Chief of Police, therefore, ordered that all schools, churches, lodges and “picture shows” be closed. Bold headlines announced on October 10th that, “ALL POOL HALLS IN COUNTY ARE ORDERED SHUT.” All music in places where dancing occurred was ordered discontinued. The Northern Arizona Fair, in Prescott, and the State Fair, in Phoenix, were both canceled.

Facilities such as Mercy Hospital on Grove Street (now Grove Avenue) were overflowing with patients during the 1918 influenza epidemic. The Mercy Hospital site is now the home of Prescott College (SHM Call Number: BU-B-8257pf – Reuse only by permission).

Preventive measures were announced. The State Health Department issued notice that, “all dishes used in public eating houses and all drinking glasses in use at soda fountains, root beer stands, etc. must be thoroughly scalded each time after being used.” All persons employed in public places were ordered to wear masks.

During the week before October 17th, over 6,000 deaths were reported nationally. Towns surrounding Prescott were hard-hit. Mining towns, the poor and non-English speaking communities were especially devastated.

Prescott was placed under a full quarantine in late October. During the time it was in peffect, no persons were allowed to enter or leave the city. The hospitals were full. Mercy Hospital in Prescott had 2-3 times the normal number of patients during the epidemic. An “emergency flu hospital” was opened in Washington School. Funerals for the victims of the disease were limited to families only.

By December, the epidemic was beginning to subside in Prescott. Early that month, the quarantine was lifted. The harsh reminders of that terrible epidemic are evidenced by the many gravemarkers erected during that time in cemeteries throughout this area and the rest of the world.

(Pat Atchison is president of the Yavapai Cemetery Association.)

Murder He Wrote: A rock art story

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by Edward and Diane Stasack

Liar or Legend? No one has said that Captain William F. Drannan (1832-1913), Chief of Scouts, was a fictional character, just that he was a liar. So suggests Harvey L. Carter, author of one of the most authoritative books on Kit Carson. In his book Dear Old Kit, Carter asserts, “what was narrated as fact by (this man) was actually a tissue of lies.”

Maybe not. A message engraved on stone (KILLED INDIANS HERE 1849 WILLIE DRANNAN), recently found east of Prescott amidst some ancient petroglyphs, may belie the claim that Drannan was a total fraud. It seems to push back the date of the appearance of the earliest White visitors (other than the Spanish) in Yavapai County. The exact location is being withheld until the site is scientifically recorded.

Who was Willie Drannan? According to Drannan himself, he became a companion to Kit Carson in 1847 when Carson befriended the youngster, traveled with the famous explorer Colonel John C. Fremont and, in time, became an accomplished scout. According to Carter and other historians he was a self-serving opportunistic scoundrel who invented his associations with Carson and Fremont, never was where he said he was, and never did what he said he did. Much of the criticism is based on inconsistent events and dates. The rock inscription suggests otherwise.

Fremont states he was with Carson in Taos in 1849, the same year his forth expedition reached the Gila River. Was Willie with any of these men? There is no independent documentation that Drannan was with either except for his own word, but the Fremont roster is incomplete. No matter what his critics say, Willie’s epitaph to “KILLED INDIANS” lies on a flat rock an easy ride from the route to the Gila River. It is unimaginable that anyone would fake this message from an obscure person in a totally remote gulch where it might never be seen.

At worst, it seems that Drannan may be guilty of mixing fact and fiction in his books, Thirty-one Years on the Plains and in the Mountains and Capt. William F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts. At best, he may be a chronicler who, in the tradition of recent ‘historical’ novels, attempted to add color to the gray of his reconstructed memories. The books were published late in his life, in 1899 and 1910, a time when recollections of exact details fade.

Either way, the inscription transcends the man, and it demonstrates the historical and cultural value of all rock art (i.e. petroglyphs, pictographs and geoglyphs). Willie Drannan’s words embody his values and the values of his culture at the time the message was cut in stone. So, too, do the prehistoric petroglyphs embody the values of the petroglyph maker and his/her culture at the time these images were created.

