By Juti A. Winchester, Ph.D.

In Prescott, the name Sharlot Mabridth Hall brings to mind a number of images.  Some people remember her as a ranch woman.  Others know her as a poet, journalist and writer, and still others as the Territorial Historian or as the founder of the museum that bears her name.

In looking below the surface of these accomplishments, however, one finds another and very surprising person.  The Sharlot Hall Museum holds most of Sharlot's personal effects and papers, and study of these materials reveals a complex and interesting woman.

Sharlot and her family came from Kansas to Arizona in 1882, settling at Orchard Ranch, near Dewey.  Sharlot's mother, Adeline, was a woman of tenderness and intellect who inspired her daughter to read, write and try to make a finer life for herself than that of ranch drudge.

By contrast, her father, James Hall, was misanthropic and desired nothing more for his wife and children than simple usefulness in ranch work, and he made this very clear to them when they suggested any deviation from the established routine.

Sharlot's brother Ted was intelligent and showed talent for engineering, but his father's disinterest and uncompromising demands discouraged him.  He finally left to seek a life elsewhere, an option not open to Sharlot. Somewhat trapped, she remained to care for her mother and help with the ranch, pursuing her other interests whenever she could. In her poetry and essays, and in letters to her trusted friends, Sharlot recorded her dreams and her frustrations.  She had a remarkable capacity for love and for hope, in spite of her surroundings. Even though she faced enormous physical and other obstacles, she never abandoned the idea that she might make a living from her writing.

In a 1900 letter to Sharlot's friend Charles Lummis, Western artist Maynard Dixon described her thus: "In her quiet way, she is a heroine."  As editor of the magazine OUT WEST, Lummis published a number of Sharlot's literary works, and even gave her editorial positions when he could.  She took him up on his offers when she could escape the ranch, but when family duty called she unfailingly returned to Lonesome Valley and her former life.

Much of what we see of Sharlot Hall is through the veil drawn across the past by time.  Printed pages and photographs are single dimensional and black and white, and obscure the woman in favor of the image.  In her personal papers, however, we see something else.

Although she would write on any handy bit of paper, not allowing inspiration to escape her, Sharlot loved fine stationery, writing to her friends on delicate cream-colored pages with her distinctive handwriting.

She wrote one series of letters on fine gray paper personalized with her name and title, "Arizona Historian" in tiny pine-green letters.  One of these letters, written to her friend, Frances Gillette, in 1911, described her home in Phoenix where she stayed while serving as Territorial Historian.  In detail, she outlined her decorating scheme of blue accents in curtains, rugs, and furniture, including two 'Moqui" (Hopi) plaques that she displayed on the wall.  At Orchard Ranch, she would not have been allowed to do anything toward making the ranch house more pleasant.  On her own in Phoenix, Sharlot reveled in her freedom.

Her personal papers also show that Sharlot had a great interest in cooking.  An avid collector of newspaper articles, she pasted hundreds of clipped recipes over the pages of books she might have otherwise thrown away.  Likewise, she scribbled recipes in her journals, recording one particularly easy and delicious formula for enchiladas in an 1897 notebook she titles, "Phrases, Hints, and Odds and Ends of Thought".  In 1914, she wrote to Frances Gillette that her fame among her neighbors rested on her gingerbread and that "at every picnic or feed of any sort I am asked to bake enough to go round, which would take a cargo of West Indies molasses at the very least".  Sharlot goes on to praise her "Salem cookbook" with its many gingerbread recipes.

Sharlot worried about her women neighbors in Dewey.  While writing about the apparent romance of ranch life, she knew personally the hard work that the life entailed and observed the domestic abuse and juvenile delinquency not generally publicized, much less recorded by contemporary writers.  In the early 1920s she tried to start a boys' group and a "Friendly Improvement Club" for the women, with little success.  Regarding this, Sharlot wrote to her friend, Alice Hewins, "Their need is so great, only God knows the dull life, broken only when hubby beats up some one of them with a club, no uncommon thing".  Eventually, Sharlot's own domestic situation forced her to drop all outside activities for several years.

Pets alleviated the loneliness of ranch life for Sharlot, and she mentions animals many times in her letters to friends.  On a trip to Nevada in 1911, she acquired a box turtle that she named "Billy Nevada", sneaking him on the train in her book bag to bring him home safely, while friends gave her an Airedale named "Jock O'Hazeldean".  In 1914, she delighted in a new kitten, writing to Frances Gillette, "Dick Whittington only arrived Friday, but if he stays with us a good long time he will be a cat of parts, just now he is mostly claws, purr, spits, and capacity for new milk.  But he and Jock love each other and both of them treat me like a door mat provided for their comfort".  When she lived at the old Territorial Governor's mansion in Prescott, Sharlot watched over a three-legged deer, keeping her on the porch.

One of the most evocative collections in the Sharlot Hall Museum is her personal effects, particularly her clothing.  The copper dress on display in the Museum Center was commissioned by the Arizona Industrial Congress for Sharlot to wear to President Coolidge's inauguration in 1925, but despite its fame it is the least representative of her taste in clothing.  Photographs reveal that when she could, Sharlot wore fine fabrics for the camera, almost in defiance of the harsh working life she led most of her years.  She wore hats with veils, flowers, beads and above all, embroidery and lace.

The dress pictured in the photograph looks like it has black and white stripes with bold flower designs, but examination of the dress in the museum's collection vault shows us Sharlot at her most feminine.  The dress is a pale peach color, and the fabric is a damask with fine, nearly transparent stripes alternating with lines of tiny embroidered flowers.  The sleeves are delicate cream-colored lace edged with minute voile gathers, and the large flowers on the bodice are heavily embroidered in pastel colors.  Wear on the fabric lining shows that Sharlot must have loved it and wore it as often as she could.

By looking beyond the public image of Sharlot Hall, we can gain a better understanding of her life, of Prescott, and of the region she loved.

Her writing assumes a new dimension when seen through the lens of her experience.

The Sharlot Hall Museum will be celebrating the 130th anniversary of Sharlot Hall's birth on Friday at 7 p.m., with a program of her poetry performed by Jody Drake and members of the Blue Rose Theater group, followed by birthday cake. 

Juti Winchester is the Assistant Archivist at the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives.

 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (po0171pd). Reuse only by permission.
Along with the letters and photographs of Sharlot, the museum has many of her personal effects.  This dress from the collection is a pale peach color, and the fabric is a damask with fine, nearly transparent stripes alternating with lines of tiny embroidered flowers.  Wear on the fabric lining shows that Sharlot must have loved it and wore it as often as she could.