The Superstition Mountains

by Susan Page Davis

View of the Superstitions from the west side

The Superstition Mountains in southern Arizona offer beautiful views and are a popular hiking and rock climbing destination. Not far from Phoenix, the mountains can be seen for many miles.
 

The mountains got their name because early settlers heard of the many stories and myths told about them by the Apache and Pima Indians in the area. Later, the legend of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine captured the imaginations of many. To read more about the Lost Dutchman’s Mine, see Nancy Farrier’s earlier post on this blog: http://www.hhhistory.com/2013/04/www.nancyjfarrier.com.html .

On the east side of the Superstions, near the trailhead of the Peralto Canyon trail.

The mountains were once known in Spanish as Sierra de la Espuma, mountain range of foam. The most prominent of the range is Superstition Mountain. Other prominent features include Peralta Canyon, Miner’s Needle, Weaver’s Needle, and Flat Iron Peak. Humans have lived in this area for many thousands of years.

Some Apache believe that a hole leading down into the lower world is located in the Superstition Mountains. Winds blowing from the hole are supposed to be the cause of severe dust storms in the Phoenix metropolitan region.

The Pima Indians have a detailed legend about a widespread flood that has similarities to the biblical account of Noah. In this tale, man was created by Cherwit Make, the Great Butterfly, who later became angry because of man’s bad behavior.

Legend of Suha

Suha, a Pima shaman, was warned by the creator, through the voice of the wind, that if people did not change, they would be destroyed by floods. When the people didn’t listen to Suha’s warnings, he and his wife were told to gather spruce gum and make a large, hollow ball. After stocking this structure with water and food, they crawled inside and sealed it.

The flood came, destroying the other people. Suha and his wife eventually landed in their gum ball on Superstition Mountain. Their food was nearly gone, and they were glad to find a prickly pear, or tuna cactus right outside when they opened a hole in the ball. They ate its fruit and waited. When the water subsided, they went down into the valley and created a new civilization.

This view was much like what stagecoach passengers saw in the 1880s.

There is much more to this myth, and you can read about it here.

Another Pima tale tells of Hauk, the “Devil of Superstition Mountain,” who stole one of Suha’s daughters. Suha followed and rescued his daughter, but some people believe the evil spirit still lurks behind Supersition Mountain and will not go there.







Giveaway:  I decided to use the Superstitions as part of the setting for an upcoming book.  If you would like to win a copy of my earlier book set in northern Arizona’s Four Corners area, leave a comment below and include your contact information. Almost Arizona is a historical romance. In it, you will find a sister’s love and her determination to clear her brother’s name when he is accused of murder.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than sixty published novels. She’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. Her newest books include The Twelve Brides of Christmas and The Outlaw Takes a Bride. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

John Alden, Cooper

The story of John Alden, 

by Susan Page Davis

        My husband and I both had ancestors on the Mayflower, and the two men from whom we are descended seem to have been opposites in character. Today I’ll tell you about the good guy.

        John Alden was about 21 years old when he sailed on the Mayflower. He was not one of the company of Separatists who had been living in Holland. He was working as a cooper in Southhampton, where the Mayflower stopped for provisions before heading across the Atlantic. When he signed on with the ship, he was given the choice to stay in America or return to England, as he pleased. He chose to stay.
 
        Little is known of his life before he came to America. An Alden family residing in Harwich, Essex County, England, was related by marriage to Christopher Jones, the master, or captain, of the Mayflower. It’s possible that John Alden made the connection to the voyage through family.
 

Sculpture by John Rogers, Smithsonian American Art Museum

       John was probably apprenticed to a cooper as a boy to learn his trade. A cooper was a maker of barrels and other containers made of staves and bound by hoops. These included casks, buckets, tubs, butter churns, and many other vessels of special sizes or uses. Some were called tuns, butts, firkins, and hogsheads.

       Many commodities were shipped and stored in barrels. Some of the items on the Mayflower that may have been in barrels include fresh water, gunpowder, and various food supplies. A cooper was a valuable craftsman for the new colony.
 
