 Anna Mary Fisher Dameron, 1839-1894 From Missouri to Arizona Porter Cemetery, Lot 55. There is no marker. (Generic image created using Bing AI) Anna Mary Fisher was born March 27, 1839, in Lewis County, Missouri. She was one of five children of James Fisher and Lucinda Doke, who were fairly well-to-do farmers.
On Valentine’s Day 1866, Anna married Willis Monroe Dameron in Adams County, Illinois. Willis had been married previously to Sarah Dysart, the daughter of a clergyman. She had died in 1860, presumably from complications following childbirth. Dameron, who was supporting his widowed mother and his little son Everett, seems not to have served on either side during the Civil War. After their marriage, Willis and Anna farmed in La Belle, Lewis County, Missouri. They had two sons of their own: Logan Douglas, born in 1867, and Richard Monroe, born in 1872. Logan was named after his paternal uncle, a successful dry goods merchant. The Damerons’ son Logan attended La Belle Academy and taught for five years before enrolling in Hospital Medical College in Louisville, Kentucky. After graduating in 1891, he moved to Phoenix where he went into practice with Dr. H. A. Hughes. By then, Anna was in poor health. When Logan returned to Missouri for a Christmas visit in December, 1892, he persuaded Anna and Willis to accompany him back to Phoenix. Anna lived for two more years before dying of pneumonia on December 31, 1894. After a Methodist Episcopal service conducted by Rev. W. A. Harris, she was buried in Porter Cemetery. Her husband joined her in January, 1907. Shortly after Anna’s death, her son Logan married Bettie Hughes, the daughter of his partner. Having helped to start the Arizona chapter of the American Medical Association, he became its president in 1903. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 29 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!
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 Charles Henry Petersen, 1851-1904 Brickmaker Buried in IOOF Cemetery, Block 12, Lot 1 (Grave marker photo courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Theodore Charles Heinrich Petersen was born on April 10, 1851, in Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia, to Jakob Petersen and Friederike Hansen.
Although the Petersens were of Danish ethnicity, they had adopted some German customs, such as passing on the father’s surname unchanged. In 1866, Germany asserted full control over Schleswig-Holstein and began conscripting Danish men into the German army. That may have been why Petersen immigrated to the United States in 1874. Family stories hold that Charles Petersen was working in Texas when he became a naturalized citizen. On October 30, 1888, he married Pauline Amalie Nissen, who was also from Schleswig-Holstein. The young couple took up residence in Campus, Livingston County, Illinois. However, Pauline died less than a year later, two weeks after giving birth to a son named Paul. Although born a U.S. citizen, baby Paul was apparently sent back to Bredstadt, Schleswig-Holstein, to be raised by his grandparents. 1892 found Charles Petersen in Phoenix, Arizona, where he married his second wife, Ernestina Lena Yostina Popken, on September 15. They had several children in quick succession. Petersen was in the brickmaking business and owned a 20-acre brickyard south of downtown Phoenix. The Petersens lived on South Third Street, just a few blocks from Columbus Gray’s mansion. On November 6, 1900, Mrs. Petersen was at home alone with the children when noises in the back yard alerted her to the fact that a vagrant was trying to steal the family’s calf. Armed with a shotgun, she ordered him to leave; however, when he charged at her, she fired, killing him. The coroner’s jury reported that he had recently been released from jail. While riding his bicycle down Washington Street on December 28, 1904, Charles Petersen turned in front of an oncoming streetcar, lost his balance and fell. He was crushed between the streetcar and the rail beneath. The newspaper reported that the widow’s grief was pitiful to behold; she was left with several children to raise, the oldest being only eleven, and she was nine months pregnant. Petersen was buried in Block 12, Lot 1, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery. Just a day or so after his funeral, his widow gave birth to a posthumous daughter. In 1909, Petersen’s son Paul returned to the United States to reclaim his American citizenship. He served during World War I in the 38th U. S. Field Artillery against Germany. It is not known whether he ever visited Arizona or had the opportunity to meet his half-siblings. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 28 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Martha Tannehill Evans, 1846-1903 Married Late Buried in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 5, Space ½ (Grave marker photo courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Martha Tannehill Evans was born in September, 1846, in Logan County, Ohio, the daughter of James Tannehill and Ruth Patterson. The Tannehills’ first two children were born in Ohio but, around 1847, the family had moved to Davis County, Iowa, where their last six children were born.
