Norton I, Emperor of the United States by Nancy J. Farrier

 

What!! An Emperor of the United States. We are a democracy and have a president, not an emperor. Right? You might be surprised to find out we did have an unofficial Emperor, Norton I, who declared himself Emperor, September 17, 1859.

Joshua Abraham Norton was born in Britain, but grew up in South Africa when his parents moved there. In 1849, Norton headed for San Francisco, as did many who were interested in the gold rush. However, Norton didn’t try to pan for gold. Instead, he made money in real estate, turning his original investment funds in to a quarter million dollar fortune. 

In 1853, Norton tried to cash in on a rice shortage. His scheme came to naught when unexpected ships arrived in the harbor laden with rice. Norton lost everything and had to declare bankruptcy. For the next few years, no one heard anything from Norton.

Then in 1859, Norton made his big announcement. Wearing a navy uniform, complete with gold epaulets, he marched in a regal manner down the streets of San Francisco. He put this message in the San Francisco Bulletin newspaper, “At the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens…I, Joshua Norton…declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States.” His message further stated he would make alterations to the laws of the union to eradicate the evils of the country. 

The Bulletin printed the statement more as a joke than a serious claim, or Imperial decree. Over the next two decades, Norton I would take his reign seriously.  Citizens and visitors to San Francisco were treated to Norton’s grandiose behavior. People often greeted him on the streets with a bow. The city directory listed his occupation as Emperor. The newspaper printed his imperial proclamations and sought out news on him, because he sold papers.

Norton I with Bummer and Lazarus

One of Norton I’s, first decrees after becoming Emperor, was presumptuous to say the least. It read, “fraud and corruption prevent a fair and proper expression of the public voice…in consequence of which, we do hereby abolish Congress.” To Norton’s dismay, the leaders of the U.S. continued to meet. He then called for Gen. Winfield Scott to march on Washington and rout the legislators. The following year, he announced he had dissolved the democracy and instituted a monarchy, with himself as the head. He also added “Protector of Mexico” to his title.

As Norton’s popularity grew, stores sold photos and dolls of the emperor. Restaurants would waive his bill if he would allow them to post his imperial seal of approval of their establishment. When he attended plays, he was given one of the best seats in the house gratis, because his presence in the audience drew more of a crowd. 

In 1871, a printing house ran off special currency with Emperor Norton I, displaying his imperial seal. Although Norton remained very poor, people often gave him money in the guise of “paying taxes” to the realm. Norton passed out notes as his government bonds to people, and those papers continue to bring a handsome price today. 

One of Norton’s most famous edicts, caused quite a stir, years after his death. In the early 1870’s, Norton proclaimed that the city should construct a bridge between San Francisco and Oakland. At the time, his proclamation was considered impossible and ignored. His decree came to fruition in 1936 when the Bay Bridge was built. There have been efforts to rename the bridge in honor of Norton I. 

The Emperor spent his days among his subjects. He would play chess, visit libraries, or attend churches, but much of his time he spent walking his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, about San Francisco. It was on one of these walks that Emperor Norton I dropped dead in the street of a stroke. The headline in the newspaper declared, “Norton the First, by the grace of God, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, departed this life.” Over 10,000 of his loyal subjects attended his funeral, many having enjoyed the eccentric man. 

Both Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain wrote Norton I into one of their books. Twain used the Emperor as the model for his character, King, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

In 1980, San Francisco marked the 100^th anniversary of Emperor Norton I’s death. They had a ceremony at Market and Montgomery streets.

Have you ever heard of Emperor Norton I? Do you recall the character Mark Twain used in his book? I would love to hear your thoughts about Emperor Norton I.

Nancy J Farrier is an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author who lives in Southern Arizona in the Sonoran Desert. She loves the Southwest with its interesting historical past. When Nancy isn’t writing, she loves to read, do needlecraft, play with her cats and dog, and spend time with her family. You can read more about Nancy and her books on her website: nancyjfarrier.com.

