Samuel F. Webb

Sam F. Webb was a politician from Arizona who served in the Arizona state senate for several terms.[1]

Webb was born in California and moved to Arizona in 1876,[2] where he became a farmer and cattle rancher in Maricopa County.[3][4]

In 1893, Webb was appointed as the Customs Collector of Arizona by President Grover Cleveland.[5][6] His appointment was confirmed unanimously in the U.S. Senate by a 54-0 margin, in September.[7]

His appointment caused him to move, along with his family down to Nogales, although he retained his residence in Phoenix.[8][9]

Webb served in the Arizona Territory's 12th territorial legislature.[10] He did not run for the 13th legislature in 1894, but in 1896 he ran once again for the House of Representatives in the 14th legislature.[11] He won, and was selected as Speaker of the House.[12]

In 1888, Webb ran for the territorial legislature again, this time for the upper house, called the Council.[13] He easily won in the general election, garnering over 1200 more votes than his opponent.[14]

In 1889, he purchased the Tasker Ranch from Dr. L. H. Goodrich, comprising 160 acres northwest of Phoenix for $16,000.[15]

In 1889 he purchased the Phoenix Gazette.[16] In May 1893 Webb sold his interests in the Gazette.[17]

He decided not to run for re-election in 1890,[18] However, he did run for sheriff of Maricopa County, winning the Democrat nomination in a field of four.[19][20] He narrowly lost in the general election of November to Republican J. B. Montgomery.[21]

In 1892, he became the primary investor in a mine, the "Relief Mine", north of Phoenix, between New River and Agua Fria, which became quite lucrative.[22][23] He sold the Relief Mine to George Hamlin in 1901 for $10,000.[24]

Webb's young son, Grover Adlai, died at the age of 18 months in March 1894 due to bronchitis.[25] In 1895 another son of Webb's, Albert, died of diphtheria at the age of 6.[26]

His father, George Webb, committed suicide in 1896, by shooting himself in the head.[27]

In May 1896, Webb became the owner of the "Favorite Mine", about 60 miles south of Nogales in Sonora, Mexico.[28][29] The mine was very lucrative.[30] Tragedy struck at the mine in June 1897 when Webb's 19-year-old son, George W., was killed in a mining accident. Around noon on June 28 around noon, miners had loaded five holes in preparation for blasting, and George had begun to light the fuses to set them off in order, when one blasts went off prematurely, causing George to be struck in the face and chest with rock shrapnel. He did not die immediately, but lingered on for much of the remainder of the day, finally dying around 9:30 that night.[31] George's brother, Morgan, rode to Nogales to inform their parents of the accident, and the elder Webb and his wife rode down to the mine, but were met on the way with the news of their son's death. They brought the young man's body back to Nogales, where he was buried.[32][33] Webb sold the mine for a significant amount the following month.[34]

With the departure of Grover Cleveland from office in March 1897 and the beginning of a Republican administration in Washington D.C., Webb tendered his resignation as customs collector, which President McKinley accepted.[29]

In early 1898 he briefly worked as a deputy U. S. Marshall, and participated in the posse which tracked down the outlaw known as "Black Jack".[35][36]

In April 1898, Webb took a position at The Phoenix Gazette, the paper he used to own. He and his family left Nogales and returned to live in Phoenix.[37] In October of that year, Webb and his partner, John O. Dunbar, purchased a 50 percent interest in the paper, making Dunbar the editor and Webb the business manager.[38] In 1899, Myron H. McCord, former territorial governor of Arizona, purchased a controlling interest in the paper, and ousted Webb and Dunbar.[39]

Another child of the Webb's, a 10-month old infant, died suddenly at their home in Phoenix on Central Avenue in November 1898.[40]

In 1902, Webb purchased The Arizona Democrat, a small bi-weekly paper in Phoenix, promising to make it into a daily morning paper.[41][42] At the same time, Webb also attempted to regain control of The Phoenix Gazette. Taken over several years earlier by Myron H. McCord. Webb exercised an option to invest $7,555 into the paper, and after McCord left Phoenix to go to Washington D.C., Webb called meetings of the board of directors of the paper and ousted McCord as managing editor, much like McCord had ousted him three years earlier.[39][43] The paper, which had been slanted towards Democrats, had shifted to slant to the Republicans under McCord. With a return to Webb, a staunch Democrat, it was expected that the paper would return to a Democrat's slant.[44] After several contentious months, Webb lost control of the Gazette, when the Creighton Brothers purchased Webb's in the paper in April 1902.[45][46] In February 1903, Webb also departed from the Phoenix Democrat.[47]

In 1904 he was nominated by the Democrats to run for the state house of representatives for one of the seats from Maricopa County.[48] The Republicans, however, swept the elections in Maricopa.[49]

In 1908 Webb was once again nominated by the Democrats as their choice for one of the lower house seats in the state legislature from Maricopa County.[50] Webb, along with his two Democrat colleagues, Frank DeSouza and J. W. Woolf, along with Republican J. C. Reed, won the four house seats from Maricopa in November's general election.[51][52] Very shortly after the general election, the fight for the speakership of the house began, with Webb squaring off against Fred Sutter.[53][54] By January 1909 two more members of the House, W. W. Pace and J. W. Woolf, announced their intention to run for the speakership.[55] However, shortly before the legislature convened, both Pace and Woolf withdrew from the race. On the first ballot, the vote was split evenly between Webb and Sutter, each man receiving 8 votes. However, the 17th Democrat in the house, Joseph Patterson of Navajo County, arrived late and cast the deciding vote for Webb. On the second ballot Webb was elected unanimously.[56]