George J. Roskruge
Arizona, The Youngest State, 1913, pg 200

George J. Roskruge, pioneer, champion rifle shot of the 
southwest, civil engineer of commanding ability and 
unusual accomplishments and the father of Masonry in 
Arizona was born in Roskruge, near Helston, Cornwall 
England, April 10, 1845.  He is truly a self-made man, 
for he began his business life at the age of fifteen as 
a messenger boy in the law offices of Grylls, Hill and 
Hill of Helston.  On April 12, 1860 he entered the Seventh 
Company of the Duke of Cornwall's Rifle Volunteers and 
served ten years, during which time he came into prominence 
as a remarkably accurate rifle shot.  He won many company 
and regimental prizes and on August 31, 1868 was selected 
as one of the Cornish Twenty to compete wit the Devon 
Twenty in the fourth annual match for the challenge cup.  
For two years prior to his resignation from the volunteers 
he wore the three stars which marked him as the champion 
rifle shot of his company.  Mr. Roskruge has maintained his 
skill through the many years of his active life and his 
shooting forms one of the important interests of his life 
today.  He is the National Rifle Association secretary for 
Arizona and secretary and treasurer of the State Rifle 
Association.  He served as president of the Pacific Coast 
Rifle League during the year 1914 and secretary-treasurer 
of the Tucson Rifle Club.

Mr. Roskruge left his native country in 1870 and crossed 
the Atlantic to America, locating in Denver Colorado.  He 
was there employed for two years by Lawrence N. Greenleaf 
and Gardner G. Brewer but at the end of that time, in 
company with sixteen others, determined to visit Arizona, 
which was then a wilderness.  After successfully 
overcoming the perils of flood, drought and famine 
and the hostility of the apaches, the little band 
reached Prescott in June 1872. 

He began his life in Arizona as a cook and packer for 
Omar H. Case, deputy U.S. surveyor who was then running 
the fifth standard parallel north from Partridge Creek to 
the Colorado River.  Mr. Roskruge assisted him as chainman 
and in this way became connected with a profession in 
which he has attained a position of distinction and 
eminence taking his place among the state builders of 
Arizona.  During 1874 he was in the field with U.S. 
Deputy Surveyor C.B. Foster and later prepared the maps 
and field notes for transmission to the surveyor general.  
He served as chief draughtsman until 1880 when he resigned 
the office, having been appointed U.S. Deputy land and 
Mineral Surveyor.  He was afterward for four years 
county surveyor of Pima County, for three years, 
city engineer of Tucson and on July 1, 1893 was 
appointed chief clerk in the U.S. Surveyor General's 
office.

In May 1896 Mr. Roskruge was united in marriage with Miss 
Lena Wood, a native of California who was reared and 
educated in that state.


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