Black Bart, Gentleman Outlaw by Nancy J. Farrier

Wells Fargo Stage

The Wells Fargo stagecoach skidded to a stop in front of the armed man, clad in a long, soiled duster. His face and head were covered with an old flour sack with two holes cut for him to see through. His double-barreled shotgun, held at a jaunty angle, suggested he would put it to use in an instant if the driver didn’t stop.

“Please, throw down the box.” The bandit called out to the driver, then glancing around at the rocks, he raised his voice to be heard by everyone. “If he dares shoot, give him a volley, boys.” The stagecoach driver’s heart thumped as he noted at least six guns pointed at him from the surrounding rocks. 

The driver grabbed the strongbox from underneath his seat and tossed it down to the outlaw. He called back to his passengers to stay calm and not panic. One of the women became so distraught she threw her purse out to the outlaw. The hooded bandit crossed to the bag, picked it up and handed it back in to the woman. He said, “Madam, I do not wish your money.” Thus, the robber earned the name, Black Bart, the gentleman outlaw. 

Charles Boles, (Black Bart, aka Charles Bolton) resided in San Francisco in the 1870’s. He was an older gentleman in his 50’s with white hair, a nice grandfatherly type. He preferred fancier clothes, walked about with a cane, and enjoyed strolling about his neighborhood. No one who knew him would have guessed he also had lived a life as a bandit. Not this refined gentleman. 

Black Bart was different than many outlaws. He worked alone and didn’t rob every stage he heard about. He invested his money in small businesses, and only robbed Wells Fargo stages when he needed more funds. He loved stay in nice hotels and eat at fine restaurants. 

Bart treated women with great respect, as he did all the victims on the stages he robbed. On more than one occasion he refused to take the valuables and money from a flustered lady passenger. He always tried to assure them he meant no harm to them, but only wanted what Wells Fargo had to offer. 

Charles Boles knew of a popular dime store novel featuring a feared outlaw dressed in black. When he took the name of Black Bart, he capitalized on a known fear, even though he never dressed in black and didn’t resemble the description of the dime store novel’s outlaw. The one thing all the stage drivers remembered about Bart was his clear, blue eyes, shining out from the holes in the flour sack. They couldn’t forget the color of those eyes.

Black Bart began to write poems, which he left at the site of his robberies. He signed them P o 8, which stumped the lawmen who were trying to catch him. He always disappeared without a trace. Even the poems gave no clue as to who Bart might be or where to find him.

Black Bart’s life of crime came to an end after a robbery he committed in November 1883. The sheriff who investigated the robbery examined the ground closely and found a handkerchief which contained a laundry mark. The handkerchief was taken to San Francisco and a search began for the laundry that used this mark. They found the correct laundry and as they were questioning the owner, Charles Boles, the owner of the handkerchief came through the doors.

Boles spent over six years in prison, but the story has it that after he was released, he disappeared. Another robbery occurred and the bandit left a poem. Upon examination it was agreed this poem was a copycat. Rumor has it that Bart was so successful in his efforts against Wells Fargo that the company paid him a yearly stipend to cease from robbing their stagecoaches, and he did.

Have you ever heard about Black Bart, the gentleman bandit? Can you guess why he signed his notes P o 8? Thank you for stopping by.

Nancy J Farrier is an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author who lives in Southern Arizona in the Sonoran Desert. She loves the Southwest with its interesting historical past. When Nancy isn’t writing, she loves to read, do needlecraft, play with her cats and dog, and spend time with her family. You can read more about Nancy and her books on her website: nancyjfarrier.com.

The First Transcontinental Line

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

I’m sure, if you’re a student of American history or you’ve read the Heroes, Heroines, and History blog for any length of time, most of you have heard of the Transcontinental Railroad, which united the East and West coasts of this nation on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah. However, did you know there was a different transcontinental line that connected the east and west coasts of our country before the railroad? Any guesses what it was?

 

It was a telegraph line!

 

Communication From A Distance

 

From the earliest days of history, man needed a way to convey messages across a long distance quickly. So various forms of communication were created. Past civilizations used drums or musical instruments that could be heard from a long way off, with different rhythms or notes conveying different messages. Other cultures used torches, signal fires, or puffs of smoke to communicate across some distance. Militaries and navies have used flags to carry important messages to the view of others afar off. But each of these methods was greatly hampered by the limitations of how far sounds could travel—or how far the human eye could see. 

