Women Who Conquered the West by Velda Brotherton

Velda Brotherton,
author

Women Who 

Conquered 

the West

by Velda Brotherton

Women from all manner of families went West after the Civil War, when a great influx of wagon trains snaked along the trails, some extending a mile or more. The Oregon Trail, the California and Cherokee and Santa Fe Trails, all carried hopeful emigrants to their new life on the frontier. While most women were young, both married and unmarried, many were accompanied by their mothers and fathers.

It is well known that the youngest fared the best. They found ways to have fun, many of them walked almost the entire way, only climbing in the wagons at night to sleep. The men slept under the wagons. Usually a large train could make only about five to eight miles per day, where some lone wagons might do better—if they weren't singled out for attack by wandering Indians. However, far fewer Indian attacks took place than are portrayed in the movies.

Adolph Roenigh wrote for the Kansas State Historical Society of an Indian raid in 1869 the year after the Union Pacific Railroad, Eastern Division opened for business. Indians had broken out of Ft. Supply, probably Cheyenne, but he doesn't say, and about 40 of them passed by the small settlement of Russell, Kansas and began tearing up the railroad spikes and ties and setting them on fire. It is difficult to tell from his report whether the white men shot first or the Indians, but quite a battle ensued in which the white men were penned down in what he called the main dugout. There lived the boarding boss and his wife and it also served as a dining room.  When the train came, the engineer did not understand that a bale of hay burning in the center of the track meant he should slow down, and the engine ran into the ditch where the tracks were torn up.

It's not unusual that women were mentioned only in passing by men when they wrote reports. That's just the way the West was in the early days. Oft times women were not even known by their name, but became Mrs. John Smith from their wedding day till a headstone was erected over them in a cemetery.

Fortunately, women tended to keep diaries and journals, and many of these have been published. So we can learn more about these courageous women. While we tend to picture the large Conestoga style wagons and long trains as being the only conveyance into the wilderness of the West, many women followed their friends and family by taking a stagecoach. The pioneer stage from coast to coast was said to be the Vermont Sanderson.

Carrie Stearns Smith wrote "The stage swung around a corner with a great circling sweep of eight white horses, accoutered in all of harness and ornaments that could catch the sun and the eye...we were all listed and crowded in—wedged would better express the arrangement. The driver cracked his whip and away dashed the beautiful horses."

For her full story of that trip, read Pioneer Women: Voices From the Kansas Frontier by Joanna L. Stratton. The book is filled with stories about women told by women, and is a treasure.

Though the Internet is my main source of research, I still look for books like this which I can read and study at my leisure. I often run across some obscure fact that I would never search for online, and which I can use in my books.

For more stories of women in the West ranging from California to Wyoming, check out The Adventures of The Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart by Susanne K. George.

Elinore was half-Chickasaw, born at White Bead Hill West of Pauls Valley in Indian Territory in 1876. Her mother died in 1893 bearing her ninth child. Elinore's story spans a life lived fully and well. She and her husband homesteaded in Wyoming. Elinore became a published writer in 1911 or 1912 when the Atlantic Monthly published her first letters telling about her life.

In the popular cowpuncher book, We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher, written by E.C. Abbott, known as Teddy Blue, he writes of women and their existence on the Montana ranch owned by Granville Stuart. Teddy courted Granville's daughter Mary. He writes that the Stuart girls were half-breeds but they had every advantage that could be offered at the time. A schoolteacher lived at the D H S ranch for the Stuart and Anderson children growing up there.

The popularity of Indian women for wives, he explains, was that obedience was highly favored by Indians and the women learned early in life to be obedient to the men, and that's why white men searched them out and were so happy married to them.

I wrote that as Teddy Blue referred to people of his time, because that's the way it was in 1886 when he was cowpunching.

These are just a small example of the women who went West to build a new life. Women who suggest to this writer just how strong, courageous and faithful the characters I write about must be.

My western historical romances about gutsy women who won the West, are all available on Kindle. You can find a complete listing on my Amazon author page, or visit me at my website or blog.

