It is an historical fact that almost a quarter of the troops fighting for the Union in the Civil War were foreign born, among them some 216,000 from Germany. Less well known were the thousands of immigrants who stayed in the military, moved West and fought in the Indian Wars. Among them was Fritz Jessen who eventually found a permanent home in Prescott, Arizona, running a popular saloon and earning praise as “a good citizen in every sense of the word.”
Jessen was born in Hamburg, Germany, in November 1842. When he was eight years old, he arrived in American with family members who settled in Massachusetts. The youth continued his education in American schools but I find no record of an early occupation. He was 19 when the Civil War broke out, joining the 29th Regiment Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry in December 1861, the only non-Celtic regiment in the famed Irish Brigade.
Over the next four years the young German would experience considerable hot combat. Deployed to a variety of theaters, Jessen’s regiment took part in 29 battles and four sieges, including Vicksburg. Just before the South surrendered, during the siege of Petersburg, Jessen’s unit suffered its worst casualties of the war during the March 1865 Battle of Fort Stedman, shown above. Jessen appears to have escaped serious injury throughout the conflict.
Unlike other Union soldiers, who went back to civilian pursuits at war’s end, Jessen stayed on as the battalion was reorganized and re-designated in 1866 as the U.S.12th Infantry Regiment and ordered to the Presidio of San Francisco to counter resistance from Indian tribes. In June 1870 the federal census found him there, unmarried and 28, assigned to the Signal Corps. Stationed with him were a number of other German-born soldiers. It is likely that Jessen took part in the war against the Modoc tribe in California during 1872-1873.
In California, Fritz found a wife, Mary L. Clinton, born in New Jersey. Married in Arcata, he was 31 and Mary 18. The couple would have three sons, Frederick, born in 1875; Richard, 1876, and Charles, 1884. By 1880, Jessen had been ordered to Fort Whipple near Prescott, Arizona Territory. Shown here is the original headquarters building as it looks today. 
From the amount drunkenness and violence reported in Prescott involving soldiers, discipline appears to have been lax at Fort Whipple. Jessen may have been among the witnesses to the hanging of a soldier at the fort, convicted of murder, shown here.
Perhaps as early as 1882, Jessen left the Army for a civilian occupation, having his eye on the Arizona Brewery, a brewery and saloon that had been founded in 1867. As a former soldier, Fritz recognized that cost considerations meant that beer, not whiskey, was the preferred drink of the troops. As a German, he also knew something about beer. In 1882 after the murder of the brewery’s German Swiss owner, Jessen stepped in to buy the property and changed its name to the Headquarters Saloon. Located on busy Gurly Street, it is shown on the postcard view below, the two story frame building second from right.
As a partner, Jessen took Valentine Riehl, who had been the “boss brewer,” at the Arizona Brewery. While Fritz clearly needed the kind of beer-making expertise the German-born co-owner brought, he soon might have realized a mistake. Riehl was a “bad actor” even by Wild West standards. By 1886, the two had split with Riehl heading to San Bernardino, California, where it was reported he bludgeoned a fellow worker to the point of killing him. Later, Riehl was convicted of attempting to beat to death with a whip his common law wife, known as “English Rose” and sentenced to two years in San Quentin.
Now sole proprietor of The Headquarter Saloon, Jessen advertised frequently in the local newspapers, emphasizing sales of both draft and bottled beer. He also claimed to have “The best Wines, Liquors and Cigars in the market always on hand.” Over the next few years, Jessen thrived in his adopted city. The Headquarters Saloon proved to be one the most popular in Prescott, known throughout the West for its teeming “Whiskey Row” of drinking establishments.
As a Civil War veteran Jessen was an active member of the local Barrett Post of the G.A.R. He also apparently held a local office, possibly elective, involved with Prescott schools. Then tragedy struck. Fritz’s beloved wife, Mary, became seriously ill and in November 1891 died in Prescott. She was only 35. Charles, their youngest son, was still a boy of seven; Frederick and Richard were in their mid-teens. Townspeople said Jessen never got over his wife’s death. His health declined and he sold the Headquarters Saloon and retired to look after his family. A second blow fell in 1898 when Richard, only 22, also died.
The 1900 census found the three surviving men living together on North Granite Street in Prescott. Frederick was working as a cattle herder, Charles as a day laborer. Later Charles would go to work at the Iron King Mine in nearby Humboldt, Arizona. Their father was given no occupation. Although said to be feeble, Jessen remained active with the veterans and was frequently seen around town “cheerful and good spirited.”
As the years passed, Fritz grew increasingly weaker. One day in May,1903, he was seen downtown, joking with friends. The following day at his home he was discovered lying unconscious in a pool of blood by a man who had come to paint his house. A physician was summoned but Jessen was beyond help, He never regained consciousness and died about 11 A.M. that day. He was 69. The coroner ruled that death had occurred when an artery in his head had been ruptured. His sons quickly returned to Prescott to make funeral arrangements.
The local press was full of tributes to a man hailed as a Civil War veteran and longtime Prescott resident. Said the Weekly Arizona Journal Miner: “Deceased from his long residence in Prescott had made a great many friends, who will be pained to hear of his death. He was a good citizen in every sense of the word, and during his business career, was always progressive and enterprising, taking a natural pride in the progress of the town.”
Jesson’s rites were held a week later at Logan’s undertaking parlor under the auspices of the G.A.R. As reported in the newspaper, his funeral “was quite largely attended” by the people of Prescott. He was buried next to Mary and Richard at the town’s Citizen Cemetery. Fittingly, his tombstone memorialized him not as a saloon owner or an Indian fighter but for his Civil War service to the Nation as a private in Company A of the 29th Massachusetts Volunteers.
Clearly touched by the outpouring of sympathy and support they had received from the Prescott community over the death of their father, the Jesson boys responded in the press with a “card of thanks” to its residents: “We hereby extend our heartfelt thanks to the many kind and sympathetic friends who assisted us in the hour of need occasioned by the death of our father, Fritz Jessen.” A tough town had shown some love for an old veteran and longtime resident.
Note: Fritz Jessen and his Headquarters Saloon are the third post on this blog involving Prescott’s Whiskey Row. Earlier I featured F. G. McCoy and his Wellington Saloon (April 4, 2016) and Dan Thorne and his Cabinet Saloon (August 26, 2016). A brief mention of Jessen in the book “Prescott’s Original Whiskey Row,” by Bradley G. Courtney, published in 2015, prompted my searching out the “back story” on the German immigrant. The 29th Mass. also was featured in my earlier post about another whiskey man, Col. Lawrence L. Logan of Boston (August 2, 2019).
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