Feisty Females: Dr. Lillian Heath
Lillian Heath was born in Burnett Junction, Wisconsin on December 29, 1865, the daughter of William and Calista Hunter Heath. Her father later moved the family steadily west, first to Aplington, Iowa and in 1873 to Laramie, Wyoming.
The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869 and William worked for the Union Pacific as a baggage handler. In 1877 he moved the family a bit farther west in Wyoming to Rawlins where he worked as a decorator and a locomotive and house painter.
It’s interesting that the Heath family chose Wyoming, historically the place of several “firsts” in women’s history. In 1869, Wyoming Territory was the first place in the world, not just the United States, to grant women the right to vote. The legislature may have passed the legislation in order to have enough voters to pursue statehood, but when the United States Congress threatened to deny statehood because of their stance on women’s rights those same lawmakers refused to back down.
A short time later, on February 17, 1870, Esther Hobart Morris (called the “Mother of Women’s Suffrage in Wyoming) became the first woman appointed to serve as a justice of the peace. Following the legislature’s actions in 1869, Louisa Swain became the first Wyoming woman to cast a vote in Laramie on September 6, 1870.
Years later Estelle R. Meyer became the first woman in the country to be elected to public office as Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1894. In 1924, Nellie Taylor Ross became the country’s first woman governor, taking office twenty days before “Ma” Ferguson of Texas. No wonder Wyoming is called the “Equality State”. Lillian Heath joined this illustrious group of “first women” when she became Wyoming’s first practicing female physician.
However, her path to becoming a physician didn’t follow a traditional route. Perhaps her first exposure to science occurred in 1878 when the Draper Expedition came to Rawlins to observe the July 29 solar eclipse. Henry Draper and his wife brought with them Thomas Edison and stayed at the Rawlins House, the same hotel where Lillian and her family were living at the time. Lillian was invited to observe the eclipse and watched Edison perform experiments measuring the sun’s heat with his new invention, a micro-tasimeter.
As a teenager, Lillian assisted her father’s friend, railroad physician Dr. Thomas Maghee, who came to Rawlins periodically. William had also assisted Dr. Maghee, and after hearing her father’s stories, Lillian became interested in medicine. Her first experiences involved assisting the doctor with obstetric cases, bullet wounds, amputations, and even plastic surgery.
Rawlins was a rough-and-tumble frontier town and Dr. Maghee always insisted when Lillian went out alone to see patients that she wear men’s clothing and carry a revolver in her jacket. A sheepherder attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chin, blowing away most of his face. Lillian assisted Dr. Maghee as he performed over thirty surgeries to reconstruct the man’s face. Together, Dr. Maghee and Lillian used skin from his forehead to construct a new nose. After all of that, however, the man still resented being alive and didn’t like his nose.
Speaking of noses, one of Wyoming’s most notorious outlaws, “Big Nose George” Parrott was shot to death in Rawlins in 1881. Dr. Maghee and another physician, Dr. Osborne, performed an autopsy, sawing off the top of his skull to get a look at his brain and perhaps ascertain a cause for his lawless behavior. The skull top was given to Lillian as a souvenir, who later used it for a doorstop. Osborne “pickled” Parrott’s body in alcohol for dissection purposes and further study and later discarded it in an alley behind his house.
Nearly seventy years later, Parrott’s whiskey barrel coffin was excavated by workmen in downtown Rawlins in 1950. They found bones and a skull with the top sawed off. One Rawlins pioneer recalled that Lillian had been given the top, and when her husband brought it to the County Coroner’s office in 1950, the two pieces matched. The piece was donated to the Union Pacific Railroad’s Historical Museum in Omaha and is now on display at the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins.
Accounts differ as to when Lillian completed her primary education in Rawlins – one source says 1886 and another 1888. Either way, she was over twenty years old when she graduated, but by that time she had been assisting Dr. Maghee for several years.
Although her mother disapproved, Lillian decided to pursue a medical degree with her father’s encouragement. She attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for a year and then attended Keokuk Medical College of Physicians and Surgeons in Iowa. The medical school’s term ran from October through March, the cool weather season, in order to ensure fresh cadavers for students to practice on. As only one of three women in the program, Lillian graduated at the age of twenty-seven in March of 1893.
Upon graduation she returned to Rawlins and set up her practice in the family home at 111 W. Cedar Street. Her practice was much like that of her mentor Dr. Maghee – delivering babies, treating bullet wounds and amputations, and perhaps some plastic surgery (she was experienced, after all!).