Wilda's Outlaw: 

The Victorians

Free 

Dec. 5 thru 9

Buy links: Amazon, The Wild Rose Press

Leave a comment and be in a drawing for an ebook copy of Stone Heart's Woman, and don't forget that Wilda's Outlaw is free Dec 5 thru 9 on Kindle, courtesy of my publisher, The Wild Rose Press. It will then be available there for $2.99 until the print version is released in Feb. 2013.

Wells Fargo and Company #western



Terry Irene Blain, author

 Wells Fargo and Company
by Terry Irene Blain

The story for Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold grew out of the location. Having driven through Durango on several occasions, I loved the place. Doing research on the history of Durango brought up the city’s connection with Wells Fargo. And reading about Wells Fargo I found that the company in the era of my story did in fact, have detectives. Many of the incidents that happened or are related to my hero as a Wells Fargo detective actually occurred (although I’ve used my hero, with changes in times and place).

The name Wells Fargo is intimately linked with the historical west. Wells Fargo were the dominate express company west of the Mississippi, although the founders were both East Coast men. Henry Wells, a leather worker at Batavia, New York, and William G. Fargo, a New York Central freight clerk at Auburn, New York were already involved in the express industry, as in 1850 the founded a company called American Express which did business in the Eastern United States. With the discovery of gold in California, they realized the west was wide open for exploitation. Wells and Fargo, while still running American Express, started a new company. In 1852 they founded Wells Fargo to do business in the West, and American Express would do business east of the Mississippi.

At that time, anyone with a wagon and team could call themselves an express company, but with their previous business experience, Wells Fargo by 1859 had 126 agencies between Canada and Mexico. In 1861 Wells Fargo has taken over not only the Overland Mail company but also the financially strapped Pony Express. The heart of Wells Fargo’s enterprise was the Express Department in the Parrott building on the northwest corner of Montgomery and California Streets. The historic building was constructed from stone blocks cut in China and assembled on the site by coolies. To communicate between office and various other business, they employed a cadre of boys to carry messages at twenty-five cents a message. Thus giving Wes his first job at Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo carried just about anything you can imagine that qualified as ‘fast freight.’ They hauled ice to Los Angeles, Vermont butter to the Mother Lode area. They hauled food, tools, liquor, clothing, but the name is most connected with the transportation of what then was called ‘treasure.’ The treasure of gold dust, nuggets, currency, drafts and notes, coins, gold and silver bullion. This treasure was transported in the famous green painted box wooden box bound with strap iron and sealed with a hasp and lock – which became a trade mark of the company. Keys were kept by the company agent, so any road agent had to carry the box away and then pry it open. Several times Wells Fargo employees went after robbers only to catch them before they could open the box (as Wes relates to Kate).

So if there was trouble in the smelters in Durango, it would have impacted Wells Fargo who transported the minerals produced by the smelters. Much to my surprise I found that several Wells Fargo detectives while working undercover held jobs as deputy sheriffs, or even country sheriffs. So Wes’ job working for the smelters isn’t as odd as it might seem.

The most famous Wells Fargo detective was James Hume, responsible for the capture of Black Bart, the notorious stagecoach bandit know for leaving poetic messages at the site of his robberies. At what turned out to be Black Bart’s last robbery, he was wounded and fled the scene. One of the items left behind was a handkerchief with a laundry mark. Hume and another Wells Fargo detective went to over ninety laundries in San Francisco, and traced it the customer and his boarding house. The suspect confessed to the robber.

Wells Fargo eventually separated their express business and their banking business. By 1905 E.H Harriman, the financier and dominant figure in the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, had gained control of Wells Fargo (the same E. H. Harriman whose men are chasing Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance kid in the film of the same name). There followed several other takeovers or mergers in the early 1900s.

The company lost its express business in 1918, as a wartime measure, the U. S. government nationalized the express business into a federal agency, the Railway Express Agency (which ceased to exist in 1975).

A firm foundation enabled the remaining banking half of Wells Fargo to survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. By 1962, the bank’s name officially became Wells Fargo Bank. Other first were in 1967 along with two other banks, Wells Fargo introduced what was to become MasterCard.

