#5 - Thomas Farrell

 

Thomas Farrell
B. 28 May 1832  Ireland
D. 19 Oct  1915   Prescott, Yavapai, AZ

Entered Pioneer Home Feb 19, 1911 at age 83
Lived there four years, eight months

Thomas Farrell emigrated to the United States from Ireland.  

In 1876, at age 44 he registered to vote in Yavapai County, Arizona
In 1878, at age 46 he registered to vote in Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona. 
In 1890, at age 58 he registered to vote in Pinal County, Arizona
In 1904, at age 72 he registered to vote in Wickenburg, Maricopa County, Arizona.

According to the 1910 Census, at age 77 Farrell was living in Liberty, Maricopa County, Arizona working as a ranch cook.

The following year he entered the Arizona Pioneers' Home where he remained until his death in the fall of 1915.

#6 - Daniel Hollaway

Daniel Webster Hollaway
Birth: 31 Dec 1840 Schuyler, IL
Died: 24 Feb 1913  Kingman, Mohave, AZ

Entered Pioneer Home Feb 19, 1911 at age 70
Left facility - no date recorded

David Hollaway was the sixth of nine children born to David Holloway and Nancy Ann Phillips.

Very little is known about his life.  In 1850 and 1860 he appears on the Illinois census living with his parents and siblings.  In 1870  he was living in Gilroy, Santa Clara, California, working as a saloon
keeper.  By 1882 he shows up on voter registration rolls in Prescott, Arizona.  In 1886 he was living in Mineral Park, Mohave County.  In 1900 through 1910,  he was working as a blacksmith in Kingman, AZ.  He never married.

He went into the Arizona Pioneer home in 1911, but did not stay. There is no record of when he left.
He died alone in a room in Kingman.



Obituary
Last Monday Daniel W. Holloway was found dead in his bed at the Kingman house, death evidently having come to him during sleep early Sunday morning.  Mr. Holloway had been feeling badly the past several years, heart trouble being he cause of his illness.  Late Saturday night he went to bed and the roomers close by heard him coughing, but when he failed to arise late Sunday afternoon some one looked into the room and saw him lying apparently asleep in bed, they failed to make a further examination.  Monday morning he was still in the same position and the matter was reported to Coroner Smith, who immediately made an examination, finding that life had been extinct for many hours.

The body was taken in charge by the Elks, of which order he was a life member.  The funeral was held from the Elks hall Tuesday afternoon under the auspices of the order.  Judge Krook made a feeling address over the bier of the departed brother and after the regular ritualistic service the lodge members and many old time friends followed the remains to the grave, where the ritualistic service was completed.

Daniel W. Holloway was born in Illinois about seventy-four years ago and came to the Pacific coast, settling with his parents near Gilroy, California.  Later he went to Nevada and in the early seventies removed to this county, settling at Mineral Park, then the scene of the striking of rich silver ore.  Later he went to Hackberry and Tombstone and other mining camps, finally making his home in this county.  A year or more ago he became an inmate of the Pioneer Home at Prescott, but the management and the altitude both caused him to take a furlough.  He gradually failed after returning to Kingman, his death resulting as above stated.  He was one of the most honorable of men, honest to a fault, an ardent friend and a good citizen.  Among the old timers his death will be sincerely regretted.  He leaves relatives in California, but their addresses have not been found. 

Mohave County Miner (Mineral Park, AZ.  1 Mar 1913, Page 2
Newspapers.com https://www.newspapers.com/image/46150733/?terms=Holloway

#7 - William Flannigan

 

William Flannigan
Birth:    1 May 1834  Ireland
Death: 16  Aug 1917  Prescott, Yavapai, AZ

Entered Pioneer Home Feb 20, 1911 at age 77
Lived there 6 years and 6 months

"William Flannigan, one of the most deserving of the pioneer residents, and ranking among the first who came to Arizona, was yesterday admitted to the Pioneer Home in this city making the fifth Hassayamper who has entered his name on the roll of honor from this section.  Mr. Flannigan bears a unique station in his class of citizenship, arriving in Arizona nearly fifty years ago, or antedating the Walker party.  He knew Pauline Weaver, one of the first white men in Arizona, was at Fort Mohave on the Colorado river shortly after it was established, has been at every military post on duty with the government rendered splendid service in subduing the Indians, and performed the perilous task in the sixties of carrying the U.S. mail on horseback,, and sometimes on foot, through the country when it was infested with the murderous Apaches.  He is going into the octogenarian class in age.  