However, just because she was a skilled physician didn’t necessarily mean she was accepted. Lillian would later recall in a 1961 interview how she was treated. “Men folks received me cordially. Women were just as catty as they could be.” One woman wanted Lillian to treat her, but because she was a woman refused to pay for the services.
In 1895 she attended the American Medical Association convention in Denver, the only woman in attendance. While attending summer medical clinics she modeled clothing at Denver’s Daniel and Fisher French Room in her spare time.
She eventually gained the trust of her patients and often took a wagon or rode her horse several miles to take care of them. She married Louis J. Nelson on October 24, 1898 at the age of thirty-three. A painter and decorator, Louis had served in the Spanish-American War and also as a member of President McKinley’s honor guard.
After practicing only fifteen years Lillian retired around 1909, although according to her obituary, she had “an unfailing interest in medical matters, and throughout nearly all of her life maintained an active and alert interest in the social and civic affairs of the community.” After her retirement, Louis and Lillian ran the Ben-Mar Hotel in Lamar, Colorado before returning to Rawlins around 1911.
Her father passed away in 1911 and her mother in 1930. She and Louis lived in the family home on Cedar Street. Lillian kept her license current and in 1940 was enumerated as “M.D. – Private Practitioner” at the age of seventy-four.
She remained active, even in retirement, flying to Denver in 1955 to inspect hospitals there. The Denver Post reported that she wanted to “see some surgery – any kind, but I prefer to see obstetrics.” She read six newspapers daily and in 1961 she and Louis celebrated their sixty-third wedding anniversary in Rawlins.
Dr. Lillian Heath Nelson died on August 5, 1962 at the age of ninety-six in Rawlins Memorial Hospital after sustaining a broken hip. Much-revered, she received several honors through the years for her work as Wyoming’s first female physician.
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Time Capsule Thursday: June 11, 1924
What was happening on this day in June of 1924? The big front-page headlines were buzzing about the Republican National Convention, on the verge of nominating their man Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge. The only concerns were over certain contentious planks in the Republican platform and who would be named as Coolidge’s running mate.
“Sulky delegates” were threatening to withdraw support for Coolidge if their platform demands weren’t met. Herbert Hoover (better luck next time – or as it turned out, not so much) was the top choice for the vice presidential nomination, but it didn’t appear that anyone really wanted the job. The man who eventually became the nominee, Charles G. Dawes, was described as an “aggressive Illinoisan” “struggling to prevent the vice presidency from coming his way.”1
Life was good and the “Roaring Twenties” were in full swing. Frank Mondell of Wyoming called Coolidge a “courageous chief”. Apparently, Coolidge’s budget-busting tactics were working. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution had been ratified five years earlier, giving women the right to vote. Increasingly, women were taking greater roles in politics.
Some “pretty girls” found Republican delegates easy marks as they raised campaign cash for Coolidge:
Pretty girls, with come hither eyes and a linger-a-while smile, are raising money for the campaign to elect President Coolidge. And as the saying goes: “Take it from me they can take it from you.”
If they don’t get you for $10 they’ll get you for $1. Small change doesn’t go. A man’s got to pay dearly for a chat with one of these ladies. Siren-like, they lure you into conversation about Calvin Coolidge’s home town and then after you’ve unsuspectingly admitted you’re interested in their talk, they shoot a blank in your face and say: “Here, sign on the dotted line. Become a member of the Home Town Coolidge Club of Plymouth, Vermont. One dollar and you’re a charter member, ten dollars, and you’re a sustaining member.”
What can a poor man do? If he says he’s a Democrat, that won’t go at all. The lady looks pleadingly into his eyes and makes him feel cheaper than a marked-down article at a one-cent sale. . . . Politics is a great game.2
Politics aside, there were some sensational murder cases also making big headlines, one in particular featuring Clarence Darrow as defense attorney for two young men, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, accused of kidnaping and murdering a fourteen-year old boy. Darrow was apparently planning to plead insanity for his clients as he declared he wanted their “minds examined.”
Leopold and Loeb, both from well-to-do families, may have been done in by the testimonies of “the help”. Both “intellectuals” had pleaded not guilty, but the family chauffeur and maids testified against their employers’ children. Their trial was set for August 4. Justice was much swifter in those days.
Swift justice came for nineteen year-old Frank McDowell whose case was declared a mistrial on the 11th. The case was immediately retried, resulting in a guilty conviction on the 21st. His case was one of several which led one New Zealand newspaper to print an article entitled “American Fanaticism”. McDowell had burned his two sisters to death in Decatur, Georgia and one year to the day later killed his parents in St. Petersburg, Florida, shooting them while they slept.