Eventually in the 1990s Well Fargo was merged with the Norwest Corporation. And while Norwest was the larger company, they kept the much better known name of Wells Fargo, keeping the link to the American West, the stagecoach and the heritage of the name. As recently as 2008, Wells Fargo is still growing, acquiring Wachovia.

The Wells Fargo stagecoach carrying the green box is still one of the enduring image of the West. Just for fun, a Wells Fargo commercial featuring the iconic stagecoach.

For more information on James Hume, see Wells Fargo Detective, a biography of James Hume by Richard Dillon.

Labels: Durango Colorado, Wells Fargo, bank robbery, stagecoach, smelters, San Francisco, Black Bart, Overland Mail, Pony Express, American Express

# # #

Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold
by Terry Irene Blain
Available from Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, iBooks, Kobo, ARe

Win Two Free Books!

One lucky commentator will received a digital copy of Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold and a print copy of Kentucky Green.

Drawing will be held September 1, 2012, at 9pm Pacific Time. All comments on either of Terry's articles this week are eligible (Terry has a terrific article for us Thursday!), but be sure to include your email address so we can contact you. Because Kentucky Green is a print copy, USA addresses only, please.

Chicken Dinner: Stagecoach, Butch Cassidy, and an Avalanche

We complain about airline conditions—the crowding, the poor or no food, the delays—but we’d really be whining if we had to make a long-distance journey in a stagecoach.  Sometimes there were many more passengers than seats (which were very small) and people rode on top, in the back, and with the driver, besides in the coach.

This week, Laura Robinson wrote an article for Sweethearts of the West about stagecoach travel, and you can get more information right here on Romancing The West from Paty Jager’s article.

Check out some cool old wagons plus some buildings that were frequented by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:

From The Owyhee Avalanche, February 24, 1872 (reprinted February 22, 2012):

A BIG SNOW SLIDE. Last Sunday an immense body of snow slid from the summit of Florida Mountain down Black Rock Gulch, below Ruby City, covering the road to a depth of 30 or 40 feet and filling up the bed of Jordan Creek at that point. Some two or three old cabins along the creek were buried beneath it, but it is not known whether or not anybody was in them, although some Chinese miners were living there a short time ago.

You're not gonna want to miss next week's featured author: Caroline Clemmons!

Thirteen Weapons that Won the West

by Jacquie Rogers

Not all weapons that won the Old West for the East Coast immigrants were firearms. Technology and determination won the west. And yes, firearms were an important part of that.

Here are thirteen technological weapons without which settling the West would have been much more difficult (not in any particular order, and ignoring a few other vital weapons).

1. Communications (Pony Express, then the telegraph)
2. Barbed wire
3. Stagecoach and freight system
4. The Homestead Act
5. Transcontinental Railroad
6. Square-set timbering (deep mine structure)
7. Colt Peacemaker
8. Henry Repeating Rifle
9. Deringer Handgun
10. Gatling Gun
11. Sharps Rifles (buffalo guns, 50-90 calibre)
12. Model 1873 Winchester Rifle

And the ultimate weapon the won the west:
13. Harvey Girls

What weapon do you think was important in settling the Old West?

Jacquie Rogers

Website * Twitter * Facebook

Available now: Much Ado About Marshals 

Coming soon! Much Ado About Madams

  

Paty Jager: Stagecoach Rides

by Paty Jager
Copyright © 2011 Paty Jager

As a writer of historic romance I like to make sure I know all I can about modes of transportation during the era I write about. I've yet to use a stage coach in a published book but my character had a brief trek in one in a story that is making the editor rounds.

So here is a bit of info I gleaned from researching stage coaches.

The first Concord coach was built in 1827 and cost $1200-$1500.  It weighed 2,000 pounds and had leather strap braces rather than springs to give a swinging motion rather than a jolting ride.  They had leather boots in the front and back for holding baggage, mail and valuables. Extra luggage was also stored on top.

A single coach could hold nine passengers inside and up to a dozen on top.  The coach had leather roll down curtains and three leather upholstered seats with little leg room.  The front row who faced backwards had to dovetail their knees/legs with the passengers in the middle row facing them.  They figured fifteen inches per person to a seat when it carried the nine passenger capacity.  The persons in the middle had no back support other than a wide leather strap for support or a leather strap that dangled from the ceiling, which they could grab when the road was treacherous.  The average speed was five to eight miles an hour.

