By James F. Vivian

In 1864, the town of Prescott was named in honor of Massachusetts-based historian William Hickling Prescott, who was already deceased at the time and had never set foot in the west. Even in the 19th century it was unusual for towns to bear the names of people who were not involved with their founding, and thus the question has been raised as to which of our earliest territorial pioneers suggested the honor for Mr. Prescott.

Many historians believe the name was proposed by Richard McCormick. Over the years, other candidates, besides McCormick, have been suggested and, in 1915, the Prescott Journal-Miner newspaper added another name to the debate.

Brigadier General John G. Chandler died at age 84 on June 22, 1915 in California. He had been a career officer in the U.S. Army after graduating from West Point in 1855. His retirement in Los Angeles dated from 1895.

Death notices and obituaries struck a fitting summary of his varied duty assignments across the nation, his upward promotions in rank and his specialization in the quartermaster branch of the service. Those notices, however, did not include the lengthy account printed in the Prescott Journal-Miner on June 26, 1915. There, the editor established an important claim on Chandler’s behalf, and cited Chandler’s activities in the American west in the 1860s and at the beginning of the Civil War.

The Journal-Miner editor, Percy R. Milnes, took control of the newspaper for a "stock company" in 1914 during a brief interval between two private owners. Born in northern California in 1876, Milnes graduated from college in 1898. He held two newspaper editorships before qualifying as a lawyer in 1910. Thomas E. Campbell appointed him his personal secretary on winning the Arizona governorship in 1918. Two years later, Milnes became the state’s immigration commissioner. He returned to California in 1922 where he turned to developing real-estate properties in San Diego and Los Angeles. He died in 1937, having edited the Richmond, California, Record Herald for three years prior to his death. His credentials as an editor were unquestioned.

According to Milnes, it was Captain Chandler who became the "first man known to suggest that the first capital of Arizona be christened Prescott." It happened, he said, at Fort Mohave on the Colorado River, where Chandler had been ordered to lead 50 soldiers on a temporary assignment from his station on an Army barracks in the Los Angeles area.. General James H. Carleton, commander of Army forces in the New Mexico Territory headquartered in Santa Fe, directed Surveyor-General John A. Clark to examine the Bradshaw mountains for their suspected mineral wealth and, incidentally, "for the purpose of establishing a permanent seat of government for the new territory."

The [Clark] "expedition drifted (sic) for several weeks" during the fall season, either in "1860 or 1861…..made observations of many localities…..made many camps" and, according to Milnes, "finally located for several days at what is now known as Simmons Springs in Miller Valley." Returning to Fort Mohave after supplies, General Clark remained there for several weeks, and it was at this post when the name of Arizona's first capital was suggested by Captain Chandler."

The start-up community of Fort Whipple officially renamed itself Prescott in May, 1864. The vote margin, from a batch of imaginative alternatives (Goodwin City, Granite, Fleuryville and Gimletville), was not given, and no one, then or later, took sole credit for having introduced the name Prescott.

In Part 2, we will examine more closely Milnes’ claim for General Chandler and show discrepancies in his newspaper account.

James F. Vivian is an author and contributor to Arizona Historical Society publications and resides in Sun City, Ariz.

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