 George L. Godfrey, about 1841-1899 Cannery Manager Buried in Rosedale Cemetery, exact location unknown (Generic image created using Bing’s DALL•E 3) George L. Godfrey was born about 1841 in Madison County, New York, to Albert Godfrey and Rosina Putnam. When the federal census was taken in 1850, the Godfreys were living in Camden, Oneida County, New York, where Albert worked as a millwright. In 1860, he was recorded as a "carpenter and joiner."
On September 22, 1864, George Godfrey joined the Union Army as a private in Company K, 189th New York Infantry. In less than two months, he was promoted to sergeant and transferred to Company L, 15th New York Engineers--possibly a recognition of mechanical or engineering skill. The regiment served at the siege of Petersburg and was present for Lee’s surrender at Appomattox before being disbanded on June 13, 1865, at Fort Barry, Virginia. Immediately after his discharge, Godfrey returned home to Camden to support his widowed mother and unmarried sister, crafting chairs in the family’s workshop. Around 1868, he married Louisa A. Wightman. By 1870, he was employed in a local canning factory. The federal census of 1880 found Godfrey still working at the corn cannery. By then, the household included not just his wife, young son George Ernest and widowed mother, but also a couple of nieces and nephews. The Godfreys welcomed a daughter, Gertrude, in 1881. Although the 1890 federal census has not survived, Godfrey’s name appears in the veterans’ schedules, which did. He filed for a Civil War pension on September 18, 1890. Godfrey’s years of experience in the canning industry appear to have advanced his career. In 1891, he was managing a corn-packing plant in Faribault, Minnesota. Although he suffered a financial setback in 1892 when he was sued for failure to fulfill a contract, by 1895 he was planning to open another cannery in nearby Owatonna. Toward the end of 1897, George and Louisa Godfrey moved to Phoenix, Arizona. George died in Phoenix on April 13, 1899, at his home on East Van Buren Street. He was buried in a Roman Catholic section of Rosedale Cemetery, though no grave marker survives and the exact location of his grave is unknown. His name is commemorated with a brick in the PMMP memorial garden. After his death, Louisa Godfrey applied for and received a widow’s pension. © 2026 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 29 May 2026. 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!
0 Comments
 Charles H. Knapp, 1845-1898 Veteran, Court Clerk, Mason Buried in the Masons cemetery, Block 10, Lot 2, Grave 2 (Grave marker photograph courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association) Charles H. Knapp was a longtime court clerk in frontier Phoenix, Arizona.
Knapp was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1845, to Charles Knapp and Susan Ludlow. While yet a child, he moved with his parents to Terra Haute, Indiana in the spring of 1850. He was subsequently educated at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was but 19 when he accepted a bounty to enlist in the Union army on March 11, 1864, for a term of three years. Assigned to Company I, Eleventh Regiment, Indiana Volunteer infantry, he was promoted to corporal on May 2, 1865, and discharged on July 26, 1865, the Civil War having ended. Following the war, he lived for a time in Chillicothe, Missouri, before moving to McPherson, Kansas. On October 8, 1873, Knapp married Anna Rezzer in Newton, Kansas. They had one son and four daughters. In April of 1881, the Knapps moved to Phoenix. Charles served as either deputy clerk or clerk of District Court for the rest of his life. He was said to have been a popular and capable official, discharging his duties in a most satisfactory manner. In 1884, the Knapps had a fourth daughter, Anne, but she died on June 26, 1886, at the age of two. Mrs. Knapp died on January 30, 1889, ten days after giving birth to a fifth daughter. Both was interred next to little Anne in the family plot in Masons Cemetery. Two years later, Charles Knapp married Mary Ann Davidson. She was twenty years his junior and from Alexander, Louisiana. Charles Knapp was a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic, (GAR) and became a commander of the Phoenix Knights Templar. Being only 53 at the time of his death on November 28, 1898, he had not yet filed for a military pension. He was laid to rest with his first wife and children in the Masons cemetery, Block 10, Lot 2, Grave 2. His grave has a military headstone. His widow applied for a widow’s pension but her application was initially rejected. She tried again later and it was accepted on October 19, 1916. © 2016 by Val Wilson. Last revised 27 April 2026. 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!  Newton Jasper Coyle, 1843-1912 Veteran and miner Buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery, exact location unknown. Memorial marker in the PMMP memorial garden. (Image generated with Bing AI) Coyle was born in Estill County, Kentucky, probably in March, 1842. He was one of several children born to Tilford Coyle and Malvina Alcorn. Although he was mistakenly indexed as Andrew on the 1850 federal census on FamilySearch, it is obvious that the entry was for Newton Jasper. Coyle’s father died in 1858, and his mother remarried twice thereafter.
