By Sue Willoughby and Terry Munderloh

The simple task of preparing meals or doing laundry today is an easy job compared to the travails women faced in the barren and hostile environment of the early west. In addition to providing the basic sustenance’s for their families, many of these frontier women made time to spin and weave, make their families’ clothes and quilts, teach their children to read and write, feed ranch hands and animals, grow gardens, keep diaries and provided art and culture to the community.

From an early age, daughters and granddaughters worked at their mothers’ sides learning these domestic skills and toiled in the fields and worked the range with their fathers and brothers. These emerging generations of the early pioneer women also pioneered new frontiers. As life became less harsh, they were able to acquire more education, become politically informed and active in women’s clubs, and also became the custodians of their heritage by recording and preserving history.

Norah Clough Hartzell was a third generation Prescottonian of pioneer stock. Her maternal grandparents and mother, Mary Jane Alexander, arrived in Arizona in 1864, the same year Governor Goodwin convened the First Arizona Territorial Legislature assemblage at Prescott.

Her father, Alfred Sumner Clough, was a native of New Hampshire who left home to explore the west at age 21. He was in Salt Lake City when he heard of the gold strike on Lynx Creek and came to Arizona via Lee’s Ferry in the winter of 1864-65. Having poor luck at mining, he took up such odd jobs as cutting hay in Williamson Valley and working as a teamster. Sharlot Hall stated that he cut, hauled and set up the first flagstaff in Prescott.

Norah’s parents were married in 1874 and her brother, Frank Sumner Clough, was born in 1875. By this time her father had taken up farming. The Arizona miner published the following item on July 30, 1875: "Mr. A. S. Clough, of Point of Rocks, whose corn was as promising as any in the county, informs us that the rains came too late to do him any good. His crop was higher than his head, and if it had rained ten days earlier than it did, his prospect for the finest field ever obtained in these parts was first rate. The rain, however, held off and while it descended copiously on his neighbors in several refreshing showers, it was not until the 15th of July that it rained on the Clough farm, and now his corn is past redemption except it may be for fodder. This is the sixth year Clough has lost his crops either by drought or hail. The few vines and vegetables left him by the demon this year were beaten into the ground by hail on Sunday night."

Alfred finally gave up trying to grow crops with rainfall and in 1877 purchased the Joseph Curtis Ranch near Point of Rocks which consisted of 200 acres of irrigated land on Granite Creek. On this ranch Norah was born on April 1, 1878.

Little is recorded about Norah’s youth but one can assume that, like her contemporary and friend Sharlot Hall’s youth, many demands were made on this only daughter of a farming and ranching household. The family began to prosper on their new land and Norah was able to attend the rural schools and later attended a school of home economics in Boston.

Her brother had died in 1892 and in 1908, upon the death of both her parents, Norah sold the family ranch. In 1914 she married Clark K. Hartzell, a practicing dentist who had come to Arizona for relief of asthma. The Hartzell’s made their home at 228 South Pleasant Street in Prescott.

Norah was a member of the Monday Club and took an active part in its projects. She and Sharlot Hall served as Arizona delegates to the General Federation of Women’s Clubs conference in 1924. She was one of the founding members of the Historical Society of Prescott that, in 1929, established what is now the Sharlot Hall Museum.

The Hartzell’s enjoyed studying the history of the early Indians and collected many fine artifacts through the years. Upon Dr. Hartzell’s death in 1951, a portion of his estate was donated to build an addition to the museum to house the Hartzell’s priceless collection of Indian rugs, bowls, baskets and jewelry. Due to rising costs, the addition was delayed so Norah provided the extra money needed for its construction.

Norah had been a patient at the Community Hospital for 3 1/2 years when the Hartzell Room was finally completed. She was taken on a stretcher by ambulance for the room’s dedication. When she died in January of 1957, the Sharlot Hall Museum closed on the day of her funeral, honoring this pioneer woman who was one of it’s chief benefactors.

(Sue Willoughby is the director of the Phippen Art Museum and Terry Munderloh is a Sharlot Hall Museum archives volunteer.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bui190p)
Reuse only by permission.

Norah Clough Hartzell, born in 1878, shown here working in the kitchen of the Clough ranch in Granite Dells not far from the location of the Phippen Museum. The museum is opening an exhibit about pioneer women in the west.

