​Noah Broadway, 1831?-1905 
Maricopa County Sheriff
 
Buried in Rosedale Cemetery, Block 106, Lot 8/10

(Grave Marker Photo Courtesy of the
​Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

Noah Broadway is believed to have been the son of William M.  Broadway and Mary “Polly” Key. On the federal census of 1850, Broadway was living with his brother John in Kemper County, Mississippi, and his age was given as 19, making him born around 1831. 
 
No photo of Broadway has ever been found, nor evidence of him marrying or serving during the Civil War. He seems to have been a somewhat solitary man.
 
Broadway is known to have been farming in the Salt River Valley by 1868. He and seven other men formed the Prescott Ditch company on 26 Sep 1870, and dug the Prescott (later Broadway) Ditch to irrigate his crops.
 
The Maricopa Crossing was on Broadway’s ranch. It was a nice crossing with a firm gravel bottom, and the stages usually crossed the Salt River there. The road which ran through Broadway’s ranch is known today as Broadway Road.
 
Broadway never sought public office but was nominated for sheriff by Dr. W. W. Jones and elected on the 14th ballot in late 1884. Although he was considered to be of good and honest character, some didn’t support him as he had publicly expressed a desire to "string up" men who were selling whiskey to Indians. 
 
Broadway was the first sheriff to have his office in the new, two-story brick courthouse between First and Second Avenues facing Washington, the previous office being in an adobe structure. The county jail was not very secure and security was lax; eight prisoners almost escaped one day when someone failed to lock up.
 
As sheriff, Broadway regularly conveyed prisoners to Yuma.  Another of Broadway’s duties was conveying insane people to the hospital in Stockton, California. On 9 March 1885, the county approved the issuance of bonds to build an insane asylum in Phoenix. 
 
Broadway’s term as sheriff was plagued by a rash of armed robberies. Men dressed as Indians held up stagecoaches carrying Wells Fargo boxes north of Phoenix. Detective work led to the arrest of one John Pennington and two cohorts. The massacre of the Martin family in 1886, supposedly by the Valenzuela gang led by S. P. Stanton, also occurred during Broadway’s  watch.
 
Water rights were a contentious issue in frontier Phoenix, for land was virtually worthless without it. Broadway occasionally had to fight for his rights in court. He owned the NW quarter of Section 30, Township 1N, Range #E. He later acquired the NE quarter and the NE quarter of Section 25, Township 1N, Range 2E. In time, Broadway and Michael Wormser became the two biggest landholders in south Phoenix.
 
By 1902, Broadway’s health was declining and his ranch was much neglected. When he died in 1905, his lawyer sold the ranch and liquidated his assets, which amounted $12,737. Since Broadway had no other heirs, this sum was divided among his three surviving sisters.
 
© 2014 by Donna Carr. Last revised 27 June 2018.

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 Thomas Barnum, 1832-1909
Maricopa County Sheriff
 
Buried in City/Loosley Cemetery, Block 3, Lot 14

(Image from Maricopa Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5)

Joseph Thomas Barnum was born in 1832 in New York state, the son of Truman Barnum and Harriet Rich. Although he is said to have been a cousin of P.T. Barnum, the famous showman (Phineas was the son of Philo, while Joseph Thomas was the son of Truman), so far no proof has been found that Philo and Truman were brothers. 
 
The Barnums came to Arizona in 1864 and settled first in Prescott, where Joseph Thomas met and married Jeanette Jane “Jenettie” Osborn, daughter of John P. Osborn and Perlina Swetnam, on 10 May 1865. He was 33, almost 17 years older than his teenaged bride.
 
When Barnum, who usually went by his middle name of Thomas, moved his family to the Salt River Valley in 1868, his wife was one of only four Anglo women in the rough settlement. Barnum was quick to see the Valley's potential and went into partnership with J. W. Swilling in digging irrigation ditches.  He was also one of the signers of the original Salt River Valley Town Association pact on 20 October 1870.
 
When Maricopa County was created in 1871 from Yavapai County, it became necessary to elect county officials for the first time. After one candidate for sheriff, a man named Chenoweth, shot and killed another candidate,
J. Favorite, in a gunfight, Barnum became the front runner for the office. He was elected and served from May until August, 1871.
 
Besides enforcing the law, Barnum's duties included developing a tax roll and collecting taxes for the new county. He also had to take convicted felons to the state prison in Yuma and transport the insane to the nearest mental hospital which was in California. Being out of town so often made it difficult for Barnum to attend to the running of his ranch, so he resigned as sheriff in August of 1871. The federal census of 1880 lists his occupation as "saloonkeeper."
 
Barnum’s ranch eventually prospered but, between 1873 and 1884, he and his wife mourned the loss of five of their thirteen children. 
 
As he had demonstrated earlier in digging irrigation canals, Barnum was willing to invest in the future. In 1901, he was among the signers of the articles of incorporation for the Phoenix Independent Telephone Company. Like many other Arizona pioneers, he also had mining interests and became a partner in the Gold Coin Mining Company in 1901.
 
Barnum died on 26 January 1909 at the age of 77. Although his death certificate says he was buried in "the Catholic Cemetery," it is believed that he was actually buried in the Catholic section of Loosley Cemetery, next to his five little sons. The rest of the Barnum family is buried about a mile away in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
 
© 2014 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 6/27/2018.
 
​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!