Nautical Flag Alphabet

In the late 1700s, Claude and Ignace Chappe, a pair of French brothers, built a semaphore signaling device that consisted of a rotating post, placed on high ground, with two moveable arms. Depending on how the arms were positioned, different messages could be depicted, similar in nature to the old semaphore flag alphabet. One of these towers would be placed every three to six miles and people would use telescopes to watch for movement and incoming messages from the next nearest tower. Obviously, for its time, it was a great advancement, but as things progressed and people spread across continents, better forms of communication were needed.

 

The Electromagnetic Telegraph

 

As the world began to experiment with electricity, things progressed beyond the old, manual semaphore signaling devices. In 1837, two electromagnetic telegraphs were patented at almost the same time—one by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone of Britain…and one by art professor Samuel Morse, here in America. The former sent electric currents through a series of wires, which would cause several needles to point at letters and numbers to spell out words. The latter used a key-type transmitter to emit a series of short and long taps, now famously known as the dots and dashes of Morse Code. 

 

Britain picked up the invention of Sirs Cooke and Wheatstone and ran with it in their nation, despite its complex design. Meanwhile, Morse gave a private showing of his simpler telegraph’s uses and abilities to his friends early in 1837. Within a few years, the American government had funded his invention. They set up a 35-mile-long demonstration line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD, which ran on poles beside an existing railroad line. The first telegram sent between the two was just four words. “What hath God wrought!” But with those four words, a new era began. 

Samuel Morse, creator of Morse Code and
the telegraph.

 

The Telegraph Era

 

Morse’s telegraph took off. By the end of the 1840s, miles of wire was stretched across the landscape, connecting the eastern United States, with offices and trained telegraphers interspersed between. At first, the telegraph’s main use was in railroad traffic control, but new companies quickly popped up in conjunction with Morse’s new invention, and people began sending telegraphs to family and friends. Over fifty small telegraph companies popped up after the invention’s debut.

 

Of course, as often happens, so many small, independent telegraph companies couldn’t make a living alone, and several of those companies consolidated, first under the name of the New York and Mississippi Telegraph Company—and in 1856, switching names to the Western Union Telegraph Company. It became the largest and most influential telegraph company in America.

Morse's Telegraph Key

 

Another interesting result of the telegraph era was that newspapers began to join forces, finding a way to pool their telegraph expenses. During this time, the Associated Press came about because four daily New York newspapers each needed to obtain and relay information on the Mexican American war. They combined their resources so that they all could get the information they needed for reporting on the war. 

 

Reuters, a telegraph company in Paris, France, also got its start, the brainchild of Paul Julius Reuters. He did everything from sending commercial telegraphs to disseminating political material to other countries. He also coaxed newspapers to subscribe to his service so that he could report to them on important events happening around the country—and later the world—which they could then write about in their newspapers.

 

 

Western Union Makes Its Mark On America

 

The telegraph lines continued to grow and expand, though not fully across the country…yet. The new state of California began adding telegraph lines to connect their towns and cities up and down the state, but there was no line that connected east and west coasts of the country. So, throughout the 1850s, California dangled a carrot of sorts, encouraging telegraph companies to make such a countrywide connection by offering the first company to do so $6,000 per year for their efforts. Two companies in California began such an endeavor, one following the Central Overland Trail through Nevada, and another to the south along the Butterfield Overland Mail route. However, neither completed their lines.

 

The United States government also saw a need to be able to connect the military forts throughout the country from coast to coast. Government representatives spoke to Western Union, encouraging them to take on the project. However, investors with the company found the project too risky. How could they manage the cost of upkeep on such a massive project? So, in June 1860, President James Buchanan urged Congress to pass the Pacific Telegraph Act, which would make a transcontinental telegraph lines, giving government priority on the line over people’s private telegrams, as well as offering the Smithsonian Institution and other such organizations free use for scientific purposes. The act was passed, and the government took bids on the project, which would net the winner $40,000 a year for ten years (for building and upkeep). 