        In 1622 or 1623, John married fellow Mayflower passenger Priscilla Mullins. She had sailed with her parents and brother, but they had all died during the first winter at Plymouth. Any romance between Priscilla Mullins and Miles Standish was probably a figment of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s imagination. 

Postcard by illustrator Ellen Clapsaddle

       John became a prominent member of the community. He and Priscilla had ten children. I am descended from their son Joseph.
 
        John became an assistant to the governor and was one of the leaders of the Plymouth Colony’s fur trade venture on the Kennebec River in what is now Maine.
       
       A dispute with a trapper outside their company, John Hocking, resulted in Hocking shooting one of Plymouth’s men, Moses Talbot. Hocking was shot by Talbot’s companions, and under Alden’s leadership they continued loading furs. Word of the shootings preceded them, and when they reached Boston with their boat full of furs, John Alden was arrested. He was the captain of the expedition and was perceived as a witness and possible suspect in the Hocking affair.

George H. Boughton's Priscilla and John Alden

       Alden’s arrest outraged his friends at Plymouth, and they sent Miles Standish to speak to Governor Dudley in Boston. Alden was released—and Standish was jailed. No one knows why, really. Maybe it was something Standish said to the governor.

       It took some doing to straighten everything out, but after more witnesses were heard, Standish was released and none of the Plymouth contingent was held responsible.
 
       John Alden was also one of the founders of the town of Duxbury, Mass., north of Plymouth. He and Standish built houses there, perhaps as early as 1629. In 1653, he built the Alden House, which still stands today.

John Alden House in Duxbury, Mass.; photo by Christopher Setterlund

       Alden held many positions in the Plymouth Colony, including the post of treasurer, and was well respected. He died in 1687, at the age of 89, one of the last surviving passengers of the Mayflower.

To enter a drawing for a copy of Susan Page Davis’s book Maine Brides, leave a

comment below, including your contact information.

            Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

Hannah Emerson Duston & Book Giveaway!

By Susan Page Davis

Among my husband’s more colorful ancestors is Hannah Emerson Duston, also known as the Hatchet Lady and the Haverhill Hero.

Hannah was born in Haverhill, a town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1657. She married Thomas Duston (also spelled Dustan or Dustin) in 1677. Over the next nineteen years, she gave birth to twelve children, the last being Martha Duston, born
March 9, 1696/7. A relative of Hannah’s named Mary Neff, probably her aunt, was acting as her nurse in the days following the birth.

The French encouraged the Indians to raid English settlements during King William’s War (1689–97), and on March 15, 1697, band of Abenaki made such a raid on Haverhill. Twenty-seven women and children were killed in the raid.

Less than a week after giving birth, Hannah Duston was captured along with her infant daughter and Mary Neff. Hannah’s husband reportedly tried to persuade her to let him carry her to a safe place. Apparently she felt his energy would be better spent saving the other children and told him to save them. He rode his horse after the fleeing children, determined to save at least one, and fired on the Indians who tried to follow. He managed to escape with all seven to the nearest garrison. The Abenaki gave up the pursuit and turned back to raid the house. Mary Neff had stayed with Hannah.

Artist's portrayal of Thomas Duston saving his children.

The interlopers burst into the cabin and captured the two women. The baby was brutally killed, being dashed against a tree by one of the Abenaki soon after their march began. Hannah and Mary were taken northward by their captors. The thirteen captives from Haverhill were divided into smaller parties of Indians, who probably planned to take them to Canada. With Hannah's party was a boy, Samuel Lennerson or Leonardson, about 12 or 13 years old, who had been captured more than a year earlier in another raid.

This painting portrays Hannah and Samuel in action.

About two weeks after their capture, they had traveled about 100 miles from Haverhill, north of what is now Concord, New Hampshire. The party paused at an island (afterward known as Penacook Island, or Dustin Island) in the confluence of the Merrimack and Contoocook rivers on the evening of March 29. The two women were told that after a short journey to a further village they would be stripped and beaten.