His defense? He claimed to have committed those crimes to atone for cursing the Holy Spirit when he was eleven years old. It appears that he either mis-interpreted or over-interpreted the meaning of the unpardonable sin. One day he discovered missing buttons on a shirt he wanted to wear, perhaps cursing. After hearing a preacher say that “such blasphemy was the unpardonable sin and could be expiated only through fire and blood”,3 he apparently decided the best way to accomplish that was systematically killing his family.
The article pointed out that “the constant growth of strange cults, religious and of a scientific nature” appeared to have occurred in the American South. One Negro man may have been responsible for a string of murders. Perhaps, in order to repent he took the scripture “if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off” literally. He laid his right hand on a chopping block and cut if off with an ax, swinging nine times before severing it!
Eighteen-year old Jane Eva Winchester of Seffner, Florida killed “her sick father until she had trampled the life out of him.” Her mother claimed that Jesus had ordered the death of her husband “because the Devil was in him.” The mother had been attending faith healing services. She and her daughter dragged the man into the yard and trampled him to death. Her daughter wasn’t to blame the mother declared. “I commanded her to do it. I stood over while she stamped my husband on the face and chest for 30 minutes. He cried for mercy, but I was commanded by Jesus to end his life.” Hmm . . . just who really had the devil in them?
One uplifting story was, however, the polar opposite of the above examples of “American Fanaticism”. A lay preacher by the name of A.K. Harper had just finished a revival in Quincy, Illinois where 539 people had confessed the Christian faith.4 Look for an article someday on the life of this industrialist turned lay preacher.
On a Somewhat Lighter Note
Enough about politics and crazy murderers. From the pages of the Belvidere Daily Republican:
Although he didn’t claim any religious reason for committing his crime, Herman Oetjen of Hillsboro, Missouri admitted to reporters he had killed his wife Henrietta the previous Sunday. Henrietta, the mother of fourteen children, had put two shells in the gun, handed it to Herman and told him to kill her. “I just put the gun up and shot. We’d been quarreling. I sorta wish I hadn’t shot her.”
She Has Had 19 Babies – In Wisconsin the wife of farmer Peter Shallow had given birth to their nineteenth child. Thirteen were still living and the missus had birth four sets of twins. She had married at the age of fourteen and was then forty-two.
From the pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
In Chicago the American Medical Association was holding a convention and several topics were being discussed. One involved the issue of rejuvenation by gland transplantation. The name of John R. Brinkley most likely came up, he the purveyor of a procedure whereby goat testicles were transplanted into human males to cure impotence. Brinkley was quite a character, the king of flim-flam. I recently wrote a book review of the excellent book, Charlatan, by Pope Brock – you can read it here. It was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in awhile I must say, and as noted in the review contains just enough mild tongue-in-cheek innuendo to make it not only informative but humorous as well. At the AMA convention, the gland theory was dismissed as mythology.
Another discussion topic among male doctors at the convention was the possible harmful effects of face powders, rouge and jazz. In the opinion of the men, the high incidence of goiter among young women was to be blamed on the “high powered motorcars, dances, theaters, cabarets, liquor and the other innumerable factors that play a part in the regular life of many of our urban adolescents today.” The hectic pace stressed the human nervous system, resulting in “complete fatigue which prevents the natural elimination of the toxins of the body, resulting in goiter.” Furthermore, a professor at Western Reserve University absolutely deplored the increasing use of cosmetics. Just the day before, the convention had adopted a resolution calling for legislation “against the use of harmful ingredients in cosmetics.”
The National Medical Women’s Association, meeting in conjunction with the AMA convention, expressed a different opinion of the fairer sex, however: “The modern girl is the healthiest, happiest girl the world has ever known,” [Dr. Katherine D. Manion] said, “and I wouldn’t exchange the modern flapper, as you call her, for any other girl of any other time. Girls used to be defenseless creatures who sat at home with their knitting, laced up in tight corsets and almost never indulged in any outdoor exercise.”
“The girl of today who swims, plays golf, bobs her hair, goes without corsets, wears flat heels and takes long hikes is something to be mighty proud of. Chaperones are extinct, but only because they are no longer needed. The modern girl can take care of herself. Her mind is as healthy as her body, and her intelligence and independence protect her.”
