Description

Don Maguire’s January 1879 inscription on a boulder in Prescott, Arizona.  Photo Courtesy of Nancy Burgess for this Days Past article.  This photo was used in the Days Past article titled, Don Maguire’s New Years’ Adventure in Prescott, 1879 - Part 2, by Nancy Burgess on January 2, 2023.

Don (Dominick) Maguire was born in 1852 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Don’s father, John, was a merchant trader who originally traveled and traded all over New England and New York, then into Kentucky, Illinois and Iowa, and made a considerable fortune in the 1870s. John then took his family west to Ogden, Utah.

From 1876 to 1879, the itinerant peddler Don Maguire made three trading expeditions through Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Mexico. He determined that the trading opportunities were ripe in the mining districts of the Arizona Territory, which were typically undersupplied. It was not without danger and Maguire did not go alone. He hired experienced, “good, trusty and worthy men.” He required his men to be constantly well armed and alert, to keep to themselves, not talk to the locals, not explain their purposes and be loyal to him. In exchange, he offered good pay, the best food to procure, the best accommodations available, good horses, side excursions, and vacations.