by John Mason Glen, Ph.D., for the Western Heritage Foundation
Last month, we began the story of Pauline Weaver, “Prescott’s First Citizen.” Weaver joined the Union army when the Civil War broke out and served as chief of scouts for Colonel James Carleton’s “California Column” as it attempted to wrest control of the Arizona Territory from the Confederates.
A skirmish at Stanwix Station between rebel Captain Sherod Hunter’s Arizona Rangers and Union men, together with the more violent firefight at Picacho Peak, 50 miles northwest of Tucson in April 1863, were the westernmost military encounters of the entire war. Weaver was in both engagements.
His prospecting talents were tested as he traveled through the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix. A 1,000-foot granite stalagmite is named for the intrepid scout.
A generation later German immigrant Jacob Waltz is said to have uncovered a vein of gold once mined by Apache Indians. Waltz supposedly carried several sacks of pure gold into an assay office in east Phoenix over several weeks but would never divulge the location of his mine. The story is that at 4 o’clock the shadow of the Weaver’s Needle lays directly over The Lost Dutchman’s Mine, which has never been found.
Weaver died in 1870 at Camp Verde while employed by the army as a scout. He was camped under some cottonwood trees and apparently contracted malaria and was buried in the Camp Verde cemetery.
In 1890 when Camp Verde was decommissioned, all the graves in the cemetery were relocated to the National Cemetery in San Francisco. J.H. Lee of the American Ranch near Granite Mountain was granted the contract to move the remains. Thirty years later town fathers felt it was simply wrong for the “First Citizen of Prescott” not to be buried in Prescott.
In stepped Prescott lawyer A.H. Favour and Judge E.W. The two enlisted the help of local Boy Scouts who raised enough money to cover the reinternment on the grounds of the Governor’s mansion, where Ms. Sharlot Hall resided.
The casket apparently was even kept in her home and so the story goes she often said “Goodnight Paulino” before retiring. A bronze plaque at the entrance to the mansion marks Weaver’s final resting place.
To learn about the American West visit the Western Heritage Center at 156 S. Montezuma St. Admission is free.
