By Al Bates

The building known as the Governor’s Mansion started as and remains the centerpiece of the Sharlot Hall Museum campus.  It also is the subject of a classic piece of Prescott lore.

That lore states that the request for proposals for its construction was published in the Arizona Miner in June 1864.  So when Bill Bork was researching the project he went to the Miner files to get the precise wording.  Guess what?  Bork found that, “No such call for bids appeared in the Miner.”

Prescott-born Dr. Albert William Bork, scholar and historian, had a personal reason for getting the story correct, since one of the builders of the Governor’s Mansion was his maternal grandfather Daniel Hatz.  Hatz was a confectioner and baker from Switzerland who arrived in Prescott in early 1864 with his friend John Raible, a German who had apprenticed as a carpenter.

This early photograph of the Governor’s Mansion was taken sometime in the 1880s with Henry D. Fleury seated on the front porch (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum Call Number: BU-G-534pe).

From his grandfather, Dr. Bork heard stories about others involved in the building’s construction, including Samuel E. Blair from Pennsylvania, a carpenter, and Phillip Sheerer, a miner from Germany.  There also were floaters who worked briefly as carpenters at ten dollars a day to build a stake and then left to try their luck at the gold fields.  Hatz and Sheerer were not carpenters so their contribution was to cut the large pines growing on the site, splitting and hewing them with broad axes to prepare the building logs.

Governor Goodwin and Secretary McCormick after almost a year living and working in tents were so eager to move in that they took occupancy while construction was still going on despite unfilled chinks in the log walls, glassless windows and missing hardware.  McCormick occupied the north half, Goodwin the south.

Once construction was complete, Hatz and the other builders took up different pursuits.  Raible and Sheerer established a brewery, probably Prescott’s first.  Hatz and Raible were associated in mining ventures and local politics.  Each served as a city councilman, and Hatz was also city assessor and tax collector.  Hatz, beginning in 1876, owned and operated one of the first hotels in Prescott located a block south of Whiskey Row.

The original Mansion was roughly hewn, but with the arrival of sawmills, improvements were made and when Governor McCormick brought his new bride from the east, its layout changed to be suitable for a married couple, not as bachelor quarters.  Once the seat of Territorial government moved to Tucson it became the private residence of Henry D. Fleury and thus to suffer three decades of neglect.

This rear view of the Governor’s Mansion was taken in the 1890s and shows the effects of neglect and disrepair. On left is the stable entrance to the backside of the Mansion and the horse in standing next to the kitchen, neither of these structures exist in today’s Mansion (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum Call Number: BU-G-534ph).

After Fleury’s death in 1895, Joseph Dougherty bought the building and converted into a duplex that he shared with tenants.  Most of the changes Mr. Dougherty made were not structural (except for addition of the dormer) but cosmetic, including interior paneling and outside clapboard siding and addition of flooring to all rooms beyond the two front rooms.  He also installed electricity and plumbing.

The Mansion became property of the state in 1917 and the City of Prescott agreed to maintain it and to provide utilities.  Ten years later Miss Sharlot Hall was permitted to live in the Mansion and to operate it as a museum.  The artifacts she collected remained after her death, forming the core of the museum now named for her.

Almost immediately Miss Sharlot began to restore the old building to its earlier appearance, removing the siding and refilling the log wall chinks with cement.  By the mid 1930s a partial restoration was complete but there was much left to do.  In the 1960s steel beams were placed in the attic to help support the roof and in 1980 three years of extensive work started from the foundation up.  A significant change was to replace the leaky and drafty cement chinking with adobe using a fiber binder similar to the original.

Rather than just stabilizing the building from further deterioration the decision was made to repair it where needed and to adapt it to better meet museum needs.  Another critical decision was to use it to picture life in the 1860s, while occupied by Governor McCormick and his wife Margaret, by display of both original artifacts and replicas.

The restored Mansion was rededicated and reopened to the public in June 1983.

A modern photo of the Governor’s Mansion on the Sharlot Hall Museum grounds taken in 2001 (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum Internal Archives).

