(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.
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.
And so, the people of the newly formed community of Prescott gathered to celebrate Christmas of 1864.
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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.
It all begins at the museum on West Gurley Street immediately following the Courthouse lighting ceremony on the Plaza on Saturday, Dec. 5. Admission is $3 for museum members, $5 for non-members and free for those under 18. Come and experience a territorial Christmas and then read more of Sharlot’s description of the 1864 Christmas celebration in Part II of Days Past next week.
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Submission of Sharlot’s 1864 Christmas account by Jody Drake, Curator of Education at Sharlot Hall Museum. Drake often portrays Sharlot Hall at special events.
This and other Days Past articles are available on sharlothallmuseum.org/library&archives/history/dayspast and via RSS email subscription.
The public is welcome to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Scott Anderson at Sharlot Hall Museum Archives at 445-3122 for more information.
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 bypermission.
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.