By Anita Zeller

Memories are a big part of the Christmas season. They link the past with the present, preserving tradition in the heart as well as the mind. While memories may not always record history with pinpoint accuracy, they can offer an overall view of a time now gone, and give warm insight into the nature of the person who is recalling and translating the past.

In doing the research for this article, I found some memories that I felt needed to be shared. The language and the imagery of those recollections seemed to me both graceful and vivid. They captured early Prescott at Christmastime in a way I could never hope to do.

In those pioneer memories dwelt the Ghost of Christmas Past, and he lead me to the edges of an untamed land wrapped in the untamed winters of more than 130 years ago. Sights, sounds and smells mingled around me. As I read, the Christmases of 1863 through 1865 became as much a part of my reality as the walk I had taken earlier that morning.

In December of 1863, Roman Catholic Archbishop Lamy was traveling the Arizona portion of his diocese in the company of a military reconnaissance under the command of a Major Willis. Some time before Christmas, they arrived in the Prescott area. Three years later, Lamy turned in the following as part of his report to the Central Council:

"On Christmas Day we were able to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, to which 20 or 25 persons assisted, kneeling on the ground still covered with the snow which had fallen the day before. We were on the slope of a mountain, surrounded by forests of oak and pinion, silver leaf and cedar trees. The altar, placed in the shadow of green, had been improvised with the material on hand, consisting of trunks of trees. Some old boards which had done service, were used as seats and tables. At that time there were only two miserable huts. Today you find in this place the capital of Arizona."

The pioneer residents of that Arizona capital later shared Christmas memories with Sharlot Hall when she conducted a series of interviews with some of Prescott’s early settlers. In an article printed in the Prescott Evening Courier Miss Hall describes Christmas in Prescott, 1864, as she visualized it based on those conversations:

"Streets, there were none, but where Gurley now runs a rutted and snowy road was passable for army wagons, if there were enough mules in front. Trails worn by saddle and packhorses, mules and burros, and human feet, wandered here and there from cabin to cabin and out toward the edge of the forest and the scattered camps of gold miners. In the very center of the bit of flat, where the plaza now lies, campfires burned under trees, tents and shelters stood haphazard, and a few wagons with dirty canvas covers drawn close to keep out the snow, were pulled up under the best tree shelter their owners could find. Little bells tinkled from the necks of grazing animals all hobbled to keep them from wandering too far. Through the window shutters of whipsawed boards the light of fireplace or candles filtered out to cheer late travelers. There was not a glass window in Prescott that year, not even in the Governor’s ‘Mansion’. But there was Christmas cheer even if no windows reflected it."

There was a Christmas celebration at the Governor’s Mansion that year, and another the following year. A short article from the Christmas files in the museum’s archives describes the latter as follows:

"By Christmas of 1865 the young wife of Sec. McCormick had arrived and had become the first mistress of the mansion. Already she had made friends with the few families and all the people in the little camp. She proposed and helped with the first Christmas tree, which was set up in the front room of the governor’s house. Everyone was invited and there were great numbers of homemade gifts. The women had been meeting in Mrs. Ehle’s home to make little things, little pincushions and tiny handbags with drawstrings for the girls and wristlets and scarfs for the boys, and the new Mrs. McCormick divided up her pretty wedding handkerchiefs among the women. The women had baked dozens of little cakes to go in the bags and in place of candy there was brown sugar from Mexico in cakes, a very little real candy from San Francisco"

Each year in December the Sharlot Hall Museum holds its Frontier Christmas festivities. They include open house at the Museum Center as well as the Fremont and Bashford houses, and you can enjoy music and light refreshments around a roaring fire in the Sharlot Hall Building. If you missed Frontier Christmas this year, be sure to mark it on your calendar for 1998 (or any future year). Come share with us "An Arizona History Adventure."

Happy Holidays from all at the Sharlot Hall Museum.

(Anita Zeller is a curatorial assistant at Sharlot Hall Museum.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(pb150f2i25)
Reuse only by permission.

In 1865, more than a year since Prescott had been the capitol of the Arizona Territory, a Christmas tree stood in the Governor’s Mansion for the first time. No photos remain of those Christmas festivities, but now each year the museum holds Frontier Christmas festivities for the public and a Christmas tree is put in the mansion again. Christmas fills each of us with memories just as this photo from an unidentified Prescott home in 1925 surely has left an indelible mark on those who shared it.

