By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

In 1864 local residents came together to establish the City of Prescott.  In June of that year the need arose to bury one of their fellow pioneers, Joel Woods, in what would become Citizens Cemetery (also known as the Town Cemetery, Prescott Cemetery, City Cemetery, County Cemetery and Citizens Burying Ground) as the first of many men and women who would be laid to rest there.

Unlike the storied “Boot Hills” of elsewhere, Citizens Cemetery was to boast few notorious occupants.  Instead, everyday “pioneers” would be interred here such as Lincoln, New Mexico, native Archie McCorkle Anderson, who made his way to Arizona in the 1890s.  He eventually settled in Prescott where he looked forward to an ideal life with his new family.  The Prescott Daily Herald described him as, “A young man happy with a loving wife and sweet baby girl, trusted by his fellow men, respected in the community, with bright future….”  In fact, on the night of August 3, 1904, just a few weeks after he had celebrated his thirtieth birthday and barely a month before his fourth wedding anniversary, he must have been looking forward to celebrating this joyous occasion with his wife Ida and their two-year-old daughter Noma. This anticipated occasion was never to be.

Anderson, a railroad worker, was on duty at the local depot when Santa Fe train No. 4 rolled in pulled by four locomotives.  After arrival the train halted and started to back toward the roundhouse.  As the trained steamed rearward, Anderson hopped on board and leaned back to speak to some fellow workers.  As the paper reported the sad news, “…before he knew it, the railing on the south side of the porch” of an adjacent building struck him.  He plummeted to the ground with his right arm and right leg across the track just as the massive train wheels rolled by, “mashing the bones in his limbs to pulp.”

A crowd gathered.  Loading the mangled but still breathing and conscious victim into a wagon they rushed him to Mercy Hospital.  Along the way Anderson called out in pain, “Oh my God, how can I stand it boys?”

Hurriedly a team of doctors prepared him for surgery where they were to amputate the mangled limbs.  After an anesthetic had taken effect the surgeons started their frantic efforts to stave off the inevitable.  Nearly four hours passed, but the incredible loss of blood in a time before transfusions took its inevitable toll.

On August 5, 1904 the unfortunate young father and husband was laid to rest in Citizen’s Cemetery at what the Prescott Courier described as “one of the most largely attended funerals in the history of the city.”  His flower-covered casket was borne on a hose cart, draped in mourning, that belonged to of the O.K. volunteer fire company.  Anderson’s fellow members of the department drew the cart as the Eagles’ brass band led the way.

Funeral procession of Archie Anderson from the Sacred Heart Church on August 5, 1904 (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum – Call Number: BU-C-1050P-cropped).

Now, nearly 110 years after Anderson’s tragic passing, he will come back to life as part of a jointly sponsored event by the Yavapai Cemetery Association and Sharlot Hall Museum held at Citizen’s Cemetery on the evening of September 6, 2013.  Anderson will be portrayed by Jeff Banus, one of six re-enactors who have taken great pains to research the lives of a half dozen former Prescott pioneers who were laid to rest at Citizen’s Cemetery.

The others who will come back from the grave as part of the Dining Among the Dead program, as played by modern day alter egos, include Victorian Behan (Mirum Arrington) talking about her daughter little Henrietta Behan – a schoolgirl whose father was a political opponent of Wyatt Earp at Tombstone; Bessie May Caldwell (Diane Limpus) who succumbed to knife wounds at age thirty-five at the hand of her homicidal husband; despondent Eleanor Palmer (Michelle Young) who, after she accidentally shot and killed her son, drank carbolic acid and despite doctor’s efforts was “beyond human aid”; Juan Moreno (Mike Sheppard) who left his home in Mexico to become a long time resident and character of old Yavapai County, and Serilda Miller Cartter (Nancy Lambert).  For more about Dining Among the Dead see www.sharlothallmuseum.org or call 445-3122, ext. 14.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 Ext. 14 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information.)