On September 4, 1861, young Newton enlisted in the Union Army and was assigned to the 4th Kentucky Mounted Infantry. This unit saw action in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Early in 1864, he fractured his clavicle and was placed on leave. He was formally discharged at Camp Chase, Ohio, on June 16, 1865. By February 24, 1864, Newton Coyle was back home in Irvine, where he married 17-year-old Susan Williams. Their first two children were born in Kentucky. The Coyles then moved to Arkansas by 1877 and on to Montgomery County, Kansas, by 1880. Apparently Coyle could not make a go of farming in Kansas, and the family returned to Benton County, Arkansas, the following year. Susan bore three more children before her death in 1887. Perhaps fed up with farming, Newton Coyle seems to have struck out alone for Montana, leaving his by then adult children to care for the younger ones. On October 13, 1891, he married a widow, Lizzie Perry, in Missoula County. The marriage didn’t last; by 1900, Newton was divorced and working as a silver miner. Montana’s winters and hard work in the mines took a toll on Coyle’s health. In 1904, he checked into the Old Soldiers’ Home in Leavenworth, Kansas. After applying for an invalid pension, he was moved to a veterans’ hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee. Records show that he was blind in one eye and had significant hearing loss. The 1910 census found him back in the Old Soldiers’ Home in Leavenworth. By 1912, Coyle’s youngest son Joseph was in Phoenix, Arizona, trying to find work on a ranch. Joseph and Newton were sharing a dwelling on Cave Creek Road when Newton passed away on October 5th of pneumonia. He was buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery. Records do not indicate whether this was the old K of P Cemetery at 13th Avenue, between Madison and Harrison Streets or the Knights of Pythias section of Forest Lawn north of 23rd Avenue and Van Buren. Afterward, Joseph returned to his wife and children in Arkansas. When their next baby was born in 1913, he was named Newton Jasper, for his grandfather. © 2026 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 18 February 2026. 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 Washington Sanders, 1839-1904 Union Veteran and Mining Superintendent Buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 35, Grave C (Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) George Washington Sanders was born September 6, 1839, in Fort Covington, New York. He was the oldest of eleven children born to Eliphalet Pike Sanders and his first wife, Melissa Henry. In 1846, the Sanders family moved to Ashtabula, Ohio.
On September 9, 1861, George Sanders enlisted in the Union Army at Trumbull, Ohio, and was assigned to Battery C of the 1st Regiment Ohio Light Artillery. However, he did not see much action as he was often sick and in the hospital. On September 26, 1862, he was discharged for disability at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio. Despite his relatively short service, he became a devoted member of the Grand Army of the Republic, being elected commander of the Arizona Department in April 1903 at the San Francisco Grand Encampment. Sanders moved to Polk, Iowa, in 1863. In 1866, he married Mary Beebe, and they soon had two children, Albert and Ethel. After Ethel’s birth, Sanders moved the family to Salt Lake City. He and Mary had two more children in Utah—Ida and George. After Mary’s death in childbirth in 1877, Sanders took his family back to Iowa. By 1880 he was remarried to a woman named Lizzie. It wasn’t long before Sanders set his sights on the West again. This time he travelled to Arizona. By 1881, he and nine other men had created the Sanders Arizona Mining company which aimed to produce copper, silver, gold and other metals from mines in Pima County. It was right at the turn of the century and near the end of his life that Sanders experienced his greatest achievements and his greatest losses. By 1899, he had divorced his second wife Lizzie and lost his daughter Ethel and grandson Sanders in what was believed to be a murder-suicide. But it was also that same year when he became superintendent of the Vulture Mine near Wickenburg and began work to get the mine back into production. When Sanders first took charge, the Vulture Mine didn’t have enough water. By cyaniding the tailings, he recovered enough gold to finance drilling the mine deeper to locate an existing water source. In 1901, the mine struck a new vein of gold ore. As one of the financiers, Sanders received much of the initial profits. It was also during 1901 that Sanders was married for the third time--to Clara Glenn. On March 20, 1902, Sanders sustained serious injuries when he was thrown from a streetcar of the Phoenix Railway Company. He died on February 6, 1904, of heart complications attributed to his 1902 accident. He was buried in Porter Cemetery under the auspices of the local GAR post. © 2024 by Tricia Alexander. Last revised 10 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!  John Wren Owen, 1822-1877 Union Veteran and County Treasurer Buried in Loosley Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 8, NW corner (Photo of John Wren Owen, courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) John Wren Owen was born December 16, 1822, in Franklin County, Illinois, the son of Thomas Harvey Owen and Mary Paine Wren, hence his middle name.