During the night, Hannah and the boy Samuel secured hatchets and attacked their captors. Ten were killed, nine of them, most accounts say, by Hannah. The three captives then used a canoe to escape, but Hannah turned back and scalped the 10 corpses to have proof of the exploit. Scalps could be handed in for a bounty during the war.

Painting by artist Junius Brutus Stearns, depicting Hannah's escape,
 with an assist from Mary.

After facing many hardships, they reached Haverhill safely. They presented their story to the General Court in Boston on April 21, which awarded the sum of 25 English pounds to Hannah Duston and half that to each of her companions. Hannah Duston lived out the rest of her life quietly, moving to Ipswich after the death of her husband in 1732.

Mary, Samuel, and Hannah flee the island.

In his book The Haverhill Emersons, author Charles Henry Pope, a respected New England historian, said, Hannah’s deed “was one of the chief means of checking the cruelties of the Indians, showing them that ‘weak women’ would meet their atrocities in kind.” He also stated that Hannah “was at no other time in her life found lacking of the gentleness and peaceful character of woman; this deed was the product of maddening experience.” (Pope’s Emerson genealogy was published in Boston in 1913.)

Hannah has been memorialized in two statues of her wielding a hatchet, one in the town of Haverhill, Mass., and the other near the site of her escape in Boscawen, N.H.

The monument at Boscawen, N.H.

The monument in Haverhill, Mass.

    


Our family happened upon the monument on the island in Boscawen by chance while traveling in New Hampshire. I saw the sign and told my husband to stop. We were near a monument to his ancestor. We took the kids and walked down a shady path and along an old railroad track until we came upon the statue. It seemed an odd, isolated place for such a memorial, but this was the place where Hannah defended herself and made her escape.

The historical marker in Boscawen, N.H. Photo by Craig Michaud at en.wikipedia

You can read an article about Hannah published in Yankee Magazine in 1995 here:
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/history/hannah-duston-scalped-Indians

In recent years, a few people have protested the honor shown to Hannah and tried to cast her as a murderer and have the statues taken down. I have to agree with the people of Haverhill who refused to remove the monuments. Hannah is a heroine.

*** In Hannah's honor, I am giving away two copies of books from my White Mountain Brides series, either paperback or digital. Leave a comment below and enter the drawing for one of these New Hampshire colonial books centered on the Dover Massacre of 1689: Return to Love, A New Joy, or Abiding Peace. ***

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

Judge Crater, Call Your Office!

This post is brought to you by Susan Page Davis.

Judge Joseph Force Crater disappeared on August 6, 1930, and was one of the most famous missing persons in America for the next fifty years.

Judge Crater told friends on that fateful evening that he was going to attend a Broadway play called Dancing Partners. They saw him get into a taxi outside a Manhattan restaurant, and after that, we don't know of anyone who saw or spoke to him again.

Some people think the judge deliberately disappeared. Was his story about going to the theater just an alibi, so he could slip away that night without anyone missing him?

Others think he was involved in illegal activities and murdered by organized crime thugs. No firm evidence was ever found, and a decade later, he was declared legally dead. He never came back, and Judge Crater’s name became a byword for mysterious disappearances.

One thing that has always fascinated me about this occurrence was that Judge Crater had a summer home in Belgrade, Maine, the town where I grew up.  His wife, Stella, was in Maine at the time of his disappearance. She expected him back by August 9, which was her birthday, but he never came.

Over the years I’ve read various things. Some articles state that his wife thought he was on a business trip, while his colleagues in New York thought he was at the cottage with her. Some folks thought he’d been kidnapped, though no bids for ransom ever surfaced. Some speculated that he was the victim of a blackmail scheme gone bad, or that he committed suicide, or that he had amnesia and was living somewhere under another name.
 
