tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267185665337100552024-03-13T22:55:45.571-04:00The James Gammell ChroniclesWelcome to The James Gammell Chronicles. The purpose of this blog is to provide a gathering place for the living descendants of James Gammell and his siblings, as well as interested friends and historians.
If you are a new visitor, you may want to begin by reading the Preface, posted January 4, 2010, and then proceed chronologically through James' life story.Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-26283156391246377722012-07-07T17:41:00.000-04:002012-07-08T21:30:37.281-04:00The Springville Bank Heist<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
1898 Francelia Gammell, a son of James Gammell, was serving as the
Springville, <st1:state><st1:place>Utah</st1:place></st1:state>, town marshal. His
friends called him "F. C." or Frank.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<o:p> </o:p>On Saturday,
June 28, at ten in the morning, a couple of rough looking characters driving a
one-horse buggy rode into Springville from Mapleton and hitched up their rig in
front of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Springville Bank. A. O.
Packard, the assistant cashier, was alone in the bank when the two men entered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the men asked Packard whether any
money had been left on deposit in his name. Acting surprised that there was no
deposit, the stranger continued asking questions. For a moment Packard
turned his glance away from the teller window. When he looked back, the barrels
of two revolvers were starring him in the face, and he heard the order,
"Throw up your hands." One of the thieves then forced his way behind
the teller window and stuffed all the money he could find ($3,000) into his
coat pocket. The cashier, while still keeping his hands up, pressed the
electric alarm with his foot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The alarm
was wired to three nearby stores, Deal Brothers, Mendenhalls, and H. T. Reynolds
and Company, where the clerks were instantly notified that there was trouble at
the bank.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
robbers sped off in their buggy and headed toward Mapleton. Within ten minutes
Marshal Frank Gammell and three other lawmen had mounted their horses and were
in pursuit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the incline of the Mapleton
bench, the culprits met Thomas Snelson, who was headed to Springville in his
cart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They stole Snelson's horse at gun
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one horse they had was already
quite winded from the chase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<o:p> </o:p>Nearing
<st1:place><st1:placename>Hobble</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Creek</st1:placetype>
<st1:placetype>Canyon</st1:placetype></st1:place>, Gammell and his posse came
close enough to fire off a few gun shots, forcing the thieves to abandon their
horses and escape into hiding in the dense underbrush. Gammell's men spread out
to guard the thicket. Within the hour fifty more men had arrived from
Springville and the forty acre thicket was surrounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
first bank robber was soon discovered under the dense brush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He immediately surrendered at the sight of a
dozen shotguns pointed at him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had
$2,000 on his person when he was captured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Utah
County Sheriff George A. Storrs of <st1:city><st1:place>Provo</st1:place></st1:city>
was summoned by telegraph, and he promptly arrived to arrest the prisoner
(named Maxwell) and took him back to Springville in irons.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Marshal
Gammell and Deputy Sheriff Brown of <st1:city><st1:place>Provo</st1:place></st1:city>,
immediately organized a search for the other bank robber.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forty men entered the thicket at intervals
six feet apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within one minute
someone called out, "Keep your places all!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here he is!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some words were
exchanged and then a volley of five or six shots rang out. Next, a cry came
from within the thicket, "My God! I'm shot!" <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
robber died on the spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joseph Allan
of Springville had taken a ball from the robber's pistol in his leg. The leg
was later amputated. Allan received $350 in reward money, $1,000 from the
state, and the Springville Bank paid for the doctor's services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Six hundred dollars of the stolen bank money
was never recovered.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=526718566533710055#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">a very bit onebig one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ne. into his coat pocket. ler window and en
he looked back, ad joined the US military </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br clear="all" /></div>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=526718566533710055#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Don Carlos Johnson, <i>A
Brief History of Springville </i><st1:state><st1:place><i>Utah</i></st1:place></st1:state>,
Springville, 1900, pp. 98-100.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-15567636552004405732012-05-14T16:19:00.001-04:002012-05-14T16:19:30.737-04:00Elizabeth Gammell Harris<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0iQVJCvAyepFY7NhdjS3EkmFUEfsfQj_vAa-_ExPS0jPdJWjdMxz4-kwCf_Ik0wqFP6ki78oU7K5-og663g1gRLyM2s1mffiob_67O7h25djqWJFoX2mOl9Tlis14RQxp6m-wYFRZtIgZ/s1600/E+gammell+harris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" dba="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0iQVJCvAyepFY7NhdjS3EkmFUEfsfQj_vAa-_ExPS0jPdJWjdMxz4-kwCf_Ik0wqFP6ki78oU7K5-og663g1gRLyM2s1mffiob_67O7h25djqWJFoX2mOl9Tlis14RQxp6m-wYFRZtIgZ/s400/E+gammell+harris.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Gammell Harris<br />
photo courtesy of Jan Zollinger</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
James Gammell and his second wife, Elizabeth Mahala Hendricks, named their daughter Elizabeth Harriet Mahala Gammell. Libby, as they called her, was James’ second child and his first daughter. She was named Elizabeth Mahala after her mother and Harriet after James’ first wife, Harriet Fitzgerald, who had died. </div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixSstvR_lM5skOUH8m_5KhqJ20dE_phcKXSExQV8dnNO2_lRcHWV0VKjG6_EfhdviYE44cFj7cXdn8D8j-0GQVuDAtRne_dH77Ps45HgZXXm5oCrWU-_zFGsbv30C4V-odXvinUdSiss1-/s1600/Elizabeth+M+Gammell+Harris+0001copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" dba="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixSstvR_lM5skOUH8m_5KhqJ20dE_phcKXSExQV8dnNO2_lRcHWV0VKjG6_EfhdviYE44cFj7cXdn8D8j-0GQVuDAtRne_dH77Ps45HgZXXm5oCrWU-_zFGsbv30C4V-odXvinUdSiss1-/s400/Elizabeth+M+Gammell+Harris+0001copy.jpg" width="366" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Gammell Harris and her eight surviving children<br />
Photo taken after 1906<br />
courtesy of Jan Zollinger<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
At the time the photo was taken eight of her thirteen children were still living. Her husband, Eli Harris, died in 1902 and her oldest child, Drusilla, died in 1906. Two children died in a diphtheria epidemic, and one of her twin boys died shortly after birth. (Portraits of Eli and Drusilla hang on the wall behind them.)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
At age sixteen Libby married twenty-five-year-old Eli Harris in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City. She made her wedding dress with her own hands. Not only did she make the dress, but she first made the fabric. The raw fleece of sheep is greasy with lanolin, so she had to wash it in hot water and some sort of detergent, then rinse it, squeeze it, and dry it. Then she carded, combed, and spun the wool fibers into yarn, and then wove the fabric on a loom. She gathered herbs to dye the cloth. From the finished fabric she made her wedding dress. <br />
<br />Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-53230718216827309512012-03-09T17:01:00.008-05:002012-03-10T20:54:27.256-05:00Orlin F. Gammell <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7pQlWVfL1N8RapaS-9IABKFPEhYbp_JsGkqSABUA6nEYYa64SaJv8dEFJCs755wRWM1sTm8drnUEZRvsk7j0DR9cfzM2HyNa3jjpApi-HxJe6dp5V_gdwlWR8-qfUkKde1CyWfR65cB3/s1600/12-Orlin+marker.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7pQlWVfL1N8RapaS-9IABKFPEhYbp_JsGkqSABUA6nEYYa64SaJv8dEFJCs755wRWM1sTm8drnUEZRvsk7j0DR9cfzM2HyNa3jjpApi-HxJe6dp5V_gdwlWR8-qfUkKde1CyWfR65cB3/s400/12-Orlin+marker.JPG" width="400" yda="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Bary Gammell<br />
<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<strong>1932 –</strong> James Gammell’s eldest child, Orlin Fitzgerald Gammell, died shortly before six o’clock on Monday morning, February 15, at Sheridan, Montana. He was eighty-five years old.(1) <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Healthy and strong as an ox, just like his father, Orlin had experienced very little sickness or ill health during his life. In his prime he was a man of splendid physical build. A trained carpenter and a skilled craftsman, he built numerous barns and houses in Sheridan. Probably the best known of his projects was the Sheridan Public Library on Mill Street, which he built along with his partner Ed Wright. Orlin was eighty-one years old when he built his last home in Sheridan and finally retired from the carpenter trade. Even as his strength was failing in his final years, he never complained of any aches or pains. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the time of his death, Orlin was the oldest Montana pioneer who still resided in Sheridan. He was well-known and respected among the townsfolk; children and adults alike greeted him affectionately as “Daddy” when they met him on the street. Every morning he was seen walking uptown to the Sheridan post office to pick up the newspaper. He was keenly interested in political issues and world affairs, a trait he’d picked up from his Uncle John Fitzgerald. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">For the first nineteen years of his life, Orlin had lived with his mother’s family in Spring Arbor, Michigan. In 1866 he left Michigan and traveled to Sheridan to visit his father, whom he hadn’t seen since he was a small boy. After a year or so, he left Montana for Texas, possibly to visit his uncle, William Gammell. From Texas he traveled to Nebraska. He stayed there a couple of years and then moved on to Anita, Iowa, where he entered an apprenticeship for the carpenter trade. Here he met his wife, Sarah Louise Lewis. The couple was married on October 8, 1876, in Atlantic, Iowa. All three of their daughters, Harriet, Alta, and Vesta, were born in Anita. When Orlin first arrived in Iowa, he was joined by his mother’s brother, Jacob (Job) Fitzgerald, from Michigan. A bachelor in his late fifties, Uncle Job lived with the family for nearly ten years and helped Orlin run the farm.(2) </div><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9I67nlhTizg1WJF4zIrRQcDe_rwDM_DBuGAB6vl6LKH3FUrdyK9yz805vnSxxDnnstDVsrNCmadeP9p05FsEDGQIjAt4VqNT-aPVIKhyrnfBan-qJOPi64lXrUMeWYXH8yG5TFnvRo4Y4/s1600/3-Orlin%2527s+family%252C+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9I67nlhTizg1WJF4zIrRQcDe_rwDM_DBuGAB6vl6LKH3FUrdyK9yz805vnSxxDnnstDVsrNCmadeP9p05FsEDGQIjAt4VqNT-aPVIKhyrnfBan-qJOPi64lXrUMeWYXH8yG5TFnvRo4Y4/s400/3-Orlin%2527s+family%252C+cropped.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orlin F. Gammell, his wife, Sarah, <br />
and three daughters, (left to right) Vesta, Harriet, and Alta. <br />
c. 1910.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In spring 1889, Orlin and his family moved west to Los Angeles, California,(3) where there were plenty of jobs for skilled carpenters. Nearly fifteen years later, in 1903, the family left California, moved to Sheridan, Montana, and used the money they had saved to buy the Goetschius ranch on the Beaverhead River. They operated the ranch for only about two years, and then decided to return to California. This time, according to their granddaughter Dorothy Carey, they settled in Santa Rosa,(4) the county seat of Sonoma County, one of the most heavily populated counties in the state. Business was booming in the Bay area, and carpenter jobs were plentiful. </div><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdQCRhPRxORGl3SM7ulc9WMrNC_xnSSPk8AIYnEcfdkD7xOHACGwdGcpvZN8VNPRkoql70mU2P_yEWPYTbUmmUk_t2naqygsuFky4zPTpRnwlaq44daBAtzWN6urAKpjUY6bo0b4dwyh5T/s1600/800px-San_Francisco_Fire_Sacramento_Street_1906-04-18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdQCRhPRxORGl3SM7ulc9WMrNC_xnSSPk8AIYnEcfdkD7xOHACGwdGcpvZN8VNPRkoql70mU2P_yEWPYTbUmmUk_t2naqygsuFky4zPTpRnwlaq44daBAtzWN6urAKpjUY6bo0b4dwyh5T/s400/800px-San_Francisco_Fire_Sacramento_Street_1906-04-18.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Francisco: April 18, 1906<br />
Looking Down Sacramento Street<br />
the results of the earthquake and the beginning of the fire<br />
(Wikimedia Commons)</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The next several months passed by quickly and peacefully, and then without even a hint of warning, everything changed. At 5:00 in the morning on April 18, 1906, the infamous San Francisco earthquake destroyed the whole downtown area of Santa Rosa. The earthquake and the fire that resulted are still considered one of the worst natural disasters in United States history. More than 3,000 people died and nearly 300,000 were left homeless. Although the death toll in Santa Rosa was not as great as in the city of San Francisco itself, the economic impact was severe. The recovery would take several years. Rather than live in a makeshift tent in a refugee camp, Orlin took his family back to Montana, where he remained for the rest of his life.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">After the death of his wife, Sarah, in 1912, Orlin lived with his daughter Alta. When Alta married in 1922, she and her husband, Walter Moore, continued to care for her father. Orlin’s obituary describes his final years, “Accustomed to abounding health and activity, he was sorely tried by failing strength in later years, but bore his affliction with great patience and died as he had lived, in peace and tranquility with God and man.”(5) <br />
<br />
Orlin died peacefully from the infirmities of old age and was buried with Masonic funeral rites in the Sheridan Cemetery next to his father, James Gammell.</div>_______________________<br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Orlin F. Gammell, obituaries: Montana Standard, Butte, Montana, February 16, 1932, p. 4, c2; copy , " 'Daddy' Gammell Died Monday...", from an identified Montana newspaper, February 19, 1932.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">1880 U.S. Census, Grant, Cass; Iowa. 1885 Iowa State Census.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">1900 </span><country-region><place><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">U.S.</span></place></country-region><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Census, </span><city><place><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Los Angeles</span></place></city><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">, </span><place><city><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Los Angeles County</span></city><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">, </span><state><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">California</span></state></place><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carey, Dorothy Ellinghouse, Pioneer Trails and Trials, Madison County History Association, 1976, pp. 468-69.</span></li>
<li><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Orlin F. Gammell obituary (copy), “’Daddy’ Gammell Died Monday…”, from an unidentified <state><place>Montana</place></state> newspaper, <date day="19" month="2" year="1932">February 19, 1932</date>.</span></div></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-19993209411806375482012-03-01T13:13:00.000-05:002012-03-01T13:13:40.478-05:00Epilogue<div style="text-align: justify;">Even decades after great, great grandfather James Gammell's death, he is not forgotten. His descendants continue to find ways to honor his memory. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>June 11, 1975</strong> – James Gammell was reinstated as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in response to a request by his great grandson Raymond W. Gammell. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In October 1973, my father, Ray Gammell, my mother, Eve, and Gerald M. Haslam, a professional genealogical researcher, visited the office of Henry E. Christiansen at what was then known as the Church Genealogical Society. They spoke with Brother Christiansen about James Gammell, who had been excommunicated on November 14, 1858. My father requested that his great grandfather be reinstated as a member of the Church. Henry Christiansen agreed to submit the request to the Temple Department. He said he could think of no reason why it would be denied. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Dad received a letter, dated August 25, informing him that James was reinstated by proxy baptism on June 11, 1975, in the Salt Lake Temple. With that baptism and confirmation, all of the temple blessings which James had received in life, including the sealing to his wives and children, were restored. On February 28, 1977, James was sealed to his parents, an ordinance that had not been completed while James was living. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>1981</strong> – James was buried in the Sheridan Cemetery, on Saturday, April 9. 1881. The present-day stone marker was erected one hundred years after his death by his great grandson Blake Hansen Gammell. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Blake obtained a large granite stone at the same quarry from which the stones for the Salt Lake Temple were cut. Original drill markings from the 1800’s are still visible on the stone. The granite, weighing several tons, was transported by truck to Sheridan. Then Blake had to dig a hole, fill it with sand and gravel, and lift the granite piece with its bronze plaque into place with the aid of a truck and a crane. According to Blake, he “had a hell of time doing it all!” Since the grave was unmarked, it took him several days and a lot of research to locate the exact burial spot before setting the stone. </div>_________________________<br />
<div></div><div></div><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Personal copy of the official letter of reinstatement.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Short history of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Walton Criss ( including information on the Francelia Gammell family), Church History Library, MS 147774.</span></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-40355969064447568242012-02-13T21:48:00.002-05:002012-02-16T09:33:28.374-05:00Last Will and Testament<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><strong>No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record, and try to find one’s way to the heart of the man...(1)</strong></span></i></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Growing gradually weaker, James was confined to his home during the long Montana winter. He was no longer the robust man that he used to be, with a well-knit frame and a constitution of iron. As spring approached, the days grew noticeably longer. James sat up in bed, and in the presence of three friends, F. J. Jones, W. E. Carter, and Thomas C. Morrissey, took a pen in his trembling hand and signed his name for the last time: “In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my signature at Sheridan, this 24th day of March 1881, signed James Gemmell.” He had appointed his wife, Susan Maria Gemmell, executrix of his will, and his son-in-law James Duncan as executor to assist Maria in the settlement of his estate. He bequeathed all of his real and personal property to Maria, with instructions that the estate be kept or sold, whichever may be in the best interest of his wife and children: </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It is my wish and desire that my children and family shall remain together as heretofore, and that their mother shall remain with them and take care of them as she always has done heretofore, and especially that the little ones shall be educated as well as circumstances will warrant.(2)</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Just two weeks later, on Wednesday, April 6, his wife, Maria, and eight of his children gathered silently around his bed—the two little ones, George, age five, and John, age ten; the older children, Alice, age thirteen, Virginia, fifteen, Andy, nineteen, and Charlie, twenty-two; and his two married daughters, Josephine with her four children, and Jeanette with her two children. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">At eleven o’clock that morning James drew his last breath. After many months of illness and pain, he was finally at peace. A life of adventure had ended too soon, nevertheless, in his final hours the true heart of the man was revealed. His greatest concern was for the education of his children, the well-being of his posterity. We wonder if, in those last moments, he might have had a glimpse of his descendants who would follow in generations to come. No doubt his greatest accomplishment was his posterity; he was the father of eighteen biological children, “well-educated and well-read for their opportunities.” In addition to his loved ones, “many an old mountaineer will read [his obituary] and drop a tear to Uncle Jimmy’s memory and say good-bye, peace be with you.”(3)</div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijsVi445mt4iAUHhYNyDHghi6S3GSqa8iV3j7FDpGQEG6EDgVJ0kGnGr0QHJ6OsjG3MR-2D3NMMPlQlqeQ17TSzKmYz6gW4MqpSqNeRfti4_4gxRyjyOBKtt4GKQabJ3zQwZTBjv3akpnr/s1600/8-CemeteryDSCN1908.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijsVi445mt4iAUHhYNyDHghi6S3GSqa8iV3j7FDpGQEG6EDgVJ0kGnGr0QHJ6OsjG3MR-2D3NMMPlQlqeQ17TSzKmYz6gW4MqpSqNeRfti4_4gxRyjyOBKtt4GKQabJ3zQwZTBjv3akpnr/s400/8-CemeteryDSCN1908.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Gemmell's grave, Sheridan Cemetery<br />
Courtesy of Bary Gammell</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James was buried in the Sheridan Cemetery, on Saturday, April 9. The present-day stone marker was not erected until 1981 (one hundred years after his death) by his great grandson Blake Hansen Gammell. Blake obtained a large granite stone at the same quarry from which the stones for the Salt Lake Temple were cut. Original drill markings from the 1800’s are still visible on the stone. The granite, weighing several tons, was transported by truck to Sheridan. Then Blake had to dig a hole, fill it with sand and gravel, and put the granite piece with its bronze plaque into place with the aid of a truck and a crane. According to Blake, he “had a hell of time doing it all!” Since the grave was unmarked, it took him several days and a lot of research to locate the exact burial spot.(4) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">A few months after James died, Maria traveled to Charleston, Wasatch County, Utah, to visit her eighty-year-old mother, Avis Hill Brown. Avis owned her own home, and her son George and his wife were caring for her. During the visit Grandmother Brown persuaded her daughter to sell her home in Sheridan and return to Utah in order that she might end her days in Maria’s care. On November, 28, 1882, Maria sold the ranch property to Samuel McCrea for the sum of $2,850.00. But before the business was settled in Sheridan, Grandmother Brown died (1884). Consequently, Maria never returned to Utah.(5) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOsGKobO2RMGli_eP9oNkSLwsmR24VTvC-LieU5F24hVVTVCqHBwpchqVZ2XtkVpbQs2N7lm9IRClByhDE_DI-m-QDHf4xYbkeAadytkmd8tXyzJ45pA_MhhP7zg2VM5EtjbdJabYT8RE/s1600/5+Possible+Susan+Maria+Brown+Gemmell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOsGKobO2RMGli_eP9oNkSLwsmR24VTvC-LieU5F24hVVTVCqHBwpchqVZ2XtkVpbQs2N7lm9IRClByhDE_DI-m-QDHf4xYbkeAadytkmd8tXyzJ45pA_MhhP7zg2VM5EtjbdJabYT8RE/s400/5+Possible+Susan+Maria+Brown+Gemmell.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Susan Maria Brown Gemmell, c. 1892<br />
