Thomas A. Hayden, 1880-1940
Civil Engineer and Surveyor
 
Cremains buried in the Avenue of Flags

(Photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

Although Thomas Albert Hayden was neither a pioneer or early resident of Phoenix, his dedication to the cemeteries earned him a final resting place among Phoenix’s first citizens.
 
Thomas Albert Hayden was born 2 June 1880 in Green Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada, to Thomas Hayden and Elmyra Ringer. He attended Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, but left in 1899 before graduating to go out West for his health. 
 
In Santa Fe, Hayden met Harvie Sheffield DuVal, an attorney and civil engineer who had moved to New Mexico in 1903. Hayden married DuVal’s youngest daughter Irene in 1905. The couple had one son, Irwin, born 1905 in Albuquerque.
 
Between 1906 and 1915, Hayden oversaw the construction of the Urraca Dam in Colfax County, New Mexico, and did drainage work in the Florida Everglades. By 1912, he was back in private practice in Santa Fe, where he was also the city engineer.
 
Suffering from tuberculosis, Hayden moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1915. After recovering, he found work as a civil engineer with the U.S. Surveyor General’s office. During World War I, he served briefly in the Second Battery, 16th Provisional Training Regiment, probably as a training officer. By 1918, Hayden was an engineer for Salt River Valley Water Users Association.
 
Thomas and Irene eventually divorced, after which he married a much younger divorcee, Anna Marjorie Kessler. They had four more children born between 1927 and 1935.
 
To keep fit, Hayden was in the habit of walking from his office near the Arizona State Capitol to his home at 339 East Palm Lane in Phoenix. In doing so, he often passed by an overgrown, abandoned cemetery at 14th Avenue and Jefferson. A little investigation confirmed that it was the last resting place of many Arizona notables.
 
Hayden surveyed the cemetery, created a map and recorded all the extant headstones. In 1939, he also prevailed upon some of his acquaintances in government to form the original Pioneer Cemetery Association, the purpose of which was to preserve the seven historic cemeteries now known as the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park. Among the charter members  were Rep. Carl Hayden, Lindley Bell Orme, and a young Barry Goldwater.  
 
Thomas died at home on December 23, 1940, following a heart attack. His body was cremated and the stated intention was to have him buried in Greenwood Cemetery. However, his cremains were left at the J. T. Whitney Funeral Home for another 48 years, until they were interred on the Avenue of Flags in the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park in 1988. It is not known why the original burial never took place.
 
© 2018 by Donna Carr, PCA. Last revised 1 June 2021.

​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!

​Jay H. Miller, 1865-1895 
A Mystery of Long Standing 
 
Buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 2, Grave 7

​(Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

​For over a century, the Knights of Pythias Cemetery has held an unusual grave marker. Unlike the typical headstone, it was a large, smooth, pink granite boulder inscribed with a barely visible inscription: “In Adoring Memory of Jay.” But who was Jay? 
 
In the late afternoon of November 25, 2006, longtime PCA volunteer Diane Sumrall was picking up trash in the cemetery. As she passed Jay’s boulder, she chanced to glance up at the underside of the stone. The setting sun was just at the right angle to reveal another faint inscription that had been hidden from view. It read “H. Miller.” Mystery solved!
 
Jay H. Miller was born in California on January 7, 1865, to James Miller of Tennessee and Susan Sawyer Miller. Mr. Miller seems to have died before 1870, as the 1870 census records only Susan, a seamstress, her son Jay, and her mother Abigale in Sacramento. By 1880, Susan was living with teenaged Jay and her new husband, John W. Hughes.  
 
Jay Miller moved to Phoenix around 1887, where he began working for the newly established Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad. He eventually became the Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad’s commercial agent in Phoenix, responsible for running its freight department.  
 
With increased responsibility came a better salary. Around 1892, Miller acquired a large lot at the southeast corner of Seventh and Pierce Streets. He hired C. J. Dyer to create a plat map and subdivided the lot into 10 individual smaller lots. By 1895, the Phoenix Street Railway system had been extended so it ran along Pierce Street in front of Miller’s property; easy access to the streetcar line must have increased its value and potential for development.
 
On the evening of September 7, 1895, Miller shared some drinks with companions at the Cabinet Saloon on the northwest corner of Central Avenue and Washington Street. Around 10 PM, he stepped out into the alley behind his office with a Mr. Conroy. A few moments later, two shots rang out and Conroy ran for help, saying that Miller had killed himself.
 
The Arizona Republican newspaper covered the coroner’s inquest in great detail. Almost 50 individuals testified about Miller’s activities that night, and several indicated that he sometimes seemed despondent and had spoken of suicide in the past.
 
