Journal Notes

It was the news of gold that let loose a flood of humanity upon the foothills of Northern California. Prior to 1849 most west-heading wagons were bound for Oregon. All at once settlers burst onto the scene searching for their fortune in gold. Some found what they hoped for, but others found nothting but tragedy. Such was the case for the Apperson family, pioneers who lost a young family member in a fiery accident in 1858. The wagon train the sojourners were a part of struggled to make its way over the treacherous Sierra Nevadas and down the other side into the valley below. The appersons and their fellow travelers were exhausted from the four-month overland trip, which had started in Independence, Missouri. After reaching the outskirts of the mining community of Nevada City, California, they made camp as usual and rested for a few days before moving the train on into town. The forest settling was idyllic, and the Appersons decided to stay there instead of going on with the others. They built a home for themselves and their four children. For a while they were truly happy. But on May 6, 1858, an unfortunate accident occurred that left them devastated. At their father’s request the Apperson children were dutifully burning household debris when the youngest boy, barely two years old, wandered too close to the flames, and his pant leg caught fire. His sister and brothers tried desperately to extinguish the flames but were unsussessful. The boy’s mother heard his frantic screams and hurried to her child. She smothered him with her dress and apron, and then quickly rushed him to a nearby waterng trough and immersed his body. The child’s legs and sides were severly burned, but he survived. For a time it seemed as though his injuries might not be life threatening. The boy lingered for a month and then died. He was buried at the southwest corner of their property. The Apperson family stayed only a few months after his death and then moved on. At the time of his passing, the grave was marked only by two small seedlings. Since then concerned neighbors and community leaders have taken an interest in the burial site, surrounding the small spot with a fence and a marker. Motorists driving along U.S. Highway 20 from Nevada City frequently stop to visit the lone grave beside the road. It lies to one side of the interstate between two large cedars. A stone plaque now stands over the place where the child lies. Donated by the Native Sons of the Golden West, the plaque reads Julius Albert Apperson, Born June 1855. Died May 6, 1858. A Pioneer Who Crossed The Plain To California Who Died And Was Buried Here. The Emigrant Trail followed along the ridge and through Nevada City. The marking of this lone grave perpetuates the memory of all the lone graves throughout the state. Not only does the plaque signify the grave as a historic landmark, it stands as a symbol of sacrifice.

Several hundred yards away from the weather-worn fence surrounding the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Bodie, California, a single tombstone stands alone in the brush. The crude markings on the rock grave are of a cross and the name of the person buried underneath. There are no dates or sentimental verses etched on the stone. It simply reads ROSA MAY. Rosa May was a prostitute who moved to the wild, gold mining camp of Bodie in 1891. The thirty-year-old “sporting woman” was born in Pennsylvania. She came west at the age of twenty with the hope of making a fortune off the gold and silver miners. Prostitution was the single largest occupation for women beyond the Mississippi River, and Rosa May was a success in the line of work. She settled first in Virginia City, Nevada, but had a business in Carson City, Nevada, as well. Although she had regular customers in every location she worked, her heart belonged to bartender Erni Marks. She followed her lover to Bodie, where he served drinks at a saloon owned by his brother. Erni would not call on Rosa May during the day for fear of soiling his reputation, nor would he openly admit an association with the petite beauty. While he adamantly denied having a relationship with Rosa May to his family and friends, behind closed doors he professed his love to her. She returned the sentiment and dreamed of the day they could leave the area and marry. But both Erni and Rosa May struggled with various debilitating illnesses that shortened their life expectancies. Rosa frequently suffered from chills and fever, a condition that originated when she lived in the cold, flimsy parlor houses in the East. Erni was hampered with gout and had contracted a venereal disease. Erni promised to handle her funeral arrangements and see to it a monument was erected as her gravesite if Rosa May were to die before him. In 1911 Rosa contracted pneumonia and died at the age of fifty-seven. Erni’s always bleak financial situation prevented him from purchasing the headstone he assured Rosa he would buy. What’s more, attempts to have her buried within the cemetery were thawed. Prostitutes were not allowed to be “laid to rest” alongside members of “polite society.” Erni was forced to inter Rosa May in what was referred to as the “outcast cemetery.” A wooden cross marked the spot. Erni continued to work at the bar until 1919, when Prohibition drove him out of the saloon business. Relatives back East supported him until his death in 1928. Legend has it that he asked to be buried next to his “little girl,” Rosa, but he was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery, far away from the outcast graveyard located in the Basin Range, east of the Sierra Nevada, thirteen miles east of U.S. Highway 395 in central California. In death as in life, Erni was publicly distant from Rosa May.