This story reminded me of another story I ran across recently, the subject of a Monday Musings article (It Took More Nerve to Horsewhip a Man Than Shoot Him):
MRS. ROBERTS USES HORSEWHIP ON HER HUSBAND IN STREET – Mrs. Maud Roberts of East Rockaway might have stood up and cheered Dr. Manion’s remarks. A divorce warrant served by her estranged husband had set Maud off apparently. Before attempting to serve the divorce papers, her husband Charles had requested a police escort, expecting to be attacked after he observed her “picketing his home with a horsewhip in her hand.” He had slipped out of the house while her back was turned. Upon returning home with the police escort and stepping from his car, Maud attacked him. She was placed under arrest by the escorting police officer. Some women were asserting themselves it seems in some very unseemly ways.
One more item from the AMA convention:
Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers believed that drunkenness, even in the face of Prohibition, was then more prevalent than before the Volstead Act passed, becoming the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution after Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto. Admittedly, Chalmers had seen a positive change immediately following Prohibition, but the pendulum had now swung the other way.
Chalmers wasn’t advocating a repeal of Prohibition, just more freedom for physicians to treat patients. “Liquor is absolutely necessary in the treatment of many diseases,” he declared – the difference in some cases between life and death. In no way, however, was he advocating the use of liquor as a beverage. Dr. Oscar Dowling strongly disagreed: “Whiskey has no rightful place in the treatment of disease.” Dowling apparently won the argument, since Prohibition didn’t end until late 1933 when Utah agreed to ratify the Twenty-First Amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment.
An assertive, independent-minded, horse-whipping wife, crazy murderers, opinionated, meddling physicians, and politics – quite an eclectic and interesting mix on this day in June of 1924, wouldn’t you say?
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Ghost Town Wednesday: Rush, Arkansas
Indian legends about long-lost silver mines brought prospectors to Marion County in north central Arkansas during the 1880’s. News of shiny metallic flakes found in rocks caused a “silver rush”, bringing wealth-seekers from the nearby states of Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky and beyond, including the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama.
After a rock smelter was built in 1886 along Rush Creek the first tests conducted in early 1887 proved to be disappointing — at least for those hoping it was silver in “them thar hills”. Instead, those shiny metallic flakes were found to be another mineral when “green zinc oxide fumes were emitted in a spectacular display”5 — something akin to welding sparks perhaps. Zinc mining began soon thereafter at the Morning Star Mine.
Even though it wasn’t silver, settlers still poured into the county, some on the run from the law. Others saw opportunities to make a living off the zinc rush. Civil War veterans, merchants and other professional men and women came to open businesses and farm the area as well. Land speculators were also looking to quickly make their fortunes, knowing that booms turned into busts sooner or later.
The mining camp with its burgeoning population and business activity rose to about five thousand residents, which in turn necessitated the need for railroads in the area (which the zinc industry contributed to as well). In 1916 papers were filed and the city of Rush was incorporated, later recognized as the most prosperous town, per capita, in Arkansas.
According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture web site (see Footnote #1), it was “common to find four or five tents pitched in the morning, and then by afternoon additional tents had been added and were stringing in every direction—whereas others made shelters from rocks or packing boxes to protect themselves from the elements of nature.”
One zinc nugget weighing thirteen thousand pounds (!) received a blue ribbon at the 1892 Chicago World’s Fair — still housed today at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. A blue ribbon was awarded for yet another large nugget from the Morning Star at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
World War I brought a significant boom in the mining industries of Arkansas, including zinc, coal and bauxite, all rising to record levels of production to meet the demand. Ten mining companies with thirteen mines near Rush attained the highest levels of production of any mining concern in the North Arkansas Lead and Zinc District during that time.
Following the war, demand dropped precipitously and residents began to leave the area. Mining operations declined and it wasn’t long before the state of Arkansas had to deal with the Great Depression as well.
Rush’s mining era extended from 1880 to around 1940, divided into four distinct periods:
(1) from 1885 to 1893, during which the discovery of zinc at Rush achieved national prominence for the state’s mineral resources; (2) from 1898 to 1904, as a boom in the national zinc industry resulted in investment at the Rush mines and economic development for the entire Ozarks region; (3) from 1915 to 1919, during which Rush played an important part in the national production of zinc during the war; and (4) from 1925 to 1931, when the reopening of the Rush mines gave Arkansas its last period of significant zinc mining. The discovery of marketable zinc ore deposits at Rush in the early 1880s coincided with the development of the national zinc industry as the transition was made from a country dependent on importing zinc to one producing its own.6
The post office closed in the mid-1950’s, so often one of the last “nails in the coffin” for soon-to-be-ghost towns. By 1972, Rush was officially designated a ghost town, but fortunately became part of the Buffalo National River Park system. The Rush Historic District was added in 1987 to the National Register of Historic Places (click the picture set below for a better view).
