Women Homesteaders: Mollie Dorsey Sanford 1857-1866

Women Homesteaders: Mollie Dorsey Sanford 1867-1866

By: Izzy James

Mollie and her sister, Nan. Mollie is on the left.

Of all the homesteaders I’ve read about, I think Mollie is my favorite. She’s continuously upbeat and tells so much of life as she experienced it. Always looking for God she found Him.

On March 27th 1857 Mollie and her family left Indianapolis on the 9 o’clock train and arrived seventeen hours later in St. Louis, Missouri. They spent 29 March purchasing supplies. Spring bonnets, and a cook stove. A whole barrel of sugar and other provisions. Her father booked passage for his family on the paddle steamer “Silver Heels” and on the 30th of March at sunset they set off for the Nebraska Territory.

“We have a motley crew, persons of every form, size , and color. Fussy old ladies with their poodle dogs. Anxious mamas in mortal terror let their youngsters should fall overboard; giddy young girls, frolicksome children, fascination young gents, and plenty of bachelors, who fly to their staterooms to hide from the females, and romping children.”

As young girls often do, Molly made a friend and the two of them had a marvelous time.
Two weeks to the day they arrived in Nebraska City—“nice name, but not much of a city…”

“Here there are nothing but rude cabins and board shanties not even plastered. I see such lots of men, but very few ladies and children. I heard one fellow shout, ‘Hurrah for the girls’ as father marched his brood into the hotel parlor, and Mrs. Allen, our landlady said, ‘I’m glad to see the girls.’ She is quite gossipy and has already told us more than we can digest in a month. She says the place is full of gamblers, topers (drunkards), and roughs of every description, and we will have to be very discreet. So I suppose we will hardly dare poke our noses outside the door for fear of contamination.”

After a short sojourn in Nebraska City, Mollie’s father completed a small log house on the Little Nemaha. Her father named it “Hazel Dell” Mollie and her family settled into life on the prairie. Her father worked in town as a carpenter. They welcomed travelers and neighbors to their little home. After a slow and steady romance with Byron Sanford, twelve years her senior, she became engaged to be married.

During their long engagement Mollie would go to town and work for various families sewing, sometimes nursing, and teaching. Byron, By as she called him, visited often. In between these jobs she would go home to Hazel Dell. She was always happy to be among her family working along side them aiding them in whatever way most useful.

Byron and Mollie on the left. Her son and his family on the right.

On Monday, February 13th 1860 Byron and Mollie’s brother Sam went to Tecumseh to get a marriage license for the wedding was to take place the next day. Turns out the newly appointed County Clerk was absent in order to procure more of those forms. Sam rode home to tell the family and Byron waited for the clerk. The family watched for Byron the rest of the day. The following morning all was set for the wedding. Guests gathered. Food prepared. No Byron. Mollie excused herself every so often to weep and pray, always coming back in with a smile as family members commented. Some were kind, some not so much. Her grandfather went so far as to suggest that Byron’s sole purpose may have been to steal her grandfather’s horse. At eight o’clock her grandfather went back home to bed, Mollie walked with him there to make sure he was settled in.

On her way back home,

“I heard the sound of horse’s hoofs, and rushing to the roadside, I saw in the bright starlight my truant lover. His first exclamation was: ‘My gracious, Mollie, what do they think?’
I said, “What do you suppose I think, Lord Byron?’”

After colluding with her brother Sam and her aunt and uncle, (who was to perform the service) to keep Byron’s arrival a secret. They sprung a surprise on their guests. Mollie and Byron let the family think he’d not arrived and that Mollie had given up on her wedding for that day. Hiding in a different house they got themselves dressed once their preparations were complete they signaled her aunt, who marched into the parlor.

“We will not wait for Mr. Sanford any longer,” declared her aunt. “Come out to prayers.” All marched solemnly into the kitchen. At a signal, the door opened, and stepping in, the ceremony was immediately begun, and Byron N. Sanford and Mary E. Dorsey were made man and wife together…”
“And we were married in the kitchen! Start not! Ye fairy brides. Beneath your veils and orange blossoms, in some home where wealth and fashion congregate, your vows are no truer, your heart no happier, than was this maiden’s in the kitchen of a log cabin, in the wilderness of Nebraska.”

Eventually Mollie and Byron made their home in Denver. They had three children. Two survived into adulthood. Byron was employed by the United States Mint for forty years. He died in November 1914, Mollie died three months later.

The Sanford Home in Colorado

My book Liberty's Promise is about an enterprising young woman just like Mollie.

 

It's book two in the Homesteading Liberty series. This time town founder, Willis Ogden, meets his match.

Willie is pretty open to new ideas, he even hired a lady doctor for the town of Liberty, but when the Union Pacific sends a woman telegrapher, he's got questions. He's heard stories about women on the rails and he doesn't like what he's heard.

 

It’s taken years for Sadie Joan Hill to earn her way up the ranks as a first class telegrapher, and now she's been offered the job of station master at Liberty. A small outpost to be sure, but it’s a step up Sadie cannot afford to miss. Imagine. A station of her own.
 

It figures the town would be run by an old-fashioned man who cannot see beyond her pretty pink coat. No matter, Sadie has plans and she’s not going to let a man with his mind in the past destroy her future.

Izzy James lives in the traces of history in coastal Virginia with her fabulous husband in a house brimming with books. Born with a traveling bone and an itch to knit. Izzy travels to every location where her books take place, from Williamsburg to Wyoming, popping in yarn stores along the way.
 

Connect with Izzy through her website at izzyjamesauthor.com and sign up for her monthly newsletter.

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References:

The Journal of Mollie Dorsey Sanford in Nebraska and Colorado Territories 1857 -1866
Introduction and Notes by Donald F Danker
Introduction to the new Bison Books Edition by Lillian Schlissel
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln/London, 2003

https://www.museum.littletonco.gov/Research/Littleton-History/Biographies/Sanford