In 1850, shortly after the beginning of the California Gold Rush, his parents moved their family to Solano County, California, where they engaged in farming. By 1860, John Wren Owen was working as a real estate speculator at Suisun, Solano County. On November 30, 1864, Owen enlisted in the Union Army at the Presidio in San Francisco, California. He was commissioned a captain and given command of Company F, 7th California Infantry, on December 15, 1864. He transferred to Camp McDowell in Arizona Territory on August 2, 1865, after the Civil War had ended, and mustered out with his company at the Presidio on April 18, 1866. Apparently, Owen’s time in Arizona had made an impression on him for he returned to Pima County. He was elected to the Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1868. The 1870 federal census shows him working as a clerk at Camp Crittenden in Pima County. In 1874, Owen was elected treasurer of Maricopa County and reelected in 1876. As treasurer, he was responsible for paying certain bills out of the county taxes; however, he seems to have exercised those responsibilities loosely. He made no quarterly report of the funds in his possession to the territorial treasurer on June 30 or on September 30, 1877. When Owen requested money for the public schools, the territorial treasurer authorized him to use the funds already in his possession, promising that he would be compensated later. On October 11, 1877, Owen replied that he did not have the money to hand but would have it by the end of the month. He then fell ill and died on November 4th. When his body was prepared for burial in the first City Cemetery, he had only $2 in his pocket. His fellow veterans turned out for his funeral and he was eulogized as "a man of few faults and many virtues." It appears that John Wren Owen never married, and his obituaries did not mention any next of kin. Following his death, a thorough search of his dwelling did not turn up any of the county's money. His friends speculated that perhaps Owen had loaned the money to someone and that that individual was keeping mum about it. A less charitable speculation was that he had spent it himself. At any rate, no money was ever recovered. Notwithstanding the missing County funds, the late Captain Owen seems to have enjoyed a good enough reputation that, when Union veterans established a post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in Phoenix in September 1885, it was named in his honor. © 2024 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 11 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!  Edward O. Schwartz, 1842-1904 Civil War Veteran and Adjutant General of Arizona Buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 37, Space F (Photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association) Edward O. Schwartz was born in New York on February 19, 1842, to Louis Schwartz and Catherine Boese.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Schwartz enlisted in the 8th New York Militia in April 1861 and mustered out in August of that year. He then enlisted in the 4th New York Cavalry in January 1862. Although he fell ill with typhoid fever later that year, he recovered sufficiently to achieve the rank of lieutenant. A year later, he was promoted to captain and, in March 1864, he became a major. Schwartz fought in several major battles which included the battle of Cross Keys, Virginia; Second Bull Run (Manassas); Chancellorsville; and Gettysburg. In 1864, he participated in General Philip Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley campaign and was present at the June 11-12 battle of Trevilian Station. He was honorably discharged at the end of the war. After the war, Schwartz went West. He was part of a military detachment that escorted engineer and geologist Clarence King through northern Arizona and other parts of the West in the Fortieth Parallel Survey of 1867-1873. Schwartz later relocated to New Mexico where he left service and married Angeline Flint in Santa Fe in 1880. Their union produced one daughter. A few years later, the family moved to Phoenix, where Schwartz engaged in various business enterprises. An engraver by trade, he was elected recorder of the City of Phoenix in 1890, a post he held for six years. In 1891, he joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), becoming commander of the Arizona GAR that same year. In April 1893, the new territorial governor, Louis Cameron Hughes, appointed Schwartz Adjutant General of Arizona. He served for six years and was regarded as an able commander. The Schwartzes left Phoenix in 1897 and moved to Seattle. From there, they went to San Francisco before returning to Phoenix in 1899. In a newspaper article, Schwartz declared, “Not until one leaves Phoenix does he appreciate the business advantages it presents.” One of the last services Schwartz performed for his community was organizing the Decoration Day service for the GAR which took place on May 29, 1903, at the city cemetery. There was no march, as it was deemed too much of a strain for the old soldiers, but Major Schwartz did invite veterans of the Confederacy to participate in the ceremonies too. Major Edward Schwartz died at home on March 1, 1904. On March 3rd, he was interred in the Porter Cemetery with full military honors. © 2017 by Mark Lamm. Last revised 15 November 2017. 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!  Alexander Chapman Lansdon, 1834-1899 Soldier, Miner, Carpenter Buried in Rosedale Cemetery, exact location unknown (Photo from FamilySearch, courtesy of Clinton DeWitt) Alexander Chapman Lansdon was born in Russellville, Kentucky, on July 18, 1834. He was the son of Zachariah Lansdon and Frances Hambleton. The family moved to Illinois sometime between 1834 and 1838. The federal census of 1850 records the Lansdons living in Eden, Schuyler County, Illinois.