By Sandra Lynch

Imagine what it would be like in a natural world, a world where your pantry was filled with wild seeds, wild animals and stone. In this pantry was everything you needed to live, if you had the resourcefulness to use it. Your livelihood depended on your skills to know the right plants to seek for calories and vitamins. If you were wily enough to trap and kill a few animals, you could get protein and fat to sustain your life. It was a time when your cookbooks were recorded in the memories and poetry of your mothers and fathers. That was the pantry of Yavapai County before there was a written history.

About five years ago, a former teacher showed me a book she was using in her Northern Arizona University classroom about contemporary United States Indians. The book, Native Americans, was published by an international tourism company, and began by describing the First Americans, the world of the Paleo-Indian. The first paragraph concluded: "They were simple people, really." That phrase, "simple people," brought me up short. What was the writer’s experience who had coined that turn of words? Had he ever gone hunting? Had he ever tracked a bull elk into a remote canyon, put a bullet into it, and then had to track it another two miles through underbrush and rock to find where the animal had finally bled to death? Had he packed down that steep canyon with his block and tackle to hang the six-hundred-pound beast?

Modern hunters come equipped with high-powered rifles, four-wheel drives, and gear that included steel knives, nylon rope and nylon packs. How difficult it must have been if the hunter had only stone to use for weapons and butchering tools, grass twine for rope and human muscle for transportation. Paleo-Indians were "simple people, really"…simply wonderful!

Partner to that hunter was a woman, equally as ingenious with stone tools as her mate. Women specialized in gathering food for the family’s pantry. A woman’s success as a gatherer determined whether or not a family would survive. Hunting has always been a tenuous strategy for survival. Science tells us that among the world’s remaining hunter-gatherers, some still endure as in Africa’s Kalahari bushmen, women alone provided seventy-five percent of the necessary calories for life.

As the family-based bands moved across the landscape, women moved burdened down with carrying packs. On her back hung the makings of the family’s home and belongings. Frequently, she supported an infant on her hip. Her eves never left the ground or thickets. Constantly she sought the seed plants, nut trees and berry bushes looking for food. With her free hand she reached for precious food packets. At temporary camps, she would scourge the area setting small animal traps to capture rodents. She lifted logs to find fat-bearing larva.

The woman would then take her pickings to the home camp where she had left a possession prized beyond emeralds or gold…the milling stone. The milling stone was her Cuisinart to which she applied her mother’s age-old recipes. Seeds and nuts were pounded or ground into powdery meal to which was added the tiny bodies of wood rats or a handful of fat-enriching termites or an occasional grasshopper. She would grind and kneed the ingredients into a gruel that sometimes was heated, sometimes not, becoming a porridge for a toothless child, or a toothless parent entrusted to her care. The milling stone insured that every hard-bought ounce of nutrient would not be wasted.

Milling stones may have been family heirlooms, part of a woman’s dowry brought to a marriage. The stones came in a variety of shapes, sizes and uses. Some stones were small enough to be packed inside the woven burden baskets, others were too large, and either cached in rock shelters or left open on the ground in camp grounds frequented seasonally as the bands exploited their territories. Farming societies fashioned large, ridge-lined platforms into troughs. A woman could kneel using a two-handed stone to grind corn as fine as baby powder. Hunter-gatherers used basin-like milling stones with rounded hand stones to chop food first, then grind it using circular motions. California Indians fashioned stones into mortar and pestle shapes that reduced tough oak acorns to a mealy paste that present day Cahuilla call wui-wish.

Prescott’s renowned archaeologist Robert Eular accompanied another great archaeologist, Henry Dobyns, into Walapai and Havasupai country to observe and photograph how milling stones were once used. Their work was printed in 1983 by the New Mexico Archaeological Society. They watched as women pounded pinyon nuts, jackrabbit meat, yucca, agave and prickly pear cactus fruit. "With soft foods, " they wrote, "the reduced pulp is given a final swirl or two with a circular motion of the mano. In short, this is less a grinding than a pulping."

At the time Euler and Dobyns were writing, Pai communities still used these kitchen implements. "We know of slabs so cared for that they have been used in the same family for upwards of half a century," wrote Euler and Dobyns. "Seeking specimens for museum deposit, we found them difficult to obtain. Whole stones were in use, and no one wished to go to sandstone deposits for slabs suitable for shaping new ones, a task reputedly requiring an hour."