Possibly it was the promise of abundant farmland that attracted the Tannehills to Iowa, as James was a farmer and his sons became farmers. On November 30, 1876, Martha married John Robert Evans in Davis County, Iowa. Surprisingly, she was thirty years old by then and probably would have been considered a "spinster." However, since Martha’s younger sister Lovena was blind, perhaps she was needed at home until then. John Robert Evans was a farmer, like the Tannehills. A widower, he was twenty years older than Martha and had been married previously to Louisa Adeline Miller, who died in 1875. John Robert often appears in the public record as J. R. Evans. Martha very likely raised J. R.’s two youngest children, and they did have a ‘late in life’ son of their own, Robert James, born in 1885 when J. R. was nearly sixty. The Evanses farmed near Bloomfield, Iowa, until November 22, 1898, when they moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Martha’s younger brother Joseph Edgar Tannehill had moved there around 1896, and perhaps the Evanses found the idea of a warmer climate appealing as they grew older. Nor were they alone in that, as Martha’s widowed father and four more of her Tannehill siblings either accompanied them or joined them soon afterward in Arizona. The Evanses were Presbyterian, and Martha was active in church work during the last years of her life. Martha died of pneumonia on December 15, 1903 at the family home about a mile west of the Indian School. She was buried in the family plot in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 5, next to her little step-grandson, Otto Evans. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 12 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Louise Gregory, 1903-1903 Infant, aged 5 months Buried in AOUW Cemetery, Block 24, Lot 1, Grave 8 (Photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Louise was the only child of Walter T. Gregory and his wife, Augusta Frances “Gussie” Russell. She was born around July or August and died in Yuma on December 20, 1903, of “stomach and kidney trouble." Her parents brought her little casket to Phoenix for burial, because that had been Mrs. Gregory’s home and her parents were still living there.
By the time of Louise’s birth, her father Walter had already had a rather colorful life. The son of a hotelier, he had been born in frontier Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1873 and had grown up in California, Tombstone and Tempe, Arizona. Walter was working as a newspaper reporter in Phoenix when the Spanish American War began, and he enlisted immediately in Company B, 1st U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, otherwise known as the “Rough Riders." That short war had scarcely concluded when Gregory reenlisted in Company K, 4th U. S. Cavalry to serve in the Philippines. Although generally in good health, he suffered recurrent bouts of malaria from his military service in the tropics. Upon his discharge, he went to New York for a brief period but returned to Arizona when his father died in Tucson. Thereafter, Walter moved back to Phoenix where he met and married Augusta Frances “Gussie” Russell. In 1903, Walter’s former military commander, Alexander O. Brodie, by then territorial governor of Arizona, appointed Walter secretary of the territorial prison in Yuma. It was there that little Louise was born and died. Walter and Gussie divorced within the next few years. Disillusioned with life out West, Walter moved back to New York, where he found work with his brother Will’s theatrical booking agency. Unfortunately, he succumbed to pneumonia on April 16, 1909. Because of his military service, he was interred in Arlington National Cemetery outside of Washington, D. C. The parents of Walter’s ex-wife had by this time relocated to southern California, and she had joined them there. Gussie, or Frances as she was now calling herself, met and married Edmund J. Mulvihill, Jr., a railroad telegrapher. However, she died still relatively young in Los Angeles on May 31, 1927. © 2022 Donna L. Carr. Last revised 18 February 2022. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Thomas Jefferson Newland, 1830 – 1896 Prospector Buried in City/Loosley Cemetery, exact location unknown. There is no grave marker. (Generic image created using Bing AI) Thomas Newland was born in 1830 in Tennessee, possibly to James Newland and Nancy Hazelrig. James and Nancy had a number of children, including sons named Archibald and Thomas. In 1850, this family was living in Crawford County, Arkansas, and these sons would have been old enough to be excited by news of the California Gold Rush.