Here are some things that are known about his disappearance:

On August 3, he received a telephone call at his cottage in Maine. Immediately afterward, he started to pack to return to New York. He didn’t tell his wife who had called or what they wanted.
 

 

He took a train, leaving the family car and his chauffeur, Fred Kahler, in Maine. He stayed at his apartment in Manhattan. When the judge didn’t return to Maine, his wife became worried. She couldn’t get hold of the judge. After waiting several days, she sent
Fred Kahler to New York to make inquiries.

When Kahler reached the Fifth Avenue apartment, the maid the Craters employed was there. He asked when she had last seen the judge. She said on August 4, after he came down from Maine. He had told her that she could take a few days off and didn’t need to clean again until the seventh. She hadn’t seen him since.

Kahler reported this to Mrs. Crater, and she hired private investigators to find out where her husband was. They didn’t turn up anything right away, so she began inquiring of his business friends. No one seemed to know where he was, but they assured her that the judge’s strong worth ethic would require him to be back at his post on the bench by his next scheduled session, beginning August 25.  But the judge never showed up.

In addition to practicing law, Crater had made lots of political connections over the previous ten years. His ultimate goal was a place on the Supreme Court. He was earning a lot of money and getting rich. He had been appointed to the New York State Supreme Court by New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, four months before his disappearance. His future looked good.

When Crater failed to appear in court, one of the state’s supreme court justices telephoned Mrs. Crater. She told him what little she knew. On September 3, nearly a month after he’d vanished, the story broke in the newspapers.
 
The police got involved the next day. They learned that the judge went to his office on August 4, and also to a doctor’s appointment. On the 5th, he again spent the day at the office, ate lunch with another judge and dinner with his doctor, then played cards late into the evening.

On August 6, he spent some time locked in his office and apparently pulled a lot of papers from his files. He sent his personal assistant, Joe Mara, to cash two large checks, totaling more than $5,000. Mara helped him take six expanding cardboard folders and two briefcases full of papers from the office to his apartment. He then dismissed Mara, who later told police Crater said, “I’m going up Westchester way for a swim. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Mara found this very odd.

The judge went to the theater ticket office to order his ticket for the play, which was later picked up by a man. No one knows for sure if it was Crater. He went to dinner with two friends and left them on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. They said he was in good spirits when they last saw him.

The police investigation turned up connections to Tammany Hall, the political machine that controlled city politics, and some rather shady financial deals. People demanded to know how deeply the judge had been involved in some of these cases. But the bigger question remains: What happened to Judge Crater? Nobody knows to this day.

So, what do you think happened? Comment below and you'll be entered in our giveaway.


Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Texas Treasury Robbery in 1865

Robbery--And a Texas Giveaway

by Susan Page Davis

Immediately after the Civil War, Texas was in chaos. This was at least partly due to the hasty disbanding of the Confederate army at the end of the war. There were 60,000 troops in Texas in the spring of 1865. Morale was horrible. Many Confederate soldiers deserted and plundered. Soldiers pillaged the quartermaster’s stores in Galveston in late May and plundered a train. A mob demanded that a government warehouse be opened to them, and a blockade-running ship was overrun by civilians. Troops sent to calm the mob joined in the plunder. Other episodes of rioting and stealing exploded across Texas.

When word reached Austin that the Confederate forces had surrendered to Grant, the Texas legislature couldn’t raise enough members to repeal the secession ordinance. Rather than stay and face the uncertainty of their status under the Reconstruction government, Governor Pendleton Murrah and several other Confederate officials fled into Mexico. Most other state officials were removed from office. Union occupation troops were on the way, and Texas temporarily was denied readmission to the Union.

During this time of disorganization and fear, violence continued. Mobs and bands of outlaws terrorized towns. In the capital, Austin, citizens got together in an attempt to protect the people and their property.

Captain George R. Freeman, a Confederate veteran, organized a small company of volunteers in May, 1865, to protect the state capital until the Union army could get there.  A mob had taken control of the streets, plundering stores and causing riots and general havoc.

