by Sharon Hall | Feb 22, 2014 | Surname Saturday
The surname “Utter” is of Scandinavian (Swedish) origin, a baptismal name meaning “son of Ottur”, and derived from an animal (otter). Amandus Johnson, a Swedish historian, believed it to be a distinctly Swedish name. One source indicates that the name was carried to...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 19, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
The Elkhorn-Coolidge Historic District is located in the northern part of Beaverhead County, Montana and south of Butte. In 1872 silver was first discovered by Preston Sheldon, and his first shipment of ore yielded 300 ounces per ton. He supposedly named the mine...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 18, 2014 | Tombstone Tuesday
Leo Leroy and Pansy Mae (Willey) Hagel, husband and wife, are buried in the Briston Cemetery in Beaverhead County, Montana – near the area called Big Hole. They were born in different places and their families made their way to Montana in the late 1890’s for...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 17, 2014 | Military History Monday
In 1805, Lewis and Clark named them “Nez Perce”, which literally means “pierced nose”, except this tribe didn’t perform nose piercings – that was the Chinook tribe. The tribe’s name was actually “Nimi’puu” (Nee-Me-Poo) and meant “the people” or “we the people”. This...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 15, 2014 | Surname Saturday
Titcomb is an English surname which referred to someone who came from Tidcombe in Wiltshire. In Old English the name was “Titicome”, or someone who dwelt at a place where birds habitated. In Wiltshire, this family held a seat as “Lords of the Manor of Tidcombe”....
by Sharon Hall | Feb 11, 2014 | Tombstone Tuesday
Nancy Crawford Bray was born on February 16, 1801 in Virginia (possibly Greenbrier, which is now West Virginia). Her mother died when Nancy was but seven years old — family histories and newspaper articles record that she helped raise her three young brothers. ...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 10, 2014 | Motoring History
The first decade of the twentieth century had already seen its share of automobile races, beginning with the Gordon Bennett Races in France, sponsored by James Gordon Bennett, Jr. who owned the New York Herald newspaper. At the beginning, races were city to city...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 8, 2014 | Surname Saturday
Doolittle The surname Doolittle is of Norman origin and gradually Anglicized over time. One of the members of William of Normandy’s expedition was named “Du Litell” or “de Dolieta” (which meant “of Dolieta” a location along the Normandy coast). Rudolph of Dolieta,...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 7, 2014 | Feudin' & Fightin' Friday
A woman was at the center of this feud in early twentieth-century Texas, a love triangle in which two wealthy cattle ranchers fought over who would win her back – the husband or the lover. The feud might have started, innocently enough, years before when the two men,...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 5, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
On September 4, 1848, a forty-acre tract of land in Newton County, Missouri was sold by Frederick Hisaw to John and Thomas D. Isbell for $300. Upon this land the Isbells built a distillery and grist mill (Jolly Mill), perhaps with slave labor, according to local...