1860 found a Thomas J. Newland and an Arch Newland farming in Pacific Township, Humboldt County, California. It seems likely that "Arch" was Thomas’s brother Archibald. Arch married in 1866 and thereafter moved to Idaho. In 1870, Thomas J. Newland was recorded as a miner living in a boarding house in Pioche City, Nevada. Sharing his room was an F. M. Newland, possibly another relative. Sometime in the 1870s, Thomas began to suffer from a chronic respiratory condition. It might have been asthma or silicosis, or perhaps it was a precursor to something like pulmonary tuberculosis. At any rate, he found that living in the desert as a prospector ameliorated his symptoms. In 1876, he was in Mohave County, Arizona Territory, when he registered to vote. Amazingly, Newland met a woman who shared his fondness for wide open spaces—a hardy divorcee named Saloma Larcombe. They were married on September 19, 1878, at her home in Globe, Arizona. Together, they worked several mining claims--the Defiance, the Pioneer, and the Saloma Mines—in Gila, Pinal and Yavapai Counties. At one point, they had a cattle ranch near Eagle Creek, but gave up on it in 1882 after the local Apaches massacred their neighbors. Although living in a remote campsite without the usual amenities could not have been easy, it was the lifestyle they preferred. As Thomas’s health declined, Saloma did the actual prospecting and brought the ores to her husband so he could judge whether her find looked promising. On December 12, 1896, Thomas died in Phoenix of what the doctor opined was chronic pneumonia, although it was probably something related to his previous respiratory ailment. He was buried in City/Loosley Cemetery. Saloma carried on by herself, living in a little camp near the Model mine in Yavapai County. In 1897, a reporter from the The San Francisco Call interviewed her and was surprised to find her well-educated, well-mannered and connected by marriage to a prominent family in California. She died of cancer on December 31, 1898, at Sister’s Hospital in Phoenix and was also buried in City/Loosley Cemetery, possibly near her husband. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 15 August 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  George W. DeGroot, 1842-1903 Railroad Employee Buried in Rosedale Cemetery, North Section (Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) George Washington DeGroot was born on January 3, 1842, in New York City. His parents were Edward DeGroot and Hannah West. The surname ‘DeGroot’ suggests Dutch origins.
In 1850, George’s father was listed on the federal census as a "clothier," someone who made and sold good-quality men’s clothing. He might have had a small shop. Living on the same street near the DeGroots were a shoemaker and a tailor. Between 1855 and 1860, Edward DeGroot moved his family to Adams County, Illinois, where he became quite a well-to-do farmer. Although George registered for the Civil War draft in 1863, no evidence of Civil War service has been found to date. George was working on his father’s farm in 1870. On December 11, 1878, George married Laura F. Garner in Illinois. Over the years, they had five children: Eugene Dawe, 1879; William Clyde, born 1881; Edith and Harry Lester (twins), born 1886; and Robert Stanley, born 1889. Instead of continuing as a farmer, George DeGroot became a railroad employee, possibly for the famous Rock Island Line. For some years between 1886 and 1890, the DeGroots were in St. Louis, Missouri. By 1900, they were back in Rock Island County, Illinois, and George and his son Clyde were working as a baggage handlers. In 1901, after 23 years of marriage, Laura DeGroot divorced George on the grounds of cruelty and infidelity. Not long thereafter, DeGroot seems to have come alone to Arizona. He was living at 4th Avenue and Jackson near the railroad tracks when on December 13, 1903, he died of pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Rosedale North, where he has a grave marker. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 7 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  George F. Parks, 1856-1888 Waiter at the Commercial Hotel Originally buried in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 4, Lot 3; Now in Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery, Section 8, Block 17, Lot 4, Space 2 (Grave marker photo courtesy of Donna L. Carr) George Fremont Parks was born in California in 1856. His parents were Charles Parks and Irene Taylor, and he had a younger brother named Charles.