By 1861, Alexander was in California. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in Company B (Old), 2nd California Cavalry in San Francisco on September 21, 1861. As a member of the historic California Column, he marched from Los Angeles County, California, to the Río Grande River early in the war. Private Lansdon re-enlisted in Co. B (New), same regiment, at San Francisco on July 1, 1864. He was promoted to sergeant five months later and saw service at posts in New Mexico and Nevada. On November 17, 1865, Lansdon was wounded in a fight with Indians at the Black Rock Mountains in Nevada. He was court-martialed for an undisclosed reason and dishonorably discharged at Fort Churchill, Nevada, on April 20, 1866. Around 1872, Alexander returned to New Mexico, where he met Maria Francisca Garcia. She had previously been in a relationship with a Captain George A. Burkett, by whom she had three children born between 1867 and 1872: Camilla, John C. and Mary Inez. Coincidentally, Burkett had been stationed at one of the posts where Lansdon had served, although there is no evidence that they were there at the same time. Since no marriage record for Captain George A. Burkett and Francisca has been located, it is not known whether they were ever formally married. At any rate, Lansdon and Francisca set up housekeeping in 1872 and remained together until his death many years later. By 1880, Alexander and Francisca had left New Mexico for Arizona, initially living in Bisbee where Alexander worked in the copper mines. Later, they settled in the small community of Dos Cabezas. Their household included Francisca's three children from her alliance with Burkett, as well as three more children she had with Lansdon: James, Lola, and Marguerite (Maggie). After the mine where Lansdon was working played out, the family moved to Willcox, where Alexander found work as a carpenter. He and Francisca had a fourth child, Henry, born in Willcox in 1889. Early in 1898, the Lansdons moved to Phoenix so that Alexander could seek medical attention for a throat affliction, likely the result of years of mining. They lived with Francisca's oldest son, John C. Burkett, who lived on West Lincoln Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. Alexander died there on February 12, 1899, and was laid to rest in Rosedale Cemetery. Francisca passed away on September 4, 1901, and was also buried in Rosedale. © 2022 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 23 December 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!  Theodore Buck, 1824-1896 A Union Artilleryman at Vicksburg Buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 33, Plot C (Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers Cemetery Association) Theodore Buck claimed to have been born in 1824 in Prussia.
Buck was older than the average recruit when he enlisted in the Union Army on November 23, 1862, in Clinton, Illinois. While serving as a private in Battery F, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery, he suffered deafness in both ears, likely caused by the incessant cannonading during the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863. He was discharged July 27, 1865 with the rank of private. By 1878, Buck was in Phoenix, where he registered to vote. The 1880 federal census of Phoenix, Arizona, shows a Theodor Buck, born Prussia 1825, unmarried, living in the household of Miguel Peralta, a general store proprietor. Buck was working as a porter in the store. Theodore Buck was a founding member of the John Wren Owen GAR post. In 1887 and again in 1892, he visited the hospital at the Old Soldiers Home in Leavenworth, Kansas, for medical attention. He applied for and received invalid pension #771,427. When he died on October 24, 1896, Buck was living at the Star Lodging House and working as a janitor at the Five Points School. He was buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 33, Grave C. His grave has a military marker. © 2024 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 8 November 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!  William Lindsey George, 1832-1897 Farmer and Contractor Buried in Porter Cemetery, Block 41, space B (Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) William Lindsey George was born April 29, 1832, in Shelby County, Kentucky, to James Whitefield George and Frances Booker, who were farmers. The Georges had a total of eleven children.