 

Though plenty of companies initially put in bids for the job, all but Western Union withdrew their proposals before the application period was done. As the last man standing, Western Union got the job—and began working with other companies out west to complete the cross-country telegraph line. Work began on Independence Day in 1861, with crews working from opposite ends of the divide. On each end, an advance crew would go out to survey and mark the path, and a second crew would come behind, digging holes, putting in the telegraph poles, and stringing the wire. Depending on the terrain, the crews were able to cover anywhere between three and eight miles per day.

Telegraph poles alongside a railroad line.

 

As you might imagine, supplies had to be shipped long distances to complete the western portions. The wire and insulators were manufactured back east, shipped around Cape Horn, and arrived in San Francisco by boat. The logs for telegraph poles were sourced from Salt Lake City, Utah, since the Great Plains had no trees to offer. All items were placed on oxen-drawn wagons and carted out to the end of the line where the crews were working.  

 

On October 24, 1861, the crew building the line from San Francisco westward finally reached Salt Lake City, a few days after the eastern crew had arrived. The transcontinental telegraph line was complete—and Brigham Young sent the first telegraph to San Francisco, announcing its completion. The first telegraph message, sent by a California Supreme Court Justice to President Abraham Lincoln, left San Francisco on 7:40 PM on October 24—and reached the President in Washington, D.C., the following morning at 11:30 AM. Less than 18 hours for a message to travel from coast to coast. This was a huge improvement over any other means of messaging in that day.

 

The telegraph continued as a viable means of communication through the early half of the 20^th Century.

 

It’s Your Turn: Had you ever given thought to what it took to create the network of telegraph lines that connected America? What did you find most interesting about this piece of America’s history?

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered western novels at twelve when she swiped the only “horse” book from her brother’s bookshelf. Across the next decade, she devoured westerns and fell in love with the genre. While attaining a B.A. in writing from the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. She has finaled in and won numerous writing competitions and appeared on various best-seller lists. Besides writing, she’s been a business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, a historical researcher, a publisher, and a full-time homemaker. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur children.

 

Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery

Wanted: 

Family, Love, and Justice

One Old West Mystery Solved Throughout Three Short Romantic Stories

Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice.

 

Youngest child, Callie, has pushed past her insecurities to pursue a career as a Pinkerton agent. Middle child, Andi, has spent years studying law under her adoptive father’s tutelage. And the eldest and only son, Rion, is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter. 

 

When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?

A Brief History of Blue Jeans

by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Like many people, most of my life, I have worn blue jeans. They are a favorite garment of mine—relaxed and comfortable, yet durable too. How about you? Have you ever wondered where the blue jeans we love first got their start? 

 

Levi Strauss

If you want to trace the blue jean back to its roots, you’ll need to go to Buttenheim, Bavaria in February of 1829. It was here that Hirsch and Rebecca Strauss welcomed their seventh child, Levi, to their flock. Levi spent his first eighteen years there, even while several of his older siblings emigrated to America. However, in 1846, family patriarch Hirsch Strauss succumbed to tuberculosis, and Rebecca, two of the Strauss sisters, and Levi, packed up and followed the family to New York.

Strauss with other members of his extended family

Jonas and Louis Strauss were an industrious pair who created a booming wholesale dry goods business in the heart of Manhattan. The J. Strauss Brother & Co. store provided all manner of “dry goods”—i.e. anything from dry grocery items like flour, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, to sewing supplies, to cookware and utensils, and even some premade clothing. Upon his arrival in New York, Levi began learning the family business and often worked as an itinerant peddler of goods from the family store.

Levi Strauss & Co. storefront, San Francisco

 

In 1849, gold was discovered in California, and droves of starry-eyed people set out for the western coast of the continent. By the early 1850s, the Strauss family realized the gold rush wasn’t just a flash in the pan, so it was decided they would expand their store to California, and Levi would be the one to open the new location. In 1854, he arrived in San Francisco and set up shop, importing quality goods from his brothers, items like clothing, bedding, combs, and handkerchiefs, among other things. He also made tents, blankets, and wagon covers.

