By Randi Wise 

Taking a ride on Senator Highway deep into the Bradshaws, you will come upon a log home sitting right off by itself. It may look a little forlorn to you right now but there was a time that it was a bustling enterprise. Sitting on the busiest road in the Bradshaws, this unassuming little cabin was soon to be known as Palace Station. Please, let me start at the beginning.

Alfred Barnum Spence and Matilda Elizabeth Lambuth met and married in Missouri in 1869. They also started a family while in Missouri with the first 2 of 8 children born there. In the spring of 1875, the Spence family did what many were doing at that time; they joined with 30 other families to form a wagon train west. 

The wagon train got as far as Fort Whipple before it had to stop because of presumed hostile Indian activity farther west. Twelve of the families decided to stay on in the Prescott area; the Spences being one of them. 

While working assorted jobs in the area, from saw mill to pack mule train, A.B. Spence met and befriended many locals. One of those locals was T.M. Alexander of the famous Peck Mine and namesake of the ghost town of Alexandra. A.B. worked for him, starting a dairy at Alexander's ranch in 1877. Around that time, Spence established his own ranch in Crook Canyon two miles south of the Crook Mill. 

While bouncing back and forth between ranches, it happened that the next two Spence family members, both girls, were born on the Alexander ranch; the last four Spence children, two boys and two girls were born at Palace Station. Matilda certainly had her hands full, especially since A.B. took on other jobs that could take him away from Palace Station for weeks at a time. That left Matilda pretty much running a stage stop single-handed while raising 8 children, which of course included home schooling. 

While every one of the children had their chores and worked hard themselves, they still had the trappings of youth to amuse them, as found in the floorboards of a Palace Station excavation in 1980. Many childhood items were unearthed such as dolls and doll toys, marbles, puzzles, harmonicas, balls and small metal animals In one of the girl's diaries pets were mentioned. It seems that over the years they had many and assorted dogs and cats as well as a mule named Kit, two squirrels named Punch and Judy and a pair of orphaned foxes. 

Besides Matilda being a wife, mother, teacher, rancher and stage-stop manager, she took on the job of postmaster in March of 1881 with her fifth child barely 3-months-old. The Hassayampa post, once at Palace Station, handled a large amount of mail that was increasing daily, closed 18 months later. Presumably Matilda resigned and it is speculated that being pregnant with her 6th child could have had something to do with it. 

As time went on, the children moved on and started families of their own. 

Of the two boys, Willis, last child born to the Spences, never married; Leroy, the 6th born, married Margaret Aplustill (the daughter by a previous marriage of his sister Ida's husband). 

Ida was the 2nd born and, at the ripe old age of 24, the oldest at the time of her wedding than any Spence. Harry and Ida Aplustill never had children. 

Myrtle, the 4th Spence daughter, married Frank Olin. She already had a 20-month-old baby who took the Olin name. One child with Olin died as a baby. 

Belle, the oldest Spence child, and Elsie, the youngest daughter, had six children each. Belle, who married and divorced William Johnson and was later married to John Crume, had 3 children with each man. 

Elsie, who married Bert Evans, had six children and still managed to follow him around on his many jobs, (miner, water well driller, barber and mechanic). 

Maud, the 5th daughter who, when barely 17, married Thomas Thompson in l898. Almost immediately, she had to brave the loss of their first three children before having four more. They were a well-respected family, with Thomas being the Sheriff at Mayer from 1902 to 1933. 

Florence, 3rd oldest Spence, proved to have the saddest life of all the children. In 1895, at the age of 17, she got permission to marry Clinton Beck. A handsome and industrious young man, he built a small cabin just north of Palace Station for them to live. Clinton was killed in a mining accident four years later, in 1899, leaving behind three children (2 boys and a girl) and a young widow. Only 22 years old, with 3 children to take care of, she remarried 10 months later to a 43-year-old hostler named Bud Dozier. They moved into the cabin near Palace Station and during this time she would gain the reputation of being a "heavy drinker," which she maintained until her death in 1937. 

Just after 1902, Dozier left Florence and moved to Southern Arizona. With the Beck children no longer with her, she stayed on alone in the Beck cabin. The oldest son was adopted by a couple in Walnut Grove while the daughter was with Matilda at Palace Station. The youngest son was living with the Crumes who were in Mayer at that time. Between 1903 and 1911, Florence had six more children, despite the fact her husband had been gone since before 1903. Two of the children died and she gave the three youngest (boys) up for adoption in 1912, keeping the oldest child, a daughter named Annie. 

Jump ahead to 1920 and we see that the tragedies of the mother followed the daughter, Annie Beck, who, at the age of 16, found herself the victim of a shooting while working as a waitress in a downtown Prescott cafe. If you want to see how this story turns out, come to the Blue Rose Theater at the Sharlot Hall Museum and see the production of "A Smokin' Gun on Whiskey Row." Performances are scheduled for August 3, 4, 10, & 11 (7:30pm), August 4 & l1 (2pm) and August 9 (6pm), 2007. 

(Randi Wise is a descendant of the Spences; she is the great-grand daughter of Belle Spence Crume.) 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bust6001pb)
Reuse only by permission.
The Spence family at Palace Station in1878. 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bust6013pa)
Reuse only by permission.
The Spences at Palace Station, c.1880. 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bust6013pb)
Reuse only by permission.
The Spences at Palace Station, c.1880.