Courtesy of Cathy Hall</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
About 1887, Maria left Sheridan, taking her younger unmarried children, Charlie, Andy, Virginia, Alice, John and George, and settled near Anaconda. At the end of 1894, believing that her health would be benefited, she returned to Sheridan and put herself under the treatment of Dr. George W. Rightenour, her family physician. She began to grow worse and sent for her daughter, Virginia Garrity, who remained with her to the time of her death. Maria died on Monday, Feb. 3, 1896, at her home on Water Street at age sixty-four.(6) </div><div style="text-align: justify;">________________________</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">From the prologue to David Attenborough’s film <em>Gandhi.</em></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Gemmell’s will, Probate records, Madison County Courthouse, Virginia City, Montana, File #25.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Obituary of James Gemmell, <em>Dillon Tribune</em>, April 9, 1881.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Short history of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Walton Criss" ( including information on the Francelia Gammell family), Church History Library, MS 147774.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Virginia Gemmell Garrity, Letter to Ralph Vary Chamberlin, 1922.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Obituary of Susan Maria Gemmell, <em>The Madisonian,</em> Virginia City, Montana, Feb. 8, 1896.</span></li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-74102684292109588232012-01-20T20:29:00.008-05:002012-01-25T19:27:39.958-05:00“The Late James Gemmell”<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxUGyW59DyY7XDQ01gqZ0_5qKSQTTTEH0_t5RyZc5oyjC5ekPh558ZbhRqzZy8d8wdVUJcg6PhO7dsaue2LUkIsTylNdYHwshRcWM8hbw4r-tUFFIzOoRX5zKZ_JaB7_tQdmhliEErcNRP/s1600/Mill+Street%252C+1900+with+caption.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxUGyW59DyY7XDQ01gqZ0_5qKSQTTTEH0_t5RyZc5oyjC5ekPh558ZbhRqzZy8d8wdVUJcg6PhO7dsaue2LUkIsTylNdYHwshRcWM8hbw4r-tUFFIzOoRX5zKZ_JaB7_tQdmhliEErcNRP/s400/Mill+Street%252C+1900+with+caption.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of the Friends of the Sheridan Library</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">It was late August 1879. James Gemmell woke up early one morning determined to accomplish a mission he had been considering for a long time. He had thought about it for many weeks, but hadn’t wanted to discuss it with Maria. She would only worry about him. After breakfast and a few morning chores, he told Maria that he was going into town to get the mail and the weekly newspaper. She thought nothing of it; this was his usual routine.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">He rode into the village and stopped at Rozelle Bateman’s place at the corner of Main and Mill Street. Bateman was the postmaster. His four-room house, constructed with logs from Gemmell’s saw mill, served as a post office, a store, a hotel, as well as a home for his family. Everybody stopped at Bateman’s when they came into Sheridan. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James walked into the store and headed for the cigar box on the shelf near the dry goods to check for mail. That cigar box was the official Sheridan post office, where the villagers (one hundred fifty of them in 1879) dropped off and picked up their letters. Today there was no mail for the Gemmells. James had a little time to chat with some of his neighbors and read the newspaper while he waited. He felt some sense of relief that today he would complete what he considered some very important business at the hotel. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Like his brother William, James had always been strong and fit, and was very seldom ill. In recent years he had noticed that old age was creeping up on him. Even Maria noticed that his appetite had diminished, that he had lost weight and often complained of stomach pain. Instinctively he knew that those whiskey sprees with his fellow mountain men had taken a toll on his health. Back in 1870 he swore off the whiskey, except for special occasions. Now, at nearly sixty-five years old, he accepted the fact that his days were numbered…perhaps he would live a few more months, or maybe even a few more years. At best, time was short. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">A few days earlier James had heard rumors that an old acquaintance William F. Wheeler would be coming to Sheridan on business, and of course, he would be staying at Bateman’s hotel. The stage wouldn’t depart until evening, so James figured there would be time to pay him a visit before he left town. James had met him for the first time ten years previously, when Wheeler first arrived as the newly appointed United States Marshal of Montana Territory. A native of New York, he had studied law and worked as a newpaper reporter for the <em>Ohio Statesman</em> before entering government service. His ten-year term as Marshal had just ended, and he was now able to devote most of his time to his position as a founding officer of the Montana Historical Society. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5RXcfdQcVdsrp0vGMT_Wg2cjZPCW3FHWE6Xt3pbMl_nGyxhP21sRtU4WDa5uclG8dSRwuADpmNxLQXEWiN-7NbBc9QMOQMmZQRCwL4u9oZCaaHzPBH5bwGWhrMfjjoBrqw3RTobCe0hc/s1600/wheeler%252C+william+1890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5RXcfdQcVdsrp0vGMT_Wg2cjZPCW3FHWE6Xt3pbMl_nGyxhP21sRtU4WDa5uclG8dSRwuADpmNxLQXEWiN-7NbBc9QMOQMmZQRCwL4u9oZCaaHzPBH5bwGWhrMfjjoBrqw3RTobCe0hc/s320/wheeler%252C+william+1890.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William F. Wheeler, 1890<br />
Photo courtesy of Montana Historical Society Archives</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Several folks had arrived at noon to talk with the former marshal. James waited his turn and finally stepped forward to greet his old friend. Wheeler recognized him immediately as one of the first acquaintances he had made when he came to Montana. He remembered that James Gemmell was one of the very first white settlers in the territory. He couldn’t help but notice how James had aged since he saw him last. How feeble he looked! He motioned for James to sit down and have a glass of wine. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipUsxWqbhr4A3kT8zoOfeIot1Teah1w1030fV16folvGQPOnB21MFgcLQfbOf2tldI2fkwVzZQWaiIN_iWZtaFo4bBHieOmpND-k2GdwNxhPW0p5CtNxEz6rA5d_ZQgOxZIfNjLGdKKTOf/s1600/img033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipUsxWqbhr4A3kT8zoOfeIot1Teah1w1030fV16folvGQPOnB21MFgcLQfbOf2tldI2fkwVzZQWaiIN_iWZtaFo4bBHieOmpND-k2GdwNxhPW0p5CtNxEz6rA5d_ZQgOxZIfNjLGdKKTOf/s400/img033.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sheridan as James knew it in the 1870's<br />
(Buildings numbered from left to right)<br />
View from back of Bateman store <br />
Photo courtesy of Sandra Baril</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Wheeler had stopped in Sheridan on his way home to Helena after visiting Yellowstone National Park.(1) His description of its many natural wonders sparked vivid memories for James, who then related the story of his expedition to Yellowstone with old Jim Bridger more than thirty years earlier. All the while Wheeler was jotting down a few notes. “Have you ever seen any views (photographs) of the geysers, the falls and hot springs since your first visit,” he asked. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James responded, “When I was in Bozeman several years back, Bird Calfee showed me his whole collection. I recognized them all right away. Always wanted to go back again, but I had a large family to feed. Seems like I was always working.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Two hours had flown by, and James had nearly forgotten the real reason he had come to call on William Wheeler. At this point he invited Wheeler to go home with him to his ranch just a mile away. He said he had some interesting papers he would like him to see. When they arrived at the house, James retrieved two yellowed, tattered copies of the <em>Michigan State Gazette</em> that he had kept in a satchel for thirty-five years. The Jackson, Michigan, newspaper had reprinted two letters originally published in the <em>New York Plebeian</em>. These two letters recounted the story of his involvement in the Canadian rebellion of 1837, from his capture and trial and sentence of life imprisonment in Van Diemens Land, to his escape and return home after two years of captivity.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Wheeler continued to take notes as James told how he happened to venture out on the plains. He talked about the death of his first wife in Michigan, how he met up with Jim Bridger, how he settled in Great Salt Lake City, and how he and his family were among the earliest settlers in Montana. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">A couple of hours passed unnoticed until it was time for supper. Maria insisted that their guest stay and have a meal with them. James introduced several of his children who were still living at home. The youngest one was three-year-old George, a stout, healthy, rosy-cheeked boy. He was James’ twenty-first child. (James had eighteen biological children and three step children.) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">After supper the two men drove the buggy back to Sheridan in time for Wheeler to catch his evening stagecoach to Helena. As they parted, James placed the newspapers in Wheeler’s hands and explained that he was getting old and didn’t expect to live much longer. For this reason he had told his story. He had one last request of Wheeler, “If you consider my story worth preserving, I hope you will write it out.” As they shook hands, Wheeler assured him that he would. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">William Fletcher Wheeler served as the Montana Historical Society librarian from 1884 until his death in 1894. He devoted much of his time collecting the reminiscences of old pioneers and writing their biographies. He completed his article “The Late James Gemmell” in 1881, and it was published by the Montana Historical Society in 1896, fifteen years after James died.(2) </div>______________________________<br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Yellowstone National Park was designated by the United States Congress in 1872.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wheeler, William F., “The Late James Gemmell,” Montana Historical Society, vol. II, p.332.</span></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-77615258234806634092012-01-11T16:37:00.013-05:002012-01-28T11:38:16.086-05:00The Montana Gemmell Family <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiThZQNram9QI_PUZp0eBKIBZaKVwSYV1VmhSIe61Ulcha8dmdq_SblmFFQpp83dg1EEvBhppDIHaLT7ZlIVvbWPWV6x_heBE47BSJnOHL0rqtAfW0faaLdBOvQZ5NsBnXC28XMPLQT1K4x/s1600/jeanette+gammell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiThZQNram9QI_PUZp0eBKIBZaKVwSYV1VmhSIe61Ulcha8dmdq_SblmFFQpp83dg1EEvBhppDIHaLT7ZlIVvbWPWV6x_heBE47BSJnOHL0rqtAfW0faaLdBOvQZ5NsBnXC28XMPLQT1K4x/s200/jeanette+gammell.jpg" width="156" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeanette Gemmell <br />
(1852 - 1914)<br />
Courtesy of Sandra Baril</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">A few months after little Katie’s death, James and Maria hosted a wedding for their eldest daughter, Jeanette. The groom was James Duncan, son of Reverend Hugh Duncan. As it turned out, the Gemmells and the Duncans had a lot in common. Reverend Duncan and his family were Scottish immigrants who had settled in Montana the year before James Gemmell brought his family to Ruby Valley. The Duncan family had arrived with the first wave of settlers heading for the Montana gold mines. Starting out in May 1864, Jim Bridger led the first wagon train across hostile Indian Territory from Fort Laramie to the boomtown of Virginia City. The Duncans hooked up with the Hickman Company of thirty wagons and followed the Bridger train. Theirs was the second wagon company to arrive at Virginia City.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1CcbL3gWnEm2l566bWLXZ0aMyxYY1IQ1Z_ygLPTpiqZrrqkta4MpAKbF1cKuTIWPN2EPdba4h6gN-qeY6vK35qpYyEqQfy2FjsM8w50MJ6xc78pGmAZaNOe190VziWqGiqoF692dJ4w_e/s1600/Rev.+Hugh+Duncan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1CcbL3gWnEm2l566bWLXZ0aMyxYY1IQ1Z_ygLPTpiqZrrqkta4MpAKbF1cKuTIWPN2EPdba4h6gN-qeY6vK35qpYyEqQfy2FjsM8w50MJ6xc78pGmAZaNOe190VziWqGiqoF692dJ4w_e/s200/Rev.+Hugh+Duncan.jpg" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reverend Hugh Duncan<br />
(1824 - 1887)<br />
Courtesy of Sandra Baril</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Hugh Duncan had worked for a time in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and later had moved to Kansas, where he took up farming and became a Methodist minister. In 1864 he moved his family to Montana, but not without a few harrowing experiences along the trail. He was stricken with pneumonia after spending one whole day up to his chest in the frigid water of the Big Horn River, helping thirty ox teams and wagons to ford the deep and dangerous water. Fortunately for Duncan, there was an excellent physician in the company, a Dr. Sherwood, who nursed him back to health. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The wagon trains stopped for one day to rest and to celebrate the fourth of July on the banks of the Big Horn, where they feasted on mud turtle soup for dinner. The next day they crossed the Shoshone, then called the Stinking River. As the wagons crossed, the cattle that were hitched to the Duncan wagon went down stream and into a deep hole. Hugh Duncan leaped from the wagon onto the backs of the animals, trying to save them. Then the four wheels dropped off the bed of the wagon and left the box floating downstream with fifteen-year-old James Duncan, and his mother and sister inside. However, several men on the river bank managed to rescue those in the wagon bed. The company reached Virginia City on July 21, but Hugh Duncan stayed there only a few months, then moved his family to one of the settlements along Alder Gulch and built a makeshift cabin. He bought a one-third interest in a mining claim, and he and his son James went to work placer mining(1) for gold. In 1869 Reverend Duncan moved to Ruby Valley, where he purchased one hundred sixty acres of land and engaged in farming and stock raising and became neighbors to the Gemmells—neighbors in the frontier sense of the word, anyone within a five-mile radius.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Reverend Hugh Duncan was one of the first Methodist ministers in Montana and one of the founders of the Masonic order in the state. In 1883 he was grand master of the Masonic Lodges of Montana. His son James followed in his footsteps in many ways. James Duncan worked in mining for twenty years and then, like his father, he changed to farming. He was very successful, owning an excellent farm property. He was an honored member of the Masonic fraternity and a charter member of the Sheridan Lodge, serving four times as Master of the Lodge. He and Jeanette were both devout Christians and served faithfully in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Sheridan. Jeanette founded the Ladies Aid Society of Sheridan. Both she and James were “possessed of high ideals, and led [lives] of integrity and industry.”(2) The marriage of James and Jeanette produced a large family—ten grandchildren for both Hugh Duncan and James Gemmell.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyx_uWHGaGSYHfQ-aDSb3HM1qApOpw3r_V06lQlWoyCjcgCU9Mh6m1WMGfL2mFXL7tOL1DQk4nfVWSCTy1z2iLroeSftSx6dmaVgFJlMWMe4QllkaHgp9Jt-sD8lFY38JAp8b1AH75gH6g/s1600/James+and+Jeanette+Duncan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="247" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyx_uWHGaGSYHfQ-aDSb3HM1qApOpw3r_V06lQlWoyCjcgCU9Mh6m1WMGfL2mFXL7tOL1DQk4nfVWSCTy1z2iLroeSftSx6dmaVgFJlMWMe4QllkaHgp9Jt-sD8lFY38JAp8b1AH75gH6g/s320/James+and+Jeanette+Duncan.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James and Jeanette Gemmell Duncan<br />
Courtesy of Reed Russell</td></tr>
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These original Ruby Valley settlers had fascinating tales to tell about the early days of Montana. For example, children and adults alike had to create their own amusement, especially during the long winters. So they had dances, like the one held in James Gemmell’s big red barn, and they also put on plays. James Duncan recalled performing in a home-made rendition of Shakespeare’s <em>Macbeth</em>. Since there were only boys in the cast, his brother Tom had to borrow his mother’s clothes to play Lady Macbeth.(3)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3uBgy95bTrAKs7RxkJx9u8jnzVALPPijFcZGvPX8UFWKuYNqTnQd7k5HO3fR8mexgU_iBuGM-Ux_ZbB_DmFZ1RnTGsIDgUDzEwxXnXTHInOCNKHfLfpjHYirVU3a_qVqfCZDqVffMVVl/s1600/6+Virginia+Garrity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3uBgy95bTrAKs7RxkJx9u8jnzVALPPijFcZGvPX8UFWKuYNqTnQd7k5HO3fR8mexgU_iBuGM-Ux_ZbB_DmFZ1RnTGsIDgUDzEwxXnXTHInOCNKHfLfpjHYirVU3a_qVqfCZDqVffMVVl/s320/6+Virginia+Garrity.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Virginia Gemmell Garrity<br />
Courtsey of Cathy Hall</td></tr>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Montana Indian war also made for some interesting stories. James Gemmell’s daughter Virginia was twelve years old at the time of the Battle of the Big Hole, a battle between the Indians, led by Chief Joseph and Chief Looking Glass, and United States army during the Nez Perce War of 1877. Sheridan residents built a stockade that year for protection from the Indians. As a safety measure James had his children bury the family valuables and treasures. Virginia helped her brothers dig a trench to bury a hand-carved clock of hammered brass and a set of gold scales: </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Everyone in those days kept open house and sold meals, which were paid for in gold dust weighed on the gold scales. If a miner or a neighbor wished to borrow gold dust until his next panning, he was given the liberty of weighing the gold he desired, and when it was returned the weight was never checked, as honesty was the keynote of the old timers. </span></div><br />
The family keepsakes were never unearthed. By the time the boys decided to open the underground vault, the landmarks had been changed, making it impossible to locate the correct spot.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hWJJrroHj-aduVQz5c4m7CmY6okrpQfMZVZvnCf8uFPHw2K6EDWstqYPH_tsl00oiwxDFIWO6mSnc-QrQcsB3dz5fGWF56CmUheNpx1XPm95b_zQkIeMvgH99sN7hiwLsF5CdSP_QTbU/s1600/4+Gemmell+Brothers+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hWJJrroHj-aduVQz5c4m7CmY6okrpQfMZVZvnCf8uFPHw2K6EDWstqYPH_tsl00oiwxDFIWO6mSnc-QrQcsB3dz5fGWF56CmUheNpx1XPm95b_zQkIeMvgH99sN7hiwLsF5CdSP_QTbU/s320/4+Gemmell+Brothers+001.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Gemmell brothers in 1900<br />
Charlie, Andy, John, and George<br />
Courtesy of Cathy Hall</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">The four Gemmell brothers (Charlie, Andy, John, and George) lived and worked in Ruby Valley most of their lives. John was the only one who left Montana; he later moved to San Bernardino, California. In 1900 the brothers worked together as placer miners at Bearmouth, Montana. No doubt they had high hopes of striking it rich. They were all single at the time, but John ended up marrying the camp cook, Addie O’Hara, and had four children. Charlie and Andy remained bachelors, but George, who was James Gemmell’s youngest child, eventually married and had five children. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">_____________________</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Placer mining, as opposed to tunnel mining, refers to mining for precious metals found in the sand or gravel of stream-beds. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Duncan obituary, <em>The Butte Miner</em>, October 17, 1926; <em>The Madison County Forum</em>, October 22, 1926. Montana Historical Society, “The Pioneers”, author unknown; Jeanette Gammell Duncan obituary, <em>Sheridan Forum</em>, August 14 1914.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Montana Historical Society, “The Pioneers”, author unknown</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Obituary of Virginia Gemmell Garrity, <em>Montana Standard</em>, Butte, Montana, 8 January 1942.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">1900 U.S. Census, Bearmouth, Granite, Montana. </span></li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-87638161716753025732011-12-14T14:53:00.001-05:002012-01-31T18:37:18.048-05:00A Double Tragedy: The Deaths of Jimmie and Katie May<div style="text-align: justify;">When James first brought his family to Ruby Valley, his wife, Maria, was one of the few women living in Madison County. She quickly became known for her kindness and compassion, as she ministered to those in sickness and distress when there was no doctor in the county. She bore five children in Sheridan without the help of a physician or a midwife. Virginia (Jennie) was born soon after they arrived, and may have been the first white child born in Madison County. Alice was born two years later. After James returned from his year in Utah working on the railroad, Maria gave birth to their three youngest children, John, Katie May, and George, making a total of twelve, six boys and six girls. (Two of the twelve children, Samuel and Emily died in infancy in Utah.) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James and Maria’s second daughter, Josephine, was the first to marry. At age seventeen she married Joseph Irwin. Just one year later Maria gave birth to her eleventh child, Katie May. Little Katie was nearly a year old when tragedy struck the family.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">On a hot day in July 1873, Maria’s seventeen-year-old son Jimmie was working with a group of men rounding up horses in Ruby Valley near Jefferson Island, not far from their Sheridan ranch. Clouds of dust raised by the galloping horses obscured his line of sight, and Jimmie collided with another rider. When his horse collapsed, Jimmie was thrown to the ground and suffered a broken neck. P.W. Baker, one of the men in charge, realized that the boy’s injury was so severe that he shouldn’t be moved. Baker jumped into a horse-drawn rig and raced to Sheridan to bring his mother to his side. When Maria arrived, Jimmie was still alive. She was able to speak to him, but he soon died in her arms. The funeral was held on the lawn of the Gemmell ranch home.(1) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The following summer Maria’s broken heart was only beginning to heal. As she was preparing supper on the evening of July 9, 1874, thinking about Jimmie and remembering that it would soon be the first anniversary of his death, she sent Jennie out to get a pail of water from the irrigation ditch, just a few paces from the kitchen door. A few seconds later Maria heard Jennie’s screams for help. As she rushed into the yard, Maria saw two-year-old Katie lying in the shallow water. She tried to revive her, but it was too late. No one had noticed that Katie was missing from the house until Jennie discovered her baby sister lying in the ditch. She had already drowned.(2)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">_________________________</div><ol><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The burial may have also been on the ranch property. See Montana Historical Society, “The Pioneers”, author unknown; and David C. Chamberlin collection, 1989, courtesy of Cathy Hall.