Many bands did not have such easy access to rock they could convert into milling stones. Joan Schneider, an archaeologist from Riverside, CA, reported finding a milling stone quarry in Wellton, AZ, on the lower Gila River. Here against a volcanic basalt flow, early peoples had slabbed off perfect matataes. Thinkably, native bands would plan to swing by the quarry seasonally to replace their kitchen culinary.

Up until ten years ago, archaeologists overlooked the wonder of millings stones. There was an obvious reason for this: archaeology was a man’s vocation. When schools began to fill up with women students, a new dimension emerged as women studied women’s prehistoric roles. Today archaeologists probe the surfaces of milling stones with sophisticated technology. DNA tests have revealed a great deal of information about the diet of early folks. What science tells us now will rewrite the guidebooks. Simple people? Not really. The first residents of Yavapai County adapted to the environment in ways we cannot begin to duplicate.

(Sandra Lynch is curator of anthropology for Sharlot Hall Museum.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(iny2133p)
Reuse only by permission.

The original photo accompanying this article is not available. However, the above photo readily shows that the life of the early Arizona residents was anything but "simple". The men ‘hunters’ and the women ‘gatherers’ had their hands full just to sustain day to day life for their families. The old milling stones (monos and matataes) and hand-crafted basketry are still treasures today. This photo of an Apache camp in 1889 is typical of Arizona Apache and Yavapai camps of that era. Can you find the milling stones? There is one to the right of the water jug basket and basket bowl in the center of the photo and another on the far right near the woman’s bare foot.

By Richard Gorby

At 7:50 a.m. in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Admiral of the Pacific Fleet Kimmel was putting on his white uniform in preparation for a pleasant Sunday when he heard explosions. Rushing outside, he saw airplanes overhead, the Japanese Rising Sun on their wings. They circled and began diving on the battleships in the harbor. Kimmel looked on in horror as a neighbor cried, "There goes the Arizona!"

Prescott, that Sunday, was a town of 6000 people, many of whom had never heard of Pearl Harbor. For those leaving church, and for others, Prescott’s downtown Plaza was the place to go. On Montezuma Street there was the Palace Café, the Green Frog Restaurant, the White Café, Antler’s Buffet, and St. Michael’s Hotel and Restaurant on the corner. Across Gurley was the Owl Drug Store, featuring homemade ice cream, and across the Plaza to Cortez Street was the Santa Fe Buffet and Schaley and Stepans.

And after lunch, the MOVIES!

At the Elks, Betty Grable and Victor Mature in "Hot Spot", selected short subjects and Metronome News. Matinee was at 2:15 p.m.

At the Studio Theater on Cortez Street, "You’ll Find Out", with Kay Kyser, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff, with short subjects and Universal News. Continuous shows from 1 to 11 p.m.

Prescott had no Sunday paper then and the suggested Extra was deemed unnecessary because "news coming in was so inconclusive." Apparently many citizens finished Sunday knowing little or nothing about what was happing across the Pacific.

On Monday, December 8, 1941, from the Courier:

"This city remained relatively calm yesterday in the midst of announcements of Japanese bombardments of our Pacific possessions. A tension was created early by virtually mass realization that the attack meant war, but there were no scenes. The general attitude reflected in street comments seemed to be one of mixed courage and relief, which could be summed up with the observation:’Well its been coming and now that it’s finally here we can go ahead and lick the…….out of them.’"

The restaurant in the St. Michael Hotel put up a sign saying: "No Japanese served here."

However, Prescott apparently had no Japanese. "There have been no Japanese in Prescott for years. The only Nipponese seen here has been a little man visiting from California to do assessment work on a mine in this area."

A special assembly was held Monday at Prescott High School so all students could hear President Roosevelt deliver his war message to congress. Many teachers at the Prescott Junior High School provided radios for their classrooms for that purpose.

On Tuesday, December 9th, Prescott’s Civilian Defense Council was formed, meeting in the city hall building and making plans for defending Prescott and taking care of evacuees who may come from the coast, due to "probable enemy attacks." The council also planned the purchase of anti-aircraft guns and investigated the possibilities of using old abandoned mine shafts as air raid shelters.

Fire Chief Charles Hartin emphasized that sounding of 5-5-5 (the old National Guard call), now used for defense purposes, will not necessarily mean an air raid is in the offing. 5-5-5 would be blown for any defense cause that develops.