His career has been a truly wonderful one, and a sad chapter in the long run of years he has been a resident was when a blast rendered useless his left arm.  In all the years he has been in Arizona, four of them only have been spent in Pima county."

Newspapers.com.  Weekly Journal-Miner (Prescott, Arizona)  22 Feb 1911. "Another Pioneer is Admitted to Home".  Wed.  Page 8
https://www.newspapers.com/image/42314713/?terms=Another%20Pioneer%20Arrives&match=1

#8 - Thomas Wixted

 

Thomas Wixted
Birth:    3 Feb 1850 Albany, New York
Death: 14 Mar 1929  Prescott, Yavapai, AZ

Entered Arizona Pioneers' Home February 22, 1911 at age 62
Lived there eighteen years

From Weekly Journal Miner 1 Mar 1911. Another Pioneer Arrives.
https://www.newspapers.com/image/42314923/?terms=Another%20Pioneer%20Arrives&match=1

"Thomas Wixted, for many years a resident of Tombstone, and one of the early arrivals in Arizona, arrived yesterday, and enrolled his name on the Pioneer Home register.  Mr. Wixted meets man of his former Hassayampa acquaintances in this city, and was engaged during the day in recalling reminiscences of the era that has long snice passed away.  He arrived in the early '60s, and experienced the usual privations incidental to that time."

Wixted regularly registered to vote, affiliated with the Republican party.  Other than that there was no mention of him in local papers.  His death was listed rather impersonally with a list of names of people who had died in the Home that year.  There was no personalized obituary and he was not given a personal headstone.  His name is listed on a plaque at the Pioneer Home Cemetery along with those of others who are buried there.

#9 - George H. Chapman

 

George H. Chapman
Birth:     5 Jan 1838  Canton, St. Lawrence, New York
Death: 12 Oct 1922 Prescott, Yavapai, AZ

Entered Pioneer Home Feb 24, 1911 at age 73
Lived there 11 years, 6 months

George Chapman was a miner who lived in Greenlee county for some years, having arrived in Arizona in 1879. Tales of his early adventures come from newspaper accounts.  One 1907 story in the Tombstone Weekly Epitaph states that "George Chapman has been identified with the mines and mining interests of the west for the past thirty-five years, his observations fitting him to speak with a degree of accuracy in regard to the merits of a mineral region."

There are a few different accounts of his numerous trips to Old Mexico to seek his fortune in the mines there.  A 1901 article states "George Chapman, a brother to Judge Chapman of Morenci, arrived from Mexico this week, and has taken the contract to erect some buildings at the Standard mines.  George is an old timer in the southwest, and has made several fortunes, but has been a little out of luck for the past few years, but is just the same old George.  he will return to Mexico this fall and expects to locate the biggest gold mine on the continent."

Apparently he never did find that great big strike.  He returned to Arizona where he took up carpenter work.   In the 1900 census he is listed as a lodger in the home of Edwin and Susan Harwell in Graham, AZ and lists his occupation as Millwright.  The 1910 census is a bit more specific, letting us know he was working on his "own account" rather than as an employee.  At that time he as a carpenter in the millwright industry.  He lived on La Baranca street in Clifton.  He would enter the  Arizona Pioneers' Home the following year.

Newspapers.com.  Tombstone Weekly Epitaph (Tombstone, Arizona) 25 Aug 1907 "Nacozari Rapidly Going to the Front".   https://www.newspapers.com/image/42335580/?terms=George%20Chapman&match=1

Newspapers.com.  The Copper Era and Morenci Leader (Clifton, Arizona) 02 May 1901.  
https://www.newspapers.com/image/174239979/?terms=George%20Chapman&match=1

#10 Florence O'Leary

Florence O'Leary
Born:   6 Jan 1839  Ireland
Died:   7 Nov 1912  Prescott, Yavapai, AZ

Entered Pioneer Home 25 Feb 1911 at age 73
Lived there 1 Year 8 months

There are five different ID's in the web based genealogy program FamilySearch for individuals named Florence O'Leary from Ireland. One is husband of Mary Hurley. One is husband of Elen Donovan. One is husband of Catherine Nell. One is Husband of Eliza Sheely. One is marked as female (probably an error). The Florence O'Leary who later entered the Arizona Pioneers' Home is documented to be in AZ through voter registration records from 1871 until the time of his death in 1912. Clearly, he cannot be same person as those fathering children in Ireland during this time period.