Of the two epochs, Drannan’s message is easier to decode because we understand his words, and it is associated with a period of history which is fairly well documented. The Indian rock art, which is itself a form of history, is just beginning to release to researchers the information it contains.

What do Willie’s words reveal about his culture and his values in the time period, 1849? Apparently, he had a personal motive and an expectation of cultural approval for killing Indians. His mind set led him to write in stone of his pride and triumph as a seventeen-year-old who “KILLED INDIANS HERE.” He may well have endured the ridicule of experienced hunters and scouts, or needed the approval of someone like Kit Carson. Carson was notorious as an Indian killer, albeit he claimed he killed only when attacked or in anticipation of attack. 1849 was the time of the gold rush, pioneering, and a time in which Whites killed Indians and Indians killed Whites.

An important aspect to this scenario is often overlooked; the others’ point of view. In a recent meeting with an Elder from an Arizona Indian Tribe, the authors presented a replica of the Willie Drannan inscription. The Elder asked, “What do you make of this?” We said it was a record of a chilling event, yet, a part of history.

He replied, “Well, I call it murder.”

Drannan’s brief inscription (only three words, a date, and his name) commemorates an event in the life of a very young scout. Nevertheless, it contains a wealth of information…but no more than does the ancient Indian rock art in Arizona.

Unfortunately, many rock art sites are being lost to us through natural erosion, vandalism, and the disregard of some developers. These vandals, and some custodians of public lands, invariably view the presence of petroglyphs as a problem, rather than as an opportunity for the preservation of this historical legacy.

The sites themselves cannot always be preserved, but they can be scientifically recorded and documented, which is a form of preservation. Prehistoric rock art is a priceless archive and library of information about ancient Indian culture, religion, and history. However, so is the later historic rock art created by Native Americans, explorers, pioneers, and others.

Only public support and awareness of their value can save these icons for future generations to study and enjoy.

(Edward A. Stasack is Emeritus Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Diane S. Stasack has a Ph.D. in epidemiology. They live in Prescott.)

Illustrating image

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(inscription drawing by author) Reuse only by permission.

Besides potentially being the oldest non-Spanish White inscription in the area, the above proclamation demonstrates a culture and value system from pre-territorial Arizona. At age 17, Drannan, flushed with the youthful triumph of a Biblical David, chipped the above message in granite. The weathered appearance of the inscription is consistent with one hundred forty-eight years of exposure to the elements, and contributes to its authenticity.

‘Castle on the Creek’ offers colorful history

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by Peggy Magee

It looks out of place . . . that ‘Castle’ in the new Fain Park in Prescott Valley. The Gay Nineties’ architecture, prevalent along Mt. Vemon Street, just doesn’t fit in with the surroundings along Lynx Creek. Old houses conjure up visions of families gathered together for holidays and the warmth of togetherness and memories of the happiness shared with loved ones. If the walls of the ‘Castle’ could talk, you would expect to hear tales of joy and laughter. But these walls have a much different tale to tell.

The story of the ‘Castle on the Creek’ starts in England with the Massicks family and a man named William Pedley. William had been doing some work in San Bemardino, California in the 1880s. He filed some mining claims during his stay in that area and upon his return to England he married (in 1889) the sister of Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks, our ‘Castle’s’ builder.

The Massicks family back in England had been involved with the mining industry. Thomas’ father managed a local mine in Cumberland. Young Thomas was ripe for adventure. It is very probable that Pedley’s tales of the American West lured Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks to Arizona. He was about 30 years old when he arrived in the Territory in the early 1890s.

By the mid-1890′s the Lynx Creek Gold and Land Company with Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks as Vice-President had been incorporated in The Arizona Territory. He built the ‘Castle’ as a British Manor House to be utilized for formal entertaining. Thomas included in the floor plan a ballroom and a wine cellar. Not many houses in The Arizona Territory were designed with those features. Today, when you stand and look at the ‘Castle on the Creek’, you can almost go back and hear the music in the ballroom, the clipped British accents, the Chinese cook yelling at a stray chicken – times of joy and laughter. Thomas maintained close ties to his homeland. He made frequent business and pleasure trips to England. It was said that the ‘Castle’ was designed to remind Thomas of his family’s home, ‘The Oaks’, in Britain.

