Not the Verde
February 1, 2019

"Not the Verde" is a goofy title for this post, but it certainly is appropriate when the last three consecutive posts were about journeys to the river.

I presume that I am not the only person around who thinks or states intentions without following up; however, I am making a concerted effort to get "a round tuit".  I have some cousins in the Phoenix area who are of a generation beyond me: I have been wanting to visit them, and determined that the present was certainly preferable to additional procrastination.

After a bit of looking for lodging, we located a little bed & breakfast guest house in a nice historic district conveniently located.  Because we lodged on a quiet palm-tree-lined street in the F. Q. Story Historic District, I wondered about the designation.  Named for the early developer, Francis Quarles Story, houses in the district date from the 1920s through the 1940s.  Mr. Story never lived in Arizona, but he purchased the large area in order to develop it. 

We were satisfied with our little abode as a jumping-off point for one of the few things that can lure me to the city - people.  So . . . below are our home away from home and the quiet neighborhood, in which we spent little time.

And now for the important part and the reason for everything - people.  These folks are kin that we have come to know and love as a result of our genealogical research.

Dave & Gwen Polhemus were Prescottonians at one point, but left our environs for a move to the East Coast.  Now they have settled into the most impressive retirement resort that I've ever imagined just south of us in the Phoenix area, so we were happy to take advantage of their proximity and spend time with them.

Dave and I are gazillionth cousins through our mutual descendancy from the Rev. Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, who was born about 1598 in Bavaria, and moved from the Netherlands to Brazil in the employ of the Dutch West India Company before relocating to New Netherlands in North America in 1654.  The ship on which he was a passenger was captured by the Spanish, resulting in the refugees being left at Long Island.  His family on another ship went on to the Netherlands and later joined him at Long Island . . . and we complain about the inconvenience of modern travel!

It's interesting that the ministerial bent is prominent through generations of our Polhemus forebears down to and including Dave.  They left many friends in Prescott who remember them fondly.  What interesting and well-traveled folks they are!  We love hearing about their volunteer efforts to make the world a better place, and hope to have many more visits with them.

"Old John" . . .

"Old John" is how lots of folks seem to refer to my four-greats grandfather, John Chilcoat, exactly the same as we've always thought of him.  Between his 1758 Maryland birth and his 1851 Missouri demise, John Chilcoat did a lot of living and a lot of adventuring.  With his two wives, possibly three, he fathered 12 children.

He spent time in Pennsylvania (where he served in the American Revolution), Kentucky (where he was friends with Daniel Boone at Boonesborough) and Tennessee (where he served with the Winchester Home Guards during the War of 1812).  After his service in those wars, he removed to the wilderness that was then Missouri, possibly in conjunction with Boone.  We have in John's own words the course of his Revolutionary War activities from his pension application.

When we were years ago in Missouri doing on-site ancestral research, we learned that a plan was afoot by the Sons of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Revolution to place a memorial stone for old John, so we arranged to return for that event in 2002, and what an event that was, replete with all the expected pomp and circumstance!  Because his and his second wife Huldah's burial places are not known, the ceremony was held in Florence, Missouri, where their son William, my three greats grandfather, is interred.

It was during that momentous occasion that we were privileged to become acquainted with others of John's descendants from his first wife Susannah.  We have visited and been visited by several of the clan, most notably my cousin James Chilcoat, who fortuitously resides not so far away in Phoenix.

James is another whom we have not seen for far too long, so a visit with him was also on the agenda.  The bonus was that his son Jim was visiting from the Northwest, so we met him for the first time and spent an awesome evening with the two of them. 

Yet another new camera lesson was learned when I attempted a photograph our little group with the timer.  The affair turned into a bit of a madcap fiasco when I couldn't figure out the controls while my subjects: 1. Waited in place patiently, 2. Wondered silently about my competence or lack thereof, 3. Found a tripod so we could manage without propping the camera on countertop dishes, 4. Joined me in trying to learn how to make the timer work.  Ultimately, James produced a tripod; Jim figured out the timer, and the photograph was completed - unfortunately, the end result was less than stellar due to my inexperience that lined us up in front of a wall where our shadows hovered behind us.

Must be genetic: those lovely fellas are as crazy about history, family and adventuring as we are.  When talk turned to explorations of historic sites in the Arizona desert, our ears perked up.  Jim remembered four-wheeling to an interesting place with huge beehive ovens that intrigued us enough to want to search it out.  James pulled out Arizona Place Names; the resultant research was mutually fun but inconclusive; nevertheless, the search was on.

A roundabout route . . . 

With so many activities and destinations possible for our free day, cousin Jim's resonated  - we would look for the "beehive" ovens place, but first . . .