Freeman’s volunteers restored a measure of peace, and they then disbanded, agreeing to gather again if needed. A church bell would sound the alarm if necessary.

On the night of June 11, Freeman was informed that a gang planned to rob the state treasury. The bell tolled, and about twenty of the volunteers gathered at the Christian Church on the south end of Congress Avenue. Some of them came directly from church services.

By the time the volunteers arrived at the treasury building, the estimated fifty robbers of the gang were already inside, breaking into the safes. A brief gun battle broke out. One of the robbers was gravely wounded. Freeman was shot in the arm.

The thieves got away with more than $17,000 in specie, that is, in gold and silver coins. That’s a lot of weight to carry! A later audit report stated that a total of $27,525 in specie had been located in the treasury at the time of the robbery, as well as $800 in Louisiana bank bills. Several million dollars of U.S. bonds and other securities were also in the vault, but the robbers didn’t take them. One package of bond coupons was recovered from the floor after apparently being dropped by a fleeing member of the gang.

Before he died, the wounded robber told the outnumbered volunteers that the leader of the gang was “Captain Rapp,” but this man was never caught. No other members of the gang were ever captured, and the loot was not recovered, though some money was found outside, between the treasury building and Mount Bonnell.

In 1861, the Texas legislature created the Frontier Regiment to guard frontier settlements. They occupied several abandoned federal posts and established a line of 16 camps through the center of the state. Map courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Captain Freeman and his company of volunteers were later recognized by the state for their service, but the resolution providing a reward for them never passed the legislature.

In 2009, Freeman was honored by a historical marker placed at his former home in Hamilton, where he later practiced law. He is credited with interrupting the robbery and preventing the bankruptcy of Texas. He had served prior to this incident as a Confederate officer, as captain of Company D, Twenty-third Texas Cavalry.

Federal troops arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865, and it took a while to restore order.
Ex-Confederates were granted amnesty if they promised to support the Union in the future, but it wasn’t until March 30, 1870 that Texas’s representatives were once again allowed to take their seats in Congress.


    
If you would like to enter the drawing for a copy of one of my Texas books, leave a comment below. The winner can choose either Captive Trail or Cowgirl Trail.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

Julesburg, Colorado

by Susan Page Davis

My topic this month is a somewhat gruesome one, as the settlement at Julesburg, Colorado, was the scene of much violence.

Julesburg was a trading post, established in 1859 for Jules Beni, a French trader. This little hamlet in northeast Colorado became an important stop for many travelers. When a branch of the Oregon Trail dipped south from Wyoming into Colorado, Julesburg was on the route, and it became a Pony Express station in 1860-61 and a stop on the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express stage line and later the Overland Stage.

Pony Express statue at the Julesburg Welcome Center
photo by Tom Arthur

The trading post was located on the south bank of the South Platte River, at what was called the Upper California Crossing. People who did not want to follow the Oregon Trail along the North Platte to Oregon and California would at this point branch off toward what became the city of Denver.

Besides the trading post, Julesburg grew to have a store, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a warehouse, stables, homesteaders’ cabins, and the stagecoach station. The settlement became a magnet for gamblers and criminals.

Modern day Julesburg,
photo by J. Stephen Conn

Jules Beni himself was accused of cheating his customers and overcharging them. The post was robbed several times, in fact, so often that after a while Jules was accused of being involved in the thefts. For about a year, he was the agent for the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company and managed the stage station. During this time, the station was robbed many times. The robbers seemed to target only the stages carrying money or other valuables. It wasn’t long before “Old Jules” was accused of being behind the activity.

When Ben Holladay, the “stagecoach king,” took over the mail route that ran through Julesburg, his division agent for that section of trail, Jack Slade, fired Beni. People tried to change the name of the town to Overland City, but it didn’t stick. People kept on calling it Julesburg, and it was known as the toughest town west of the Missouri River.

Virginia Dale station, Colorado. It is claimed that
Jack Slade is on the left, and his wife,
Virginia, for whom the station is named,
next to him.