Jay Miller was buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery. Since he had died intestate, his mother was his sole heir. Undoubtedly it was she who had the pink granite boulder inscribed with his name and installed on his grave as a tombstone.
 
© 2006, Diane Sumrall, Debe Branning, Derek Horn. Last revised 22 April 2023.

​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!

Candido Diaz, 1889-1919
Copper miner and farmer
 
Buried in Cementerio Lindo, exact location unknown

(Photo courtesy of Dolores Mendez, granddaughter)

Candido Diaz was born February 2, 1889, in San Juan de Los Lagos, Jalisco, Mexico. He was the oldest of ten children born to Juan Diaz and Maria del Refugio Garcia.
 
On January 17, 1913, he married Candida Guzman of the same town. The young couple is believed to have had two little daughters, although only the second, Maria Engracia, has a birth record. She was born on April 3, 1915, and christened a few days later.
 
The Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910, lasted until 1920. Perhaps the Diazes hoped to avoid being drawn into the fighting. By 1917, they were living in Tyrone, New Mexico, a mining town run by Phelps Dodge Corporation. Supposedly, their first daughter died there.
 
In 1919, Diaz was a copper miner and farmer in Miami, Arizona, another Phelps Dodge town. When he contracted influenza, he was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, where he died on February 7.
 
The virulence of the Spanish Flu epidemic made immediate burial necessary. His wife Candida, who spoke only Spanish, had to rely upon English-speaking strangers to make the arrangements. She never knew exactly where her husband was buried.
 
Nevertheless, Candido's story was passed on for nearly a century, until his granddaughter, Dolores “Lola” Mendez, found his death certificate on line. As was often the case with Mexican names, Diaz's death certificate was incorrectly filed; it’s under 'Candido Garcia'4, his mother’s maiden name. Still, it was possible to positively identify him by the date of death. He had been buried in the Maricopa County Cemetery, now known as Cementerio Lindo.
 
Although Candido Diaz has no grave marker and the exact location of his grave is forever unknown, his family is relieved to know that he was accorded a Christian burial and rests beside so many other victims of the influenza epidemic.
 
© 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 2 February 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!

Robert E. Lee Brown, 1865-1902
Mining Engineer and Adventurer
 
Buried in Rosedale North, Block 130

(Grave marker and photo courtesy of the
​Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

R. E. L. Brown may be one of the most unique characters in the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park, both for his colorful life--and the speed with which he was forgotten after his demise.
 
Born May 31, 1865, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Laurence and Martha Brown, he trained as a mining engineer, then went out west to locate promising mines.
 
In 1889, Brown was surveying potential mining claims in Washington state. During a violent labor strike in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 1892, he started a newspaper called The Barbarian, which took the side of the mine owners versus the unionized miners. This earned him the nickname “Barbarian Brown."  Threatened with death during the strike, he caused a cannon to be wheeled into the street outside his office.
 
Much as he enjoyed the furor his newspaper editorials provoked, Brown remained first and foremost a mining engineer. He speculated in mines and was well regarded internationally for his expertise. Seeking new adventures, Brown journeyed to South Africa in hopes of securing some promising claims during a land rush in Witfontein in 1895. Competition was fierce for the best claims, but Brown hit upon a method that could outrun the swiftest horse: a heliograph! He set up heliograph stations by which he could transmit confirmation almost instantaneously to his confederates in the field who were waiting to stake his claims.
 
On July 19, 1895, the day of the land rush, twelve thousand miners were gathered in Doornkoop to register their permits. But Brown had devised a plan to ensure that he would be first in line. A fan of American football, he recruited a group of rough men from local bars to form a “flying wedge” to cut through the crowd. The ruse worked; however, the Pretoria government initially refused to honor his claims. Brown sued the Boer government and eventually won a huge judgment, the exact value of which has never been ascertained.
 
Having worn out his welcome in South Africa, the brash engineer returned to North America where, on September 26, 1898, he wed Maud Higgins in Victoria, British Columbia. 
 
Brown was in London in 1901 when he apparently contracted tuberculosis. In late 1902, he traveled to Phoenix in a private train car with his wife, his personal physician and a nurse. Unfortunately, he had left it too late; he died on October 3, 1902, scarcely a week after his arrival. Despite his fame and fortune, his death rated only a few lines in the local newspaper, and he was buried under a simple wooden headboard in Rosedale Cemetery.  
 
One can only speculate as to why Brown’s remains were not shipped back East and why a more elaborate headstone was never erected over his grave.
 
© 2020 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 16 October 2020.

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!