Franklin Pierce Massoletti

Franklin Pierce Massoletti 

Franklin Pierce was born in 1853. He would have been about 9 years old when his father died. As a young man, he moved to San Francisco, California to work for his uncle’s company, William B. Hooper & Company. The 1873 San Francisco City Directory lists him as a clerk for the company. He moved to Arizona later in 1873 to work in the company’s Arizona office. 

Franklin Pierce Massoletti married Maria Josefa Ortiz 16 September 1876 in Arizona. Maria Josefa Ortiz was born on 27 March 1858 in Tucson, New Mexico Territory. Franklin and Maria Josefa had 2 sons, Albert and Frank Ortiz. Albert died in Tubac on 1 August 1879 at 5 months of age.

Franklin died in Tombstone on 3 March 1880 several days after being accidently shot in the foot. Josefa was living with with their 2 year old son, Frank, her sister and her mother in 1880. Josefa remarried in 1883 to John Solomon Warner. John’s father was Solomon Warner, one of the early Forty-Niners. He and George F. Hooper, Franklin’s uncle, were in a business partnership opening one of the first stores in Tucson offering American goods.

Josefa and Franklin’s son, Frank Ortiz was born 23 August 1877. He married Manuela Cruz in 1903 when he was 26 years old and she was 16. He published a notice to open a bar in Benson, Arizona in 1903. City Directories shows him as owner of a saloon and bar in Benson. He was the owner of Massoletti Mines Company that according to numerous articles and books, was a successful gold mine in the area. 

Frank Ortiz and Manuela had a son, Frank Ortiz, Jr. He was born 17 August 1918 and died 17 December 1998. He served in the US Army during World War II. He is buried in Dill City, Oklahoma.