There were different rates for the same trip.  If you paid the highest price you were 1st class which meant you rode all the way, 2nd class you paid less and had to walk in the bad places, 3rd class you paid the least but you walked in the bad places and had to push at the hills.

The rides were either sweltering or freezing.  The weather wasn’t any easier to keep out of the coach than the dust and mud.  Women who were seasoned travelers knew to wear long duck cloth dusters to keep their clothing clean.  Few hotels sat along the routes and travelers sometimes had a choice of sleeping in corrals or in the street.  The way stations along the routes were often crude structures made of either lumber or adobe.  The Stops were famous for bad food. The usual menu consisted of jerky or salt pork, stale bread, bad coffee, and always beans.

Besides the close quarters, dusty trails, and rustic stage stops there was also the threat of Indian attacks and robberies from outlaws.

Raphael Pumpelly, who rode on the Butterfield Overland Mail stage west to Tucson, noted:

"The coach was fitted with three seats, and these were occupied by nine passengers. As the occupants of the front and middle seats faced each other, it was necessary for these six people to interlock their knees; and there being room inside for only ten of the twelve legs, each side of the coach was graced by a foot, now dangling near the wheel, now trying in vain to find a place of support. An unusually heavy mail in the boot, by weighing down the rear, kept those of us who were on the front seat constantly bent forward. The fatigue of uninterrupted traveling by day and night in a crowded coach, and in the most uncomfortable positions, was beginning to tell seriously upon all the passengers, and was producing in me a condition bordering on insanity…"

William Reed described the experience of motion sickness in a coach.

"The heat could be unbearable; the bodies of the passengers covered with sand, which permeated every inch of clothing. The rough roads gave to the coaches a motion not only from side to side, but a roll from front to back. Seasickness in the hot desert air, some said was far worse than the same ailment out on the cool Pacific waters. A seat in the front, in back, and a bench in the middle called for precise seating… Dust, sweat, insects, and a variety of irritating conditions made for an interesting, if not particularly pleasant trip across the arid desert."

Overland stages traveled continuously though the day and night. Trying to sleep in one, confined with eight other people, I think I'd go mad.  I don't do well on little sleep. LOL

If passengers, who had tickets to a town farther along the route, chose to stay in a town or at a home station to seek relief from their journey, they could become stranded for a week or more before resuming their travels. A ticket did not guarantee passengers the right to travel on the next stage, when the seat was occupied by another.

There were two types of stations, home and swing. The home station allowed passengers time for a hasty meal. The swing station was a ten minute stop to change the team of horses.

They also had a code of etiquette for traveling on the stage in the 1870's.

• When a driver asked a passenger to get out and walk, one was advised to do so, and not grumble about it.
• If the team of horses ran away, it was better to sit in the coach because most passengers who jumped were seriously injured.
• Smoking and spitting on the leeward side of the coach was discouraged.
• Drinking spirits was allowed, but passengers were expected to share.
• Swearing was not allowed, and neither was sleeping on your neighbor's shoulder.
• Travelers shouldn't point out spots where murders had occurred, especially when "delicate" passengers were aboard.
• Greasing one's hair was discouraged because dust would stick to it.

Sources:
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25450
http://genealogytrails.com/main/stagecoaches.html
http://www.tombstonetimes.com/stories/stagecoaches.html

Spirit of the Lake by Paty Jager
Buy links: Amazon, Wild Rose Press

Two generations after his brother became mortal, Wewukiye, the lake spirit, prevents a Nimiipuu maiden from drowning and becomes caught up in her sorrow and her heart. Her tribe ignores Dove's shameful accusations—a White man took her body, leaving her pregnant, and he plans to take their land.Wewukiye vows to care for her until she gives birth, to help her prove the White man is deceitful and restore her place in her tribe.

As they travel on their quest for justice, Dove reveals spiritual abilities yet unknown in her people, ensnaring Wewukiye’s respect and awe. But can love between a mortal and a spirit grow without consequences?

Read Paty's bio.