December 1864: First Christmas in Prescott
(This article was written by Sharlot M. Hall, founder of Sharlot Hall Museum, and first appeared in the Prescott Courier on December 24, 1930.)Sixty-six years ago the snow lay white over the hills; the tops of the high peaks were crystal white and cold; the pine and cedar and juniper trees were sparkling like trees on a Christmas card. Winter begun early in 1864, and by the middle of December the trails were mostly snowed under and lost - all but those often traveled which led to the placer gold mines on Lynx Creek, or to Walnut Grove and the camps on the Hassayampa.
The bowl of a valley was a forest of dark pines and juniper and cedar, with willows like a jungle along Granite creek - willows tall and slender but growing so close together that trails had to be cut through them down to the water's edge and up the farther bank where crossings were made.
On the circling mountains and abrupt foothills the primeval forest stood just as it had when the western hemisphere was unknown to white men. The only toll that axe and saw had made was where logs had been cut for the cabins scattered here and there in the very center of the little valley; and where slow whip-saws in their shallow pits had cut boards to make door and window shutters and tables and chairs, and long sluice boxes for the gold miners.
More than one horseman following the trail in from the Walker camp on Lynx creek, or other camps in the hills, must have stopped a minute on some hill to look down at the spot where he was going to spend "A white man's Christmas" with men of his own color and speech. He would have seen two spots of red, white and blue - two flags of the United States floating in the keen wind.
One flag flew from a tall staff that stood on the parade ground of the little log and stockade military post - Fort Whipple. This tall pine, cut in the forest north toward Bill Williams (mountain), floated its flag first at "Camp Clark" beside the big springs in Chino Valley where the first brief camp was made - then it traveled on down to the new Fort Whipple and for years told every incoming traveler on the mountain trails that here was a corner of the good old U.S.A.
The other flag floated from the trimmed-up top of a young pine tree and back of it stood the biggest of log houses; the home of the very new governor of the very new state of Arizona. Streets there were none, except on paper on the maps made by Robert Groom, the surveyor miner who had just laid out a capitol city among the forest trees of the little valley.
No streets - but where Gurley now runs, a rutted and snowy road was passable for army wagons - if there were enough mules in front. Trails worn by saddle and pack horses, mules and burros, and human feet, wandered here and there from cabin to cabin and out toward the edge of the forest and the scattered camps of gold miners.
In the very center of the bit of flat, where the plaza now lies, camp fires burned under trees; tents and shelters stood hap-hazard; and a few wagons with dirty canvass covers drawn close to keep out the snow, were pulled up under the best tree shelter their owners could find.
Little bells tinkled from the necks of grazing animals - all hobbled to keep them from wandering too far and being picked up by watchful Indians to whom horse or mule, or even burro, was welcome meat. The work oxen and milk cows were pastured under watchful guard in grassy corners of Miller Valley, or other open bits of grass, and in every cabin a loaded rifle stood ready to the owner's hand in case bold Indian thieves started raiding the stock.
Counting miners, soldiers, pack-train owners, and all there might have been two or three hundred men in reach of Prescott that first Christmas season; that late December of 1864. There were half a dozen families, mostly with several children; the bulk of them from a train which arrived in October and decided to try their fortune in Arizona instead of going to California.
Beside almost every cabin was the tall covered wagon in which the owners had traveled long and weary miles - wagons drawn by mules or oxen - or even by cows at a pinch. Horses were kept for the saddle or for the lighter "carry-all" in which the women of very lucky parties rode.
Through the window shutters of whip-sawed boards the light of fire-place or candles filtered out to cheer late travelers. There was not a glass window in Prescott that year, not even in the Governor's "Mansion." But there was Christmas cheer even if no windows reflected it. Big fires burned in the fire-places of stone or 'dobe or "stick an' mud"; and good smells came up from the camp fires on the plaza.
Every home opened its door to as many guests as it would hold and the governor reckoned his guests by the dozen. Not many men had to eat Christmas dinner at the little cabins where Lois Boblett and Mrs. Osborne served their patrons - though the fare must have been much the same everywhere.
Young Sam Miller and other men made a business of hunting for the market and any man who cared to go a mile could shoot a deer or wild turkey. Bear and antelope and grouse and quail, and even beaver tail, could be added to the bill of fare with little effort - and yet beef from some discarded work ox was a prime delicacy and likely as not the governor himself was glad to get a quarter.
Flour was scarce and most of it came by jack mule from Mexico, along with cakes of dark brown sugar and dried figs and grapes. Dried apples and peaches had come with the October train that brought the women and children, and a few of the women had hoarded a bit of white flour and white loaf sugar, kept for sickness but used in the Christmas jollification.