Jules Beni and Jack Slade had several fights. Slade at one point found horses clearly stolen from the company on Beni’s ranch and repossessed them. Beni vowed vengeance.

Later, Slade was at Julesburg. Some say he chased some thieves there who were stealing horses from the stage line, and Beni was with them. Other sources claim Slade was there and unarmed when Beni attacked him.

At any rate, Beni shot him several times, emptying his six-shooter at Slade, and ended with a shotgun blast. He told his men that when Slade was dead, they could put him in a packing box and bury him. Everyone who witnessed the shooting assumed Slade would die. Jack Slade, though badly wounded, was far from dead. He got up and yelled at Beni not to trouble himself with his burial, and the that he would live to carry one of his ears on his watch chain—which he later did.

Robber's Roost at Virginia Dale, a well known stage station of the Overland Route from 1862 to the opening of the railroad. At one time the home of Jack Slade. Larimer County, Colorado.

Slade killed Beni in 1861 or 1862. He had been warned repeatedly by friends along the stage line that Beni was out to kill him. Slade claimed the old trader had made another attempt on his life, and indeed, sources say Beni tried to ambush Slade at his ranch at Cold Springs. Slade caught him and told him to make a will. He tied Beni to a fencepost and shot him several times. There are several versions of the story, each more gruesome than the last, but since there is no hard evidence that Slade tortured Beni in the ways some writers have described, we’ll leave it at that. But it’s certain that when Beni was dead, Slade cut off his ears for trophies, and so Old Jules was dead. Slade went to Fort Laramie and turned himself in, but was let go.



Julesburg depot, 1886

Slade became increasingly violent after this, and was fired by the stage line in 1862. He became known for picking fights and shooting up saloons. Slade was hung by vigilantes in 1864.

The violence at Julesburg, however, was not over. In January and February, 1865, Julesburg and the stage line were attacked many times by Indians. It is believed this was in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota tribes were involved. On January 7, they attacked Julesburg, defeating about 60 U.S. Army soldiers and around 50 armed civilians.


In the following weeks, the Indians reportedly burned twelve ranches, destroyed more than 100 tons of hay, and attacked a wagon train. They also returned to destroy all of the buildings at Julesburg and cut about 75 miles of telegraph lines west of Julesburg. Ben Holladay presented his claims for losses from the stage company to Congress, totaling about $115,000, a huge fortune at the time.

SURPRISE!  If you would like to enter the drawing for a copy (print or e-book) of The Lady’s Maid, leave a comment below. In this book, an English lady and her maid take to the Oregon trail, and they stop at a trading post that is a little like (but not nearly so violent as) Julesburg. The drawing will be held June 29.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than forty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

Portland Observatory--And Surprise Giveaway

by Susan Page Davis

 

Is your ship coming in today? Look toward the observatory tower and see if you can spot your flag!

 

The Portland Observatory was built in 1807 by Captain Lemuel Moody. This octagonal tower served as a signal station for the merchants and ship owners of Portland, Maine.



The Portland Observatory as it appeared in 1936
Public Domain photo

The city was built on a peninsula that juts into Casco Bay. Moody constructed his 86-foot-high observatory on Munjoy Hill, a high point on the eastern part of the peninsula. When it was first built, that area was a pasture.

With a telescope and a stash of colored flags in the top of the tower, Moody could communicate with the entire waterfront in the busy harbor.

Spotting incoming ships was the main purpose of the observatory. Each merchant had his own distinct flag. Moody or one of his employees would climb the 102 steps and watch the harbor. When a ship rounded Cape Elizabeth, they would observe its pennants and flags, then they would run up the flag of the merchant company to which the ship belonged, hours before it would dock.

The owners watched the observatory anxiously to learn when their ships were nearly home. Moody’s coded flag system gave them time to reserve a berth for their ships on one of the many commercial wharves and have a crew of stevedores ready to unload the long-awaited cargo.

