1940 Travel Flow

Frontier PASTOR Returns for a Day

THE sands of nearly sixty years have poured through the hour glass since a vigorous young divinity student named Endicott Peabody strode out of the East and into hellroaring Tombstone to take charge of the Episcopal parish there.

This tall, sturdy fellow preached sermons, performed marriages, baptized babies, administered communion, conducted funerals and helped to build the now oldest Protestant church edifice in Arizona, during his brief half year of residence; then he left, on July 15, 1882. He returned Sunday, Febuary 16, 1941, for a few hours, and preached an inspiring sermon in historic St. Paul's the structure he helped to build long ago.

Appearing in his vestments before the congregation, Dr. Peabody told of his arrival in Tombstone in January 1882, to assume his first pastorate, and of the work of the parishioners in gathering funds for constructing St. Paul's.

Dr. Peabody, distinguished American educator and church leader, returned to Tombstone one Sunday this spring to conduct services at the Episcopal church, which he built sixty years ago. Dr. Peabody has recently retired as head of Groton's, where he taught, among others, President Roosevelt.

With feeling, he said that in returning to Tombstone and looking back over the 59 years which have elapsed since he first arrived there, many happy thoughts came to him, which were accompanied by thoughts which brought sad recollections, also. Among the less happy thoughts, he observed, was the poignant fact that he was the only one present that day of the group whose willing hands had helped to found the church. But he voiced thanks for the happy thought that some of the descendants of the original parishioners had continued to maintain association with St. Paul's and that there were children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those co-founders at this service.

"There is happiness also in the thought of the many opportunities available today to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ," he added, "and in the many opportunities for each one to do something for this great country of ours, so that its priceless gifts of freedom and liberty shall be forever maintained."

Continuing with the rites, the venerable pastor asked that the sacred lyric, "Processional" be sung; after which, the choir of six young women and two young men rendered selections, accompanied by a 'cello and the recently installed electric organ.

Then, in that restful atmosphere with the morning light streaming through the leaded art glass windows, with candles burning on the altar, the Stars and stripes standing at the right of the nave, and calla lilies in vases providing a decorative effect the 130 worshippers filling the little church rose and sang "Onward Christian Soldiers."

The hymn theme provided Dr. Peabody with subjectmatter for his sermon, the burden of which was the banishing of fear. Speaking in a deep, sonorous voice, from notes interspersed with citations from Scripture, the pastor declared that God did not give man the spirit of fear; but, instead the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. Considering each of these gifts in their order, he developed his message with clarity and inspiration, and expounded that those who wish to do so can learn to use these innate divine gifts to banish fear and replace it with the courage to face the problems of everyday life. He was assisted in the offices and functions of the services by John A. Larson, lay reader and organist.

Following his morning sermon in historic St. Paul's, Dr. Peabody and a group of friends dusted off and paraded in review stirring events of the 1880's.

Tales of heroic exploits of the youthful Pastor Peabody during his less than six months residence in "wicked old Tombstone" have grown, down through more than five and a half decades, into legends which paint the stalwart dominie in almost olympic proportions.

This oil painting by Lon Megargee symbolizes the spirit of Tombstone and the west when Endicott Peabody came to Tombstone to fill the role of a frontier pastor. It was a rough, tough town but Dr. Peabody says: "There was in Tombstone, in my day, a large group of men and women who did right and cooperated with all who aimed at promoting the highest interest of the town."

When the "Saga of Endicott Peabody" was broached at the roundtable, the eminent savant vigorously denied its authenticity, and swept all its component legends aside with an emphatic declaration that such tales told about him were entirely untrue. He pronounced them the figments of the imaginations of Western fiction writers.

"I heard from a man way up in the Klondike, in the gold rush days of '98, who said a story was going the rounds up there that I had whipped all the toughs of Tombstone with my fists. Nothing to it at all! Never had a fist fight in my life! Stuff and nonsense!"

He denied that professional gamblers and the saloon keepers had contributed to help build the church. One member of the gathering, whose mother had been a member of the Ladies Guild of the historic church, refreshed his memory on that point by recalling that the gamblers and saloon men had contributed generously to make bazaars and theatricals possible to raise money for some of the church furnishings.

A Two-Fisted PASTOR Arrives in Tombstone

SWAYING stagecoach drawn by six panting, lathered horses, galloped into to Tombstone, Arizona, wheeled along Toughnut street and clattered to a stop in front of the stage office in a cloud of adobe dust, on the lower edge of the evening of Saturday, January 28, 1882.

Among the travel-weary passengers who alighted and stretched their tired limbs on the busy street was a fearless, athletic young pastor named Endicott Peabody, who had arrived to take charge of the local Episcopal parish-the first in the then wild and sparsely settled Arizona. And he went to work with a vigor to preach the doctrine of brotherly love, despite threats from various much-feared gunmen who recognized only a gospel of violence unto all men who opposed them.

More than half a hundred years later, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States, the divine who invoked a blessing upon the momentous occasion was the same Endicott Peabody; and, a few months later, when the President's son, Franklin Junior, married Miss Ethel Dupont, on June 30, 1937, the Reverend Peabody officiated at the solemn rites.

Further turning back of the record of time to when President Roosevelt was a boy, studying at Groton School, in Massachusetts, one finds that his friend and mentor was the headmaster, Endicott Peabody -he who had shepherded the Episcopalian flock, in turbulent Tombstone, out in the roughlands of frontier Arizona.

Tombstone liked the two-fisted young Episcopalian vicar, liked him very much and found him at once a courageous man and an able minister. This information was left to posterity by a skillful and tireless diarist who kept a daily record of events of the time and place in what is known as From the "Private Journal of George Whitwell Parsons."

"The Private Journal of George Whitwell Parsons."

This "Journal," embracing a two-year period in the uproarious silver boom town near the Arizona-Mexico border, was recently published by the Work Projects Administration archival and records project in Arizona and has been made available in various libraries throughout the country.

George Whitwell Parsons was born in the District of Columbia, August 26, 1850, lived for a while in Florida, and, in August of 1876, traveled by way of Panama to San Francisco, where he found employment with the National Gold Bank and Trust Co.

Three and one-half years later, he and a friend, Milton B. Clapp, lost their positions in the bank due to slack business; and, after much debating the subject, decided to seek their fortunes in the Apache-infested wilds of Arizona. The pair left San Francisco, Wednesday, February 4, 1880, for Tombstone, more than a thousand adventurous miles in the blue distance, and arrived at Casa Grande, or Big House, Arizona, then the end of the railroad, three days later From the railhead, Parsons and his fellow-passengers proceeded by stagecoach to Tucson, which he designated in his "Journal" as "the second oldest town on the continent."

BY Hal L. Hayhurst ARIZONA WRITERS PROJECT W. P. A.

There, he wrote, "water sells for ten cents a bucketful, but you can get a good meal for four bits." This pioneering Jason in search of some satisfactory kind of golden fleece tells the reader that he remained in this quaint town ten days, "sightseeing," and then proceeded by stagecoach to Tombstone, where he arrived Tuesday, February 17, 1880, when that "camp" was two years old.

More than 50 years later, Mr. Parsons willed his diaries to the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society, and bequeathed $250 to St. Paul's Episcopal church in Tombstone and another $250 "to erect a drinking fountain some place in the desert." He died in 1933 in Los Angeles, California, where he had resided since he left Tombstone in 1887.

On his first day in Tombstone he recorded that there was a shooting; and thereafter, during the two years of entries in the published "Journal," the gunfights mentioned are so frequent as to seem commonplace.

Mr. Parsons took no part in such lethal disputes, but to the contrary was quite a devout churchgoer-a consistent "good" man in a town which gained world wide notoriety for its many "bad men." On his return from some church service the creed or denomination of which concerned him very little until he met the Rev. Endicott Peabody -he would note that he had been to church, usually accompanied by a school ma'am or some other young lady, and that he liked or did not like the sermon (usually the latter). Then, frequently, he would write at length about his beliefs on life, death and immortality.

The first church service he and his friend Milton Clapp attended was on Sunday, February 22, 1880. He wrote: "Washingtonton's birthday. Gloomy one. Milton and I went to church this A. M. . . . and heard the young minister, McIntyre by name, in a tent. Seats of boards resting upon boxes. Good attendance, considering.

On numerous Sundays thereafter he commented on attending some religious service, and on the days in between he drew a vivid word picture of his observations and experiences pivoting around the feverish mining activity in the community, shooting matches, claim jumping, social affairs and trivial everyday events, such as the scampering mice keeping him awake at night.

Parsons liked the Rev. McIntyre and attended the latter's Gospel tent meetings frequently until a Methodist service was started by a Rev. G. H. Adams, which held the diarist's attention for a time. The Rev. Adams had been there before, in 1879.

On Sunday, April 4, 1880, he wrote: "Attended church in town this A. M.-he resided on the outskirts-Went in to church tonight and talked with McIntyre, the minister, before the service. Hard work for him to preach on account of dance house racket in rear. Calls to rally (to the Lord) do not mingle well with 'hug your gals in the corner,' etc. The place is rather a poor one for divine service but best at present, I suppose."

Parsons continued to tell of his mining ventures, gunfights and other incidents of the time, and then one day wrote: "No church today. The canvas roof was blown off and the inside damaged."

The following Sunday he said, "Churched today. Held in school house, capable of holding couple of dozen-12, I think, present. Uphill work by young McIntyre. Some definite place of worship must be secured." He noted that the town was well laid out and progressive, despite the lawlessness, and that the population at the time was 2,000. Out of that number, only 12 crowded into the little school house to worship.

On another occasion he reported, "No church today for some reason. No house or shanty or tent, I guess." This condition obtained for several subsequent weeks, al though he disclosed that he regularly got out his best clothes and his paper collar and cuffs and faithfully went in search of a service. Finally he was rewarded by finding a "show house."

Claim-jumping, violent deaths and hard-rock mining continued without interruption, but not religious services. However, all evidence of civilization was not lost, for the diarist noted that the Western Union telegraph reached town on July 13, 1880.

The gazetteer observed much sin and reported about it on the occasion of his attending a ball, in these words: "Went to the ball tonight took it in from the outside. A grand mixture. All sorts. Some of the tough ones present, in fact plenty of them, including one Lucretia Borgia. This place holds some of the most depraved, entirely and apparently totally so, that were ever known. I have seen hard cases before where but one or two women were thought respectable, but have never come across several such cases as are here Such persons, if the facts were generally known, would be run out of town."

Parsons saw a rare white tarantula, killed his first centipede and caught a horned toad for his cat to play with. But there continued to be no church service for many weeks, until a Presbyterian missionary came to town and delivered a sermon for

DRAWINGS FOR ARIZONA HIGHWAYS BY Ross Santee

the former bank clerk and faithful diarist. Then, on August 29, 1880, he attended the first Episcopal service in Tombstone, conducted by a Rev. Hill, of Los Angeles, in a place designated as "Richie's Hall." Thereafter for several weeks, small groups of several denominations vied with each other to hold forth in Richie's Hall.

Following attendance at one of these services, the diarist recorded that he spoke out in church that day and said, "We should do our duty in this world less for the sake of reward and more because we owe that duty to our Creator."

Before another Sunday rolled around, Parsons obtained temporary employment in a bank and was working on the institution's books one evening with his cat purring beside him. Of this, he wrote, "'Crow,' my cat of the masculine persuasion, jet black-which I brought over in his mother's kitten apartment, and didn't know it at the time is sitting on the desk before me and wondering at these strange hieroglyphics. What a strange thing is life. What foolishness it is to suppose it can be dissected, that it is material and perishes with the frame life giving force can never die, whether in man or beast. I was incensed at one of our two cats on the roof last night and blazed away at the spot I supposed the cat to be. The bullet didn't go through the roof but fell back on the cot, and the boys made much sport over it. Must have a good pistol. Might need one badly some night. Redfern's helped me one night. Good firearms are a necessity here."

After Parsons had "collared and cuffed" himself and gone in search of a church service in vain for some weeks a Reverend Woods came to town, and "Gave a strict orthodox hell sermon. An old drunk near me who was stretched out on a truck replied he didn't know to the minister's queswheeled along Toughnut Street and clattered to a stop in front of the stage office in a cloud of adobe dust.

tion 'How shall we escape these things?' Had quite a harsh talk with Anderson in town this afternoon. He called to me, 'How's your soul?' I dislike such talk as that and tried to turn it off by showing him the bottom of my boot. I don't like his looks, anyhow. My religion is a refined and spiritual one.' Finally, the Rev. McIntyre got back into harness and did some preaching satisfactory to the diarist. After one such sermon he noted that he was "unwell today. Something I ate, I guess." Later on in the week, he met an old friend and related that they had "two-bit cigars and much beer." His financial troubles increased and to his sorrow his friend Clapp took advantage of him in a business deal.

His interest next centered on the fatal shooting of the city marshal by "Curly Bill" Brocious, and on the receipt from an old San Francisco friend of a pistol "a handsome silver plated Smith and Wesson .38 calibre self-cocking revolver."

Stagecoach holdups, gunfights, growing mining activity, claim jumping and violent disputes over ownership of city lots continued to make the news of the time and place, and Parsons continued to seek religious solace with little gratification. His "Orthodox Hell Preaching Rev. Woods" was stricken ill and had to leave for San Francisco.

Finally, on April 20,1881, the diarist recorded that Bishop Dunlap of the Episcovice of that denomination. He wrote: "Nothing but plain service. Full house. George Upshire made an ass of himself by coming in drunk and going out interruptingly. Stood on the steps and cursed."

The following Thursday he reported that a meeting was held "to start the Episcopal church. 16 present. About $500 raised for building fund. A trifle over $160 a quarter for support of minister. Two men probably killed at Charleston for robbery and I'm glad of it. Time a lesson was taught the cowboys."

A Baptist pastor came to town to organize a church of that faith, so the reader learns; the owner of the Gilded Age mine was "threatened with pictures of coffins, bloody hands, gallows, etc., and was shot at tonight," for compelling numerous people of the town to pay tribute for having built buildings or residences upon his mining claim.

Next, the diarist disclosed that he had removed Miss Bessie Brown from his list of friends she whom he had been squiring about to the church and ice cream sociables -following a dispute. He recorded, "Called on Miss Brown and explained my position on the woman question, stating I avoided those I had little confidence in. Saw her to church and left her there."

May day, 1881 was a Sunday, so the diarist went to hear "Young McIntyre's" sermon, and then wrote in his "Journal," "He's prosy. Preaches too long and is tiresome. Subject matter good, though."

During the month he recorded that the two-story Mining Exchange building, which was to provide quarters for the District Court and for Episcopal and other church services, was "going up;" "Curly Bill" Brocious, reputedly the worst of the bad-men, shot out the windows of a church in nearby Charleston, made the pastor preach him a special sermon and then compelled the unhappy reverend to dance a jig.

A Letter From Dr. Peabody

I read with keen interest the manuscript of the "Private Journal of George Whitwell Parsons" which you were good enough to send me the other day. Parsons was one of the bravest and most unselfish of men.

There was in Tombstone, in my day, a large group of men and women who did right and cooperated with all who aimed at promoting the highest interest of the town, and that without any thought of public opinion. Indeed there was no such thing as public opinion, for the community was unorganized, and each person did what he chose to do.

Parsons was perhaps the most influential of all my friends while we were endeavoring to build a church and to do what we could for the establishment of a better moral and spiritual tone in the town. I have thought of him many times since I left Tombstone, and always with a deep feeling of gratitude. He and Milton Clapp could always be depended on to back up our work. Without them, I doubt if our church could have been built.

I am glad to find in the diary of George Parsons expressions of affection and of agreement with what we were trying to do in advancing the town. It contained a great body of men and women unmoral, shameless, and cruel. To me they offered no particular hindrance, for I was busy with the definite work which I had to do and did not come across that section. They were willing to allow me to do what I could for the community.

I am glad that you did not find in the diary the stories of heroism on my part which have found their way into some of the books about Tombstone and which are indeed wholly legendary. I came away from Tombstone with a better understanding of my fellow countrymen and with an appreciation of the idealism which can be found in spite of an environment which tends to degrade those who live in it.

Your "Arizona Highways" magazine has excited my admiration. The pictures of Arizona and its people are perfectly done.

For the artists who go to the great desert of our land for inspiration one who has been quite successful in his paintings is the Tucsonian, Hurlstone Fairchild. Curiously enough he came to know our desert not as an artist but as a mining engineer who spent years fighting its heat, cursing its cruelty, coming to know it in every one of its moods while seeking the evasive will-of-the-wisp, a valuable mining property. The desert to him has not meant a beautiful place through which you ride, via hard surfaced highway, in a comfortable automobile. The desert, to him at first, was a place he had to work in, at times without water, under a burning sun. It was a place whose many trails were misleading and deceptive. It was a lonely place, too, where he would go for weeks without meeting another person. Finally, knowing the desert, as he came to know it, he developed a great love and understanding and appreciation of it. That is what he has tried to put into his desert landscapes these past three years.

"The main benefit to my painting," he says, "from having been an engineer was the keen appreciation of the desert country and the West in general that I developed. To be able to paint the desert one must have an intimate knowledge of it. I think that this intimacy is even more required in this case than with some other subjects. There is no doubt but that this desert country is different from other parts of the continent but it is not possible to describe or define what that difference is. It is an intangible something, an indefinable something or a quality or atmosphere difference. It is my feeling that mere academic training, no matter how thorough, will not enable an artist, no matter how adept, to paint the desert

FAIRCHILD Engineer Turned ARTIST

country without that intimate understanding of the moods to which it is subject." Mr. Fairchild was born in Danville, Illinois, January 30, 1893. His forefathers were among the early settlers of Connecticut, and among the early settlers of the midwest. Mr. Fairchild's father was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church and his brother is president of Illinois State Normal University. The family history is milestoned with farmers, educators, engineers and ministers.

When he decided to study mining engineering, Mr. Fairchild simply followed a family precedent. Mining engineering took him all over the country, and was for him a lucrative profession. The depression brought him into Arizona in quest of gold property, and in that search he came to know the desert. He finally located a property he thought promising. Litigation and later a flood wiped out the monies he had invested in it and it was then that he took up painting seriously, after having painted as a hobby and pastime for a few years.

"The man who started me painting," he says, "was Mr. Charles Vezin. He was from Old Lyme, Conn., and was in Tucson attempting to paint the desert and was not so pleased with what he was doing. I learned to know him and liked him greatly as he was a wonderful person in many ways. I had noticed the work of a few artists and felt that they had somehow missed the feel of the desert. Vezin encouraged me to try but I told him I wouldn't know what to buy or how to use it. He said I could go out with him some morning and he would stake me to the materials and that is the way I got started. He showed me how he arranged his colors on his palette but he said he wouldn't try to show me how to paint because, if youare an artist, you will paint. If you aren't you'd better stick to your engineering work where you have a good income."

His first serious painting was a canvas entitled: "Desert Road," which won prizes in exhibitions both here and in Illinois. In 1938, Mr. Fairchild decided to leave active practice of mining engineering in favor of painting. His development has been definitely progressive and today his canvases hang in many private collections both in this country and abroad. During this winter he has had showings at his studio on West Ochoa street in Tucson and in a number of the state's finer resorts. His most important showing to date was at the Anderson Galleries in Chicago this winter, where his work drew splendid reports from Chicago art critics.

During the winter Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild live in Tucson, but in the summer their home is in a station wagon almost any place in the northwest. During their trip into Oregon and Washington last summer, Mr. Fairchild spent most of the summer painting the mountains of that region.

The Tucson artist will continue to use the desert as his most intimate subject and he says some day he hopes to be able to put on canvas all that the desert means to him.

(Turn to Page 38)

ARIZONA HIGHWAY PLANNING SURVEY TRAFFIC FLOW OVER STATE AND U.S. NUMBERED HIGHWAYS

During 1940 out-of-state cars traveled 271,140,615 miles over the state highway system, setting a new record. Travel in 1940 was more stable than travel in 1939. Each year in recent years has seen a substantial increase in travel over the Arizona highway system.