Those pioneer women were notable cooks and there must have been many a tempting dinner served; but the governor's private secretary, Henry Fleury, had just enough French blood to cook with genius, and visitors of that period to Arizona's state house have ranked the broad-shouldered, handsome secretary-cook above the big and handsome governor.
Brown Mexican beans, and the little white "Navy" bean included in the regular rations of the soldiers, were the available vegetables - with plenty of "sow-belly" and chili sauce to season them - though all of these grew scarce as winter shut down and from "Walker's Camp" and Wickenburg volunteer packers made their way to Mexico for supplies.
There is a picture of those days in verse which says:
The Lynx Creek placer miners
In the fall of Sixty-four
Had yellow gold in every pouch and they had little more.
"I'd give an ounce of cleanest dust," old Captain Walker said,
"For just one big brown-crusted loaf
Of good Dutch oven bread.
I'm sick and tired of venison an' beaver tail an' duck;
An' antelope an' mountain quail make my ol' innards buck.
There's flour to spare in Mexico, in Hermosillo town -
Now who will take our saddle stock
An' drive a pack train down
An' bring us back the good wheat flour,
An' brown panoche too;
An' sun-dried figs an' Mission grapes, as sweet as ever grew?
We've gold enough to load a mule,
But gold is hard to eat;
We'll all be growin' horns an' hoofs, a-livin' on straight meat."
No doubt the gray and grizzled Captain (Joseph) Walker was among the guests in the governor's log house that day, and it may well be that he and Captain (Pauline) Weaver sat side by side and talked of the fur trade in the Thirties and Forties, when they were young men and pushed their way to Santa Fe and on into California far in advance of (John C.) Fremont and Kearney.
Bright uniforms, too, mingled with the dark coats around the governor's table that Christmas Day, for the commander of the small "army" lived at the "Mansion" with the jolly crowd of officials, and the military band played for the ball that night - when the dancers found the floor of hard-beaten earth no bar to their fun.
This was the first ball at which there were women enough left for a full set and some left over; little girls danced with grave and dignified officers whose tall shoulders were far above the pig-tailed heads of their little pardners, and one little girl told of how she carried her Christmas doll in one hand while she danced.
There were gifts, even though stores were far away; gifts mostly home-made, but treasured for years and even in a few instances handed down to the present. There was a little service of song and homely talk in the home of Mrs. Ehle, who lived to be the beloved "Grandmother Ehle" of later day Prescott, and another at the mansion with Parson (Hiram W.) Read, the first minister in Prescott, in charge.
It was only a year or two later that Prescott had the first outdoor "municipal" Christmas tree in the Southwest, if not in the United States. Among the trees on the plaza was a shaggy juniper on the east side whose branches attracted the notice of jokers who had a mind to play Christmas tricks on each other.
For years gifts, all the way from broad jokes to real needs were hung on this tree, and no person was so dignified or important as to be neglected or forgotten. Some of the jokes had a bit of sting in them - and at last the axe of one of the stung was laid at the roots of the innocent tree. One picture of this tree survives to the present - though without gifts or decoration.
The next year (1865) Christmas at the governor's mansion had the greatest distinction in the life of that old house, for the first governor's lady of Arizona was hostess to all the little city. Her lovely and gracious spirit still lingers in the big rooms and keeps Christmas memories sweet and fragrant as boughs of pine and cedar.
(This article was submitted by Jody Drake, Sharlot Hall Museum Curator of Education. Jody often portrays Sharlot at special events.)
Each year, Sharlot Hall Museum presents the "Frontier Christmas Open House" where guests are warmed with the spirit of "Christmas Past" and reminded of that first territorial Christmas with holiday treats, entertainment, period decorations and costumed interpreters in many of the museum's buildings. The whole campus glows with festive decorations and activities from our territorial past. This year's event, Saturday, December 5, took visitors back 145 years!
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Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(citn235p) Reuse only by permission.
The brand new community of Prescott as it appeared in 1864, having only a few hundred people scattered over the area: miners, soldiers and a few dozen families.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po1321p) Reuse only by permission.
Arizona Territory's first officials appointed by President Lincoln in 1863 were, no doubt, present that first Christmas in the "Governor's Mansion" in 1864. Seated from left: Associate Justice Joseph P. Allyn, Governor John N. Goodwin, Secretary Richard C. McCormick. Standing from left: the governor's private secretary Henry W. Fleury (not a presidential appointee), U.S. Marshall Milton B. Duffield and Attorney General Almon P. Gage.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(pb006i17) Reuse only by permission.
A rear view of the "Governor's Mansion" as seen in 1869. It appears much the same as the original building of 1864. It was the largest of the log houses in Prescott at that time, hence "mansion," and situated on the west side of Granite Creek, exactly where it stands today on the campus of Sharlot Hall Museum. Governor Goodwin, that Christmas of 1864, invited all to the celebration and kept open house where there was dancing all night on the sod floor of the house.