Many buildings and structures have been preserved, with county officials touting it as the best-preserved ghost town between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The District exists today in much the same environment, little affected by the passage of time, conveying the distinctive appearance and feel of an abandoned mountain mining town. For more information and pictures, check out this Roadtrippers article.
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Wild Weather Wednesday: Nineteenth Century Rainmaking (Part Two)
Frank Melbourne, The Rain Wizard
Just because General Dyrenforth was on his way to being exposed as a fraud (see Part One of this series) didn’t stop others from trying, nor end the public’s fascination with so-called rainmakers. Frank Melbourne immigrated to America and lived in Ohio before heading west to Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado in 1891, proclaiming himself as “The Rain Wizard”.
He was born in Ireland in 1857 and educated in the public schools of his village. Although he never attended college, he was considered a well-educated gentleman. At the age of twenty-one he left Ireland to live on a ranch in Australia where the dry climate presented challenges. Melbourne, determined to solve the problem with scarcity of rain, set about to find a way to produce rain artificially. In 1887 he began experimentation and after three years and twelve successful attempts to produce rain in Australia, he went to New Zealand before making his way to Ohio where his brothers resided.7
This article is no longer available for free at this site. It was re-written and enhanced, complete with footnotes and sources and has been published in the July 2018 issue of Digging History Magazine. Should you prefer to purchase the article only, contact me for more information.
I invite you to check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
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Tombstone Tuesday: Peter Labounty
Pierre Labonté (later Americanized to Peter Labounty) was born on November 15, 1817 to parents Joseph and Marguerite Amable Labonté. The name is French which would indicate he was born in the French-Canadian province of Quebec. Family researchers, however, differ as to the specific location. Some believe he was born in Montreal, while others believe he was born in either Quebec City, Marieville or Napierville. United States census records only indicate he was born in Canada.
As is often the case, a common family name is hard to trace, especially in another country with records in this case in French. There appear to have been many named Pierre Labonté in the Quebec province, and some believe (despite what it says on his grave) that he was born in 1820. What is known is that at some point the family migrated across the Canadian border and settled in Clinton County, New York.
An 1810 census record indicates a Joseph Labonte in Enosburg, Franklin County, Vermont, but the ages of the adults don’t match Pierre’s father and mother’s approximate ages. In 1820 Joseph Labonté was enumerated in Champlain, Clinton County, New York. Thus, it’s likely that sometime between Peter’s birth and the 1820 United States census the family had crossed the border to live in the United States (Clinton County borders the Quebec province).
MaryLabountyIn 1844 Peter married Marie-Anne (Mary) DeMarse (or Demars/Demers). The Labonté family had by now Americanized their surname to Labounty and in 1850 Joseph and his sons Joseph, Edward and Peter were farming side-by-side in Mooers, Clinton County, New York. Joseph Sr.’s other sons Abram (Abraham) and Israel were close by. That year Peter and Mary had three young children: Mary, Peter and John.
Between 1850 and the 1860 census it appears the whole family had migrated to Iroquois County, Illinois, but their last name was enumerated as “Labonte” instead of “Labounty”. Whether Joseph, Sr. was still alive at the time they relocated to Illinois is unclear, since Marguerite (age 78) was widowed and living with son John and his family in 1860 in Douglass, Iroquois, Illinois.
By 1860 Peter and Mary had added to their family three sons: Louis, Adolphus and Edward. The following year Mary gave birth to twin daughters Susan and Flevy, followed by Elizabeth, Albert and Gilbert (twin brothers) – eleven children according to census records.
While records indicate that Peter and his younger brother Abraham enlisted for service in the Civil War in 1863, it doesn’t appear either was ever called to serve. Abraham died in 1870 and several members of the Labounty family remained in Iroquois County for a time. According to daughter Susan’s obituary, Peter arrived in Nuckolls County, Nebraska on March 11, 1878. It’s possible that some of Abraham’s family accompanied Peter and his family since his widow and at least one daughter were buried in Nuckolls County.
It was a bit of a challenge to locate Peter’s 1880 census record in Nuckolls County, although other Labounty family members were clearly enumerated there. A little more digging turned up an alternate spelling of “Labannty” in the “Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880″ where Peter resided on June 11, 1880 in Liberty, Nebraska.