Jacob Davis

The same year that Levi Strauss set up shop in San Francisco, Latvian-born immigrant Jacob Davis came to America, landing in New York, and across the next thirteen years, moved around the United States and Canada. But by 1867, the Latvian tailor finally returned to San Francisco, and eventually settled in Reno, Nevada, where he set up a tailor shop. He bought many of his supplies, including the heavy-duty cotton duck cloth and cotton denim, from the San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. store.

 

Diagram from
Patent Application

It was in 1871 that Davis contacted Strauss with an idea. Jacob had found an improvement on the heavy-duty pants he’d been sewing for woodcutters and railroad workers. He found that adding a copper rivet at the corners of the pockets and other high-stress points in the garment, they held up better. But he couldn’t keep up with the demand for the reinforced garments. Realizing the boon he had created, he set out to file for a patent—a somewhat costly prospect for a tailor. So he contacted his sewing supplier, Levi Strauss, to see if he might help with the application filing fee. Strauss agreed, and in 1872, the pair requested the patent for the riveted “waist overalls”. The patent came through on May 20, 1873.

 

Strauss moved Davis to San Francisco to oversee the new manufacturing facility of these waist overalls. At first, the manufacturing was nothing more than seamstresses producing quantities of the garments in their homes, but as word got out about the quality workwear, Strauss opened an actual factory for the garment.

 

Strauss lived to be seventy-three, and upon his death, he left the Levi Strauss & Co. business to his four nephews—Jacob, Louis, Sigmund, and Abraham, the sons of his sister, Fanny. Davis lived several years more, reaching the age of seventy-seven. Both men are buried in Colma, California, but their legacy lives in on the Levi Strauss & Co. brand of clothing.

 

It’s Your Turn: Were you aware that the iconic brand of Levi’s was the actual beginning of the blue jean garment? Did you realize that it went back to the 1870s?

 

Award-winning, best-selling novelist Jennifer Uhlarik has loved the western genre since she read her first Louis L’Amour novel. She penned her first western while earning a writing degree from University of Tampa. Jennifer lives near Tampa with her husband, son, and furbabies. www.jenniferuhlarik.com

 

NOW AVAILABLE

Love’s Fortress by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

A Friendship From the Past Brings Closure to Dani’s Fractured Family

 

When Dani Sango’s art forger father passes away, Dani inherits his home. There, she finds a book of Native American drawings, which leads her to seek museum curator Brad Osgood’s help to decipher the ledger art. Why would her father have this book? Is it another forgery?

 

Brad Osgood longs to provide his four-year-old niece, Brynn, the safe home she desperately deserves. The last thing he needs is more drama, especially from a forger’s daughter. But when the two meet “accidentally” at St. Augustine’s 350-year-old Spanish fort, he can’t refuse the intriguing woman.

 

Broken Bow is among seventy-three Plains Indians transported to Florida in 1875 for incarceration at ancient Fort Marion. Sally Jo Harris and Luke Worthing dream of serving on a foreign mission field, but when the Indians reach St. Augustine, God changes their plans. However, when Sally Jo’s friendship with Broken Bow leads to false accusations, it could cost them their lives.

 

Can Dani discover how Broken Bow and Sally Jo’s story ends and how it impacted her father’s life?

Historical California Earthquakes

San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

As a California resident for most of my life, I’ve felt my share of earthquakes, including a few recent tremors that shook our apartment. So I thought it would be interesting to explore several of the most significant earthquakes in California’s recorded history, though of course they were going on long before people started writing them down.

1. Fort Tejon Earthquake, 1857

Fort Tejon, California.

I learned about this earthquake when researching my most recent historical novel manuscript, set at Fort Tejon, a remote army outpost somewhat south of Bakersfield and occupied during the 1850s and 60s. Estimated at what we would now count between a 7.9 and 8.3 on the Richter scale, this quake was even stronger than the famous San Francisco earthquake, though since it hit a less closely inhabited region, it cost far fewer lives.

This earthquake hit at approximately 8:30 am on January 9, 1857, after a smaller quake rocked Fort Tejon a couple of hours earlier. The entire area from the fort to farms to the nearby Native American reservation was severely shaken, with fissures opening up in the earth up to forty miles long and twenty to thirty feet wide! The earthquake was felt and reported in newspapers as far flung as San Diego and Sacramento.