This picture taken c. 1894 shows Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks, Mr. and Mrs. John W. McConnel, Sharlot Hall and her father, James Hall (SHM Call Number: BU-RE-4132p – Reuse only by permission).

Not all of the entertaining done at the ‘Castle’ was for business. Various items published in the local newspapers in the 1890s mention cricketeers as well as officers from Fort Whipple being wined and dined at the ‘Castle’. Thomas never married. At first his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. & Mrs.William Pedley, helped oversee the property and hosted the social activities. But for whatever the reason, (possibly the failure of the dam that Pedley built), the Pedleys left and returned to England. It is suspected that there may have been a falling-out between the brothers-in-law. The Pedleys did return to the United States but not to Arizona. The son of William Pedley, when contacted twenty years ago, knew very little of Thomas and his many interests in Arizona. Subsequently the running of the house was left to servants. The culinary skills of his Chinese cook were known throughout the northern parts of The Arizona Territory. Thomas entertained investors from England and the eastern United States.

Besides operating the Manor House and the Lynx Creek Gold and Land Company, he was also an inventor. Many invitations to his home were extended to secure capital for his inventions. The ‘Castle’ was one way to show potential backers the prosperity and civility of Yavapai County and, of course, Thomas, himself. John W. McConnel, a merchant from Manchester, England, was a backer of the Bucyrus Steam Shovel, one of Thomas’ patented inventions.

As the decade of the Gay Nineties was drawing to a close, so was the life of the ‘Castle’s’ owner. One day Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks was driving in his buckboard after inspecting one of his mines. His six-shooter fell out of his holster, hit the floor of his buckboard and discharged. The bullet went through his kidney and entered his lung. He fought death for almost a year but he succumbed in April 1899. When Thomas died at the age of thirty-seven, so did the formality of the prim and proper British culture which had reigned in this little comer of The Arizona Territory. There is sadness in knowing that Thomas enjoyed his Castle for less than a decade and had such an untimely and painful demise.

Almost a century has passed since Thomas’ death. The ‘Castle’ has had many occupants, but none as colorful as its first resident and builder. Many myths have been printed about Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks and his family. Those myths and the uncovered truths will be presented at the Northern Arizona Conference of Historical Organizations which is scheduled to meet October 18, 1997 at the Sharlot Hall Museum. Afternoon sessions begin at 1:30 p.m. and will have papers presented about Yavapai County history. Call the museum for details.

(Peggy Magee is on the Board of Directors of the Prescott Valley Historical Society. She teaches genealogy at Yavapai College and has been listed in ‘Who’s Who in Genealogy and Heraldry’ and ‘The World’s Who’s Who of Women’. She conducts genealogical and historical tours to the British Isles.)

Name of state’s oldest log cabin linked with Governor’s

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By Mick Woodcock

“What’s in a name?,” asked Shakespeare’s Romeo. Twentieth century people ask a version of that when they visit Sharlot Hall Museum’s Fort Misery. “Why is it called that?” they query. This brings out a fairly long response from the tour guide or docent relating the history of one of its owners and his hospitality. Along with this is the fact that the building has nothing to do with military history at all. The truth about Fort Misery’s name makes an interesting anecdote involving another the of the Museum’s buildings, the Governor’s Mansion.

Judge Howard, pictured fourth from left, and his wife are visited by the Robinson family in this 1893 photo. Fort Misery on the Sharlot Hall Museum grounds has recently been renovated and is now open to visitors. (SHM Call Number: BU-B-8333pa – Reuse only by permission.)