This past week a man confessed to a murder police have been trying to solve for thirty-one years. Although the man’s actions were vile and contemptible there is something to be said for a spirit that knows it violently transgressed and can find no peace unless and until the truth be told. News accounts of the confession note that the killer admitted to family members shortly after the murder took place that he had “done a bad thing.” He never elaborated on that “bad thing” until recently. I believe the Holy Spirit kept his heinous actions at the forefront of his troubled, twisted mind. I believe the Holy Spirit prompted the man’s relatives to remember to make mention of the “bad thing” and bring it to the authorities attention. It’s not in man alone to want to admit their shocking sins. Only the Holy Spirit could cause us to want to plead guilty to what we’ve done wrong. I used to think the three that took my brother’s life would confess, but that time has past. The Holy Spirit stops talking to a person when that individual becomes deaf to His voice. The Bible describes it as hearing, but hearing not. There is no point in setting the alarm on a clock in a deaf person’s room. He won’t hear it. Likewise, a person can condition himself to not hear an alarm clock ring by repeatedly shutting it off and not getting up. The day finally comes when the alarm goes off and she doesn’t hear it. That must be what happened. My brother’s assassins visit my website every now and then. They’re proud of what they’ve done. I think they’re cowards and liken them to cowboy Ike Clanton waiting in the shadows to ambush Wyatt Earp, or Wiley Lynn, the corrupt federal agent who shot marshal Bill Tilghman down in cold blood. The spirit that speaks to them will only ever remind them to keep quiet about what they’ve done and forget the lives they tortured. I’m probably wrong, but it feels like the man who confessed to murdering a seven-year-old boy in 1981 has a better chance at redemption than they do today.

In addition to the chance to work in beautiful Helena, Montana this week, it proved to be a fruitful time with my editors as well. Lots of books in the works including a western fiction entitled Laura Reno’s Brothers. It’s the western version of how I lost my brother, and let me assure you dear readers, unlike real life, the bad woman and her daughters in this story get theirs in the end. I couldn’t let this day pass without recognizing a brazen frontier woman named Pearl Hart. More than one hundred and thirteen years ago this week, Pearl robbed the last stage to ever be robbed in the Old West. Armed with a .44 Colt pistol and dressed in a man’s gray flannel shirt, jeans, and boots, Pearl Hart rode off into the hills around Globe, Arizona, to rob an unsuspecting stagecoach. The petite twenty-eight year-old woman had a cherub like face, short dark hair, and hard, penetrating little eyes. The white sombrero perched on her had was cocked to one side and cast a shadow over her small nose and plumb cheeks. While her accomplice seized the weapon the stage driver was carrying, Pearl lined the passengers alongside the road and relieved them of the more than $450 they possessed. Before the lady bandit sent the shaken travelers on their way, she provided them with one dollar. “That’s for grub and lodging,” she told them. Once the stage was off again, Pearl and her partner in crime rode out in the opposite directions. The brazen daylight robbery that occurred on May 30, 1899, had historic significance. It was the last stage ever held up, and Pearl Hart was the last stage bandit, female or otherwise, to perpetrate such a crime. Pearl’s mother was desperately ill and needed money to help purchase medicine. Not that it makes it right to rob a stage, but that was the motivation behind it she claimed. There weren’t many stages running in Arizona in the late 1890s; trains were not the primary means of transportation. Pearl decided to rob the stage that ran from Florence to Globe. The holdup went smoothly but the escape plan was flawed. She got lost in the woods surrounding the crime scene and was eventually apprehended by a posse sent to arrest her. Pearl Hart was charged with highway robbery, and her trial took place in Florence. News of Pearl’s crime and the hearing were reported in newspapers throughout the country. For a while she was arguably the most famous woman in the world. The first jury found that the darling Pearl was a victim of circumstances and granted her an acquittal. The judge was furious with the verdict and ordered a second jury to be appointed. After warning them not to be swayed by the fact that she was a woman, the jury found her guilty. Pearl was then sentenced to five years in jail. The bandit Pearl Hart served eighteen months for her sentence and was released on December 19, 1902. She left Arizona for Missouri and settled in Kansas City with her younger sister. There is some dispute over the date the famous lady thief died. Some historians believe she passed away in 1925 in Kansas City. Others suggest she died in Arizona in 1955. Her body lies in an unmarked grave in a small cemetery located at the base of the Dripping Springs Mountains near Globe.