Albert H. MacKenzie , commander of the Ernest A. Love post, American Legion, demonstrated his willingness to cooperate in Prescott’s defense program by offering to patrol the water line from the city to the dam each night. His only request was that someone relieve him about 4 0′clock each morning.

It was suggested that the Elks building might be used for defense meetings.

At the Elk’s Theater, on December 10th, was Walt Disney’s "Reluctant Dragon" and "Tell Tale Heart", Edgar Allen Poe’s study of a murderer’s conscience.

How appropriate!

(Richard Gorby is a volunteer in the archives at Sharlot Hall Museum.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bub8019p)
Reuse only by permission.

The events in the Pacific had little immediate effect on Prescott. This 1936 photo of the Studio Theater which stood on the corner of Cortez and Union Streets shows a peaceful time in pre-war Prescott. Originally built in 1879 as the Goldwater Brothers Store, the building was torn down in 1979.

by Bob and Candy Heath and Betty Correll

While attending the Memorial Day Services at Citizen’s Cemetery a year ago, my wife Candy, her mother Betty Correll and I were asked to adopt a grave site. We willingly agreed but asked if it could be a grave of a California veteran, as all our relatives were in California.

We were given the grave of a California soldier, Private Joseph Hemphill. From the obituary that was supplied, we learned that he was born in Ohio. He came to Arizona in the early 1860′s while serving in Co. K 6th California Volunteer Infantry. He served as a private in the Civil War. He was a member of the Barrett Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. He died in Prescott on November 7, 1898 at the age of 72. He left no relatives in Arizona at the time of his death.

Being anxious to find out more about him, we went to the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives, looking for any person’s named Hemphill living in Prescott from 1860 to 1900. We found the above obituary in the Prescott newspaper.

We were encouraged by Richard Gorby at the Archives to research other sources, such as the voter rolls or the Great Register of Yavapai County. We found that Joseph had registered in 1880, listing his age as 50, then in 1896 as age 70 and 1898 as 72.

We also researched references to the California Volunteer Infantry in the 1860′s in the Prescott area but so far have not found references to Company K 6th Regiment. We think there may be more information at the archives to dig into.

Meanwhile, Pat Atchison suggested that we write to the National Archives in Washington for Joseph’s military records. First we acquired his pension records which contained a wealth of information including affidavits written and signed by Joseph attesting to the fact that he had been a teamster for the government in California and Arizona after his discharge from the Army. He apparently lived for a time during his last years at the National Military Home in Los Angeles and received a military pension of $12 per month for disabilities of rheumatism and cataracts.

We also learned that he had enlisted in the Army in April 1863 at the age of 36. We wondered why he left Ohio and what might have caused him to join the army.

Next we sent for his military service record from Washington. From that we learned that he listed his occupation at enlistment as a miner. Maybe he went to California in the 1850′s like so many other men to search for gold and not having found his fortune decided to enlist. Or maybe during the height of the civil war his patriotism required him to join for his country.

We learned that he mustered-in to Company I at Benicia Barracks, Forest Hill, San Francisco, California for 3 years service. And now we had his description! Joseph at the age of 38 was 5 feet 8 inches tall, had a dark complexion, blue eyes and black hair and weighed 150 pounds. We wondered if there might be a picture somewhere of him in his military uniform.

During 1864 he served on detached service as a steamer guard (?), but no reference to duty in Prescott or Arizona. He was discharged when his company was mustered-out in San Francisco in 1865.

We had never done any genealogy research before so we were not sure where to turn next for more information. Again Pat Atchison came to the rescue and uncovered two references for us to check out. One was a book from the Prescott Library titled "Record of California Men in the War of Rebellion 1861-1867". It confirmed Joseph’s dates of enlistment, muster-in and discharge. The other source uncovered by Pat was a reference in the "Yellow Jacket, The Great River Genealogical Society" publication, listing a Hemphill Historical Society in Woodstock, Georgia.

We excitedly wrote to the president to see if he had any additional information on Joseph or his family from Ohio. He wrote back to us that he had no information, but that he was currently writing a book that would list and record all Hemphills who had served their country in the military. He was very grateful for the information we had to supply him and appreciated that we were caring for the grave of one of his relatives. He also requested to notify the annual Hemphill reunion of our concern and caring for this unknown Hemphill soldier.