Following the death of George’s father, the Parks family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. In 1879, Mrs. Parks married George Patterson, an immigrant from Norway. Young George Parks worked as a waiter at the Commercial Hotel in Phoenix during the winter months. During the summers, when there were fewer travelers lodging at the hotel, he would go up to Prescott to work. Like many local men, he was a member of the volunteer Phoenix Fire Department, Hose Company. On October 12, 1882, George married Mary Agnes Thompson Lucas, but the marriage may have been of short duration, as nothing more is known about her. On the evening of December 10, 1888, after serving supper to the hotel’s guests, George and three other waiters sat down to enjoy their own meal in the dining room of the Commercial Hotel. They were apparently talking and joking among themselves when the hotel’s Chinese cook, Wong Lee, passed by. Thinking that they were making fun of him, he made some profane remarks, to which George took exception. George and the cook took their dispute outdoors, where they probably exchanged a blow or two. Evidently George considered the incident resolved, for he came back to the dining room and resumed his seat. But the cook’s anger had not been appeased, for he followed George and, drawing a knife, stabbed him. George exclaimed, “He’s knifed me; look out for him!” and ran into the bar where he seized a pistol and went after his assailant. However, Constable McDonald caught George as he collapsed and carried him back to the dining room. Dr. McGlasson was summoned, but the knife had penetrated to the heart. George lingered for two or three hours, remaining conscious long enough to bid farewell to his grief-stricken mother. Wong Lee, George’s assailant, was swiftly apprehended and jailed amid muttered threats of lynching. Nevertheless, he stood trial in early February before Judge DeForest Porter and was adjudged guilty of manslaughter. Late in May, 1889, Wong Lee was conveyed to the penitentiary in Yuma to serve a six-year sentence. George F. Parks was initially buried in City Loosley Cemetery. Scarcely a year later, his mother passed away and was buried next to him. In 1918, their remains, as well as those of George Patterson, were removed to Greenwood Cemetery. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 3 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Andrew Jackson Brawley, 1835-1884 Stock Raiser Buried in City/Loosley Cemetery, Block 3, Lot 13 (Image generated using Bing AI) Born April 14 1835 in Carroll County, Tennessee, Andrew Jackson Brawley was one of eight children fathered by Milton Braley (sic). His mother was Milton’s first wife, name unknown. Around 1840, the Braley family moved to Franklin County, Arkansas, and took up land there. After the first Mrs. Braley died sometime after 1843 (her last child was born then), Milton married a widow, Mary Catherine Green Moffett, in 1847. They had two more children.
The second Mrs. Braley seems to have brought a considerable amount of property to her new marriage. But Milton fell ill and died, probably early in 1852. His estate consisted of 320 acres of farmland, farm implements, quite a number of cattle and one male slave. Settling Milton’s financial affairs took years as lawyers worked out how to divide the assets between Milton’s heirs, and Mary Catherine and the children of her first marriage to Mr. Moffett. A guardian was initially appointed for Andrew and his younger brother Dennis but, by the time they reached the age of 21, they were living with their older brother Ephraim’s family. Of the Braly siblings, only Andrew moved west, before the beginning of the Civil War. By 1865, Andrew—or A. J. Brawley, as he had taken to calling himself—was in Fresno, California, where he married Arza Jane Stroud on September 10th. Arza was the daughter of Ira Stroud and Rebecca Williams. Brawley evidently knew cattle, as he became a successful rancher. When the 1870 federal census was taken, he was a stock raiser worth $2,000. He and Arza had seven children in quick succession. Late in 1878, the Brawley family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and it appears that the Strouds came with them. Once in Phoenix, Brawley opened a general store and became a butcher. By 1882, he was supplementing his income by acting as night watchman and special constable. Mrs. Brawley was busy, too; early in 1884, she and her oldest daughter Alice had opened an ice cream parlor on Washington Street across from the Phoenix Hotel. By 1884, Brawley was the proprietor of the Dublin Corral, where he boarded and rented horses. A little after 6 AM on December 5th, he was going about his work when he was stricken by a sudden heart attack and died at the age of 49. He was buried in City/Loosley Cemetery. Brawley’s widow was left with several young children to raise. Fortunately, her parents were also in Phoenix and she could count on their support. In 1886, she married Eugene Bridgeman. Arza died in Los Angeles on July 3, 1910, while visiting her adult children. Her remains were returned to Phoenix for burial next to her first husband in City/Loosley Cemetery. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 30 November 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Perlina Swetnam Osborn, 1821-1912 Arizona Pioneer Buried in AOUW Cemetery, Block 17, Lot 4, Grave 2 (Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association) Perlina Elizabeth Swetnam was born on January 21, 1821, in Lawrence County, Kentucky. The daughter of Neri Swetnam and Mildred Cross, she was the youngest of their nine children. As Perlina is an unusual name, she sometimes appears on the census as "Paulina."