Shelby County was not far from Louisville and the Ohio River. Many of Kentucky’s agricultural products were floated down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on flatboats to New Orleans. So, after faraway Texas became a state, the Georges moved there, settling in Guadalupe around 1854. William married Eliza LeGette in about 1858 and they soon had an infant son, James. The federal census of 1860 records the family farming in New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas. William’s parents and younger siblings lived on a ranch not far away. After the outbreak of the Civil War, William waited until March 26, 1862, when he enlisted in Seguin, Texas. He was assigned to Company K, 8th Texas Infantry, CSA, later under the command of Colonel Ireland. The 8th Texas Infantry served in East Texas throughout the war, so William was able to visit his family occasionally. His wife Eliza gave birth to son Henry in September, 1862, and to William Jr. in March 1864. At the end of the war, William was discharged with the rank of captain. Big events were taking place on the Great Plains as the Transcontinental Railroad pushed westward. By 1870, the entire George family had moved to Kansas City, where they worked as cattle traders. William even became (briefly) the president of a Kansas City bank. In 1886, the Georges moved to Arizona, where William ran a freighting business and became involved in building railroads, canals and reservoirs. He was one of the contractors who built the Gila Bend canal and the Agua Fria reservoir. As a prominent businessman, William maintained a keen interest in local politics and was several times asked to run for office. In 1888, he yielded to voters’ entreaties but bowed out rather than stoop to the kind of unethical behavior needed to get elected. Thereafter, he was elected to the County Board of Supervisors strictly on his merits. In August 1897, William experienced a couple of angina attacks. Although the attacks passed, his doctor advised him to send for his wife, who was in California. She arrived in Phoenix just five hours before William died early on the morning of August 20th. The funeral sermon was preached by Rev. W. E. Vaughan of the Methodist Episcopal church. A modest man, William had previously requested that there be no empty eulogies, but his friends and business associates attested to his honesty and moral uprightness. He was buried near his brother James Benjamin in Porter Cemetery, Block 41, space B. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 13 May 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!  Joseph Mitchell Dorris, 1827-1904 Planter and Farmer Buried in Rosedale Cemetery, North section, Block 116 (Family monument photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Joseph Mitchell Dorris is believed to have been born April 4, 1826, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was the oldest child of James Harvey Dorris and Martha Ann Embrey.
In 1834, the Dorris family had moved to Mississippi to take up land from which the indigenous Choctaws had been recently evicted. The 1850 federal census recorded James as farming in Carroll County. Joseph Mitchell Dorris wed Nancy Jane Powell on February 10, 1847. Over time, they became the parents of twelve children. By 1860, Joseph was living in nearby Choctaw County on a plantation adjoining that of his father, who by then owned over 700 acres and fifteen enslaved persons. Although a mature man of 34 when the Civil War began, Dorris joined Turner’s Battery, Company C, 1st Mississippi Light Artillery, CSA, with the rank of corporal on March 27, 1862. When Vicksburg fell to Union forces on July 4, 1863, the entire regiment was captured. After the soldiers were paroled, Company C was sent south to defend Mobile. In January 1864, Dorris was promoted to the rank of sergeant. He was absent without leave for a month between May and June 1864; apparently he went home, as his wife gave birth to another baby on March 29, 1865. Dorris was back with his unit in Mobile, Alabama, later in 1864. Following the War, Dorris returned to Choctaw County, where the census of 1870 listed him as a farmer. Sometime thereafter, the family moved to Montgomery County, where his wife Nancy died in about 1884. Around 1885 or 1886, Joseph’s son Elias moved west to Phoenix, Arizona. His reports were favorable enough that his siblings Caswell, Robert, and Joseph joined him two years later. Sarah and Veronica, their sisters who had both married Stovall men, also made the move around 1898. Dorris, a Mason and a Baptist, continued to live most of time in Kilmichael, Mississippi, with his older adult children. However, in 1901 he began spending his winters in Phoenix with the others. He died during one such visit on February 2, 1904, of old age and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery, North section, Block 116. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 17 April 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! |