We still are looking for new references that might uncover more about Joseph. We feel compassion for this soldier, who served his country during time of war and later with no one to morn his passing, lay alone on a hill in Prescott. We hope that our small effort to decorate and maintain his grave will assure that he is not forgotten.

(Bob and Candy Heath and Betty Correll are Citizens’ Cemetery Adopt-A-Grave project members.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(c101pe)
Reuse only by permission.

Since ‘adopting’ the grave of Private Joseph Hemphill more than a year ago, Bob and Candy Heath and Betty Correll have found a wealth of information about the ‘Arizonan’ who came to the state in the 1860′s while serving in the California Volunteer Infantry. Hemphill’s grave is located in the Citizens’ Cemetery in Row C, Block 3, Plot 3.

Edited by Michael Wurtz

A Yavapai College class is currently studying 1914 in an attempt to learn about history from a different perspective. The students have chosen many different topics from prostitution to the status of Native Americans in Prescott and seeing what the town was like in 1914 in relation to these topics. 1914 is mostly known for the Great War which was beginning to show Europe, and the world, that battles were no longer going to be glorious as trenches lined the quiet farms of eastern France and western Russia. Although removed, for the time being, from the war, Prescott was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Prescott in 1864.

Prescott was also celebrating Thanksgiving 83 years ago this week. Along with the coverage of the war, the Prescott Daily Journal-Miner, had news from a revolution in Mexico led by Pancho Villa. The Miner, which claimed to be "A Live Paper for Live People," also had news of the new schoolhouse in Mayer, a large fire in Little Rock, Arkansas, and a story titled, "Bad Brace of Women in Prescott." This article is vague at best, but it appears to be about two women who came to town recently "plying a vocation to put baby shows out of the realm of possibility and deplete the American Army to a minimum." The true meaning of this story seems to be obscured by the writer who felt the actual events were unspeakable.

Prescott also had a grand Thanksgiving in 1914. "Swatting Flies Thanksgiving Day: Mercury Ranges From 28 to 70; Day Long To Be Remembered in Prescott" was the article about Thanksgiving activities published on November 27, 1914:

"It simply does not lie in the power of the weather man to make a finer day for Thanksgiving than the one in Prescott yesterday, and it is probable that the people enjoyed it to the full measure of their capacity for such perfect things.

In the morning the thermometer registered twenty eight above at 7 o’clock. At nine o’clock Old Sol had driven the silver point up twenty, and at noon it was 67, becoming still warmer than this as the beautiful afternoon wore slowly away.

It seemed that the whole populace enjoyed a day in the open. All the automobiles available were in use. Save the sheriff’s office, all of the office doors in the court house were locked from morning to night. The general delivery of the post office was open but one hour. Some of the down town stores were open a short time in the morning but there was none open in the afternoon. Professional men and their helpers also took a day off, save a very few who found it impossible to leave their desks until after the noon hour. The cigar stores, saloons, and pool halls were about the only places available for any one who wished to while away the time in the down town district. And in any of these places men were noticed during the day swatting at flies as though it was July, an incident of Thanksgiving 1914, which is worthy of transmitting to eastern people and pasting in the crown of one’s hat. The plaza was a popular place. There the comfortable seats were crowded with people all the afternoon, who seemed to enjoy the beautiful day as much as the more fortunate ones with their automobiles and carriages.

A number of sportsmen went to the turkey shoot at the Whipple Barracks in the afternoon, and many scores attended the football game between Prescott and Tempe teams at the ball park, witnessing the locals get another "trimming," it being the last game of the gridiron season.

It was a great day-a feast day- a sport day, and a day which could not fail to inspire thankfulness on the hearts of all Prescottonians for a multiplicity of blessings. And it closed last evening with religious services at the Odd Fellows’ hall, where Evangelist DeLaye delivered a Thanksgiving Sermon and the large choir, led by Prof. Pfaffenberger, sang many selections appropriate to the occasion.

Today it will be cold stew.

Tomorrow, turkey hash.

Saturday, bone soup.

And Sunday-just plain beef.

(Michael Wurtz is the archivist at the Sharlot Hall Museum)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(misc121pg2)
Reuse only by permission.

The Plaza was a popular gathering place during one of Prescott’s warmest Thanksgiving on record in 1914. The William O.’Buckey’ O’Neill Memorial had been unveiled in 1907.