Sailors’ wives and sweethearts also paid close attention to Captain Moody’s flags, you can be sure. Many times this was the first indication that their loved ones had survived another arduous voyage and were bound for home.

The Portland Observatory is now the only extant maritime signal station in the United States. It ceased operation as a signal station in 1923. It was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1972.

 

In this modern photo from Portland Harbor, the observatory can be seen on the right.
Photo by Dirk Ingo Franke, licensed through Wikimedia Commons 

From 1998 to 2000, the building underwent restoration, after prolonged damage from seeping moisture and a beetle infestation. It became a National Historic Landmark in 2006. The organization Greater Portland Landmarks operates the observatory today as a museum and historical site, including guided tours. Visitors can look down on the city, Casco Bay, and as far west as the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The Portland Observatory is featured in my novel The Castaway’s Bride, set in 1820, the year of Maine’s statehood. This book is also part of the Maine Brides collection. In honor of Captain Moody and his observatory, I’m offering a giveaway of Maine Brides this week. The winner will be chosen by random draw on Saturday (Sept. 28). To enter, comment here. E-readers may choose an e-book of The Castaway’s Bride instead, if they win.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than forty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

 

Idaho Stagecoach Stops and Giveaway

By Susan Page Davis

Stagecoach lines proliferated in Idaho after the Civil War, and the variety of stagecoach stops and the people who ran them was amazing.

    For instance, along the long and arduous road from Boise to Silver City (which is high in the mountains and now a ghost town), you would find the Democrat Station. This was a house between Dobson and Reynolds Creek that was started by a man who was a Democrat. Apparently he was the only one of that persuasion who owned a station along the road, so people would say, “We stopped at the Democrat’s house last night.” I imagine his political leanings started a lot of debates over the dinner table.

    The Share House was another well-known stop along this line. Charlie Share was a veteran stagecoach driver, and he drove the run from Boise to Silver City for many years, staring in 1874. At this time the company running the line was the Northwest Stage Line. After a few years, he retired from driving and started the Share Stage House along the way, and he and his wife ran it for 28 years. Later they moved to Nampa and opened a hotel (1906) which was also called The Share House.

    The Share Stage Stop was located on Charlie’s farm, which included a 25-acre orchard and 35 acres of timothy and alfalfa hay. In the mountain country, feed for animals was at a premium, as was fuel.

   Another stop was Record’s Station, known for good cooking. You could buy a “first-rate meal” there for ten bits—$1.25—in 1865, in gold dust if that was your currency. This was during the mining frenzy, and prices were high. At that time, you still had to cross the Snake River on a ferry “run by manpower,” as reported in the newspaper Owyhee Avalanche.

    Wages for workers at the stage stops in the 1880s was around $30 to $45 a month. The stage stops would put up travelers and feed their animals for a price. At the Share Stage Stop in 1888, a man paid $4 to have his eight mules “put to hay” and 75 cents for his dinner and his horse’s feed.

    Hostile Indians were a concern along the stage lines until the late 1870s. One of the drivers was killed on this run in 1878. Passengers in the late 1860s reported Indian troubles, and the stage stop owners had horses stolen and other problems up until the end of the Bannock War.

    “Road agents” or stagecoach robbers also played their part, especially during the height of the gold mining period. In 1868, a gang plagued the stage lines. The Blue Mountain Gang was eventually splintered and many of them caught.

    This area is rich in history and drama, and I loved researching it for my Ladies' Shooting Club series. Much of the information in this article comes from the book Sagebrush Post Offices, by Mildretta Adams. Other books I used in my research for the series include a reproduction of A Historical, Descriptive, and Commercial Directory of Owyhee County, Idaho (first published in 1898), and Ben Holladay the Stagecoach King, by J. V. Frederick. 

     To celebrate old stagecoach stations, I am giving away a copy of my book The Blacksmith's Bravery, featuring a young woman determined to become a stagecoach driver. To enter, comment and leave your contact information. Choose a paperback or an e-book.
 

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than forty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .