By Dr. Ken Edwards

His father was a peddler, his brother founded a highly successful department store in Phoenix and his nephew was a famous Arizona senator who ran for president of the United States. But Morris Goldwater established his legacy in Prescott. This is the first of four articles about Morris and his family who played an important part in the early history of Prescott.

The Goldwater story begins in Poland where Hirsch Goldwasser, his wife and their 22 children (!) were victims of the Russian persecution of Jews in the mid-1800s. Two sons, Michel and Joseph, escaped (at different times) to Paris and eventually to London. Michel, the older of the two, became a successful tailor, married well in 1850 and, by 1852, was the father of two children, Caroline and Morris. Joseph, nine years younger than Michel, arrived in London about that time and was enthralled by reports of the fabulous wealth to be made in the California goldfields in the United States. Anxious to strike it rich, Joe convinced Michel to leave his wife and children (temporarily) and go with him.

So the intrepid adventurers, now 31 and 22 years of age and going by the name of Goldwater, set sail and arrived in California late in 1852 via New York and Nicaragua. It had now been four years since the first gold discoveries, and the easy deposits had already been claimed and worked. Sensibly, the brothers decided to undertake a commercial enterprise. They founded a saloon (beneath a bordello) in Sonora, Calif. In less than two years, the business was profitable enough for Michel to bring his wife Sarah and their children from England. But she was not pleased with life remote from the conveniences and niceties of the big city, so she and the children soon took up residence in San Francisco.

When the mines around Sonora became marginal, the saloon business slowed down and eventually became unprofitable. Creditors closed in on Michel and Joe and, in early 1860, Michel was declared bankrupt and lost almost everything but the shirt on his back and $100 cash.

The brothers headed south to the growing metropolis of Los Angeles and took work wherever they could find it. It didn't take long for the enterprising Michel to figure out that there was money to be made in peddling goods to the newly discovered goldfields in southwestern Arizona Territory. With the help of Joe, he purchased a cart, loaded it with all sorts of commodities he felt the miners would need, and set off across the Mojave Desert for Fort Yuma and beyond. He sold out quickly and made a good profit. And thus was begun the Goldwater incursion into Arizona Territory.

Michel progressed from peddler to a partner in a mercantile store, then to store owner in the port city of La Paz on the Colorado River. When the river changed course during a flood in 1868, La Paz was left high and dry, so the store was moved about 8 miles south to the new city of Ehrenberg.

Probably because of Michel's bankruptcy and poor credit, the store went by the name of J. Goldwater & Bro. Joe continued to reside primarily in Los Angeles and was, among other things, the chief purchasing agent for the Arizona enterprise, making frequent trips to San Francisco to buy goods that were needed by Arizona pioneers. Despite business successes, the Goldwater brothers had numerous problems with both creditors and debtors.

In 1872, Michel's son Morris was 20 years old and joined his father in his business enterprises. Morris had apprenticed with a hat company in San Francisco and was ready to apply his training in merchandising. By this time, the new city of Phoenix was becoming established in the Salt River Valley, and father and son established a mercantile store there. Joseph was a (mostly) absentee partner in the enterprise, although it bore the name of J. Goldwater and Bro. Henry Goldwater, a younger brother of Morris, was left in charge of day-to-day operations at the Ehrenberg store.

The Phoenix store was an early success and the popular Morris even became involved in local politics. It was the beginning of a long political and public service career. By early 1875, the fortunes of the store were diminishing and it was not long until the business became unprofitable and was closed late that year.

Through the years, Michael (somewhere along the line Michel had become Michael) and Joseph had done a significant amount of freighting and bidding on government contracts for delivering commodities to military posts including Fort Whipple. Both brothers had made business trips to Prescott. Mike liked the town and decided to try his hand along with son, Morris, in this former Arizona capital which was still a mining, commercial, military and cultural center for central Arizona.

Next week in Part 2, the Goldwaters establish their first Prescott business.

Dr. Ken Edwards is a volunteer with the Sharlot Hall Museum Library & Archives and a docent on the Museum campus.  In additon, he is a tour guide for the Prescott Chamber of Commerce.

Sharlot Hall Museum/Courtesy photo<br>Michael Goldwater, circa 1890, was a Polish-English immigrant and patriarch of the Prescott and Phoenix Goldwater’s.