One of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever visited is a ghost town called Bodie. The gold camp is not far from the booming metropolis of Bridgeport, California. Bodie has more than one hundred buildings standing in a state of arrested decay. There you can see what life was really like in the mid-1800s. I’ve spent a lot of time at the cemetery there. I learn a great deal about history wandering around old cemeteries. At the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Bodie there is a demur marble angel that sits among the faded wooden crosses and weather-ravaged rock grave memorials. The three-foot cherub holds a flower wreath in her left hand and rests her hand on her right elbow. The lone angel watches over the burial site of a three-year-old little girl named Evelyn Meyers. Evelyn was the joyful, precocious daughter of Fannie and Albert Meyers. Born in Bodie on May 1, 1894, the child had a ready smile for everyone she saw and a particular fondness for an elderly miner who was a dear friend of the family. Fannie would take Evelyn with her when she went to do the weekly shopping. The little girl played outside with the other children in town and sat with the old miner friend and listened to the stories he would tell. Evelyn would follow the man everywhere he went, from the blacksmith shop to the church. The miner was taken with the little girl’s devotion. In the spring of 1897, Evelyn spotted the miner on Main Street and took out after him. Unaware that the child was following him, the man made his way to his claim just outside the town. Evelyn crept quietly behind. Whistling and preoccupied with the job of searching for gold, the miner raised a pickax up and back to begin chipping away at a rock wall. He still did not know Evelyn was behind him as he began to work. The top of the pickax caught the girl in the head, killing her instantly. The miner was devastated. The girl was laid to rest on April 6, 1897. Thousands of Bodie visitors have passed by the angel tombstone in the one-hundred-plus years it has been standing in the cemetery. Vandals have broken the top of the wings on the statue as well as the left foot. The inscription at the base of the marble is still clearly visible and reads Beloved Daughter. If you’re interested in reading more stories like this, please read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen. Written by yours truly, the book is available everywhere.

In every good western, whether it’s a book or a film, the bad guy more often than not get’s what’s coming to him in the end. That’s what makes westerns so attractive to me and hundreds of thousands of others. There’s something satisfying about a bully getting humiliated, a thief getting tossed in jail and a murderer being gunned down. I can’t help but think that’s part of what motivated inventor Samuel Colt to patent the revolving-camber pistol. Colt had a rough childhood. His mother died young from tuberculosis, he lost a sister to the same disease, and two of his other siblings committed suicide. At the age of eleven Colt was forced to work for a farmer who treated him cruelly. As soon as he was old enough he ran away. He went to work as a sailor and spent long hours staring at the ship’s wheel. He used this principle to invent a gun that could shoot multiple bullets without reloading. He excelled at both invention and marketing and today would be considered a compulsive workaholic. He struggled with a way to produce his guns cheaply but was forced to find a method of mass production after he received and order from the U.S. government in 1847 for 1,000 revolvers. By the time he died of exhaustion at age forty-seven, Samuel Colt had produced more than 400,000 Colt .45 revolvers. At his funeral in 1862 it was said of the Colt .45 he invented: “God created man, but Sam Colt [the Colt .45] made them all equal.” In 1873 the Colt SAA sold for $17.50. The complete kit with a holster and some ammunition could be covered by a $20 gold piece. The $20 Double Eagle of 1873 contained 0.9675 ounces of pure gold. Today an ounce of gold is about $1,090 and a new Colt SAA can be special ordered from Colt’s custom shop for about $1,500. It is fair to say that the invention of the Colt revolver changed the course of American history. It aided the westward expansion of America and the simplicity and effectiveness of the Colt revolver design is evidenced in the fact that they are still made and used today, both in the armed forces and in the private sector. Many have called the Colt repeating pistol the finest gun ever made. It was referred to as “law and order in six-finger doses.”