We were heading south on a route that would take us right past the Tempe Twin Butte Cemetery, a place that I have wanted to take a look at, so the time was right.  I knew we had some of my niece Shannon's kin there - namely Monroe Craig, her great grandfather's brother.  Yes, I do realize how fanatical that sounds, and surely is, but we stopped anyway.

Unbeknownst to me, there are two historic burying grounds there, with the interstate built right between them.  So Mr. Craig is interred in the Double Butte Cemetery, a nicely maintained facility complete with many familiar names from Arizona's past, such as Hayden and Dobson.

Across the busy freeway is the Twin Buttes Cemetery, a county-maintained site for the indigent and/or unknown.  It is a rather desolate place with few named burials, but a plethora of John & Jane Does.  I have to wonder how so many people came to be buried as unknowns and how many have wondered what became of them.

Florence . . .

When I realized that our approximate destination was beyond the town of Florence, and knowing that I had somehow never checked out "old town" Florence, we decided to wander that way and were very glad we did.

Evidently never having had a major conflagration as Prescott and so many other frontier settlements did, there remain a number of 19th century structures with lots of historical registry designations.

As the Pinal County seat, Florence boasts a splendid courthouse that has been beautifully restored.  It is still in use, but is cordially open to curious tourists like us, so we wandered through the building, admiring the intricate workmanship and appreciating the award-winning restoration.

We had to laugh when we came to a gallery featuring posters of movies made in Florence.  One especially seemed like a must-miss!

The first Pinal County courthouse serves as a visitors' center and museum.  Used from its construction in 1878 until 1891, it was later utilized as a hospital, health center and home for the elderly.  Former Arizona governor Ernest McFarland purchased the building to donate as a State park.

 We stopped to admire and read about many other historical buildings and churches, such as the 1911 Church of the Assumption . . .

 . . . the Harvey Niemeyer house, constructed of adobe in 1880 and later veneered with red brick.  I was surprised about the addition of brick over adobe . . .

 
. . . the Elmer Coker house . . .

 . . . the Charles Rapp saloon . . .

  . . . and others of historical significance and interest . . .

 . . . or just plain old and intriguing . . .

 In the vein of small world, we were a little surprised to find a photograph of Prescott's Watson Lake in Michael Baca's gallery.  He explained that he loves to visit our vicinity and had just had a showing of his photographs at The Local restaurant here.

 This mural was mounted on the building it depicts . . .

. . . and this one put me in mind of just what I had been thinking about on the road to Florence.  As we saw the Casa Grande monument not far away with modern development in the area, I thought of the evolution of humanity in that valley: from those early native agriculturists who built the Casa Grande to the 19th & 20th century Anglos who followed and farmed and now the early 21st century sun seekers.

 We spotted a feline across a yard and even at a distance could tell it was a Maine coon cat, one of our favorites.  When we called, she exhibited all the typical Maine coon characteristics: meowing and rolling on the ground.  Eventually, we got her to approach closer and were amazed at how beautiful she was.

The boondocks . . .

Eventually, we remembered where we were originally headed and turned our noses in that direction.  And what an incredibly beautiful region it turned out to be!  Cloud shadows played across the jagged mountain peaks creating constantly changing stupendous views of the desert.  I have never seen such a thick and extensive stand of saguaros anywhere, and all of them were plump with extensive recent rainfall.  All the desert vegetation was lush and beautiful, quietly anticipating warmer temperatures and the accompanying spring flowers.

The señor thought this couple might be celebrating their 250th anniversary.

I have never seen a saguaro with all it's limbs coming out at ground level like this one.

Every twist and turn of the road offered up more and more beauty.  This cactus had about as many arms as I've ever seen on a saguaro.

We halted at the thickly brushed Gila River bed and found ourselves at the site of a lot of past mining activity.  This shaft was longer than we explored, but we went into it for a good distance.

That shaft seemed relatively safe as far as we entered, but the one pictured below is a life-threatening hazard.  As you approach the cliff face, there is no real indication that a vertical mine is completely open, dropping straight down for 75 or 100 feet - very scary and very dangerous!

We explored the area on foot, and as we were wandering, we began to hear what sounded like distant wind chimes.  Finally, I realized that it was a belled cow, which I have never encountered with range cattle.  That one was soon joined by another and another until there was a veritable chorus of them as I got closer and it became obvious why they were belled: in that river bottom brush, an entire herd could easily remain hidden.

As I tried to get a photo of them through the thick tree growth, one young heifer because curious about me and came out to have a gander.

I finally got one shot that barely shows a red collar on one of the cows, but it was not an easy task.

Jim had told us about the beehive ovens at the old settlement site he had explored years earlier.  We spotted them on the opposite side of the river. 

Clearly, we had not found the place he had gone to, but were pleased nevertheless to have gotten into the vicinity, and to have been treated to such beauty and interesting sites along the way.