Peter was still engaged in agriculture then, and presumably until his death (there are no 1890 census records) on April 28, 1899. Mary had passed away twenty days before on April 8 – perhaps he died of a broken heart. Their shared grave marker appears to be one often seen for members of the Woodmen of the World fraternal benefit society (WOW) that was founded in Nebraska in 1892 by Joseph Cullen Root. This particular grave is but one example of grave markers denoting membership in WOW. Their son Albert, later a two-term Nebraska legislator (1915 and 1917), was also a member of WOW.
Peter’s story was of interest to me since I had been researching for a friend (Abraham is her third great grandfather). It’s also possible that the Labonté family was Native American since the Canadian region where they lived was home to the Iroquois and other tribes, as was the northern part of New York state where they first immigrated. My friend’s heritage includes a Santee Sioux ancestral line which included some born in the Quebec province as well.
I came across Peter’s entry at Find-A-Grave and noted the unique grave marker. Both Woodmen of the World and a similar society founded for women, the Royal Neighbors of America, have interesting histories and I hope to write an article someday (perhaps a series) on benevolent societies, most of which were founded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most of these societies had some sort of symbol which was displayed on a member’s gravestone — often another important historical clue for ancestry researchers.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
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Ghost Town Wednesday: Seven Rivers, New Mexico
During the early eighteenth century, Spanish explorers mentioned this area and its unique water supply flowing from seven springs which fed the nearby Pecos River. Despite those advantages, settling the area wasn’t feasible at the time due to the presence of hostile Plains Indians. Around the time of the Civil War, however, Anglo settlers began making their way to the area and more soon followed.
In 1866, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving brought their herds and set up camps there and what is now called Carlsbad. To the vast herds owned by Goodnight and Loving, John Chisum added an additional one hundred thousand to graze the Pecos River Valley.
In 1867 two trading posts were established, one by Dick Reed and another nearby by Captain Sam Samson. At the time, the area was called Dogtown because of the over-abundance of prairie dogs, but changed in 1878 to Seven Rivers, the same year the Lincoln County War occurred.
The town was a place for ranchers and cattle-drivers passing through to gather, but during the Lincoln County War it also became known as a hangout for outlaws, rustlers and other shady characters – commonly called the “Seven Rivers Crowd” by locals. Shootouts were common and it was said that hinged doors on the saloon were removable, used as stretchers to take away the unlucky ones not quick enough on the draw.
Despite the criminal element, the town had grown to around three hundred residents by the 1880’s and added a post office, hotel, schoolhouse and a couple of saloons. In 1888, lawman Pat Garrett and Charles Greene joined Charles and John Eddy to develop a system of canals to provide water for their ranches and also attract other settlers to southeastern New Mexico. Two other investors joined them and on September 15, 1888 the town of Eddy was incorporated.
Yet, when the boundaries for Eddy County were established in 1889, Seven Rivers was named the county seat of Eddy County. The cattle industry around Seven Rivers had already been gradually declining, and its tenure as county seat was short-lived, replaced by the town of Eddy in 1890 (which was renamed Carlsbad in 1899). The referendum included a pledge by Charles Eddy to donate land for a courthouse, so not surprising it passed overwhelmingly.
The railroad came to Eddy in early 1891 which brought more settlers and industry to the Pecos River Valley. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the town of Seven Rivers had been all but abandoned. Only the cemetery remained, until in 1988 when Brantley Dam was constructed it was removed to an area near the Twin Oaks Memorial Park north of Artesia.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
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Tombstone Tuesday: Martin Van Buren Corn
I came across the story of this New Mexico pioneer while researching a ghost town article. In 1991, the Roswell Daily Record called his family one of Roswell’s oldest and largest. Since the late 1870’s several generations of this family have lived and thrived in the Pecos River Valley, and it all began with Martin Van Buren Corn.
Martin Van Buren Corn was born on October 16, 1841 in North Carolina to parents John Roland and Elizabeth Corn. The family migrated to Georgia and later to Kerr County, Texas. Martin, his younger brother Robert and father John were conscripted to serve the Confederacy in 1862. Robert and John served in Kerr County’s 3rd Frontier Texas Cavalry, while John served as a private in Company E of the 36th Texas Cavalry.
This article is no longer available for free at this site. It was re-written and enhanced with sources, published in the July-August 2020 issue of Digging History Magazine. Should you prefer to purchase the article only, contact me for more information.