“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit ideas for articles to dayspastprescott@gmail.com

By David Stephen

Yavapai County Road 68 is a roughly 46-mile unpaved, back-country route that originates near Bagdad and comes to an end at Williamson Valley Road north of Prescott.  Also known as Camp Wood Road it carries a compelling legacy that interweaves Native American history and prehistory, forestry, homesteading, military campaigns, mining, ranching and tourism.

Traveling the road heading west, away from Williamson Valley, the road traverses across stretches of grassy flats, low ridges and shallow drainages gradually ascending through stands of pinon and juniper trees. After cresting a steeper climb through scrub chaparral vegetation, the road descends into a basin populated with fir and pine trees. A sign proclaiming “Camp Wood Area” is located where Camp Wood Road intersects with Forest Road 95 that comes in from the north.

1906 composite Map of Camp Wood area showing “Cooksie” Road in upper right quadrant (Map Courtesy of Author).

Modern maps place Camp Wood there, where I remember a small store, schoolhouse and sawmill were located in the1960s.  However, early 20th century surveyor’s maps and records actually place the original military encampment of Camp Wood about six miles further to the west, close to the homesteads that were established in the late 19th century.  From there the map shows the road leading to the Hillside Mine near Bagdad.

Maps of an area have the potential to be an interesting and often obscure source of historical information.  Maps depict information from many sources, each of which can provide a window into the history, families, traditions and livelihood of an area.  A good example can be taken from the earliest maps of the Camp Wood area.  A prominent geographic feature on many maps near Camp Wood is the Baca Float No. 5 (now the O RO Ranch).

That property has remained largely intact since its transfer to private ownership.  Because it is private property, only the boundary of the Float was mapped by federal surveyors.  The boundary is shown on the early maps of the General Land Office (the precursor to the Bureau of Land Management).  From the southeast corner of the Float on the 1906 maps, the Camp Wood area is shown to the south.  Depicted on the maps are nearby ranches including the properties of Clarence Denny, Paul Wright and Platt Wilder.  These were early homesteads that eventually became the modern 7-Up, Triangle HC and Yolo Ranches, respectively.

On the 1906 General Land Office map, close to the Clarence Denny ranch, is a road labeled “Cooksie Road”.  Although I recall hearing the name Cooksie during my stays at Camp Wood in the 1960s it did not link to historical documents in the Sharlot Hall Museum or other archival records. However, the 1900 federal census for Camp Wood lists a William (age 50) and Mary Cooksey (age 42) and referenced a family member not living with them.  I searched the Sharlot Hall online archives for “Cooksey”, finding pictures of Mary, William and Clare Cooksey.  Another picture shows William and Mary Cooksey and an unidentified woman at a house constructed in a style common to homesteads.  Sadly, the search also revealed a gravestone listing for Clare Cooksey. Born in late 1880 she passed away at the age of 4 and was buried at Prescott in 1885.

William and Mary Cooksey and an unidentified woman about 1910 in front of a typical homestead dwelling (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum, Call Number: PO-1675p).

Based on the SHM photos and other pictures the Cookseys most certainly lived at Camp Wood. However, there are no homestead records for either William or Mary Cooksey at Camp Wood or elsewhere in Arizona.  Because they do not appear on the next census, they seem to have moved on from Camp Wood before 1910.  A search outside of Arizona revealed that in 1913 William Cooksey was deeded a homestead in northern California.  I located an obituary listing for William who passed away there in 1914.  Mary Cooksey lived in the area until she passed on in 1920.  Having determined that Mary was born in Oregon I found a record that they were married at Grant, Oregon in 1875.  After nearly 20 years of living in Camp Wood they moved to California, likely as part of a local population decline caused by a change in the regional economy and the jobs that Camp Wood could support.

It is certainly interesting what can be learned from a misspelled road name on a nearly 110 year-old map.

“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past. The public is encouraged to submit ideas for articles to dayspastprescott@gmail.com.