Many buildings were severely damaged, including most structures at Fort Tejon. Streams were altered, and an eyewitness described seeing the Colorado River go momentarily dry, as the quake forced the water up in a giant wave.

As Quartermaster’s Deputy Alonzo Wakeman, wrote to the editor of the Los Angeles Star:

“The earth has opened in many places for a distance of twenty miles. Many instances occurred of narrow escapes from injuries by the falling buildings…it is a miracle that no lives were lost [that he knew of], for which mercy we are indebted to the protecting influence of an All Wise Providence.”

~ From A View from the Ridge Route: The Fort Tejon Era, by Bonnie Ketterl Kane

2. Owens Valley/Lone Pine Earthquake, 1872

This earthquake was interesting to me as well, since the Paiute characters in my story came from the Owens Valley before being force-marched south to Fort Tejon. This earthquake, estimated at a 7.4, occurred on March 26, 1872, east of the famous Sierra Nevada mountains. Thirty people died in this quake, twenty-seven in a collapsed row of houses in the town of Lone Pine. This earthquake held the unusual combination of both dip-slip and strike-slip faults, which meant the ground shifted both horizontally—up to twenty-three feet!—and vertically at the same time.

John Muir in his beloved mountains, by Francis M. Fritz
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

While based in northern California, this quake stopped clocks as far south as San Diego. It was most famously documented by explorer and naturalist John Muir, who helped found Yosemite National Park. 

Muir wrote, “The Eagle Rock, a short distance up the valley, had given way, and I saw it falling in thousands of the great boulders I had been studying so long, pouring to the valley floor in a free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly sublime and beautiful spectacle—an arc of fire fifteen hundred feet span, as true in form and as steady as a rainbow, in the midst of the stupendous roaring rock-storm."

3. San Francisco Earthquake, 1906

Burning of San Francisco, Mission District: Chadwick, H. D.
National Archives and Records Administration,
 Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

The famous “Great Quake” hit the bustling city of San Francisco in 1906. While measurements vary between 7.9 and 8.3—approximately the same magnitude as the Fort Tejon earthquake—this quake was far more deadly, killing as many as 3,000 people. The San Francisco earthquake affected a much broader area, being felt from southern California all the way up to Oregon and inland to Nevada, but the destruction hit San Francisco the hardest, especially because of the devastating fire the earthquake sparked. And with the city’s water mains destroyed by the quake, the firefighters were helpless to stop the blaze until a merciful rainstorm finally brought relief—but not until over 25,000 buildings were destroyed and 250,000 people rendered homeless.

Most gripping are the eyewitness accounts, such as this snippet from P. Barrett:

“Of a sudden we had found ourselves staggering and reeling. It was as if the earth was slipping gently from under our feet. Then came the sickening swaying of the earth that threw us flat upon our faces….it seemed as though my head were split with the roar that crashed into my ears. Big buildings were crumbling as one might crush a biscuit in one’s hand. Ahead of me a great cornice crushed a man as if he were a maggot – a laborer in overalls on his way to the Union Iron Works with a dinner pail on his arm.”

It took the next four years for San Francisco to rebuild, though the city rose stronger, better planned, and more beautiful after the “Great Quake.”

I personally remember the 1994 Northridge Earthquake from when I was a young girl, one of the most destructive quakes in California’s recent history, though my family wasn’t seriously affected. But one way or another, earthquakes have helped shape California’s character and history, and probably always will.

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? Does the thought of these deep-earth tremors fascinate or frighten you? Which of these historical earthquakes do you find most interesting? Please comment and share!