Sharlot Hall explained how Fort Misery got its name in a March 23, 1934 Prescott Journal Miner article. “Howard offered what he could of hospitality, Miss Hall explained, but being an easy-going individual he did not begin to compete with Judge Fleury’s well-ordered household in the governor’s mansion, where the judge himself cooked up meals whose fame spread through the territory. Hence the barristers termed the little cabin by contrasts, Fort Misery.” Whether that was true or not is a matter of conjecture, but it appears to have been a name that was given early and one that hung on.

When the building got its name, it was literally a miserable place to live in if we may judge by a July 18, 1868 article in the Arizona Miner. “Adieu to Fort Misery. – This is what, we suppose, Judge Howard said, when he, the other day, abandoned his castle, spiked its guns, and retreated to town. Dear old Fort Misery! despised, abandoned, and almost caved in, as you now are, your grim walls will still stand upright…” It is not difficult to imagine this as true considering the origin of the structure.

It was built in the winter of 1863-64 by Manuel Yrissari, a merchant from New Mexico who had brought the first supplies in to sell to the local miners. It was hastily constructed from local Ponderosa pine logs. It had a flat pine pole roof covered with a thick layer of dirt to keep out the winter snow and rain. As a temporary shelter, it was the hub of the small community. When the Governor’s Party arrived in early 1864, it was pressed into service as a Protestant church and the court room for the first term of court in the Territory.

When Yrissari had sold his stock of goods, the building passed into the hands of Mary Decrow Ramos. She turned it into a boarding house and it is possible that Judge Howard was one of her boarders. That is a logical explanation for his acquisition of the two room cabin when Mary and Cornelius Ramos moved to Lynx Creek.

Log buildings were originally intended to be temporary structures. One might imagine that little maintenance would have been done on Fort Misery by Yrissari, Ramos or Howard. Mud daubing would have fallen out in great pieces. The dirt roof would no doubt have turned to mud a number of times before it washed away or fell through the poles. No wonder the Judge abandoned it in the summer of 1868.

The amazing thing in all of this is Judge Howard’s attachment for this humble dwelling. A man of no small means, he was listed in the 1864 special census as having a net worth of one thousand dollars. He could have had more than a log cabin had he chosen. Instead, he had Fort Misery dismantled and moved to a lot he owned on south Montezuma Street. There it was reassembled and given a shingle roof.

All of his cooking was done in its stone fireplace. His law practice was conducted in the same room that he lived in. He was an unpretentious individual in what historians have referred to as “The Gilded Age.” He was elected to the territorial legislature, appointed as territorial Fish Commissioner for a time and served seven years as Prescott’s mayor in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

The only thing that could get Judge Howard out of Fort Misery was a woman. He wed Miss Flora Darby on March 14, 1892 at the Hotel Burke in Prescott. The Judge was seventy-two years of age; his bride, twenty-eight years his junior. They were showered with lavish gifts and the town went on a holiday.

A poem appeared in the newspaper four days later featuring the marriage and Fort Misery:

Fort Misery has only one master now -
The wedding bells have been rung;
Gone for aye are the good old times
And the happy songs once sung,
With so light, care-free a heart,
Will never be sung again,
For burdens soon will be weighing him down -
Ah! things were different then.
Soon it will be, ‘Hush! now don’t make a noise,
For baby is sleeping so sweet:’
Or, ‘Dear, it is very muddy outside,
Are you sure you cleaned your feet?’
How often he’ll sigh for Fort Misery then,
And wish he had never so foolish been,
For now he must always be in at ten -
Ah, things were different then!

Gone are John and Flora Howard, but Fort Misery lives on. Rescued from demolition in 1934 by Sharlot Hall and moved to the Museum grounds, it was saved for posterity. Restored this year with the aid of a grant from Arizona State Parks Heritage fund, it may once again be enjoyed as the State’s oldest log cabin.

(Mick Woodcock is the registrar at Sharlot Hall Museum.)

Join us at Sharlot Hall Museum for the dedication of the new interpretive exhibit in Ft. Misery. This will take place Saturday, September 13, 1997 during our Mexican Independence Day celebration from 10am until 3pm.