I invite you to check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? ???? No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
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Wild Weather Wednesday: Nineteenth Century Rainmaking (Part One)
Let’s face it folks, weather patterns are cyclical – always have been, always will be. One of my favorite quotes, originally attributed to George Santayana in his book The Life of Reason (1905), is: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” One only needs to review history and discover that man’s attempts to modify the weather have been at best hit-and-miss and often outright failures, eventually exposed as hoaxes. The purpose of this series of articles isn’t necessarily meant to debunk current-day climate change mania (although that’s how I’ve always skeptically viewed it — as mania), but rather to take a look back at a period in history when climate hucksters preyed on farmers in desperate need of a drought solution.
The Storm King
James Pollard Espy, a nineteenth century meteorologist, developed a convection theory of storms. The idea he proposed, burning forests to create more rainfall, was laughed and scoffed at by climate skeptics of the day. Even in Philadelphia, his hometown, the newspapers and critics were many.
One Philly newspaper stepped forward, however, and supported Espy. After his successful presentation before the French Academy of Sciences in 1841, the Public Ledger (20 Apr 1841) was crowing a bit and casting aspersions on their fellow journalists, referring to their “limited comprehension” and tendency to pronounce anything they didn’t understand as “humbug.”
This article is no longer available for free at this site. It was re-written and enhanced, complete with footnotes and sources and has been published in the June 2018 issue of Digging History Magazine. Should you prefer to purchase the article only, contact me for more information.
I invite you to check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
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Tombstone Tuesday: Robert Christian Humber (1783-1842)
A strong thread of American patriotism is evident in both the ancestors and descendants of Robert Christian Humber. He was born on June 2, 1783 in Goochland County, Virginia to parents John and Elizabeth (Christian) Humber, the tenth of thirteen children.
The Revolutionary War was all but over and the Treaty of Paris would be signed three months later. By year’s end General Washington resigned as Commander of the Continental Army. It was a hopeful time as the newly free colonies set about to lay the foundations of a republic.
Robert’s grandfather, also named John Humber, is said to have participated in an act of throwing British tea overboard. As reported in 19358, a descendant living in Richmond, Virginia was in possession of a mirror which grandfather John brought from England sometime between 1720 and 1725. A record of his participation in that act of civil disobedience was recorded on the back of the mirror.
Whether it was the more well-known Boston Tea Party, is unclear, however. In August of 1774 Virginia had formed a Revolutionary Council who passed a motion to prevent the purchase of English goods, which of course included tea. Almost a year after the Boston Tea Party, on November 7, 1774, a group of Virginians boarded the Virginia, threw two half chests of tea overboard into the York River and returned to shore without damaging either the ship or other cargo items.
It’s unclear to me whether John served during the war, but his son Robert would served in the War of 1812, or what is often called the “Second Revolutionary War”. He enlisted as a private and served under the command of Captain John W. Compton who led the Jasper County (Georgia) Volunteer Troops, 5th Squadron, 3rd Regiment Cavalry.
Robert had emigrated to Georgia and on May 4, 1815 married Elizabeth Flewellyn. Elizabeth died shortly thereafter and Robert married again in 1823. On May 4, he married Mary Elizabeth Waller Davis, the widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Newton Davis, also a War of 1812 veteran. To their marriage were born five children before Mary’s death on October 1, 1836: Mary Christian, Charles Christian, Martha Christian, William Christian and Robert Christian (all of their children’s middle names were the same as Robert’s).
Robert married for the third time to Elinor Anderson who bore him two more children, John and Anna. His sons by Mary, Charles Christian and Robert Christian, would go on to serve with distinction for the Confederacy in the Civil War and later in public service.
During the battle for Atlanta, Charles was wounded three times and later represented Stewart County in the Georgia State Legislature. Robert was a graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Georgia and enlisted as a private in the LaGrange Light Guards, serving throughout the war. He was promoted to Lieutenant six months after his enlistment and later distinguished himself at the Battle of Chancellorsville which earned him a promotion to Captain.9
The LaGrange Guards weren’t the only military units to be formed in LaGrange County, however. While their men were off fighting the Union, some of the county’s women formed their own all-female militia to defend their town. In honor of their fellow Georgian Nancy Morgan Hart, they called themselves the “Nancy Harts”. I have written “Military History” and “Feisty Females” articles about Nancy Morgan Hart (article here) and the Nancy Harts (article here) if you’d like to know more about their contributions to both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
Robert (Jr.) studied law under U.S. Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill, represented Putnam County in the Georgia Legislature and served four years as a trustee of the University of Georgia. Two of Robert Sr.’s grandsons also served their country, one as a West Point graduate and one a colonel who served during World War I.