Kiersti Giron holds a life-long passion for history and historical fiction. She loves to write stories that show the intersection of past and present, explore relationships that bridge cultural divides, and probe the healing Jesus can bring out of brokenness. Kiersti has been published in several magazines, won the 2013 ACFW Genesis Award - Historical for her manuscript Beneath a Turquoise Sky, and is currently a 2018 Genesis Finalist. An English teacher and member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Kiersti loves learning and growing with other writers penning God's story into theirs, as well as blogging at www.kierstigiron.com. She lives in California with her wonderful husband, Anthony, and their two kitties.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit - Woman of Adventure

With Nancy J. Farrier

Lillie in 1862

Lillie Hitchcock was born at West Point in 1843. Her father, Charles, was an Army doctor, and in 1851 he transferred to a post in San Francisco. He chose his profession despite an inheritance that left him fairly wealthy. He passed on his determination and desire to pursue a dream to his daughter.

Shortly after they moved to San Francisco, Lillie, at age seven, had her first introduction to the firefighters she came to love. She was rescued from a burning hotel’s upper floor by the Knickerbockers Number 5, a volunteer team. Unharmed by the fire, Lillie developed a fondness for the Knickerbocker’s red shirts and became a follower, showing up when they fought a fire and cheering them with such enthusiasm others showed up to watch her.

One story talks of the Knickerbockers heading for a fire, pulling their engine, but falling behind on hill. Many of their members hadn’t been available to help. Lillie spotted them as she headed home from school. She threw her books to the ground and raced over to take up an empty spot in the line. She hadn’t much strength, but her fervent encouragement caused several in the crowd of onlookers to join the firefighters in their hurry to get to the fire. The Knickerbockers won the race and were able to put first water on the fire, a noble achievement at that time.

Lillie in Uniform

Lillie often joined in celebrations and parades that highlighted the city’s fire companies. She became a symbol for the volunteer firefighters and would race down the street behind the engine, skirts lifted, as she rushed to cheer on her favorite team. She would be adorned with flowers and waved to cheering crowds.

In October 1863, Lillie became the first and only woman in the United States to belong to a volunteer fire company. Her beloved Knickerbockers Number 5, bestowed an honorary membership on Lillie Hitchcock. She took this membership so seriously it is said she sewed the numeral 5 on her undergarments. She went around town with the gold badge pinned to her clothing. She loved seeing this dream come true as she became a member of the fire team.

Lillie became an heiress when her grandfather died, and traveled extensively. She met and married the wealthy and handsome, Howard Coit, a man she barely knew but resolved to marry early on. Howard became enthralled with Lillie and her adventurous spirit when she defied tradition and engaged in unusual pastimes for a woman, such as betting on horse races and playing poker. Oftentimes, she had to disguise herself as a man to participate in the amusement that attracted her.

Lillie's Honorary Certificate

Her marriage proved an unhappy one. Howard had a roving eye, and Lillie tried, but couldn’t keep him home. In the early 1880’s they separated. Howard died in 1885 at the age of 47. He left his estate to Lillie, making her a very wealthy widow.

No matter where Lillie traveled she always came back to San Francisco, her home. She appeared in the court of Napoleon and a maharaja of India. She brought back many valuable pieces of jewelry and art.

Photo by Kkmd,
Wikipedia Commons

In 1929, when Lillie died, she left a large inheritance of $100,000 to the city of San Francisco. She asked that the money was -  “to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved.”

A committee formed to decide what to do with her the amount she bequeathed. They decided to erect a tower on Telegraph Hill, the very hill where Lillie first helped get the Knickerbocker’s engine to the fire. The monument, Coit Tower, stands tall over the city.

Photo by David Spaldings
Wikipedia Commons

Another part of the inheritance was spent on a statue in Washington Square. This is a memorial to the firefighters she loved. The statue depicts some firefighters, one with a woman in his arms.

There are many more stories of Lillie’s exploits. Have you ever heard of Lillie Hitchcock Coit? Have you visited Coit Tower or seen the firefighter statue in Washington Square? Some day I hope to visit both. What a remarkable woman.

Nancy J Farrier is an award-winning author who lives in Southern California in the Mojave Desert. She loves the Southwest with its interesting historical past. Nancy and her husband have five children and two grandsons. When Nancy isn’t writing, she loves to read, do needlecraft, play with her cats, and spend time with her family. Nancy is represented by Karen Ball of The Steve Laube Literary Agency. You can read more about Nancy and her books on her website: nancyjfarrier.com.