An account in the Tucson paper Arizona Daily Star attributed to the 1875 personal personal diary of George Hand states: "Mr. Florence O'Leary of Fort Smith, Ark has been in the city several days on business.  O'Leary was a resident of Arizona for 19 years and still has interests in Pantane."  (1) That, in combination with the fact that his 1910 voter registration record (2) states Florence became a naturalized US citizen in Pennsylvania in 1872 leads me to believe he is the same Florence O'Leary who did indeed live in Fort Smith, Arkansas and married a woman from Pennsylvania named Joanna.

However, at some point he left Arkansas and may have abandoned his family there.  An ad was taken out in a Little Rock, Arkansas newspaper in 1876 by a woman searching for her missing husband, one Florence O'Leary. (3)

Daily Arkansas Gazette Little Rock, Arkansas 18 Mar 1876, Sat • Page 4

                       
Where things get even more confusing is that there is a headstone in Fort Smith, Arkansas for a Joanna O'Leary who died at age 37 in 1877 (4).  However, the following year a son, William Austin O'Leary, was born to someone named Florence O'Leary and someone named Joanna O'Leary in Pennsylvania (where our Florence was Naturalized) and that son later lived in Arkansas.  So is the woman in the grave a different person or is the son the progeny of a different Florence O'Leary?   Clearly things are a bit muddled and will require further research.

What I do know about the Arizona Pioneers' Home resident is that there is a report in August of 1895 from Tucson's Arizona Weekly star that Mrs. Florence O'Leary had died (5).  The following December there is a report that  "Florence O'Leary was brought to this city (Tucson) last evening from Pantano, temporarily insane.  It is believed that the recent loss of his wife has had much to do with unbalancing his mind.  His friends hope he will recover in a few days." (6)    

Despite the various mysteries regarding his background and family, Florence O'Leary was clearly well respected in the early days of  the Arizona Territory and for his activities here after statehood.  An 1890 Tucson newspaper refers to him as "one of the best citizens in Pima county" (7).  In 1910 O'Leary  served as justice of the peace in precinct No 10 of Pima county (8)

He later worked as a newspaperman and was very active in telling the stories of  the early frontier.
He died at the age of  73.

 1. Newspapers.com.  Arizona Daily Star.  (Tucson, Arizona)  17 July 1927. "In Old Tucson". 
https://www.newspapers.com/image/162424831/?terms=Florence%20O%27Leary&match=1

2. Arizona, Voter Registrations, 1866-1955. Ancestry.com.  Published 2016.  Provo, UT.
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/166788041/person/312162672496/facts

3. Newspapers.com. Daily Arkansas Gazette.(Little Rock, Arkansas).  18 Mar 1876. 
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74249121/florence-oleary-missing-reported/ 

4. Find-A-Grave. Joanna O'Leary Headstone.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42447862/joanna-oleary

5. Newspapers.com.  Arizona Weekly Star. (Tucson, Aarizona)  1 Aug 1895. "Home News".
https://www.newspapers.com/image/611640201/?terms=Florence%20O%27Leary&match=1

6. Newspapers.com.  Arizona Weekly Citizen (Tucson, Arizona). 14 Dec 1895."Local News"

https://www.newspapers.com/image/39799162/?terms=Florence%20O%27Leary&match=1

7. Newspapers.com. Tucson Citizen. (Tucson, Arizona) 13 Dec 1890.  "Personal".
https://www.newspapers.com/image/580242627/?terms=Florence%20O%27Leary&match=1

Arizona, Yavapai County. Pioneers' Home Resident Ledger. 
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSZL-M2C3?cc=3031544&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3A7VMV-43ZM
 

#11 - Augustine Caballero

 

Augustine Caballero
Birth: 23 Aug 1844  New Orleans, Louisiana
Death   7 Jun 1912   Prescott, Yavapai, AZ

Entered Pioneer Home February 25, 1911 at age 66
Lived there 1 year, 3 months

Augustine Caballero was in the minority of the men who first entered the Arizona Pioneers' Home in that he did have a family, and in fact has descendants who continue to live in Arizona today.  I had an opportunity to meet one of these descendants,  Rhonda Caballero, in February of 2020.  She showed me a scrap book about the family she had compiled and spoke with pride of her pioneer ancestor.

Caballero worked as an accountant and bookkeeper.  He was fluent in Native American dialects and at times was an interpreter.  He also worked for a time as private secretary to Governor Anson P. K. Safford, the third Governor to serve the state.

Augustine had two sons, Benjamin born in 1852 with Augustine's wife, Guadalupe Pacheco,  and Manuel born in 1870 from an unknown mother.   His family has remained in Pima county, AZ for many years.