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Finding Jay

           Jay wasn’t really lost. He lies in the old Knights of Pythias Cemetery in Phoenix, having died sometime between 1884 and 1914, the years that cemetery was in use. Someone put a marker on his grave, a large, almost pink, granite boulder that sits on a base. It says only, “In Adoring Memory of Jay.” It sounds like someone loved him-- a mother, perhaps a young wife. Many of us have examined the stone for the name of a monument company or a carver, but nothing could be found. The earliest inventory of the cemetery, done in 1940, recorded only “Jay.”   I decided to try and find out just who Jay was.

          From the cemetery list our Association had put together, I searched the burials in the K of P Cemetery. Two other known burials in that lot were made in 1896. There was one Jay, but he, clearly, was buried elsewhere in the cemetery.  J. Roe Young, Jr., an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a train mishap in 1896, was a possibility. He had a brother, John, who died in a mining accident in 1899, and who was also buried in that cemetery.  J. Roe Young Sr. lived in Sacaton, and it seemed unlikely that there would be a gravestone for only one of two sons.

          We also had a death certificate for J.H. Miller who died September 7, 1895, aged 29, buried in K of P Cemetery; cause of death was a gunshot wound. The 1870 Census of Sacramento, California, Ward 5, lists Susan Miller, 28, and her son Jay, 5, born in 1864 in California.  Jay was a 15 year-old young man living in Sacramento with his mother, Susan, and step-father, John W Hayes, in 1880. By 1895, he had been working for the Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad for seven or eight years and was in charge of the freight department as general solicitor. He had sent a $50 draft from the Valley Bank to his mother in Oakland 2 days before his death.

          Miller’s obituary in the Arizona Republican on September 8, 1895, said that Jay H. Miller was found shot, lying in the alley behind the saloon minutes after leaving that establishment. There was much confusion and controversy surrounding the death. Suicide was suspected, but one man was arrested for the murder. The jury was unable to reach any conclusion as to the circumstances of the death; the murder suspect was released after his testimony. So far as we have been able to find, the case remains unsolved.

          The probate of J.H. Miller’s will found at the Arizona State Archives stated that his estate was valued at about $800.  Notice to creditors was placed in the Phoenix Herald, and his mother, Mrs. Susan Miller Hughes of Oakland, came forth as his only heir.

          The records of the undertakers, Randal & Davis of Phoenix, have not survived. Queries placed on the Internet received no replies. Another query asking about the unusual gravestone, also, went unanswered. I continued to wonder how to learn who Jay was.
           

          On November 25, 2006, while picking up trash in the cemetery, and telling a friend the story of Jay, I reached down near that marker as the sun shone brightly, low in the southeast sky.  As I glanced at the stone from that low angle, I was able to see the lettering that we had missed all these years. It clearly reads “H. Miller.” The lettering is on the underside as the stone rests now, making one wonder if it once was tilted up more so that both faces would be read.

          This is one of the joys of research. With work and a bit of serendipity, mysteries can be solved.

--Diane S., November 2006

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