Robert Christian Humber (Sr.) was one of the early settlers in Monroe County which eventually became Butts County in 1825. Robert died at Indian Springs in Butts County in 1842, a “useful citizen and a Christian gentleman”10, and was buried with his second wife Mary in Sandy Creek Cemetery.
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Tombstone Tuesday: Baron DeKalb Stansell
Baron DeKalb Stansell was born in Decatur, DeKalb County, Georgia on November 25, 1833 to parents David and Priscilla (Chastain) Stansell. DeKalb County was established in 1822 from parts of Henry, Gwinett and Fayette counties and named after Baron Johann de Kalb, a French military officer and Revolutionary War hero.
Baron de Kalb made his first visit to America in 1768 at the request of France’s foreign minister de Choiseul, a covert mission to find out what was really happening at that volatile time before the Revolutionary War. He returned in 1777 with Marquis de Lafayette and joined the Continental Army with the rank of Major General.
His dedication to the patriot cause was evident as he spent the winter that year at Valley Forge with Washington and Lafayette. De Kalb was later sent south to the Carolinas, although during the patriot defeat at the Battle of Camden was not in command. During that battle, De Kalb’s horse was shot from under him, causing him to fall to the ground. British soldiers shot him three times and stabbed him with a bayonet.
De Kalb and his aide Lieutenant Colonel Du Buysson were taken prisoners, yet the British officer tended to De Kalb’s wounds. Just before he died, de Kalb extended his hand in gratitude and said to the officer, “I thank you for your generous sympathy, but I died the death I always prayed for: the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man.” Years later George Washington visited Camden and asked to see de Kalb’s grave. After viewing the grave for some time, Washington exclaimed, “So, there lies the brave De Kalb; the generous stranger who came from a distant land to fight our battles, and to water with his blood the tree of our liberty. Would to God he had lived to share its fruits!”10
It seems likely that the son of David and Priscilla Stansell was named for this brave Frenchman and Revolutionary War hero. Baron remained in his father’s household until he married Caroline Jane “Carrie” Pritchard on May 9, 1861. The Civil War had just begun and the 1st Georgia Infantry Regiment had been formed in April in Macon. It’s unclear as to when Baron enlisted but his first child, Joshua Calvin, was born in 1862.
It appears that Private Baron Stansell was engaged in the Battle of Atlanta while serving in Company K of the 1st Georgia Infantry, since records indicate he was captured near there on August 7, 1864. He was first housed in a Union prison camp in Louisville, Kentucky then transferred to Camp Chase in Ohio. On March 18, 1865 he was transferred to Point Lookout, Maryland. When the war ended a few weeks later, he was released with other prisoners of war who eventually found their way home.
Baron and Carrie resided in Cobb County following the war where he farmed. Their family continued to grow: Sarah Ann Priscilla (1866); Margaret Elizabeth (1867); Mary Lomonia (1872); Hattie Delonia (1874); Colquitt (1876-died in infancy); Ida Corrine; Lillian Melessia (1880); James Elkin (1882) and William Arthur (1884).
In 1885 the Stansells left Cobb County and made their way to Cisco, Eastland County, Texas where they remained the rest of their lives. It appears that Carrie’s family (Pritchard) either came with them or were already in Texas because Baron was involved somehow (referred to as “B.D. Stansell”) in a case before the Texas State Supreme Court in October of 1886.
By 1900 their two youngest daughters and two youngest sons remained in their household. Carrie passed away on February 25, 1907 and three years later Ida, James and William were still residing with Baron, who still farmed at the age of seventy-six. The following year on June 10, 1911, Baron DeKalb Stansell passed away and was buried alongside Carrie in Cisco’s Oakwood Cemetery.
Most of their children remained in Cisco, but three married and moved elsewhere. Of interest to me were daughters Sarah (“Sallie”) and Lillian who migrated to West Texas and eastern New Mexico. Sarah married Richard Thomas Shields and was living near Petersburg, Texas when she died in 1925.11 Lillian married Luther Carmichael and they moved to Roosevelt County, New Mexico. After her children began attending Texas Technological College, Lillian maintained a second home in Lubbock to be near them. Following her husband’s death in 1930 she continued to manage their ranch in New Mexico, but retired in Lubbock where she died in 1962.12
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
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