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>The Helena Daily Herald</em>, Monday, July 13, 1874, p3, c3. (Reprinted from <em>The Madisonian</em>)</span></div></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-28199464488654982352011-11-27T18:24:00.002-05:002012-02-09T17:49:00.771-05:00“Come On, You Brave Yank”<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2FL1zzIJlHyZe64Q2Clo-pcD4s5Zv0tWaj4vHEjCLhu4NdAZa4exhHJZ6bCHG6b0ds1R1HUG09qNLpopAUaKhizYvaOMA6M2I2ml67_xdB6q3_c5QiVO1jzVC2q6x9EsyLGpCKoeP7Zt/s1600/Civil-War-image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2FL1zzIJlHyZe64Q2Clo-pcD4s5Zv0tWaj4vHEjCLhu4NdAZa4exhHJZ6bCHG6b0ds1R1HUG09qNLpopAUaKhizYvaOMA6M2I2ml67_xdB6q3_c5QiVO1jzVC2q6x9EsyLGpCKoeP7Zt/s400/Civil-War-image.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">from <a href="http://www.louisville.com/">http://www.louisville.com/</a> </td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">The Civil War, the bloodiest battle in our nation’s history, is also known as the war that divided families, with brother literally taking up arms against brother. History records a number of stories about brothers fighting on opposite sides of the conflict, one brother dressed in Union blue and the other in Confederate gray. At the Battle of Front Royal, Captain William Goldsborough of the Confederate First Maryland Infantry captured his brother Charles Goldsborough, a Union soldier fighting with the Union First Maryland Infantry and took him prisoner. Another Confederate, a brigadier general, James B. Terrill, was killed at the Battle of Totopotomoy Creek, while his brother, William R. Terrill, a Union brigadier general was killed at the Battle of Perryville. The Gammell family was one of many families who faced the same predicament.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Henry Wylie, half brother of James Gammell, was employed at Sanford Blackinton’s woolen mill when the Civil War began. A government contract for blue wool cloth for army uniforms kept the mill open day and night to fill the orders. In October 1861, the mill was earning a profit of about one thousand dollars a day. Henry soon left his work at the mill to serve in the Union army, 1st Regiment Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. That same year Henry’s half brother Andrew F. Gammell, who was living in Texas, joined the Confederate army, Second Texas Infantry. Fortunately the two brothers never faced each other on opposite sides of the same battle.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In contrast to the unbelievable carnage that resulted from the four-year war, there were also some inspiring stories of compassion and camaraderie between enemies. At times during the fierce fighting, the soldiers stopped to remember that they were all brothers. One of those well-known incidents occurred at the Battle of Vicksburg. Andrew Gammell and his fellow Texas Sharpshooters were defending the Confederate fortification known as the Second Texas Lunette. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The assault upon that part of the embankment at Vicksburg was made by the Ninety-ninth Illinois and four other Union regiments. On May 22, 1863, Private Thomas Higgins, a big, strong, athletic Irishman, requested the privilege of carrying the flag for the day in place of the color bearer, who had been wounded. The captain gave him permission and handed over the standard, telling him, “Don’t stop until you get into the Confederate works.” Higgins obeyed this order literally.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Charles I. Evans, an ex-Confederate soldier of the Second Texas, later recorded how bravely Private Higgins carried out the order of his superior officer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">The following is Charles I. Evans' account:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">After a most terrific cannonading of two hours, during which the very earth rocked and pulsated like a thing of life, the head of the charging column appeared above the brow of the hill, about 100 yards in front of the breast works, and, as line after line of blue came in sight over the hill, it presented the grandest spectacle the eye of a soldier ever beheld. The Texans were prepared to meet it however, for, in addition to our Springfield rifles, each man was provided with five additional smooth-bore muskets, charged with buck and ball. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">When the first line was within fifty paces of the works, the order to fire ran along the trenches, and was responded to as from one gun. As fast as practiced hands could gather them up, one after another, the muskets were brought to bear. The blue lines vanished amid fearful slaughter. There was a cessation in the firing. And behold, through the pall of smoke which enshrouded the field, a Union flag could be seen approaching. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">As the smoke was slightly lifted by the gentle May breeze, one lone soldier advanced, bravely bearing the flag towards the breast works. At least a hundred men took deliberate aim at him, and fired at point-blank range, but he never faltered. Stumbling over the bodies of his fallen comrades, he continued to advance. Suddenly, as if with one impulse, every Confederate soldier within sight of the Union color bearer seemed to be seized with the idea that the man ought not to be shot down like a dog. A hundred men dropped their guns at the same time; each of them seized his nearest neighbor by the arm and yelled to him: 'Don't shoot at that man again. He is too brave to be killed that way,' when he instantly discovered that his neighbor was yelling the same thing at him. As soon as they all understood one another, a hundred old hats and caps went up into the air, their wearers yelling at the top of their voices: 'Come on, you brave Yank, come on!' </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">He did come, and was taken by the hand and pulled over the breast works, and when it was discovered that he was not even scratched, a hundred Texans wrung his hands and congratulated him upon his miraculous escape from death. That man's name was Thomas J. Higgins,(1) color bearer of the Ninety-ninth Illinois. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Private Higgins was then taken before General Pemberton, the rebel commander, who asked him where General Grant's headquarters were. "I do not know, as he is moving them every day, but they will be here tomorrow," came the ready response from the quick-witted Irishman.</div><br />
"How many men has your general got?" the rebel leader inquired.<br />
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"Oh, not many, only about seventy-five thousand," Higgins replied.<br />
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"How far back do his lines extend?"<br />
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"As far as Cairo, Illinois, and they are still being formed in the state of Maine."<br />
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"Well," General Pemberton observed sarcastically, "we'll have Grant in here as a prisoner tomorrow."<br />
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"I know," was the doughty Yankee soldier's reply, "General Grant will come in here tomorrow to ship you and your command to Altona, Illinois, where he has a big boarding house."<br />
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At this, General Pemberton got angry. "Sergeant," he exclaimed, "take this man away. He is insulting. He is impudent. He is insolent."<br />
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Thereupon, Private Higgins was led away, a few days later paroled, exchanged, and subsequently he returned to his regiment, where he remained until the end of the war.(2)<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">His Medal of Honor was awarded him at the request of the very Confederates who captured him at the assault. Higgins received the Medal of Honor on April 1, 1898. The citation reads: “When his regiment fell back in the assault, repulsed, this soldier continued to advance and planted the flag on the parapet, where he was captured by the enemy.”(3)</div>___________________________<br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Thomas J. Higgins, Private, Company D, Ninety-ninth Illinois Infantry, born in Franklin Co., New York, June 3, 1831. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deeds of Valor: from records in the archives of the United States government; how American heroes won the Medal of Honor</em>, Vol. 1, Perrien-Keydel Co., 1907, pp. 198-200.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">See Medal of Honor Recipients, Civil War at <a href="http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/civwaral.html">http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/civwaral.html</a> </span></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-26494143241179550012011-11-18T16:04:00.007-05:002011-11-23T07:16:21.854-05:00Jean Dickie’s Letter to her Daughter Jane<div style="text-align: justify;">The surviving Gammell/Gemmell family letters are precious and few, and we’re fortunate to have them. They provide a glimpse into the relationships between family members that we wouldn’t otherwise have. They enable us to view a small, yet intimate, snapshot in time. In this letter, we hear the voice of James Gemmell’s mother, Jean Dickie. Jean bore eight children, five by her husband, James Gemmell, Sr., and three by her second husband, James Henry Wylie, Sr.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jean Dickie Gemmell Wylie wrote to her daughter Margaret Jane, from Blackinton, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, home of her son Henry and his wife, Catherine. Blackinton was a textile-manufacturing town located on the Hoosic (or Hoosac) River in the northwest corner of Massachusetts near North Adams and Williamstown, and very near to the border of both New York and Vermont. Sanford Blackinton's woolen mill was the major employer in the town in the mid-1800's. Henry Wylie (Margaret Jane’s half-brother) worked eleven hours a day as an operator at the mill, which ran seven sets of machinery and seventy looms, producing nearly fifteen hundred yards of wool a day. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">On the 6th day of July 1860, Jean Wylie could never have imagined that one hundred fifty years later, her great, great, grandchildren and her third great grandchildren would read the letter she is writing. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jean, age sixty-seven, was a widow. Her second husband, James Henry Wylie Sr., had recently died,(1) so she had packed up her belongings and moved in with her son Henry. At this time Jean had some health problems, and seemed to have a premonition of her impending death. Little did she know that in just fourteen months she would die,(2) not because of illness, but by a bolt of lightning:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My Dear Jane,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">You see I date from another place. But it is the will of providence that I am left thus alone. May it be for the best. He has still provided for all my wants hitherto and I feel a humble reliance on all his unmerited mercy that he will still provide for the little while that remains. I have eagerly yearned to see you all and now there is a way open for me and if I am spared to see you all once more how glad I will be.(3)</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jean Wylie’s youngest child, Mary, had arrived from Houston to visit her mother. Mary, age twenty-one, was married to fifty-year-old Darius Gregg, a wealthy Texan landowner and slave owner. Jean reported that “Mary’s here, well and hearty, enjoying herself to her heart's satisfaction.” Mother and daughter took an overnight excursion on “the cars [railroad] and went to Pontoosuc(4) on the third and returned on the fourth [of July]. We had a good time.” At Pontoosuc Jean sold some “furniture, carpet and bureau, bedsteads, chairs, crockery, about <em>8 cords of nonsense</em>.” (“Mary wrote this. She's full of mischief but I will pay her back.”) Jean intended to write “8 cords of wood”, but apparently Mary had taken the paper and inserted her own little joke. Jean had gone to Pontoosuc to sell some of her belongings, now that she was not living on her own. No doubt she will need the money more than her furniture. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">During their trip to the Pittsfield area, Jean bought Mary a new dress, one that her father, James H. Wylie, Sr., had promised her before his death: “Father had promised her a silk dress if she came home…She got a very pretty one.” Her father most likely knew that he wouldn’t live much longer, and wanted to see his daughter one last time. Unfortunately he died before Mary arrived. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jean was exhausted after her trip to Pontoosuc. She hadn’t had much rest since she arrived at Henry’s home in May. In June, Henry’s wife, Catherine, gave birth to their third child. They named their daughter Jane Proudfit Wylie(5) after Catherine’s mother. Two days after the baby was born, Mary arrived from Houston. Jean wrote, “It is one continued hurrah. I kept round doing the work; Kate (Catherine) being laid up, till my weak leg gave out and I had to rest about a week. But [it] is as well as usual again.” </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Kate was soon up and around again after the birth of her baby, but Jean was kept busy caring for the two older children, grandsons Fred and Harry: </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The baby is three weeks and three days old. Little Fred was not walking alone when the baby was born. He was so fat and heavy and afraid to walk, but is running all over now. [He is] a little over sixteen months old, a stout healthy boy. Harry is the most stunning boy I ever saw. Father [James H. Wylie Sr.] always said he beats Andrew(6) all to pieces when he was little. He is but little [seldom] in the house when it don't rain. Henry (Jean’s son, and half-brother of Jane [Margaret Jane]) is well and doing well. Never was one more steady, much respected by his employers. [He] Is one of the teachers in the Sunday School, which is quite a large one, kept [held] in the meetinghouse close by.(7) </span></div><br />
Jean told her daughter Jane that if all goes well she expects to return to Houston before winter sets in:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">If I am well and get through the long journey safe we will have many a long talk. But I think you will hardly know me. I have got almost twenty years older looking than when I left Texas. When once we get past sixty every year counts two in looks, besides I have been so much sick. But if I have my health in Texas as well as I had before I promise myself great comfort yet with you all and the little girls.(8)</span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTzj4li3mCSpke2q7LrcpHAjh85kbqb0_gcM7MhLuyKmCpVfabP11vr0V31ocwGAlBNLhnAx3G3bCBHFWG8q4jWMbaaZhNgW9DM0yLYe4jNLkq73VCj7pG5kGuguayisu09bTdHxXOzEJt/s1600/May+Janette+Andrews.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTzj4li3mCSpke2q7LrcpHAjh85kbqb0_gcM7MhLuyKmCpVfabP11vr0V31ocwGAlBNLhnAx3G3bCBHFWG8q4jWMbaaZhNgW9DM0yLYe4jNLkq73VCj7pG5kGuguayisu09bTdHxXOzEJt/s400/May+Janette+Andrews.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marion (May) Jenette Andrews <br />
daughter of Margaret Jane Gammell Andrews<br />
(Courtesy of Patricia Riddell Lococo)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jane’s two little girls are May and Kate Andrews, daughters by her first husband, Captain James B Andrews, who died in 1858. Jane had recently married James W. Oats, and moved into a new house in the “Oats Settlement”:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Give my best regards to Mr. Oates. I may accept his offer of that room with many thanks for his kindness. Oh how I want to see you all once more but cannot say where I shall keep my few things till I see you. I feel now as if I will be at home with any of you. But William's always seems like home [after] being there so long.(9)</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">She asked Jane to share the letter with the other family members then living in Houston. As for William and his wife, Jane, “how I want to see their garden. Tell them I will bring lots of flower seeds.” Mary reported that because of a Texas drought, William’s beautiful garden “has not done as well this year.” Next, Jean mentioned her son Andrew, “Give my love [to] Andrew’s folks and the children.” Like most grandmothers, she couldn't forget her grandchildren, “Remember me to May and Kate [Andrews]. I expect to have great times with them yet.” Then a comment to Jane, “I hear you say…[that I (Jean) am] the biggest child. True, I am foolish as ever about children.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jean missed the wedding of her son Fred Wylie, who was married just five days after this letter was written: “I suppose you have got Fred married,(10) and the wedding over by this time as well. I hope it is all for the best. I hope he leaves off running the [Houston and Texas Central Railway] cars and goes to work and I think his wife will agree with me.” As if Jean had not endured enough pain and sorrow in the last year with the death of her husband, her son Fred, age twenty-five, will die in Texas on September 20, 1860, just two months after this letter was written and two months after his wedding. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Jean reminded her daughter Jane to send just one more letter, “Now I want you to write me a few lines. I don't want to wait till fall to hear from you. Tell the rest to not forget one letter more. I mean Jane [William’s wife] and Het. I am so busy. Will write again before leaving Mass [Massachusetts].”</div><br />
Mary then added a few lines of her own:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dear Sister, </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mother was writing, so I thought I would write a few lines to let you know how I was getting along. I think this is the most beautiful place I ever was in. There is so many mountains around and so high, the most beautiful gardens. I go and see them most every day when it don't rain. Have you had any there yet? You wanted rain when I left. We have had plenty here since I came and looks like we might have more. Have you seen Mr. Gregg (her husband, Darius Gregg) lately? Next time you see him, tell him for me that I want him to write me often. He told me not to write after the fourth because he did not know as he would get it. How is little May? Tell her she must learn fast and let me see how much she has learned since I came away. Give my love to Mr. Oates. No more at present. — Mary (11)</span></div><br />
The letter ends with Jean D. Gemmell Wylie’s last written words to her descendants: <br />
<br />
"Give my love to all and accept the same for yourself. May all so live and so act that we may all be admitted into that happy land where there is no more trouble, no more sin nor sorrow, and spend a joyful eternity together is the daily prayer of your ever loving though far distant Mother,"<br />
<br />
Signed,<br />
<em>Jean D. Wylie </em>(12)<br />
<i>_____________________________</i><br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Death record for James H. Wylie, Sr., May 4, 1860. (See Massachusetts Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910.) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jean D. Wylie died September 10, 1861, in Houston.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jean D. Gemmell Wylie, letter to her daughter Jane, July 6, 1860. (Courtesy of Patricia Riddell Lococo.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pontoosuc, a part of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is located twenty miles south of Blackinton. Nearby is Pontoosuc Lake.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">See IGI: Jane Breadfret Wylie, daughter of James H. Wylie and Catherine Spittuel Sinclair, born June 15, 1860, Williamstown, Berkshire, Massachusetts. (See Film #0250293. Breadfret is likely a misreading of Proudfit.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Andrew F. Gammell, brother of James and Margaret Jane. He is one of Jean Dickie Gemmell Wylie’s five children by her first husband, James Gemmell.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jean D. Gemmell Wylie, letter to her daughter Jane, July 6, 1860. (Courtesy of Patricia Riddell Lococo.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ibid.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ibid.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fred Wylie married Isabella Edwards on July 11, 1860 in Harris County, Texas. They had no children. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ibid.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ibid.</span></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-78180447328961403342011-11-11T18:38:00.006-05:002011-11-17T22:31:07.501-05:00A Letter to Margaret Jane<div style="text-align: justify;">It was New Year’s Day 1870. James sat down with pen and paper to write his annual letter to his sister, Jane. After an absence of thirteen months working on the railroad, he was ready for a rest, a home-cooked meal, and a peaceful homecoming around the hearth with Maria and the children. A bottle of Scotch whiskey also added to his reflective, nostalgic mood:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My dear sister Jane,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">…know that warm harts and true friends still thinks of you and yours tho o’re the hills and far away…this gold Scotch…brings fresh to my mind the days of old lang-sine and many a pleasant reckolechion which can [never be] realized again for but few of the actors of our old play days remanes yet…I can think back on our Childhood with many a pleasant recklection which often drives the dull care of the present away.</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">He goes on to tell Jane that he was on the Bear River and far from the settlements when he received her letter informing him of the death of his brother William, who had died unexpectedly in April of pneumonia. “Jane, it was a hard blow…dear, dear brothers, they are both gone.” He reminds her that they are the only two left of the siblings that once bore the Gammell/Gemmell name. William, Robert and Andy have all died, as well as their half brother Fred Wylie. Henry Wylie is living in Massachusetts, and their half sister Mary is still living in Texas.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James had hoped to visit Jane in Houston before his return to Sheridan, but he had been gone from home long enough. The last time he had seen her was when they said goodbye on the Houston Bridge as James was leaving Texas in May 1857. Jane’s first husband, Captain James Andrews, was with them at that last parting, but he died the next year at age fifty. James had fond memories of “the Captain,” as they called him:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">…the Captain, poore fellow, many a plesent reckliction I have of him, one of the most noble of Gods works…Generous to a fault. Yes Jane as I set and Look at your Pictor with that of your family and thinking of those that gone it makes me feel chills I almost fancey that I can feele the warm kiss and fond imbrace at the Last adieu on the Houston Bridge the holy warm kiss of A sisters love makes A deep impreshion upon the hart that never can be iraddecated the adieus of you all at that parting is the fondest treasure of my bosom and the greatest regreat at the present is that I can’t be one of your family circle on this annual festival of the new yeare and fill the invitation that William gave A year ago That dear Jane, would be one of the happiest days of my life but we know that today if we can’t mingle in your midst that we are still in your minds and wishes us as we do you A happy New yeare and many of them but as you say it can’t be A verry happy one for it must bring my recklections of the past and the recent [death] of many of our family will be sadly missed but so my dear sister is the destiny of man we must all shortly follow Let us be prepared for that Grand and certain event that we may meete it as our Brother did when you asked him if he had any thing to say to Jim he looked at you with A smile as much as to say, all is right.(1) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James also expresses his sympathy for William’s widow (also named Jane), for her grief and her loneliness: “Poore Jane, the loss of a bosom Companion that we have lived so many years with…is like tearing the sole from the body…I do regret that they had no Children to bare with her their burdon of greefe and Cheer her declining years.” </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Thinking about his own mortality, James can’t help but feel grateful for the progeny that he will leave behind: “…with me Jane, it will be different for when this old hulk is layed Away there will be a lot left to laugh or cry as they may feele.” On this New Year’s day (1870) he can count eight children that are living with him in Sheridan: Orlin, Jeanette, Josephine, James, Charley, Andrew, Virginia, and Alice. “They are at present going to [school]…and Jane, I am proud of them. They are all smart and will pass in a Crowde.” </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">He doesn’t forget to mention his children who are not living in Sheridan. “My oldest daughter whose mother died in Salt Lake is married and got one Child. She has done well…no [polygamy] for her…I made my home at Liby’s [while working on the railroad in northern Utah] and had A great time with my Grand daughter.” And as for Hannah Jane’s children, “My other children with their mother home I left in Utah are all well. I have not saw them for seven years but hear oft from them.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James adds a few concluding remarks. He states, “Mormonism is About played out… there is many divisions of them here.” (*) He mentions Eleanor Pratt, who is opening a school in Salt Lake City and doing well. And finally, he tells his sister Jane that he will shortly write to William’s widow, Jane, to Andrew’s widow, Hetty, and to his half sister, Mary Wylie Gregg. “Well [Jane] I have given you a long letter. Try and pay it back with interest. Give my Love to all. So says Uncle Jim Gemmell.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">(*) Note – If by “played out” James meant that Mormonism had run its course or reached its peak, and was then [1870] in decline, here are the actual statistics: Church membership in 1869 was nearly eighty-nine thousand. Total membership at the end of 2010 was over fourteen million. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is presently the fourth largest Christian denomination in the United States.</div>_____________________________<br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jim Gemmell , letter to his sister, Jane, January 1, 1870. (Courtesy of Patricia Riddell Lococo.)</span></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-47440594825269112672011-10-24T18:21:00.017-04:002012-02-08T12:47:18.449-05:00Settling in Ruby Valley<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNqDytcD51LVR_fIfecnQ7pQNsSZ4LHq8mnSnNt_HB1F98unsen3isCXBt3Tn172d-mTLJ9GQkGnKCbgo8SZgQpYMZK25Y1f6-2XtJOlQB03M_7qywRs0Q8HpE_R0GKqQp9j2_-6CfbwHE/s1600/Sheridan+1907+with+caption.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="291" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNqDytcD51LVR_fIfecnQ7pQNsSZ4LHq8mnSnNt_HB1F98unsen3isCXBt3Tn172d-mTLJ9GQkGnKCbgo8SZgQpYMZK25Y1f6-2XtJOlQB03M_7qywRs0Q8HpE_R0GKqQp9j2_-6CfbwHE/s400/Sheridan+1907+with+caption.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of the Friends of the Sheridan Library</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Sheridan is known as the "heart of the Ruby Valley". This peaceful valley is surrounded by seven majestic mountain ranges (Tobacco Root, Ruby, Highland, McCartney, Pioneer, Gravelly, and Snowcrest mountain ranges). James and Maria and their five children arrived by wagon from Salt Lake City in May 1865, and settled on a one hundred sixty acre ranch just west of town. Two months later on July 10, their daughter Virginia was born. She was said to be one of the first white babies born in the vicinity of Sheridan.(1) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once Orlin Gammell had learned that his father was living in Sheridan, he made plans to join him there. James had not seen his firstborn son since the boy was four years old. Since the death of his mother, Harriet, Orlin had lived with his uncle, John Fitzgerald, in Spring Arbor, Michigan. At age nineteen, he was ready to strike out on his own. First he made his way to Omaha, where the Forbes and Brown freight company hired him to drive the grub wagon. The outfit of twenty-six wagons, each drawn by four yolk of oxen, started west on May 12, 1866. Three hundred miles east of Salt Lake City, Orlin fell ill with mountain fever. At that point he left the wagon train and made the rest of the journey to Salt Lake by stagecoach, and spent a few weeks in the army hospital at Camp Douglas. On October 8, he was well enough to join another freight outfit bound for Virginia City. When the wagon train reached its destination on November 11, Orlin walked the rest of the way to Sheridan.(2)</div><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnneCnGP8tEaF_e3I1fcjb_GsuXr003QUUzsTQsAV1bbx-harualxs8g0nUgf9uS0h3EQdDLtfWRrHVzlZTlXaYvhk1kQo7fhAMjbFxln4gNDF03AAUhAZEysEQZRQHNBy6vMo2QKh_6fh/s1600/Ruby_Valley_Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" rda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnneCnGP8tEaF_e3I1fcjb_GsuXr003QUUzsTQsAV1bbx-harualxs8g0nUgf9uS0h3EQdDLtfWRrHVzlZTlXaYvhk1kQo7fhAMjbFxln4gNDF03AAUhAZEysEQZRQHNBy6vMo2QKh_6fh/s400/Ruby_Valley_Map.jpg" width="352" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map of Ruby Valley, Montana <br />
Courtesy of <br />
<a href="http://www.rubyvalleylodge.com/">http://www.rubyvalleylodge.com/</a></td></tr>
</></tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Upon his arrival he started working with his father at the sawmill on Mill Creek, hauling logs and sawing them into lumber for the floors and interior finishes of the old Robber’s Roost building, a roadhouse between Alder and Sheridan. That same winter (1866-67) James and Orlin built the family home with sawed square logs they had cut at the mill. The home stood for many years on the site of the present [1976] Sheridan Gun Club. In April, James and Maria’s daughter Alice was born in the new log house, which was located in the northern part of Sheridan. The next year (1868) father and son sawed the lumber and built a barn not far from the log house. It was so large that it soon became recognized as the largest barn in Montana. When it was finished, James invited the residents of Sheridan, and all of Madison County, for that matter, to help celebrate its completion with a dance. People came from all over Montana to help christen the "Big Red Barn". They came from Yellowstone, Virginia City, Bannack, and other far distant points for what was considered the social event of Territorial days.(3) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Now, three years after their arrival, Maria and the children were beginning to feel comfortable in Sheridan, though, as her daughter Virginia recalled, Maria was still wary to speak about the Mormons:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mother was reticent regarding her family possibly for the same reason in part that Uncle James [father] was. In those days everyone seemed very diffident about speaking of their relations to the Mormons or the church. Mother never talked of her home life much or little incidents of her trip across the plains. I don’t even know just how old she was, but conclude she must have been well in her teens for she has spoken of a man to whom she was engaged to be married when she left the east [Iowa].(4) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Maria’s children acknowledged that, in spite of her reticence to speak of her Mormon faith, “only a few days before her death, she expressed her belief in the tenets of that religion.”(5) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">At the same time that his family was adjusting well to new surroundings, James was growing restless. As he told his sister, Jane, “but times was dull here and I must have excitement.” Maria and the children were not at all pleased with his plans to leave for Bear River. They told him he had no need to go. In spite of their objections, he left Sheridan in early December 1868, crossed the Continental Divide before the snow depth would close the pass for the winter, and made his way to Utah. For the next year he worked in the lumbering business for the railroad on the Bear River near the border of Utah and Idaho. He loved to be where the action was, and, as he had done so many times before, he chose the right location. The eyes of the whole nation were on this out-of-the- way spot in northern Utah.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_uPDhU8L2l-C3smfgbEDSd_Es1p7kvOxIpNm9gn2CEos7m4wTGBguyaDrvKsZNlYYpOPXmC4UdIQG_ZAl3GrCPXQUwh5KytI7tmGOgDZwUbu5aQ2vgZbfYlLrhpM0R8r175UdR8Nd4c5/s1600/2969180.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="233" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_uPDhU8L2l-C3smfgbEDSd_Es1p7kvOxIpNm9gn2CEos7m4wTGBguyaDrvKsZNlYYpOPXmC4UdIQG_ZAl3GrCPXQUwh5KytI7tmGOgDZwUbu5aQ2vgZbfYlLrhpM0R8r175UdR8Nd4c5/s320/2969180.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10, 1869<br />
This iconic image captured by A.J. Russell is one <br />
of the most famous photographs in American history.<br />
from <em>Deseret News</em> archives</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">By spring the transcontinental railroad was completed with the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railways on May 10, 1869. Most likely James was present for the simple ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, where dignitaries, railroad workers, and spectators celebrated this historic event. After prayers, speeches, and the placement of the last rails, dignitaries took turns tapping four gold and silver spikes into a pre-drilled laurel wood tie specially made for the ceremony. The crowd cheered as the news was flashed over the telegraph. Photographer A. J. Russell captured the iconic image that has become one of the most famous photographs in American history, and the <em>Deseret News</em> captured the story:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The last tie has been laid; the last rail is placed in position, and the last spike driven, which binds the Atlantic and Pacific ocean with an iron band. The electric flash has borne the tidings to the world and it now devolves upon us, the favored eye-witnesses of the momentous feat, to enter our record of the facts. Never before has this continent disclosed anything bearing comparison with it. The massive oaken-hued trains of the Central lies upon their iron path, confronted by the elegant coaches of the Union Pacific. A thousand throbbing hearts impulsively beat to the motion of the trains as the front locomotives of each Company led on majestically up to the very verge of the narrow break between the lines, where, in a few moments was to be consummated the nuptial rites uniting the gorgeous east and the imperial west of America, with the indissoluble seal of inter-oceanic commerce …The excitement of this moment of victory was intense, cheers were given for the officers of the Central, followed by cheers for the officers of the Union Pacific; cheers for the Star Spangled Banner, for the President of the United States, for the engineers and contractors and for the laborers that have done the work.(6) </span></div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj46h18o4qd5_SwxwettE1ZE7-OcU1lKvX5wb4SmKEFeklgMJ_e5nkMqMpSYsyAMyFQYXkoyAQ-KFePVhCggyYodw1tzfvb0Ksxb8h2KMZ2jhaa4GFfzwgqVUp9vH-ZZ1HhOTxdn8L06eQh/s1600/DrusillaDorrisWithgkids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj46h18o4qd5_SwxwettE1ZE7-OcU1lKvX5wb4SmKEFeklgMJ_e5nkMqMpSYsyAMyFQYXkoyAQ-KFePVhCggyYodw1tzfvb0Ksxb8h2KMZ2jhaa4GFfzwgqVUp9vH-ZZ1HhOTxdn8L06eQh/s320/DrusillaDorrisWithgkids.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drusilla Hendricks, her granddaughter <br />
Elizabeth (Libby) Gammell, and Libby's <br />
husband, Eli Harris.<br />
c. 1868</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">During much of that year spent in Utah, James made his home in Richmond with his daughter Libby. He had seen her but a few times in the past eighteen years. Libby had no memory of her mother, Elizabeth Hendricks, who had died when Libby was just three months old. In her childhood she moved with her maternal grandparents to Richmond in Cache Valley, and at age sixteen she married Eli Harris. While lodging with his daughter and son-in-law, James especially enjoyed spending time with his first grandchild, Drusilla Elizabeth, who would be a year old in September.</div></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James returned to Sheridan on December 31, 1869, with more than five thousand dollars to show for his labor. In addition to the cash, he had hopes for another venture which could yield a profit: “I think yet there is some bit [of] Luck for me in store for I found a big coal bank thirty miles from the rale rode…if good will be a big fortune. I will soon know.”(7) </div>________________________<br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Obituary of Virginia Gemmell Garrity, <em>The Montana Standard</em>, Butte, Montana, 8 January 1942.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carey, Dorothy Ellinghouse,<em> Pioneer Trails and Trials</em>, p. 468, Madison County History Association, 1976.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carey, Dorothy Ellinghouse, <em>Pioneer Trails and Trials</em>, p. 468. “The Pioneers,” Madison County History Association. Duncan, Elaine, ”An Adventurous Pioneer”, 1926. (The barn was demolished in 1913 by the new property owner E.D. Marsh.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Virginia Garrity’s letter to R.V. Chamberlin, 1922.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Obituary of Mrs. Susan M. Gemmell, <em>The Madisonian</em>, 8 February 1896. p. 8.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, May 19, 1869.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jim Gemmell , letter to his sister, Jane, January 1, 1870.</span></li>
</ol><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-58242237409978008162011-10-17T21:54:00.004-04:002011-10-24T14:26:11.108-04:00The Parting of Two Families<div style="text-align: justify;">The sawmill business proved profitable for James that first year (1863-64). Some say he made a small fortune. This seemed like a good time to move his family to Montana and to settle there permanently, however, there were some drawbacks. The gold rush era was the most dangerous, lawless period of Montana’s history. Bandits and road agents controlled the road between Bannack and Virginia City, targeting travelers journeying between the two mining camps. Violent holdups became commonplace. In 1863 alone, about a hundred men were murdered. James would have been a likely target, traveling as he did with either a load of supplies or a large sum of money. The law was enforced and justice dispensed by the self-appointed Montana vigilantes, and it was often hard to tell which group was more corrupt, the bandits or the vigilantes. James reportedly knew many of them, bandits and vigilantes. A suspected road agent named Reed (Erastus "Red") Yager was said to be sleeping in the same bed with James when he was taken by the vigilantes and hanged on a tree near Laurin, a few miles from Sheridan.(1) The sheriff himself, Henry Plummer, was also a suspect. He and two members of his so-called “Plummer Gang” were dispatched at the end of a rope on January 4, 1864, on the very gallows Henry had built.(2)</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In spring 1864, once the sawmill business was up and thriving again, James returned to Utah and informed his family it was time to move to Montana. It would be a difficult task for any man to break such news to one wife and one family of children, but how about two? Too bad we don’t have a detailed account of that “family council”. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">It’s probably safe to assume that Hannah Jane flatly refused to go. She had always been a devoted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and she had strong ties to the community and to her siblings who lived nearby. James’ disaffection from the Church probably took its toll on their relationship. (During the six years since his excommunication from the Church, he could have applied for readmission, but he obviously chose not to do so.) Most likely James didn’t even ask Jane to go to Montana. He knew how she felt, and he also knew that settling in Montana with two wives and two families would have been unwise, to say the least. At this point their marriage ended. Jane, who had worked hard during those lean years at various odd jobs, like doing washing and ironing for the soldiers at Camp Floyd to help support the family, would now need to support her children on her own.(3) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Although Maria had a more amiable relationship with James, this would not have been an easy move for her either. It would mean leaving her mother and her brothers, who lived nearby. It would mean hard work and backbreaking labor to establish and build a new home on the frontier.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In spring 1865, James and Maria loaded up a covered wagon with five children (Nettie, Jodie, Jimmie, Charlie, and Andy), all their belongings, and supplies for a journey of several weeks. Little five-year-old Robert (Hannah Jane’s youngest son) said good-bye to his father, and never saw him again. Consequently, in later years Robert told his own children that he didn’t remember much about his father. He said that his mother told him that Father left home to go on a freighting trip. When he didn’t return, “Mother told them that the Indians must have killed him, as he had to carry large sums of money.”(4) Ironically, this is precisely what happened to her first husband, Isaac Brown, father of Isaac and Hannah. It seems more logical to assume that, rather than lying to her children about their father, Jane never mentioned his name again, leaving young Robert to believe that stories told about Isaac Brown, were about his father, James. After James left, Jane dropped the Gammell name and went by Hannah Jane Brown.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">_____________________________</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Gemmell obituary, The Dillon Tribune, April 9, 1881. Reed (Erastus “Red” Yager), along with George Brown, was hanged from a cottonwood tree, which still stands outside of Laurin. </span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-henryplummer.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-henryplummer.html</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">A short biography of Robert Mahlon Gammell by his daughter Charlotte Gammell Jensen.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">A short biography of Robert Mahlon Gammell by his daughter Charlotte Gammell Jensen.</span></li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-50085080650075607142011-10-14T21:09:00.002-04:002012-05-10T16:15:41.469-04:00Dedication of a new William Gammell Plaque in HoustonA message from the San Jacinto descendants organization:<br />
<br />
Liz, <br />
I wondered if you, or any of your family has been contacted about the Ceremony at Washington Cemetery in Houston, on October 22, 2011. I just thought it would be wonderful if some of William's cousins could attend. You have the Monument in Founders Memorial Park still pictured on your blog and since they now know that William is not really buried there, I thought you should include a new photo of the plaque they will unveil on the 22nd. <br />
<br />
Robert "Scott" Patrick<br />
President General Elect, San Jacinto Descendants<br />
SAR, SRT, SCV, SJD, HOSBD<br />
<br />
If any relatives of William Gammell would like to attend this ceremony on October 22, 2011, please RSVP to the name and address at the bottom of the invitation.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhba-ZI-OXR8czkIpYN0zByNhz5l45Cu2JU45JwAPJ466vyik5gOUAQE8SoqgAO58Z86tbkEkmw9jkhNWaU_PC2Qs13mTl0tEfAGwXDw0yc9TvUliwswS9gmJPXIEv9gXa9dwmmwpi0Wftz/s1600/Wash+Cem+Invitation+Wm+Gammell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhba-ZI-OXR8czkIpYN0zByNhz5l45Cu2JU45JwAPJ466vyik5gOUAQE8SoqgAO58Z86tbkEkmw9jkhNWaU_PC2Qs13mTl0tEfAGwXDw0yc9TvUliwswS9gmJPXIEv9gXa9dwmmwpi0Wftz/s320/Wash+Cem+Invitation+Wm+Gammell.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>
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Click the links below to view the new monument for William Gammell. The marker was erected in 2009 by the Texas Centennial Commission to correct mistakes that appeared on the original 1936 monument. The dedication ceremony was held October 22, 2011, and the photo was taken on November 28, 2011. </div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/texashistoricalmarkers/6435815855/sizes/l/in/photostream/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/texashistoricalmarkers/6435815855/sizes/l/in/photostream/</a><br />
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<a href="http://harriscountyhistoricalmarkers.com/HistoricalSites/CurrentMarkers.aspx?udt_1462_param_detail=1224">http://harriscountyhistoricalmarkers.com/HistoricalSites/CurrentMarkers.aspx?udt_1462_param_detail=1224</a><br />Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-75081374695183197712011-09-30T14:11:00.018-04:002011-10-15T11:08:31.139-04:00Gemmell's Sawmill - Sheridan, Montana<div style="text-align: justify;">James loved southwestern Montana better than any other place on the frontier. Nearly twenty years had passed since his first expedition with old Jim Bridger, but he had returned time and time again during those years. It's no wonder that he eventually chose Ruby Valley as his permanent home. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He loved to recount his Montana adventures and describe the pristine wonders of nature that few white men had ever seen. Memories of his first visit to the region were still vivid in his mind when he described them to William Wheeler in 1879:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">…wonderful spouting springs at the head of the Madison and…what have of late years become so famous as the Upper and Lower Geyser Basin, the Upper and Lower Falls…and the Mammoth Hot Spring…Here we camped several days to enjoy the baths and to recuperate our animals… We made winter camp at the mouth of the Big Horn, where we had a big trade with the Crow and Sioux Indians. The next spring we returned with our furs and robes.(1) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">As early as 1850 James went on trading expeditions up the Snake River, and as far as the Bitter Root or St. Mary's River among the Flathead Indians in Missoula County. He camped at Alder Gulch on the very sight where rich gold discoveries were made twelve years later, discoveries that led to one of the largest gold booms in history. “Not once did he have an idea of the great gold harvest that lay beneath him, but he saw only the beautiful and luxuriant furs and robes of the beaver, which he accumulated year after year and sent to St. Louis by way of Fort Bridger.”(2)</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James made many such trading trips to Montana in the years preceding the gold rush. He entered the fertile Ruby Valley with a party of five men and packhorses in the fall of 1857, and traded with the Indians. They camped at the mouth of Daylight Gulch near Virginia City, where they met a trapper named Robert Dempsey. James went down into the Yellowstone region and traded blankets for furs with the Indians. When he returned to the valley, the snow was so deep that he was compelled to spend the winter at Dempsey’s camp and to postpone his return to Utah until spring. There was no forage for the stock, and they had to cut cottonwood boughs as feed for the mules…that was all the feed those poor animals had to live on through the long winter. The hardship and privations of that winter (1857-58) forged a life-long friendship between James and Robert Dempsey. (Dempsey and his Indian wife, who was adept in the white woman’s manner of dress and housekeeping, became good friends of James and Maria when they later moved to Sheridan.)(3) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In spring 1863, during his second expedition from Utah to the Bannack gold mines, James headed northeast to Fort Benton, a trading post on the upper Missouri River, to trade with the Indians.(4) While he was there, he purchased the sawmill machinery that was used to cut the lumber for the fort, loaded it in his wagon, and started back to Alder Gulch. When he was one day out from Fort Benton, the Indians stole his mules.(5) Refusing to accept his misfortune, yet not wanting to antagonize the culprits, he came up with a solution. He went back to Fort Benton, purchased five gallons of whiskey, and traded it to the Indians for his stolen mules. Upon his return to Alder Gulch in October he met Joseph C. Walker, who had recently settled in Montana. The two men (along with Walker’s brother and cousin) went into business and constructed a sawmill on a creek near Sheridan that became known as Mill Creek.(6)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheABW_QMkI97FFyvXhU9k_vgFKcbyEfWOBV_0-eygVuVxY3QEWFJPqa24crqP8SqYSqG_kzCdB4A1dQPM1iwKTOqRE_2B-BbseIoNUAygPdNxWWZ_fM5mHuFwlCTIjaRQbdbbngj_T1LmT/s1600/2-Sawmill.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheABW_QMkI97FFyvXhU9k_vgFKcbyEfWOBV_0-eygVuVxY3QEWFJPqa24crqP8SqYSqG_kzCdB4A1dQPM1iwKTOqRE_2B-BbseIoNUAygPdNxWWZ_fM5mHuFwlCTIjaRQbdbbngj_T1LmT/s400/2-Sawmill.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possible site of Gemmell's sawmill<br />
in Brandon, Montana, just a few miles east of Sheridan<br />
Photo by Bary Gammell</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFZ4MHUxMRQvud-eFYWm6k5u2JBWWxEriRJNIJWCYdzz_HoCL_XA1Q-Y5YkZsgJs7BUZEfV-qiosfnU8x7xdvuHlR5B8PSkahMfb6oZVDqYWqDVPlPE-YVXVfTwW3JBQD07p3cInPfJpQ/s1600/Brandon+Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFZ4MHUxMRQvud-eFYWm6k5u2JBWWxEriRJNIJWCYdzz_HoCL_XA1Q-Y5YkZsgJs7BUZEfV-qiosfnU8x7xdvuHlR5B8PSkahMfb6oZVDqYWqDVPlPE-YVXVfTwW3JBQD07p3cInPfJpQ/s320/Brandon+Map.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brandon is located on Mill Creek just east of Sheridan</td></tr>
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It took twelve mules to run the new mill, plus a crew of twelve men. The fee charged for the unfinished lumber was twenty-five cents per foot. (Profits in that first year were enough that Joseph Walker agreed to pay off James’ long overdue debt ($500 for goods on credit) to the Walker brothers of Salt Lake City.) The mill crew worked hard all day, but during those long winter evenings, with nothing to read, they passed the time sitting around the fire telling stories. Five members of the crew were James’ acquaintances from Utah, so most often the conversation turned to berating the Mormons, specifically Brigham Young. James, at one time, had a cordial personal relationship with Brigham Young, but later, especially after his disaffection from the Church, James seemed bent on knocking the revered prophet down a notch or two. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Years later Walker recorded what he could remember of “the acts of the Mormons during those early years” as told to the crew by Gemmell during the long evenings at their camp on Mill Creek (twenty five miles from Virginia City, in the winter of 1863-4.) Like most mountain men, James surely had developed the gift of gab, for as Walker declared, “I have penned but a tithe of the history he [James] gave.” According to Joseph Walker, James told the crew how he made the decision to come to Alder Gulch. Two of the few confidential friends that he had left among the Mormons seemed to think that </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">…it wasn’t safe for him to sleep in his house [because Brigham was "down on him"]...[James] said that he spent the days with his families, and hid and slept in the brush at night, but he said he could not make a living for two families and live that way. So he got some Indian goods from the three Walker brothers [not Joseph C. Walker] on credit and with two old wagons and some Spanish mules he struck out north in the early spring of 1863 coming up through Bannack…(7)</span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Although Joseph Walker’s business partnership with James lasted only a year, he retained fond memories of those days, and recorded this final tribute:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">…during the year Mr. Gemmell was associated in partnership with my brother A. M. Hardenbrook and myself, no partnership could have been more agreeable. Many years ago Mr. Gemmell went to his reward. Peace to his ashes. He had worked upon the treadmill of life enough. His body was interned on Mill Creek about eight miles below our winter camp of 1863-4.(8) </span></div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Walker and Gemmell saw each other for the last time in fall 1865 at Virginia City, not long after James had moved his family to nearby Ruby Valley. At that reunion, James was eager to tell Walker about his long conversation with General Thomas Francis Meagher (pronounced "Mahr"), newly appointed acting governor of Montana Territory, who had just arrived in Virginia City, the territory’s new capital. James reported that he and Meagher chatted for hours, comparing notes about the experiences they had in common. Both of these men had led very colorful lives, both had been prisoners in the British penal colony at Van Diemen’s Land, both had escaped on American whaling vessels, and both had made a home in Montana that same year.(9) Meagher, a Union officer in the Civil War, was born in Ireland. As a young leader in the Irish rebellion, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in Van Diemen’s Land, but made his escape in 1852. James, who was captured in the Canadian rebellion, had escaped the island seven years before Meagher arrived, but he had learned about Meagher through newspaper reports. Just two years after his conversation with the general, James was shocked to read about his tragic death: “…suddenly in the summer of 1867, after beating the odds time and again on three different continents, Thomas Francis Meagher fell off a riverboat (at Fort Benton) and drowned in the Missouri River at age 44. His body was never found.”(10) </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">________________________</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wheeler, p. 331.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Duncan, Elaine, “An Adventurous Pioneer,” 1926. (Elaine Ducan, great granddaughter of James Gammell, wrote this article when she was sixteen years old.)</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Montana Historical Society, “The Pioneers”, author unknown. </span> </li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Larry Preston, in his 1956 paper on James Gemmell (pp. 17-18), cited an oral tradition passed down by family members. As the story goes, James’ daughter Jeanette accompanied him on the trading expedition in spring 1863 from Salt Lake to Ruby Valley, Alder Gulch, and the Yellowstone region. There are many questionable aspects to the story; therefore it is not included here. To name just two, Jeanette would have been just eleven years old at the time…very young for such a dangerous trip. Also, James spent the winter in camp with his mill crew, before returning to Salt Lake Valley. </span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Montana Historical Society, “The Pioneers”, author unknown.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walker, Joseph C., pp. 40-41, 64-65.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walker, Joseph C. pp. 40-42, 64-66. See also “The Pioneers”, author unknown.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walker, Joseph C., p.65.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walker, Joseph C., pp. 65-66.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/ireland/meagher.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/ireland/meagher.htm</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> General Meagher’s statue still stands in front of the state capitol building in Helena. </span></li>
</ol></div></div></div></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-3826995343255889692011-09-20T15:33:00.004-04:002011-10-01T15:21:01.431-04:00Family Photos - James Gemmell's children in MontanaOld photos are such a treasure! Here are three taken in Sheridan, Montana. They were published in a book called <em>Pioneer Trails and Trials</em> in 1976 by the Madison County History Association.<br />
I would love to find out if anyone has the originals.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__CImQ0d0gGm_yCggVr2UqlPhCQ6py776xBo4QCAJdGAEIpKrjNovB1a571QoqD38Kw2vCamWAUePpt_VJ6i5bN1wtoL0WLqM1a8TF3EtZByocKUJq8g0j-h3MwjIZVZF75QsXD0jlSEu/s1600/3-Orlin%2527s+family2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__CImQ0d0gGm_yCggVr2UqlPhCQ6py776xBo4QCAJdGAEIpKrjNovB1a571QoqD38Kw2vCamWAUePpt_VJ6i5bN1wtoL0WLqM1a8TF3EtZByocKUJq8g0j-h3MwjIZVZF75QsXD0jlSEu/s320/3-Orlin%2527s+family2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Orlin Fitzgerald Gammell Family</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> taken in Montana, c. 1910.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Orlin is James Gammell's firstborn son. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk1Hu3IUaRuJbEMml6cc2_-2RKxnqSeMTJ_Qj8c7ni3WlE5tV9C7jOhD3QZLcXgJfbV2lIG_qjEymM-s-Ddk3sHWlnUWw4oeORRV87D7wWN2atiuKXHH3oTUQ8WKZAj-TNk7tr1hslWnsA/s1600/1-Andy+George+Jenny+Orlin2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk1Hu3IUaRuJbEMml6cc2_-2RKxnqSeMTJ_Qj8c7ni3WlE5tV9C7jOhD3QZLcXgJfbV2lIG_qjEymM-s-Ddk3sHWlnUWw4oeORRV87D7wWN2atiuKXHH3oTUQ8WKZAj-TNk7tr1hslWnsA/s320/1-Andy+George+Jenny+Orlin2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The living children of James Gemmell (c. 1924), those who were living in Sheridan at the time.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielrAk5xJZ6GTxFORciLg-fS-xBX7gyOSaa9Q4fp39ZnobTFOz3eR3O4Xr3stNFLr68e7lNagOzd98stcY24Lnfq0YYFEKG5i2TGsPx38RZeDl5mKdHMH-uAX85GkDUqSBbrGkXGsgvMvB/s1600/2-George+blacksmith2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielrAk5xJZ6GTxFORciLg-fS-xBX7gyOSaa9Q4fp39ZnobTFOz3eR3O4Xr3stNFLr68e7lNagOzd98stcY24Lnfq0YYFEKG5i2TGsPx38RZeDl5mKdHMH-uAX85GkDUqSBbrGkXGsgvMvB/s320/2-George+blacksmith2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">George Gemmell, youngest son of James, and his son Billy, c. 1924,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> at George's blacksmith shop in Sheridan.</div><br />
My next post will tell the story of James' move to Montana. (I will then move these photos ahead into other posts.) <br />
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Thanks to Bary Gammell for providing these photos.Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-61593238827574024592011-09-11T23:09:00.021-04:002011-11-02T19:33:20.144-04:00The Montana Gold Rush<div style="text-align: justify;">While the Civil War was raging in the United States, Utah Territory was enjoying a period of growth and increased prosperity. The 1860’s brought an influx of 16,000 Mormon converts from Europe, who crossed the plains in ox trains. With its population growing, Utah made its third petition for statehood. Ironically, just as the Southern states “were trying to get out of the Union, Utah was trying to get in.” Though the quest for statehood was an uphill battle, President Brigham Young reminded the Saints how blessed they were to live in the sheltered valleys of the west: </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Had we not been persecuted, we would now be in the midst of the wars and bloodshed that are desolating the nation, instead of where we are, comfortably located in our peaceful dwellings in these silent, far off mountains and valleys. Instead of seeing my brethren comfortably seated around me today, many of them would be found in the front ranks on the battlefield. I realize the blessings of God in our present safety. We are greatly blessed, greatly favored and greatly exalted, while our enemies, who sought to destroy us, are being humbled.(1) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James Gammell, his wives, and children were among those blessed to be spared the tragedy that befell his brother Andrew at the Battle of Vickburg. Andrew’s wife, Het, was left a widow and his three daughters orphans. In a letter to his sister, Jane, James expressed his sorrow for the loss of his two brothers: </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I was on the river and far from the settlements when I got your Letter with the account of William’s Death. [William died of pneumonia in Houston.]…Jane, it was a hard blow… Dear, Dear Brothers, they are both gone. Poore Andy fills a bluddy but noble grave...Oh William, could I but bin near to have soothed your last moments and mingled my tears with those that was present. It would have bin a great satisfaction to me, but now I can but weape over fond reckelections of those dear ones… Give my love to all, so says Uncle Jim Gemmell. I shall shortly write to…Hetty [Andrew’s wife].(2) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">After the U.S. Army vacated Camp Floyd in fall 1861 to fight the Civil War, James found himself searching for new business opportunities to support his growing family—now eleven children. His wife Maria had given birth to a daughter, Emily, in February of that year, but the baby lived only a few days. One year later Maria had another child, named Andrew after James’ brother.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">James didn’t have to wait more than a few months before he heard rumors of a promising new business venture. In July 1862, gold was discovered in southwestern Montana on Grasshopper Creek, sparking the biggest rush since the California Gold Rush of 1848-49. Word spread like wildfire, and the mining camp of Bannack(3) literally sprang up overnight. By January more than four hundred prospectors were settled into their tents and makeshift shanties, waiting until the spring thaw would permit them to pan for gold. Many of them had come ill prepared for the harsh Montana winter, and supplies were scarce. The nearest source was Salt Lake City, four hundred thirty miles away. The miners soon learned that no matter how much gold you have, you can’t eat it! They were forced to pay dearly for imported supplies, and the freighters often made more money than the prospectors.</div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjluLtpneVMWIAh38RMUkTu4nPgxwVVcfToUhWQgc4lCCzg8Rw2ew2X4wnf2Sr9Pn8MLuBERWD8sFW9QCsZovojFGynl-9tklPWRNaodB4-eXXQt0OLniPvUfcGh2J2PEo8dl245RXkFNAu/s1600/Montana+Gold+Rush+%2528cropped%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjluLtpneVMWIAh38RMUkTu4nPgxwVVcfToUhWQgc4lCCzg8Rw2ew2X4wnf2Sr9Pn8MLuBERWD8sFW9QCsZovojFGynl-9tklPWRNaodB4-eXXQt0OLniPvUfcGh2J2PEo8dl245RXkFNAu/s400/Montana+Gold+Rush+%2528cropped%2529.jpg" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Route to the Montana Gold Mines<br />
(approx. the same route as I-15 and Highway 91)</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">In November 1862, James loaded up two wagons with seventy one-hundred-pound bags of flour(4), some blankets, and other supplies that he had purchased on credit from the Walker brothers in Salt Lake City and started for Montana, confident that he could to sell his merchandise at “boom town” prices. There is no evidence that James ever panned for gold himself; instead, he sold his goods to those who did, and likely relieved some prospectors of a good portion of their treasure. <br />
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James was successful in finding a new and shorter route through Cache Valley to the newly discovered gold mines. On this trip he headed due north from Salt Lake City, through the settlements of Richmond (Utah) and Franklin (Idaho). Eight miles north of Franklin, he crossed the Bear River into Marsh Valley (present-day Bannock County, Idaho). The new road turned out to be “an excellent one, with abundance of feed and water.”(5) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">At Marsh Valley he met up with an outfit headed back to Salt Lake City from the Bannack City mining camp with the express mail. At the Snake River crossing, three of the five men accidentally lost all their provisions and nine hundred dollars worth of gold dust in the river. So destitute were they when they met Gammell’s train, they decided to return to the mines and try to recoup their losses. They arrived there with James on December 17th. After the three men turned back, the other two, George Clayton and Henry Bean, continued southward alone through Cache Valley on the very same route James had taken going north. They were never seen again. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Montana freighter, A.H. Conover, who left Bannack City a few weeks after the Clayton-Bean outfit, discovered that the two men had been killed. He was told by a group of Indians at the Port Neuf River, near Pocatello, that two white men with five animals (Clayton and Bean had five animals) were murdered near the head of Marsh Valley, not far from the Bear River and the Cache Valley settlements. They said the Shoshone killed the men to avenge the blood of three of their band who had been executed a few days before by U.S. Army Major McGarry and his soldiers. McGarry had confronted the Shoshone while rescuing a white boy who had been kidnapped from Cache Valley.(6) There were several Indian attacks along this same route within the next few months, causing the U.S. Army regiment at Camp Douglas(7) to mount an expedition against the Shoshone in January 1863.(8) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unusually mild weather permitted James to travel the four hundred mile route between Salt Lake City and Bannack three times that winter. By the end of March (1863), James had sold his first load of goods at Bannack, returned to Salt Lake City, loaded up another pack train, and headed back to the mines. Since business was booming at the camp, he increased the size of his pack train to fifteen or twenty animals, heavily laden with provisions and merchandise. He started out with a company of about six men, but added several more when he passed through the frontier settlements.(9) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jim Gammell was well known at the Bannack mines for his homemade whiskey, the antidote of choice for the drudgery and boredom of camp life. We don’t know for sure how Jim made his brew, but this is one method typically used to stretch a barrel of whiskey: “to two barrels of water, one added a few plugs of tobacco, some camphor, and a little ‘stricknine’ to give it tang.” This concoction was added to a barrel of whiskey, producing three barrels of “Red-eye” or “Mountain Dew.”(10) Captain James Stuart, who organized a prospecting expedition for gold along the Yellowstone River, mentioned Jim in his journal: “April 9, 1863…Our party started from Bannack City for the Fifteen-mile Creek (now known as Rattlesnake Creek)…At the time I left town the inhabitants were nearly all the worse for their experiments with Old Jim Gammell’s minie-rifle whiskey.”(11) <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOabdfQih4ZzCiNGEreAf0MUeBpEBjU6EA_DUm6DcPNpZixB9EyLNjVtpkQLf6e1po8zLTb4-xbArWiOQzgtVwyBel9l_QXI1nD1D8i69cawazmSQmTRB51m8UwyX_-KccKzFT8h_qfdU/s1600/Virginia_City%252C_Montana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOabdfQih4ZzCiNGEreAf0MUeBpEBjU6EA_DUm6DcPNpZixB9EyLNjVtpkQLf6e1po8zLTb4-xbArWiOQzgtVwyBel9l_QXI1nD1D8i69cawazmSQmTRB51m8UwyX_-KccKzFT8h_qfdU/s320/Virginia_City%252C_Montana.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Virginia City,Madison County, Montana<br />
View from Cemetery Hill 2004<br />
(Wikimedia Commons)</td></tr>
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Bannack reached its peak population of nearly three thousand inhabitants in spring 1863, with nearly two thousand others living downstream. The settlement dissolved as quickly as it had sprung up when another rich gold vein was discovered in May at Alder Gulch, eighty miles to the east. The first prospectors on the new site took their gold to Bannack to purchase supplies. Once they got a little whiskey under their belts, they couldn’t resist bragging that they had found the “mother lode.” As the news spread, many prospectors pulled up stakes and headed for Alder Gulch, which soon became the thriving settlement of Virginia City.(12) Alder Gulch yielded an estimated $30 million in placer gold(13) in just three short years between 1863 and 1866. (Not to say that every prospector got rich there. The typical miner struggled to make a living wage, and ended up with more blisters, aches and pains, than he did gold.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Business was booming in Alder Gulch, and future prospects looked promising. James decided to leave the Salt Lake Valley and settle in Sheridan, just twenty miles northwest of Virginia City. When he moved his family to Montana in 1865, Virginia City was the largest town in the inland northwest, with a population of over ten thousand. (The present-day (2010) population numbers, as the townsfolk say, “one hundred thirty-two very hardy souls!”)(14)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">______________________</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Church History in the Fulness of Times</em>, chapter 30.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Gemmell, letter to his sister, Jane, January 1, 1870.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The ghost town of Bannack is now Bannack State Park, located just 24 miles southwest of Dillon. Take I-15 to exit 59 (State Highway 278), and travel west for 17 miles. Turn left on the Bannack Bench Road and travel south for 4 miles to the Park entrance on the left-hand side. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Madsen, Brigham, <em>North to Montana</em>, p. 75. Flour purchased in Salt Lake at $6 for a one hundred pound bag was sold in Montana for $40 a bag.</span> </li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, “New Road North”, December 10, 1862. The new road followed roughly the same route as present-day Highway 91 and I-15. (See also Joseph C. Walker, p. 64.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, “More Indian Murders”, January 14, 1863.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">During the Civil War, the government sent seven hundred troops to Utah Territory to protect the overland mail and the transcontinental telegraph stations from Indian attacks. Instead of using the recently vacated Camp Floyd, they chose a site east of Salt Lake City and named it Camp Douglas after Stephen A. Douglas. The troops came in October 1862 and stayed until the end of the Civil War. ( See <em>Church History in the Fulness of Times</em>, Chapter 30.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The military action became known as the Bear River Massacre (about 250 Indians were killed).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, “Pack Train for the Mines, March 25, 1863.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Madsen, Brigham, <em>North to Montana</em>, p. 27.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>The Journal of Captain James Stuart</em>, with notes by Samuel T. Hauser and Granville Stuart. (See “The Yellowstone Expedition of 1863”, Historical Society of Montana 1876, Vol. 1, p. 149.)</span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-virginiacity.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-virginiacity.html</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> The majority of avowed secessionists living in the camp, which was then part of Idaho Territory and therefore "belonging" to the Union, made it primarily a "southern” town, with its residents’ sympathies lying with the Confederates. Furthermore, the camp was producing enough gold to win the Civil War for whoever could capture it. Due to this strategic position, President Lincoln soon sent northern emigrants into the mining camp to help hold the gold for the North. This of course caused all kinds of tension in the new city, which quickly became one of the most lawless places in the American West.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Placer gold mining, or free gold prospecting, should not be confused with hard rock gold mining. Placer mining involves dust, flakes, and nuggets, while hard rock mining involves veins of ore.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.virginiacity.com/#photos"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.virginiacity.com/#photos</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Virginia City is now frozen in time. See a 19-minute video about its preservation. </span></li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-11100537935307811852011-08-26T09:36:00.005-04:002011-09-03T12:51:17.901-04:00Memorials to Andrew F. Gammell<div style="text-align: justify;">There are two plaques at Vicksburg that bear the name of Andrew F. Gammell. Neither one is actually located within the Vicksburg National Military Park, but they are close by. Both plaques can be found in the northeast end of the Jewish Cemetery at 2414 Grove Street, the dead-end in the middle of the Vicksburg Battlefield, near the park’s Visitor's Center. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The tract of land where the Anshe Chesed Jewish Cemetery of Vicksburg is now located was once part of the Second Texas Lunette, the fortress manned by the Second Texas Infantry, and the place where Andrew was killed. At that time, Baldwin Ferry Road, a key entrance into the city, passed through this parcel of land. A Confederate marker was later erected on the grounds of the cemetery, commemorating the Second Texas Lunette.(1)</div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="239" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_jy3cHkTP-Rw16ECIV3Fp9FUiWRtlonb1xiWzM50YiNGhl0Kywi56A8Ecypm09-l90tPpeZrUpSIKWBMSk0qL24c0BUBQVr_p0bFLaM-7AdvGmyIBmJtX_3_UjIeB6FDH6yYTkHEOdTvg/s320/Andrew+TX-2nd-lunette-right.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2d Texas Infantry Position Tablet<br />
Anshe Chesed Jewish Cemetery, Vicksburg<br />
NPS Photo</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>The inscription reads:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">CONFEDERATE POSITION TABLET</div><div style="text-align: center;">Lunette on Right of Baldwin’s Ferry Road</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This salient lunette and the lines immediately on its right and left were held, May 22, 1863, and the assaults of the Union force repulsed, by the 2d Texas infantry—the right two companies occupying the curtain to the right; the left four companies, the curtain immediately north of the Baldwin’s Ferry Road; and four companies in the lunette. The 42d Alabama held the curtain between the right of the 2d Texas and the railroad. Green’s Brigade, about 1:00 p.m., reinforced this position; and, about 5:00 p.m., detachments of the 1st and 3d Missouri Cavalry, and of the 1st Arkansas Cavalry, dismounted, made a sally from the lunette and materially assisted in repulsing the Union assault on the left flank. Before the end of May the left four companies of the 2d Texas were moved into the lunette. A countermine against the Union approach was fired, June 28; two others were prepared, but not fired. Both the sap rollers in front of the two Union approaches to this work were burned on July 1. This tablet marks the salient angle of this lunette. Casualties: In 2d Texas during the defense: Killed 38, wounded 73, missing 15, total 126, <strong><u>Capt. A.F. Gammell</u></strong> and Lieut. Robert S. Henry killed, Lieut. William F. Kirk mortally wounded. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The second plaque, also located in the Jewish Cemetery, commemorates Moore’s Brigade, of Maj. Gen. John H. Forney's Division, of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Army of Vicksburg, and commanded by Col. Ashbel Smith.(2)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxqUMUQvJPvjxmthd7ykxPCcKzqROiAmLv87isvakhc_OC-tiwZAy2auRQCUau8Bea4ibSH44LnR61-T7-tFo-Z1sJ7Za3iOACiX8TH_OtRQmeYxRfLOch54kJPwLX3L2bcU4EPgRku0j/s1600/2d+texas+Andrew+Gammell+Texas+Infantry2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxqUMUQvJPvjxmthd7ykxPCcKzqROiAmLv87isvakhc_OC-tiwZAy2auRQCUau8Bea4ibSH44LnR61-T7-tFo-Z1sJ7Za3iOACiX8TH_OtRQmeYxRfLOch54kJPwLX3L2bcU4EPgRku0j/s320/2d+texas+Andrew+Gammell+Texas+Infantry2.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2d Texas Infantry Regimental Monument<br />
Anshe Chesed Jewish Cemetery, Vicksburg</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">TEXAS</div><div style="text-align: center;">MOORE’S BRIGADE</div><div style="text-align: center;">Brig. Gen. John C. Moore</div><div style="text-align: center;">SECOND INFANTRY</div><div style="text-align: center;">Colonel Ashbel Smith</div><div style="text-align: center;">Casualties during defense, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Killed 38, Wounded 73, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Missing 15, Total 126</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Captain A.F. Gammell</strong> and </div><div style="text-align: center;">Lieut. R.S. Henry killed,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Lieutenant W. F. Kirk </div><div style="text-align: center;">mortally wounded.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Andrew was originally buried in the plot of land that later became the Jewish Cemetery. In 1866 a Confederate burial ground called Soldiers’ Rest was created at Cedar Hill Cemetery, just outside of the National Park. An estimated 5,000 Confederate soldiers were then re-interred at Soldiers’ Rest. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBdRGWWHiORv9OdZcO4UbBj4TyRUOHZEZOoy55AcvJ5mUgybY6pFwHuKSy_j12cBXSd3Zv_swKrhpct1qsxCO66XIAB07b0Y9cRBrvDbw7gyNtFIt1VduJSaW1d9zXLYW8uGtqUJSnarP/s1600/Andrew+csa_cemetery2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBdRGWWHiORv9OdZcO4UbBj4TyRUOHZEZOoy55AcvJ5mUgybY6pFwHuKSy_j12cBXSd3Zv_swKrhpct1qsxCO66XIAB07b0Y9cRBrvDbw7gyNtFIt1VduJSaW1d9zXLYW8uGtqUJSnarP/s320/Andrew+csa_cemetery2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soldiers Rest, Confederate Cemetery<br />
Vicksburg, Mississippi</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">_________________________</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li><a href="http://www.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/tour-stop-12-second-texas-lunette.htm">http://www.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/tour-stop-12-second-texas-lunette.htm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/2nd-texas-infantry.htm">http://www.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/2nd-texas-infantry.htm</a> </li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-73427259958190696422011-08-17T10:15:00.027-04:002011-09-03T11:50:24.513-04:00Andrew F. Gammell and the Battle of Vicksburg <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsu44nSkSdWEBb90w3cr8r9NqgFKFbMvepTPzzrxvBnTRDTE-_BTZSD66YXI-_LOajkogYHNsYpdckrsnsqX0RRAFe6FHlBNbqfZrl6OmTfLNOCUeoHPmqWb7GIHWCUGmwKMqYux7oYQRG/s1600/2011secondtexas1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="104" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsu44nSkSdWEBb90w3cr8r9NqgFKFbMvepTPzzrxvBnTRDTE-_BTZSD66YXI-_LOajkogYHNsYpdckrsnsqX0RRAFe6FHlBNbqfZrl6OmTfLNOCUeoHPmqWb7GIHWCUGmwKMqYux7oYQRG/s400/2011secondtexas1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Second Texas Lunette, Vicksburg, Mississippi<br />
NPS Photo <br />
On May 22 it was the scene of furious fighting as Confederates beat back repeated Union attacks. <br />
During the siege Union soldiers dug approach trenches to within 15 feet of the lunette. <a href="http://www.civilwaralbum.com/vicksburg/2nd_tx.htm">http://www.civilwaralbum.com/vicksburg/2nd_tx.htm</a></td></tr>
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Situated on the bluffs overlooking a bend in the river, Vicksburg was the most important Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi. Southerners knew that “if Vicksburg falls, the Mississippi falls, and if that river goes, the confederacy is divided and Texas could fall…and if Texas falls, the world falls.”(1) By the end of 1862 President Lincoln announced to General Grant, “Vicksburg is the key; the war can never be brought to a close until the key is in our pocket.” Victory at Vicksburg would give the Union full control of the Mississippi River.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">General Grant posed his army to crush a three-mile-long section of the Vicksburg defense line on May 19, 1863. Three days later he began the most intense military bombardment he could muster, using hundreds of heavy cannon and every piece of ordnance. The barrage began at six in the morning, and abruptly ended exactly at ten. At that moment all units stormed up the hill, 35,000 Union soldiers at once. </div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8SEInM_TrVuoq_R1jrrvhW7h8ySXhWDsORqBqhP1M9MpP-bMtLfqDLMH12h53dh_GtXBPk1yYAzZNBYNMYkyYdUQDjLxde8nzUryuHOwOpPrx5a1nkgchLxOyjhq9lyPmYAXuSX9pfRah/s1600/Smith_Ashbel2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8SEInM_TrVuoq_R1jrrvhW7h8ySXhWDsORqBqhP1M9MpP-bMtLfqDLMH12h53dh_GtXBPk1yYAzZNBYNMYkyYdUQDjLxde8nzUryuHOwOpPrx5a1nkgchLxOyjhq9lyPmYAXuSX9pfRah/s1600/Smith_Ashbel2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colonel Ashbel Smith<br />
of Texas<br />
Graduate of Yale Medical School</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Located in the center of the Vicksburg defense line, and guarding the main road into town, was a crescent-shaped fortification, which later became known as the Second Texas Lunette.(2) Under the command of Colonel Ashbel Smith, Andrew Gammell and the brave soldiers of the Second Texas Sharpshooters, known for their great accuracy with rifles, held this fortress for forty-six days. Only when the prospect of starvation was certain did they surrender on July 4, 1863. Colonel Smith described in vivid detail the events of those forty-six days:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">On May 2 [1863], the regiment left camp on Chickasaw Bayou [nine miles above Vicksburg], without a change of clothes and with only a single blanket to a man. Dirty and ragged the men must needs be. During the siege there were several showers of rain, two of which were drenching. The loamy soil of this region was rendered a mire. The men in the trenches were over shoe in mud. With only a single blanket, they were obliged to bivouac in the mud. A June sun soon dried it up. Nothing could daunt these men, impassive to fatigue and patient to endure. My chief apprehension was lest the enemy [Union army] should make an assault when our guns were wet, knowing that he was furnished with every appliance for comfort and for securing his arms and ammunition.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Vicksburg, Sunday, May 17] Subsequently, the same night, an hour or two after midnight, the men were roused from their bivouac on the ground, and moved out of their brigade position, and changed places with the Forty-second Alabama (a gallant regiment), in order that the Second Texas Infantry might man the fort [lunette] which commanded the Baldwin's Ferry road at the very point where the road traversed the lines to enter the city. This was the assailable point of our lines; the place of danger; the post of honor: the key of this portion of our works of defense.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">An irregular system of valleys covering a considerable distance in front of the fort furnished crests where the Union army could place its canons and find protection from Confederate fire. Andrew’s company dug a ditch two feet deep on the inside of the fortress to enable the men to stand erect without being exposed to enemy fire. On May 22, the Union attack began: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">At an early hour of the morning of Friday, May 22, the enemy opened a most furious cannonade and fire of musketry, which were continued with occasionally varying intensity till 10a.m. This was the hour designated in the enemy's orders, as afterward appeared, for a general assault on our lines throughout their entire length. There was a sudden, sullen silence of the enemy's artillery. Hitherto the positions of the enemy were known only by the flash of their guns and the clouds of smoke which enveloped their heads. Instantaneously—the enemy springing up from the hollows and valleys to our right and front—the earth was black with their close columns, and ere Private Brooks could well exclaim. "Here they come." They were surging on within a few paces of the foot of our works…The Second Texas was ready, standing up boldly on the banquette, and exposing their persons to the fire of ten times our numbers, my men received the enemy with a most resolute and murderous fire; my cannon belched canister; my men made the air reel with yells and shouts as they saw the earth strewn with the enemy's dead…Our men, too, fell thick and fast…</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">As the shades of the night were setting in, the enemy’s fire slowly and sullenly slackened. It ceased with the dark. The enemy returned to their covers in the hollows and valleys…The loss of the enemy, considering the numbers engaged on either side, was enormous. The ground in our front and along the road, and either side of the road for several hundred yards way to the right, was thickly strewn with their dead. In numbers of instances two and three dead bodies were piled on each other. Along the road for more than 200 yards the bodies lay so thick that one might have walked the whole distance on them without touching the ground.</span><br />
</span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Siege of Vicksburg<br />
(Wikimedia Commons)</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">All our men at all times slept on their arms, and, as they were never relieved, but remained at all times at their post, the fatigue was very great. They did their duty not only without a murmur, but with gaiety. </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From the assault of May 22 till the surrender, the number of the enemy [Union army] operating directly in front and directly against the lines manned by the Second Texas was ten times greater than the strength of this regiment, and he was greatly superior in every appliance. When the enemy took possession of the lines, after the surrender, officers and men expressed their unfeigned surprise and mortification at the weakness of our defenses. The spade is a military weapon.</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Colonel Smith mentioned by name a few individuals who distinguished themselves for bravery and honor. Among those few he mentioned were “Captain [A.F.] Gammell and Lieutenant [B. S.] Henry, who fell gallantly at their posts. [They] were models of zealous and active duty.” Captain Andrew Gammell died in the heat of the battle, before the surrender on July 4:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We laid down our arms—want of subsistence and want of ammunition. The laying down of our arms, the surrender of nearly 30,000 men, is a misfortune which words cannot extenuate, but it was not a wholly unredeemed disaster. The Second Texas Infantry achieved one victory—they utterly destroyed any prestige which the enemy might have heretofore felt when the soldiers they should encounter should be Texans. And this was evinced in the marked and special respect with which the enemy, officers and men, after the surrender, during our stay in Vicksburg, were wont to treat and speak of the members of the Second Texas Infantry. When the Second Texas Infantry inarched through the chain of the enemy's sentinels, the spirits of most of the men were even then at the highest pitch of lighting valor. Released from the obligation of their parole, and arms placed in their hands, they would have wheeled about, ready and confident.</span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Very respectfully, your most obedient servant,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>ASHBEL SMITH</em>,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Colonel, Second Regiment Texas Volunteer Infantry.(3) </span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soldiers Rest Cemetery, Vicksburg, Mississippi<br />
NPS Photo</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Lieutenant Andrew F. Gammell, Company D, Second Texas Infantry, was killed at the rank of Captain, and interred at Soldiers’ Rest Cemetery. His unmarked gravestone is near the site of the battle. From Vicksburg he wrote:</div><br />
<em>Kiss [the children] for Uncle Andy. When he comes home he will do it for himself. </em><br />
<em>So goodbye for present, </em><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<em>Your brother Andy(4)</em><br />
<br />
The Civil War, the most painful of all United States wars, took a terrible toll on families. The total number of soldiers killed, both Union and Confederate, was 625,000, not to mention thousands who were wounded or maimed for life. On the home front, wives and mothers cared for their families and worked the farm, and after the war thousands of them, including Andrew’s wife Het, were left widows. It was literally a war of brother against brother. The Gammell family was no exception. Jane Gammell Wylie had two sons in the battle: Andrew Gammell serving in the Confederate Army, 2nd Texas Infantry, and James Henry Wylie in the Union Army, 1st Regiment, Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. <br />
<em>______________________</em><br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Michener, James, <em>Texas</em>, 1985, p. 629.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Second Texas Lunette was technically a <strong>salient lunette</strong>. A two or three-sided field fort, its rear open to interior lines, was called a <strong>lunette</strong> (French lunette, “little moon”). Lunettes were often named in honor of battery commanders. A <strong>salient</strong> is an area of a defensive line or fortification that protrudes beyond the main works. In the Civil War, it extended closest to an enemy’s position and usually invited an attack.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the Official records of the Union and Confederate Armies</em>, United States War Dept., Robert Nicholson Scott, compiled by Calvin Duvall Cowles, U.S. Government, 1889. pp. 383-94.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Andrew Gammell, Letter to his sister, Jane, 14 January 1863, Vicksburg. (Copy from the collections in the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.)</span></li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-21695208918545984732011-07-28T11:58:00.016-04:002011-10-03T16:50:05.299-04:00Andrew F. Gammell of the Second Texas Infantry <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3LQCr9qQ7XxL8T3SBnc_clYRYWSDfEqWRJdeeG85MaEjp_RsWp4c1L9FoLXf2zDOEhCTxH6mMyzOa7lJIOHrjcVph6YSFGdUntI_tujOxcGjPaeaoUR844UJtrTj8UJd5Ww7oW4jTQIIu/s1600/2d+texas+Andrew+Gammell+Texas+Infantry2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3LQCr9qQ7XxL8T3SBnc_clYRYWSDfEqWRJdeeG85MaEjp_RsWp4c1L9FoLXf2zDOEhCTxH6mMyzOa7lJIOHrjcVph6YSFGdUntI_tujOxcGjPaeaoUR844UJtrTj8UJd5Ww7oW4jTQIIu/s400/2d+texas+Andrew+Gammell+Texas+Infantry2.jpg" t$="true" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NPS Photo<br />
2d Texas Infantry Regimental Monument<br />
Vicksburg National Military Park</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">The presidential election of 1860 caused quite a commotion in the state of Texas. The new Republican Party had nominated abolitionist and former congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. His very name became a curse word to Southerners. So strong was the opposition in Texas that he was not allowed on the ballot. When Lincoln won the election with nothing but Northern electoral votes, Texans realized that their economy and their very way of life were in jeopardy. They began hollering, “Immediate secession! Abe Lincoln is not our president!”(1)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The whole Southern economy was based on the belief that slaves were property and that the government had no right to confiscate personal property—and valuable property at that. In Texas one adult male slave was worth nearly $1,000, and slaves were absolutely essential to running a cotton plantation. </div><br />
Even non-slaveholders, like Andrew Gammell, felt the same way. Only one person in ten owned a slave, but nine out of ten would support the war of secession. Andrew told his sister, Jane, <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I hope the day is not far distant when you all can welcome home the victorious soldiers of Texas. How I look for that happy day when I once more can see my friends and know them free from Lincoln and his despotic rule. Then I shall be satisfied…I do not care how soon [the Northern states] may fall out if they will let us alone.(2)</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Andrew, along with his fellow Texans, was willing to risk his life in the defense of the South and its traditions, even though he had lived in Texas for less than five years. Originally a Northerner, he was born in New York. He was christened “Andrew Faulds Gammell”(3) at age twelve in Lowell, Massachusetts, while living there with his mother and his stepfather, James H. Wylie. The family then moved to Hanover, Michigan, to be near his brother James Gammell after James had escaped from Van Diemen’s Land. In Hanover, twenty-one-year old Andrew married Esther Van Patten, the sixteen-year-old daughter of his neighbor John Van Patten.(4) Andrew and Esther had two daughters, Jennette and Esther, before leaving Michigan. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By 1860 most of the Gammell family, with the exception of James, had gathered in Harris County, Texas, where the oldest brother, William, a slave owner, had lived for more than twenty years. William had been part of the contingent that won the original Republic of Texas from Mexico in eighteen minutes at San Jacinto. Andrew and his sister, Jane, the wife of Captain James B. Andrews, settled in Harris County, along with their mother, Jane Wylie, and their stepsister, Mary Ann Wylie, who married a Texan, Darius Gregg.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Andrew and his brother William, both gunsmiths by trade, must have paid close attention to the heated arguments during the presidential campaign. They realized that such animosity between the North and South was bound to end in war. <br />
<br />
Just one month after Lincoln’s election, South Carolina seceded from the Union, citing the violation of its alleged rights to own slaves. Texas followed suit a few weeks later on February 2, 1861. On February 8, seven cotton states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to organize the Confederate States of America. They named Jefferson Davis as President. In April Davis ordered six thousand Confederate troops to take Fort Sumter. Shots fired at 4:30 in the morning on April 12, 1861, marked the beginning of the Civil War. The sixty Union soldiers who manned the fort surrendered the next day, marching out of the fort bearing the tattered Union flag.<br />
<br />
During the summer the Confederacy began organizing its defensive fortifications in Texas. The Union battleships in the Gulf of Mexico now posed a threat to the shipment of Texas cotton to England. Colonel John Creed Moore was sent to Galveston, where he organized and trained the Second Texas Infantry Regiment, known as the Second Texas Sharpshooters. Andrew Gammell of Houston was one of the volunteers who enlisted. By December the regiment, consisting of ten companies of volunteer militia, had moved to Camp Bee near Andrew’s home in Houston to complete their training. By March 1862, Andrew had been transferred to Corinth, Mississippi, where his regiment became part of the Army of the Mississippi, commanded by none other than General Albert Sidney Johnston, former commander of Utah’s Camp Floyd. <br />
<br />
With courage and youthful optimism Andrew bid a tearful farewell to his wife, “Het” (Esther), and his three daughters. The youngest was three-year-old Kate. He called her “Kitten.”(5) Andrew took comfort in knowing that his sister, Jane, lived nearby and would be a great help and support to Het while he was gone. (Andrew’s mother, Jane Wylie, had met an untimely death just a few months earlier when she was struck by lightning.) After a festive ceremony in which the ladies of Houston presented the regiment with a silk battle flag, Andrew and his fellow soldiers departed Houston by train to Beaumont, Texas. From there they continued by steamboat and overland march to Corinth, Mississippi.(6)<br />
<br />
As part of the greater Army of the Mississippi, Andrew and his fellow Texas Sharpshooters engaged in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War at Shiloh, Tennessee (April 6-7, 1862), the battle in which General Albert Sidney Johnston was killed. Johnston was shot in the leg while leading the attack on the Union army. Thinking that his wound was insignificant, he dismissed his personal surgeon to care for other wounded soldiers. Within one hour he bled to death; his boot had filled with blood from a severed popliteal artery. After the battle the Second Texas was cited for bravery, and Colonel Moore was promoted to brigadier general. <br />
<br />
By the time the Second Texas, now under the command of Colonel Ashbel Smith,(7) fought the battle at Corinth, Mississippi, in October, they had already become a seasoned fighting unit. They managed to take Fort Robinett, but held it for only a short time and were forced to retreat. From Corinth the regiment retired to winter camp at Grenada, Mississippi. On Christmas Eve, President Jefferson Davis and General J. E. Johnston came to review the troops. The dignitaries watched the parade from the porches of the mansions along Margin Street, while the troops marched from the fairgrounds to the downtown square to Margin Street, and then back to the fairgrounds.(8) <br />
<br />
Andrew, still in good spirits and steadfastly optimistic about the Confederate cause, reported the news to his family, “I had the pleasure of seeing Jeff [Jefferson] Davis at Grenada. He and General [J.E.] Johnston reviewed the army at that place… The army was very much pleased with him and cheer after cheer was sent up for him.” In his letter Andrew had very little to complain about, except maybe the food and his aches and pains from sleeping on the cold ground: <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">My health is very fair at the present time, all but the rheumatism, which has bothered me for these last six weeks. But I have a good appetite, as you would find if you could set me down to one of your old-fashioned dinners. Whew, what a treat that would be for the soldiers now Jane! I think from what I can hear that this spring [1863] will fetch the war to a close…That was great news we heard the other day [concerning] the recapture of Galveston… Fight them to the last is my motto. Or as the gallant Lawrence said, “Never give up the ship!” We have them on the downhill so that now if we follow them up it is soon over.(9)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
The victory at Galveston (January 1, 1963) gave most Texans reason to be optimistic about the outcome of the war. Galveston was the largest city in Texas at the time and its major seaport. Confederates took back Galveston from Union occupation and retained it for the rest of the war. The Union never tried to retake the island, but it reinforced the blockade in an effort to limit commerce in and out of the harbor.<br />
<br />
As the Civil War was nearing the end of its second year, Andrew wasn’t the only one who was predicting that it would end soon. Even General Ulysses Grant supposed that one final battle would bring the war to a close. Hopefully that final battle would not be as costly as Shiloh. The two-day battle of Shiloh was the costliest battle in American history up to that time, resulting in the defeat of the Confederate army and 10,699 Confederate casualties (1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, and 959 missing or captured). Union casualties were 13,047 (1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded, and 2,885 missing). The dead included Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston and Union general W.H.L. Wallace. Both sides were shocked at the carnage. Little did they know that “three more years of such bloodshed remained in the war and that eight larger and bloodier battles were yet to come. The war would continue, at great cost in casualties and resources, until the Confederacy succumbed or the Union was divided.”(10) </div><div style="text-align: justify;">__________________________</div><ol><li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Michener, James A., <em>Texas</em>, 1985, p .617.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Andrew Gammell, Letter to his sister, Jane, 14 January 1863, Vicksburg. (Copy from the collections in the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.)</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The middle initial F in Andrews name stands for "Faulds." Faulds is most likely a family name in Jane Dickie’s family. James mentions a cousin named Andrew Faulds in his letter to Mackenzie, January 1843.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jackson County (Michigan) Marriages, 1833-1870, p. 135.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1880 U. S. Census, Chicago, Illinois. Kate, known as Kitten, is living with her mother Esther Gammell.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.corinthcivilwarrelics.com/wprogers/story.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.corinthcivilwarrelics.com/wprogers/story.htm</span></a></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ashbel Smith was a prominent political figure and doctor from Harris County, Texas.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Joseph Eggleston Johnston, not to be confused with Albert Sidney Johnston. </span><a href="http://www.alabama37th.com/flag.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.alabama37th.com/flag.htm</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ms2/33Miss/chapter2.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.angelfire.com/ms2/33Miss/chapter2.htm</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Andrew Gammell, Letter to his sister, Jane, 14 January 1863, Vicksburg. (Copy from the collections in the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.)</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shiloh"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shiloh</span></a></div></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-67918125190471193642011-07-19T19:37:00.015-04:002011-07-22T14:29:18.364-04:00Visit to Sheridan, Montana - Bary Gammell<div class="MsoNormal"><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">Liz, on Tuesday afternoon Jan and I had a nice visit in Sheridan with our cousin Sandra Baril. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">She showed us some locations related to Grandpa James that I wanted to share with you. </span><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">We first drove a short distance east of town to the likely area where James first settled and started the saw mill, Mill Creek. The exact location is no longer identified.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">After leaving the saw mill, James and wife Susan Maria Brown homesteaded west of town. The land is now owned by 5L Ranch.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">Going west and south is the Duncan property where it is believed James built this barn.</span></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">The cemetery where James is buried is 1.5 miles south of town.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">After leaving I asked Sandra to go back so we could take a picture of two of us at the grave marker.</span></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span tahoma?,?sans-serif?;color:#002060?="">In backtracking we also came across the grave of Orlin Gammell, James’ first son.</span><br />
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When Jan was taking the picture of Sandra and me, I threw my cap on the ground. After getting back in the car I realized I forgot my hat. In going back to retrieve it I then noticed other grave markers next to James’ grave. Susan being Sandra’s great-great grandmother and I believe sister-in-law of our great-great grandmother Hannah Jane.</div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Photos by Bary and Jan Gammell</div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-12061407299396338162011-06-17T14:30:00.006-04:002012-06-10T22:13:47.395-04:00The End of the Utah Expedition and Camp Floyd<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the months preceding the Civil War, James and his family were still living in Fairfield, Utah, near Camp Floyd.(1) Two new babies were born in 1859, Charles Harrison born to Maria on March 10, and Robert Mahlon born to Hannah Jane on October 21 at Cedar Fort. As an excommunicated Mormon, James no longer demonstrated any allegiance to the Church or its leaders, although his wives and children were still members in good standing. </div>
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Early in 1859, when there was strong suspicion that Johnson’s Army might renege on the agreement that President Buchanan had made with Brigham Young, the Mormon militia began covert activities to spy on Camp Floyd. They stood ready to send up a smoke signal should any federal troops advance towards Salt Lake City. In March, James reported that a few Mormon militiamen intercepted him in the desert near Camp Floyd and attempted to purchase his complete stock of powder and lead. He flatly refused them, and reported their activities to Judge Sinclair.(2) </div>
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During 1859 James was plagued with financial problems. In June he was charged in a lawsuit brought by the county assessor for delinquent taxes on his property in Salt Lake City.(3) On June 22, he was summoned again by the probate court for Salt Lake County, this time in a case brought by Silas Richards,(4) against fifteen individuals including James Gammell, W.A. (Bill) Hickman, and Orin Porter Rockwell. James and several others, who had not been summoned as of June 22, appeared before the judge on July 2.(5) Silas Richards, a businessman, had likely employed each of these men and was probably suing for breech of contract. </div>
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In August, James was summoned in the aftermath of a murder investigation. The victim was a man named Franklin E. McNeil,(6) who was shot on the night of August 4, at the California House (a hotel) in Salt Lake City. Investigators believed that a man named Joseph Rhodes had shot McNeil. The magistrate issued a warrant for Rhodes, but apparently he had escaped during the night. The next morning (August 5) U.S. Attorney Andrew Wilson took McNeil’s dying statement at the California House. McNeil didn't know who had shot him. He said it happened about 11 o'clock at night. “He had come from his room down to the outside of the hotel, to make water, and while there two men came up, one of whom said, ‘Frank, is that you?’ and the other man shot him with a pistol.” The shooter ran, and McNeil fired his pistol at him, but did not hit him. McNeil supposed it was Joseph Rhodes who had shot him. There had been a quarrel between the two the night before in the bar room of the hotel, when Rhodes had fired a pistol at him, missing his head, but burning his hat. McNeil thought the man who had spoken to him was Lot Huntington. A warrant was issued for Huntington, who was questioned by the judge. Since there was no evidence to implicate him, and since McNeil had stated before he died that he was mistaken about Huntington, he was discharged. The case went before the grand jury, and they found “a true bill of indictment” against Joseph Rhodes.(7) </div>
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The argument between McNeil and Rhodes was apparently sparked by some violation of the ‘code’ that had been adopted by a gang of government stock thieves of which both men were presumed members.(8) Clearly, Rhodes was charged with the murder of McNeil, but just a few weeks later James became involved in the proceedings. He was summoned to 1st Judicial District Court on Thursday, August 25, at 9:00 am: “Mr. Thompson moved for a rule against Mr. Gammell and another in the case of the murder of McNeil.(9) (James was supposedly at Fort Bridger with the Simpson expedition on August 25.) A few days later the <em>Deseret News</em> mentioned a pending civil action: “Monday, August 29, 10 a.m…In the case of C. A. Perry & Co. vs. McNeal [sic] and Gammel [sic], Mr. Thompson moved that a scirefacias be issued to compel the heirs of McNeal to appear in cause.”(10) C.A. Perry & Co. had filed a lawsuit against James back in May 1855, demanding payment for goods delivered. In this 1859 case it appears that James may have had business dealings with Frank McNeil, and that Perry had sued Gammell and the murdered man’s heirs for the payment of debts. </div>
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Despite the increased number of ruffians and outlaws who invaded Utah along with the army, its occupation did have some unforeseen benefits. As the conflict between Camp Floyd and the Mormon community became less of a threat, Utah citizens began to see that the camp had a positive influence on their economy. Before the camp was established, the Mormons were desperately poor. Since the start of the Utah War, or the Utah Expedition as it was called in Washington, all supplies from the east had been stopped: </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Thus the community had become utterly destitute of almost everything necessary to their social comfort. The people were poorly clad, and rarely ever saw anything on their tables but what was prepared from flour, corn, beet molasses, and the vegetables and fruits of their gardens. They were alike destitute of implements of industry, and horses, mules, and wagons for their agricultural operations. Utah was truly very poor at that period; indeed, never so poor since the Californian emigrants poured into Great Salt Lake City in 1849.(11) </span></div>
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The presence of the army soon changed all that. Businessmen like James Gammell began to trade directly with the camp. In the process he became acquainted with the Walker brothers, for whom Camp Floyd “laid the foundation of their fortunes.” The mutual benefits of these commercial ventures “softened the feelings of hostility between the citizens and the soldiers, and the Utah Expedition became transformed into a great blessing to Utah, and especially to the Mormon community.”(12) Living as close to Camp Floyd as he did, it is reasonable to assume that James profited from the occasional sales of army surplus merchandise:</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Periodic auctions of condemned food and surplus animals and equipment offered bargains in such wanted items as mules, bacon, boots, and doubletrees. One of the largest of these sales was the disposal of some 3,500 large freight wagons by Russell, Majors and Waddell, for $10 each. The wagons had cost from $150 to $175 a piece in the Midwest…Large numbers of oxen and mules were also sold by the firm in the territory, for as little as $25 to $50 per yoke…The benefits of the unintentional helping hand of the potentially hostile forces of occupation continued until the summer of 1860.(13) </span></div>
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Another blessing directly related to the Utah War was the Pony Express. The route, established in April 1860, extended from the Missouri River all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Until that time Utahns were used to receiving news in three months. Now communication from Sacramento arrived in six days, and from St. Joseph, Missouri in seven days. However, the Pony Express enterprise lasted only nineteen months. It ended after the completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph line in October 1861. Great Salt Lake City was the junction of the eastern and western divisions of the line. Brigham Young was honored to send the very first message over the wire, a note of congratulations to the president of the Pacific Telegraph Company.(14) </div>
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Camp Floyd, itself, was a short-term operation, lasting only three years. The size of the army was diminished over time, beginning in the summer of 1860 when the garrison was reduced to ten companies (about 1,500 men). In July 1861 Camp Floyd was completely dismantled and its soldiers sent to fight in the Civil War. Today, very little is left of the once thriving camp. The evacuation of Camp Floyd led to the largest government surplus sale held in the previous history of the United States—one final windfall for the Mormons:</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">At one large auction, which commenced on July 16, 1861, the army sold an estimated $4,000,000 worth of property for approximately $100,000…This included iron, tools, and equipment, livestock, stock feed, and a large supply of beans, flour, and other food… [the army also left the Mormons with improved transportation and communication services for their widely scattered settlements.] Thus ended, wrote William Clayton, “the great Buchanan Utah Expedition, costing the Government millions, and accomplishing nothing, except making many of the Saints comparatively rich, and improving the circumstances of most of the people of Utah.”(15) </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Among the auction items purchased by Brigham Young was the safe that had been used by the federal government to transport half a million dollars worth of gold to Camp Floyd. After the auction came the destruction of army ordnance. These arms and ammunition were piled up in pyramids at a safe distance away. Long trains of powder were laid, and on signal the fuse was ignited. In the early autumn of 1861 the troops marched eastward, and thus ended the famous Utah expedition.(16) With the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln in March, Utah Territory soon received a new set of more acceptable federal officials and settled into a fairly peaceful existence. However, in April shots rang out over Fort Sumter, signifying the beginning of a long period of turmoil for the United States. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
___________________________</div>
<ol>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 1860 US Census, Fairfield, Cedar, Utah Territory, taken October 9, 1860.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Moorman, Donald R., and Sessions, Gene A., <em>Camp Floyd and the Mormons – The Utah War</em>, University of Utah, 1992, p. 117. Source footnote #63: James Garnmell to Charles E. Sinclair, March 29, 1859, Albert Sidney Johnston Papers, Barrett Collection, Tulane University. (In the book and the original source Gammell is spelled GARNMELL.)</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Salt Lake County Probate Court, civil and criminal case files, series 373, entry 1741 (June 6, 1859).</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Silas Richards (1807-1884) is buried in Union Pioneer Cemetery, Sandy, Utah. The inscription on his gravestone reads, “First Bishop of Union.” He settled on Little Cottonwood Creek, and helped build a fort at Union for protection against the Indians: </span><a href="http://www.williampsmith.com/pcsilas.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.williampsmith.com/pcsilas.html</span></a></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, June 29 and July 6, 1859.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Franklin E. McNeil (1833-1859) was murdered by fellow outlaw Joe Rhodes, who also met a violent end the following January. Frank had come to the Salt Lake Valley to spy on the Mormons and cause them havoc at the request of Johnson's Army. Frank spent quite a bit of time in jail. </span><a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=28048157"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=28048157</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, Wednesday, August 10, 1859; <em>Message of the President of the United States: Condition of Affairs in Utah</em>, United States Department of Justice, James Buchanan, p. 35. (Alexander Wilson [U.S. District Attorney for the Territory of Utah, 1858-1862] wrote the report of the McNeill case.)</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> “Another Man Killed,” <em>Deseret News</em>, Wednesday, August 10, 1859.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, August 31, 1859.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, September 7, 1859. </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Tullidge, Edward William, <em>History of Salt Lake</em>, 1886, p. 246.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Tullidge, p. 247.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Arrington, Leonard J., <em>Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900</em>, Harvard University Press, 1958, pp. 198-99.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Deseret News</em>, October 23, 1861.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Arrington, pp. 198-99.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Tullidge, Edward William, <em>History of Salt Lake</em>, 1886, p. 247-251. In February 1861, Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, who had replaced General Albert Sidney Johnston as commander of Camp Floyd, was ordered to change the name to Fort Crittenden. The reason for the name change was to “disconnect the fort from the name of Secretary Floyd, whose plot for secession was exposed, and his Utah Expedition, sinking twenty millions of the nation’s money, considered to be a part of that secession plot.”</span></div>
</li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-90426686022913283042011-06-09T10:30:00.011-04:002012-01-07T12:08:03.650-05:00Scrimshaw Engraved by William Gammell<div style="text-align: left;">Kim Cox of Corpus Christi, Texas, sent these photos of a scrimshaw engraved by William Gammell, the brother of James Gammell. (I had to refer to the dictionary for the definition of scrimshaw: "any of various carved or engraved articles originally made by American whalers usually from baleen or whale ivory.")</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">This piece was handed down by Kim's grandfather James Bedford Sterns, a grandson of Margaret Jane Gammell (sister of James and William.) William Gammell and his wife, Jane, had no children, so apparently William's possessions were handed down through his sister's family. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj17GOfqaAd1Dml4rb2tSNB417deYzNnOKQDX0uA7iLTZwo_4TzZSQh9CRDMMFklqx08U2CiWCiqM9rBk8iVmYn8dhXBH2WcET80jWGQqrGxmtYdeSv-iAo-YyCoJAhUsCvHhxIrOrW5q5g/s1600/Wm+Gammell++scrimshaw+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj17GOfqaAd1Dml4rb2tSNB417deYzNnOKQDX0uA7iLTZwo_4TzZSQh9CRDMMFklqx08U2CiWCiqM9rBk8iVmYn8dhXBH2WcET80jWGQqrGxmtYdeSv-iAo-YyCoJAhUsCvHhxIrOrW5q5g/s400/Wm+Gammell++scrimshaw+1.JPG" t8="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scrimshaw engraved by William Gammell <br />
(circa 1848)<br />
Photo by Kim Cox</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Thanks to Kim for sending these photos. The inscription on one side of the scrimshaw reads, "GAMMELL, BROWN, GERAD & FREEMAN." The inscription on the other side, "TRIP UP THE YUBA CALIFORNIA," refers to William's journey to the California Gold Rush. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghfseL4zMtzjTbv4yjLDA6ejMves7qD2CE6V3JqVkQLuUhxaFmjlBnxDjYvwcHJP4cjO20RH1fy9oXbayZ_lOOPV3eFdg6H0dUk4yBQrLH0rWW_P7CTNBiUXji2zjgwDXiuhkDKN5Xx27u/s1600/Wm+Gammell+scrimshaw++2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghfseL4zMtzjTbv4yjLDA6ejMves7qD2CE6V3JqVkQLuUhxaFmjlBnxDjYvwcHJP4cjO20RH1fy9oXbayZ_lOOPV3eFdg6H0dUk4yBQrLH0rWW_P7CTNBiUXji2zjgwDXiuhkDKN5Xx27u/s400/Wm+Gammell+scrimshaw++2.JPG" t8="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Other side of scrimshaw engraved by William Gammell <br />
(circa 1848)<br />
Photo by Kim Cox</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Kim's mother, who turns ninety-nine in July 2011, may be able to give us more information about William and the origin of the scrimshaw. To learn more about William Gammell, see previous posts dated May 19, May 29, and June 3, 2010.Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-31236313196159258122011-05-28T14:58:00.005-04:002011-06-01T12:22:10.086-04:00The Simpson Expedition to Uinta Valley<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hi59SZ6yRHJqCq4p_ZdHjFkdU7bwH0SJCjLGFxRRYweruZs6GDYoK-dBHeUnwblKOuCYgJ8NI8jp40WYUr7MJ1QepEsj82FJxDuB5b6ADKERuC9JIQAoLNmn8vwIkpcqWJM0mnxLQxEl/s1600/JamesHSimpson1857.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hi59SZ6yRHJqCq4p_ZdHjFkdU7bwH0SJCjLGFxRRYweruZs6GDYoK-dBHeUnwblKOuCYgJ8NI8jp40WYUr7MJ1QepEsj82FJxDuB5b6ADKERuC9JIQAoLNmn8vwIkpcqWJM0mnxLQxEl/s400/JamesHSimpson1857.jpg" t8="true" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James H. Simpson, 1857<br />
(Wikimedia Commons)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Just two months after James Gammell returned home from an expedition to the site of the Mountain Meadows massacre, he joined James Simpson’s expedition to explore the Uinta Valley. James H. Simpson, an officer in the U.S. Army, and a member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, was ordered to Camp Floyd in 1858. Under Captain Simpson’s direction the army made its most significant contribution of the Utah War by improving western immigrant roads, and mapping new routes to shorten the travel time between the states and California. Simpson’s team of scientists and artists accompanied the troops, collecting specimens of flora and fauna, and sketching the scenery. The published report inspired many emigrants to move to the western frontier.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In August 1859, Simpson returned to Camp Floyd after surveying a new route to Carson Valley, Nevada. Four days later, on August 9, he and his team left Camp Floyd again for Fort Bridger, following a new route that they had opened the previous fall. This time he took James Gammell along as his guide. Under orders from General Albert Sidney Johnston, they were looking for the most practical wagon road between Camp Floyd and the Uinta Valley and then to the Green River. From Camp Floyd, Simpson’s party traveled in a northeasterly direction, passing through the Utah settlements of Lehi, American Fork, and Mountainville (Alpine) to the Timpanogos River(1) road (now the Provo Canyon Road). Simpson established his main camp on Torbert’s Creek, Round Prairie (now called Heber Valley):(2) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">August 12 [1859], <em>Camp on Torbert’s Creek(3), Round Prairie</em>. Elevation above the sea, 5,786 feet. Thermometer at 5.30 a. m., 43º. Having established my main camp at this point, I leave this morning to examine pass over Uinta range into Green River Valley, agreeably to orders of General Johnston of August 5th. Take with me one of my assistants, Mr. Henry Engelmann, (geologist and meteorologist,) ten dragoons, <strong>Mr. James Gammell</strong>, as guide, Ute Pete, Clark, and Dougherty, in all sixteen persons, with three pack-mules.(4) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The next day the party made its way up Coal Creek Canyon to the summit of the Uinta Mountain divide (9,680 feet) and then down the other side to the Duchesne and the Uinta River junction (near Roosevelt, Utah), a distance of seventy-five miles.(5) Simpson described the route as “a most excellent one…however, [it] is at present far from being practicable for wagons, and not even is it practicable for pack-mules without the very greatest tax upon man and animals…rendered so by willow, aspen, and fir thickets, and by steep and rocky precipices and ridges.” Nine of the ten dragoons’ horses became crippled and had to be left behind due to the “extraordinarily rough, steep, and stony character of the route.” Gammell reported that on a previous trip via this same route he left behind a crippled horse and came close to losing another.(6) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In his written report Simpson recommended that a military work crew remove the fallen and standing timber along a thirty-six mile stretch of this route in order to accommodate the passage of wagons. Lacking personal knowledge of the Uinta Valley, Simpson relied on Gammell’s experience to describe the area:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The valley of the Uinta, <strong>Mr. Gammell</strong> represents as also being very fine, all the way to Green River, being covered with groves of large cottonwood, beautiful grass, and so lying as to be easily irrigated. It is, besides, accounted as one of the warmest valleys in the Territory. He says it is from one to ten miles wide. Both the Du Chesne Fork and the Uinta River, where they meet, are about 50 feet wide, and from one to three feet deep. The former is said to contain trout and white-fish, the white-fish weighing from 10 to 25 pounds. The valleys of these rivers are deeply seated between inclosing heights, varying from 200 to 500 feet. The formation of the rocks is like that of White Clay Creek, whitish sandstones alternating with sandstone shales.(7) </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Captain Simpson and his party returned to the main camp in Heber Valley, then broke camp and headed to Fort Bridger. The main party, including Gammell, traveled the route that was opened the previous fall and arrived at Fort Bridger on August 25. Simpson with a small group of seven, explored a new route via Kamas Prairie (now Utah route 150), and arrived a day later. This completed Simpson’s assignment in the Great Basin. From Fort Bridger he returned to his wife in Minnesota. A few years later, as chief engineer of the Interior Department, he oversaw the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">It seems appropriate to acknowledge the toughness, determination, and courage of not only Simpson, but also of men like James Gammell, who made such an important contribution to exploration and road building in the Great Basin. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">___________________________</div><ol><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Timpanogos River is now called the Provo River.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Round Prairie was the earliest name of a valley later called Provo Valley. It became known as Heber Valley after Heber City was named in honor of Heber C. Kimball. A small settlement of ten families called Heber City had sprung up since Simpson’s first exploration of this valley the previous fall. </span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Torbert Creek campsite was east of Soldier Hollow, on the bend of the Provo River, and would now be under Jordanelle Reservoir. </span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Simpson, J. H., <em>Report of Explorations Across the Great Basin of the Territory of Utah for a Direct Wagon Route from Camp Floyd, to Genoa, in Carson Valley, in 1859</em>, Washington, 1876, p. 139.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This route may correspond to present-day Utah state road 35 and US 40. Click on this link for a map of the area: <a href="http://mapq.st/mr8Oyl">http://mapq.st/mr8Oyl</a> </span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Simpson Report, p. 140.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Simpson Report, p. 141.</span></div></li>
</ol>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-526718566533710055.post-33855699992443468542011-05-06T17:22:00.026-04:002011-08-17T10:30:46.813-04:00Mountain Meadows Massacre <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ve8thkhkNPcx4YBzcx59Lu2LkbQFpIwwlFQmM9LJHHHOrwWNF2LLp-WN2ZlUk90ZFya0atpk8DE8eEsIqdKUq2AIJT12R5-7IzcEOiDPTUQi7XnOv_AN96DtYfo_cGesPlhSff0QUjU9/s1600/MountainMeadowsByPhilKonstantin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="35" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ve8thkhkNPcx4YBzcx59Lu2LkbQFpIwwlFQmM9LJHHHOrwWNF2LLp-WN2ZlUk90ZFya0atpk8DE8eEsIqdKUq2AIJT12R5-7IzcEOiDPTUQi7XnOv_AN96DtYfo_cGesPlhSff0QUjU9/s400/MountainMeadowsByPhilKonstantin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mountain Meadows, Utah<br />
(from Wikimedia Commons)</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The massacre at Mountain Meadows (1857) in southern Utah was the next criminal case Judge Cradlebaugh sought to investigate. As part of his investigation, he visited the site of the massacre in May 1859 with a military escort and with James Gammell as his Indian interpreter. The expedition with Cradlebaugh has forever linked James with the Mountain Meadows trials, at least in family lore. Tradition has it that James presented evidence that Brigham Young had ordered the massacre, and because of what he revealed, he was excommunicated from the Mormon Church. However, in the most recent (2008) and most thoroughly researched account of the massacre, James Gemmell is only a footnote.(1) Researcher Richard Turley reported that Gammell’s name did not appear in any of the surviving trial transcripts.(2)</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The complete story of the massacre, its historical context, its victims, its perpetrators, and its aftermath, could fill several volumes. Just a brief summary is given here as it relates to the life of James Gammell.</div><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFROh01QpjQNE_uPOtlzW63bFfhjh6heLdqmyLdZ_qXGqam0gVZm5F4-hWQHhYvBBGZcCvF_tmoVVMiErT047BbN4RrO3Q9CsPmwgR570wpR0hlJ117L8U2e_iuWXQ-m9WSvjluF-gAqq/s1600/800px-Mmm_1999_cairn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFROh01QpjQNE_uPOtlzW63bFfhjh6heLdqmyLdZ_qXGqam0gVZm5F4-hWQHhYvBBGZcCvF_tmoVVMiErT047BbN4RrO3Q9CsPmwgR570wpR0hlJ117L8U2e_iuWXQ-m9WSvjluF-gAqq/s400/800px-Mmm_1999_cairn.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mountain Meadows: A monument to the victims<br />
(from Wikimedia Commons)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The Mountain Meadows massacre could be called the perfect storm, given the number of coinciding events that preceded this horrific crime. The Utah War, although it was settled peaceably, had several unfortunate consequences. One indirect, but tragic, result was the massacre. In 1857 streams of emigrant wagon trains, many of them from anti-Mormon states like Missouri and Arkansas (where Parley P. Pratt had just been murdered), were traveling through Utah Territory on their way to a better life in California. About the same time that the small southern settlements got word of the approaching United States Army, the Fancher wagon train from Arkansas was passing through Utah. Dark clouds of suspicion and fear hung over the Mormon settlements. Had the Fancher group sensed the level of war hysteria among the locals when it set up its camp thirty-five miles southwest of Cedar City, some members of the party would not have chosen to antagonize the Mormons with their demands for supplies and their blatant anti-Mormon comments. But hysteria prevailed, and the situation spiraled out of control. Local militiamen decided to attack the Fancher train. They also enlisted the help of the Paiute Indians by promising them plunder. Local Mormon leaders, including John D. Lee and Isaac Haight, brought the matter before the local council, who vetoed the whole idea. Lee and Haight ignored the council’s decision and went ahead with a plan to have the Indians attack and then lay the blame completely on them. Several of the emigrants were killed in the attack, but one man, returning to the camp on horseback, saw that there were white men involved. Lee and the other conspirators were now in panic mode. The rest of the bloody massacre was the result of the cover-up of their original deceit. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The Fancher party circled their wagons and held off their attackers for five days. The Mormon militiamen who were involved finally drew them out of their fortress by waving a white flag of truce. However, the truce was only a ploy. They asked the party to march in single file, women and children first, followed at a distance by the men. When the signal "Halt" was given, the militia fired at close range, killing all except the seventeen youngest children. The final day of the siege was September 11, 1857.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">On September 9, the local Mormon council had sent an express rider, James Haslam, to Salt Lake with a letter explaining the situation to Brigham Young and asking his advice. President Young sent instructions to “let them go in peace,” but Haslam didn’t return with the reply until two days after the bloody deed was done. When Isaac Haight, one of the leaders of the attack, read Brigham’s message, he sobbed like a child, “Too late! Too late!”(3)</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Note: </strong>For further reading see the most recent and well-researched account of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Check out the Amazon.com link on the right-hand side of this page.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Judge Cradlebaugh convened a grand jury investigation of the massacre in March 1859 in Provo, but the jury declined any indictments. The judge then decided to hold court in Cedar City, where he would have access to key witnesses. He attempted to arrest John D. Lee and two others, but they had fled. By overstepping his judicial authority, Cradlebaugh antagonized U.S. District Attorney Wilson:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Attorney General Black in Washington, D.C., said that it was not Cradlebaugh's job to determine whom to prosecute or when to call out the troops. He instructed U.S. District Attorney Wilson to "oppose every effort which any judge may make to usurp your functions. . . . If the judges will confine themselves to the simple and plain duty imposed upon them by law of hearing and deciding the cases that are brought before them, I am sure that the business of the Territory will get along very well."…Cradlebaugh's grasping for prosecutorial power made prosecution nigh impossible. Prosecutors must work with judges to obtain warrants and convene grand juries, but Cradlebaugh would not cooperate. (4)</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The Civil War (1861) prevented any further trials, but the case was revisited in the 1870’s. A grand jury indicted nine men for their role in the massacre. Only John D. Lee, considered to be the leader and organizer of the murders, was tried and convicted. Lee was executed by firing squad in 1877 at the site of the massacre. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Concerning James Gammell’s role as a witness in the Mountain Meadows trials, there are two surviving accounts, both written at least twenty years after the incident, that seem to be the source of family legend. Stories seem to get better with the telling, but now it is possible to compare them with facts from reliable sources. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In one account Joseph C. Walker, writing many years after James death (1881), recalled stories that James told around the campfire in the winter of 1863-64: “Mr. Gemmell said that he was in Brigham Young’s office when a courier came to the office with the horrible news of the Mountain Meadow massacre.” [<em>Could this courier actually be James Haslam who brought a message to Brigham, not after, but before the massacre had occurred?]</em> </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Continuing, Walker wrote, “He [James] said he went with a party from Salt Lake City to Mountain Meadows and buried the dead. He said it was the most gruesome, pitiful, heart rending and sickening sight he had ever beheld…” [<em>James didn’t visit the site immediately after it happened. He was there in May 1859 with Judge Cradlebaugh. At that time some bodies had still not been buried. It was still a gruesome site</em>.] “This massacre, the foul deed that it was, was enacted in the year 1853 [<em>the actual year was 1857</em>]. The people of this train were all from Arkansas…Evedently [sic], Mr. Gemmell could not go into court and testify to only such part of the above statement as he either witnessed or heard, but his opportunity to receive information was of the best, he having been in Utah before any Mormons were.”(5) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The second account comes from James Gammell’s obituary in <em>The Dillon Tribune. </em>The article claims that James was in Brigham's office when Jacob Hamblin came in and reported the Arkansas train near Cedar City. James allegedly heard Brigham tell Hamblin that if he [Brigham] were in command of the Legion "he would wipe them out.” [<em>A meeting at Brigham’s office on September 1, involved Jacob Hamblin and ten Indian chiefs</em>.] <br />
<br />
James' obituary continues:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">About three weeks [<em>actually only ten days</em>] afterwards the Mountain Meadow massacre occurred which wiped out the Arkansas train, for which John D. Lee suffered the death penalty by being shot a few years ago [1877]… There were 125 bodies found afterwards and buried by the U.S. troops sent out for that purpose. Gen. Albert Johnson was in command and Judge Cradlebaugh was sent along to ascertain whether any white men were engaged in the massacre. The Indians said the Mormons incited them into it, and gave them the plunder...Bishop Jake Hamlin [Hamblin] lived within three miles of the battleground, and it was him that took the order from Brigham to John D. Lee. [<em>Jacob Hamblin, the Indian missionary and later Indian agent, could not have delivered orders from Brigham Young. Hamblin didn’t return to Mountain Meadows from Salt Lake City until September 18</em>.](6) The foregoing history came under Mr. Gemmell's immediate observation and was written down at his request and will no doubt be interesting to many.(7)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps the most reliable source of all is a letter written by James himself. Questions about his personal knowledge related to the massacre came up again in 1872, while he was living in Montana. Investigations were going on in Utah, and Montana officials were asked to question Gemmell. Worried about being compelled to go to Utah, he wrote to his old and trusted friend Feramorz Little, who would later become the mayor of Salt Lake City. As we know now, James was never summoned. In his letter he actually seemed surprised that anyone would have knowledge of what he said “in some of our whisky sprees.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sheridan M.T.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">October 14 1872</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mr. Feramore Little</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Salt Lake City</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dear Sir</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> I have been very much annoyed lately by the officials of Montana, as they say through the request of their Friends in Utah, to accertain [sic] of me what took place, and what was said in President Youngs office, on my arrival from Texas, between Jacob Hamlen President Young and others, in regard to the Arkansas Train then passing through the southern settlements of the trouble they had with the Inhabitants, and of their boasting, of Parley been [sic] killed in their neighbourhood before they left. And of them threatening to Poison the springs and what Conversation took place between the President Hamlen and others at that time in the Presidents Office and if I knew what was the purpose of the Instructions sent South, and if I thought the massacre was in retaliation for the killing of Parley, and of what I remembered of the evidence gleaned from the Indians and others from Judge Cradlebaugh when I was his Interpreter, when he was holden [sic] Court in Cedar City. Now where they got the Knowledge to interrogate me in this matter, is a mystery I think they must have got it from Bill Hickman, in some of our whiskey sprees when we was togeather [sic] in Echo Canyon, but thank God those sprees are at a end for I have not drank any whiskey for over two years. Now, Ferry I expect to be put in restraint and compelled to go to Utah daily, and give evidence in that affair. I would much rather go to the end of the Earth, or Texas, than be compelled to go down there for that purpose, [but] go I must as that would be the only way I have of avoiding them, but I am dead broke as usual [and] have not the means of leaving a large family, please write as soon as you receive this. And give me Council for the best.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From your old Friend</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Gemmell (8)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">__________________________</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walker, Turley and Leonard, <em>Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy</em>, Oxford, 2008, p. 344, footnote #108.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Scott, Stuart D., “A Frontier Spirit: The Life of James Gemmell”, p. 92.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">For a review of <em>Massacre at Mountain Meadows</em>, by a friend, Craig Matteson, one of Amazon’s top reviewers, click on this link: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3R68CZXY063EQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm">http://www.amazon.com/review/R3R68CZXY063EQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm</a> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">For a scholarly review by Robert H. Briggs, click on this link: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://mimobile.byu.edu/?m=5&table=review&vol=20&num=2&id=726&q=parrish-potter">http://mimobile.byu.edu/?m=5&table=review&vol=20&num=2&id=726&q=parrish-potter</a></span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://fairmormon.org/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre/Prosecution/Was_prosecution_blocked_by_the_Church"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://fairmormon.org/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre/Prosecution/Was_prosecution_blocked_by_the_Church</span></a></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Joseph C. Walker Papers, pp.46-50.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Brooks, Juanita, <em>The Mountain Meadows Massacre</em>, 1950, p. 42.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Gemmell obituary, <em>The Dillon Tribune</em>, April 9, 1881. William Wheeler quoted the obituary in his account. Wheeler conducted his interview shortly before James’ death (1881), but it was probably not published until 1896.</span></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Gemmell letter to Feramorz Little, Brigham Young Papers, MS 1234, LDS Archives. Feramorz Little may never have received this letter. He left Salt Lake City on a journey to Palestine on October 15, 1872, the day after James Gammell wrote it. This may explain why the letter ended up in Brigham Young's papers. </span></div></li>
</ol></div>Lizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05885776562484882873noreply@blogger.com1