The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-19
WAS ARIZONA'S SAINT
LONELT DEATH OF COLONEL
 CHARLES D. BOSTON

tOry-He Was One of the Most Nota-
 bie Men in the Southwest, But Died
 in squRIor in an Adobe Hut.
 One of the most notable men of the Southwest died in Phoenix, Ariz., the other day-died in squalor and alone, after career that had had the earth within its range and after honors in number rarely bestowed upon a single man-Charles D. Poston, pioneer, trav- eler. poet, author. diplomat. breahed his last upon the earthen floor of an adobe built hut wherein he had made his home during the latter years of his life. He had nearly attained his eightieth birthday. For twenty years his life had been solitary one, though his bent fig ure was we'll known in Phoenix. He was surely Arizona's saint. He did not look like the regulation saint, nor is it probable that the church will canonize 1 AAiAiAs ONS EAllAOild CdllIOt dllOIu lO bS exacting in such matters.
 His support for several years, says the Los Angeles Times. had been from a pension of s35 a month, conferred on him by the Legislature of Arizona, he being the only beneficiary of that na- ture. The last Legislature saw fit to enumerate the reasons for the bestowal of its bounty. The act recites:
 Charles D. Poston, January, 1854, prospected the Ajo mines, in what is now Pima county, Arizona, and in the same year organized .on said mines the first mining company to invest capital and to do development work on mines in what is now Arizona, after it's trans fer to the United States under the Gadsden purchase, and was, from 1856 to 1861, deputy clerk and recorder of Dona Ana county, that then embraced all Arizona, and in 1863 gave Arizona her name and obtained President Lin coln's signature to the act that, togeth- CT with the then Delegate to Congress from New Mexico, he had drawn and obtained Congressional enactment thereof, creating the Territory of Ari- zona and in 1864 was elected the first Delegate to Congress from Arizona, and from 1867 to 1880 was Registrar of the United States Land Office of Ari- zona, and, from the above. and many other we'll known facts, Charles. D., Pos ton, among all other pioneers, was pre- eminently the moving spirit and, in fact, may be said to be the father of Arizona"
 The last check from the Territorial Auditor was found in the pocket of the dead pioneer. so 1t cannot be said that he died in want. Yet the scene was one of Restitution. Of furniture there was almost none. and the wardrobe of a man who had been one of the ex- quistes of Washington in his day would have lilly satisfied tramp. Yet there were evidences of time of men, tai vigor and ability. There were heaps of papers, mainly comprising matter descriptive of Arizona's early dayse and i evidently prepared for the Arizona His torical Society, of which he had been the founder and first president. There were d le" CupleS LII HIS puDllSlleu WTlL- ings, inclusive of volume of really ex- cellent poems, several small volumes he had written his travels in Europe and in the Orient. and many references to magazine and newspaper articles, one of them, of considerable length, on "The Building of State in Apache Land" having been published in the Overland Monthly
 He had written voluminously as we'll upon philosophical and religious sub jects He had his own modified form of theosophy and had conceived the idea that it was the same form of religious worship practiced by the prehistoric Toltecan inhabitants of Arizona. Near Florence. Ariz., rises a conical hill of considerable height, solitary on the plain. not far from the ruins of Casa Grande, and itself covered with potsherds and with outlined ruins left by forgottes people. For more than thirty years this hill has been known as "Poston's Butte" Around and up the butte. 1t considerable expense, Pos ton had built road. Upon the summit it was his dream to erect a temple, WDeT6IFOrf the DelIy SHOuiu pe Nof" shipped with solemnity on the uprising of the sun, to him the glorious mani- festation and representative of celestial omnipotence
 Poston was native of Harden coun- ty, Kentcuky At 22 be was admitted to the bar and practiced for several years in his native State and in Washington. He outlived the wife and several chill dren of an early union. A daughter married Dr. Benjamin F. Pope, of the regular army. Pope won distinction as chief surgeon of the Fifth Army Corps in the advance of Santiago and died at his post in the Philippines with the rank of deputy surgeon general Mrs. | Pope died on the Pacific while return | ing home with the body of her husband. After several years in Washington Poston went to California as a gold | seeker. later. from Guaymas, heading a party into the Land acquired through the Gadsden purchase. He was back again soon. conducting mining opera tions for "a company he had organized