In March 25, 1841, she married John Preston Osborn, a native of Claiborne County, Tennessee. By 1850, they were farming in Morgan County, Kentucky., and already had four children. Around 1853, the Osborns relocated to Adams County, Iowa. The Civil War was in full swing by 1863, when they moved to Colorado, but they had their sights set on the newly created territory of Arizona. Early in 1864, the Osborns joined a party of emigrants traveling via Santa Fe to northern Arizona. They arrived in Prescott on July 6, 1864, with three or four ox teams and wagons loaded with flour, ham, and bacon which they sold to Prescott’s hungry miners. With flour selling at $1 a pound and bacon at $.75 a pound, they soon had enough capital to begin their family’s new life in Arizona. The Osborns built Osborn House, one of Prescott’s first hotels, which provided modest accommodations with a menu of pork and beans, bread and coffee. Perlina, by now expecting her tenth child, remained in Prescott to run it while John Preston explored Del Rio and the Verde Valley and tried his hand at farming and ranching. Unfortunately, his attempts came to naught as the local Yavapai tribesmen repeatedly raided his livestock and crops. The Osborns’ oldest children having reached marrying age, daughter Jenettie wed Joseph Thomas Barnum in 1865, and Louisa married an up-and-coming lawyer named John Alsap on June 6, 1866. However, the alliance was short-lived as she died barely a year later. The Osborn's son, John Jr., along with his erstwhile brother-in-law, John Alsap, moved south to the Salt River Valley in 1869, and John Sr. and Perlina joined them in January 1870, establishing a homestead at what would become McDowell and Seventh Street. Once again, the Osborns were among the first white families to settle in a pioneer town. John Preston, now in his sixties, became an influential citizen of the new town. Perlina was known for her nursing skills, and the Osborns hosted many a traveling minister during Phoenix’s early years. When John Preston Osborn died on January 19, 1900, he was buried in the A.O.U.W. Cemetery. Around the time of Osborn's death, the street that ran along the south side of the Osborns' farm became known as Osborn Road, a tribute to this pioneer family. Perlina passed away on December 3, 1912, at the age of 91. © 2024 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised November 28, 2024. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Amos G. Randal, about 1828 -1897 Undertaker Buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 38, Grave G (Grave marker image courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Amos Randal was born in Cattaraugus County, New York state, about 1828. In 1849, he caught gold fever and journeyed overland to California. However, he seems not to have had much luck at mining and so turned to other occupations.
In 1860, he was a single man living in Marysville, Yuba County, California, and running a stationery store with two Lassiter brothers. While there, he met and married Clara Jane McGrew on July 14, 1862. Their first child, Norina Katherine, was born in March, 1864. During the Civil War, Randal supplemented his income from the stationery store by serving in the militia as a recruiting officer. In June, 1863, he was commissioned a sergeant major in the 2nd Battalion, 4th Brigade, California Militia. On April 22, 1865, with the war drawing to a close, Randal enlisted in Company A, 4th California Infantry at the Presidio in San Francisco. He went in as a 2nd lieutenant and soon rose to the rank of captain. His military career turned out to be very short, however, as his unit mustered out on November 30, 1865. The California Great Register of 1867 recorded the Randals living in Oakland, California. Son Ernest Grant was born in 1868. Another daughter, Margaret “Daisy”, was born in 1874 in Tulare, California. The federal census of 1880 found the Randals living in Hills Ferry, Stanislaus County, California, where Randal was working as a carpenter. Around 1882, the family moved to Prescott, Arizona, and Randal went into the undertaking business. In April 1886, the Randals’ last child, Theodore, was born. Moving to Phoenix in 1892, Randal became associated with the undertaking firm of Mr. W. A. Davis. Amos Randal then applied for an invalid pension, citing health issues, but his application was rejected because his service had not begun until after the Civil War had ended. Around 1894, Randal contracted blood poisoning when he stabbed his finger with an embalming needle. He had several relapses which caused him much suffering. Due to his ongoing health problems, his application for an invalid pension was finally approved in 1896. On December 1, 1897, Randal was in Porter Cemetery, assisting with the burial of Gustavus A. Kirtley, a Confederate veteran. As the mourners were leaving the grave, Randal walked to his buggy, then suddenly fell to his knees, pitched forward on his face and expired. Dr. Wylie was summoned, but Randal was beyond help. A coroner’s jury decided that he had died of heart trouble, brought on by his bout of blood poisoning. Randal was interred two days later in Porter Cemetery, after services conducted by the local GAR post. Randal’s widow, Clara Jane, applied for and received a widow’s pension. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 29 September 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers! |