In 1953, Warner Bros. Studios released the musical extravaganza Calamity Jane starring Doris Day as the boisterous, boastful, gun-toting Calamity and Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok, her not-so-secret crush. It is a fun movie with plenty of dancing and romance, but the only part of the film that remotely resembles the life of Calamity Jane is her habit of firing guns in bars, which at one time was welcome behavior in Wild West towns as Calamity's true, wild personality was known to attract large crowds to small town saloons.
From the day she was born, Calamity Jane was different from other women of the time. She had a special kind of energy that attracted friendships with men, but discouraged the same with women. Unfortunately, her wild social behavior eventually was her downfall. Like many of the notorious wild men of the West, Calamity spent her last days suffering terribly from years of hard drinking and heavy smoking.
There is so much about the life of Calamity Jane that remains a mystery. Biographer James D. Horan detailed the life of Calamity Jane in a collection of essays titled Heroic & Outrageous Women where he referred to her as "the most notorious woman in American frontier history. According to Horan, Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Canary, or Cannary, or Canarray, on May 1, 1852. In addition to the spelling of her name, her birth date and birthplace are also debated. Anyone who has tried to trace their family's genealogy will know immediately the source of this confusion--census records at that time were handwritten, often with very bad handwriting, and census takers did not always ask for the spelling of a name.
In her autobiography, titled Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane, she begins her life story by stating, "My maiden name was Marthy Cannary. I was born in Princeton, Missourri, May 1st, 1852. Father and mother were natives of Ohio. I had two brothers and three sisters, I being the oldest of the children." She also describes her childhood fondness for horses and her keen ability to aim and shoot a gun. Although her talents with both horses and guns are well-documented, it is doubtful that Calamity Jane actually wrote these words as it is well known that Calamity Jane could not read or write.
There are few documented details about the early years of Calamity Jane, though it is known that she started her life, and ended her life, as a drifter. It is also known that one of her first employers was the Union Pacific Railroad. She must have been very young when she worked for the railroad as this was prior to her 1869 arrival in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Cheyenne was a bustling metropolis in the Wild West, the home of many wealthy men and women, and Calamity made quite an impact on the town as she was already wearing men's pants, chewing tobacco, spitting like a mule and drinking in the local saloons. She was, however, welcomed in bars as her wild antics--shooting mirrors, shouting and bragging--attracted customers. Over the next few years she is known to have lived in many Western towns, and worked many jobs. Some say she was attractive when she was younger, a dark-eyed beauty. Others say that it was fitting that she dressed like a man as she looked like one, too. This is not, however, how her fans wished to see her, then or now. For instance, in the 1936 film The Plainsman, Calamity Jane is played by the great Hollywood beauty Jean Arthur, and Wild Bill Hickok is played by Gary Cooper whose character clearly finds her attractive in the film, but has great difficulty expressing his feelings for her. Again, the stories told about Calamity Jane are as varied as the stories she told about herself.
Around 1873 it is believed that Calamity left Cheyenne to work as a mule skinner, a slang term for one who drives mules, but it is also possible she went to work on a cattle drive. She was then spotted in Abilene and later in Hays City, Kansas before making her way up to Montana. In Montana she made friends with Dr. W. A. Allen who years later commented on her dress and behavior, which was considered shocking and outrageous for the times. "She swore, she drank, she wore men's clothing. Where can you find a woman today who doesn't do such things? She was just fifty years ahead of her time," Allen said.
In her autobiography, Calamity claims to have been a scout for General Custer at Fort Russell, Wyoming in 1870, which is unlikely. However, she also says this was the first time she started wearing men's clothing, so it's possible she was able to blend in with the rest of the men. She claims to have been one of the best shots and the most reckless and daring horseback riders of her time, which seems to be a reasonable claim, as well. She bragged in her autobiography--and in many Western saloons--that she once saved the life of a fellow soldier under highly questionable circumstances. She said that she was with a group of soldiers trying to escape from marauding Indians. She was riding in front when she heard a shot, turned, and saw a man named Captain Egan slumped in his saddle. She rode back to Egan and caught him as he fell from his horse, then carried him back to the fort. Captain Egan, she says, is the one who named her Calamity Jane. It is this story that raises the most questions, and eyebrows, regarding the veracity of Calamity Jane's autobiography. How could she possibly have had the strength to catch a falling man in her arms while controlling both her horse and his? (In the Doris Day film, Wild Bill Hickok teases Calamity Jane about this story.)
Calamity also claims to have worked as a Pony Express rider, carrying mail from Deadwood for fifty miles through the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a dangerous route, but Calamity explains that she experienced little trouble due to her reputation for her quick shot and careful aim--no one wanted to mess with her! She spent the rest of that summer hanging out with her friends Wild Bill Hickok and Charlie Utter. It is also known that she spent a short time working at the brothel of local Black Hills madam Dora DuFran during this time, as well.
Unfortunately, on August 2, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok was shot and killed by Broken Nose Jack McCall during a poker game at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood. (Oddly, when he died, Hickok was holding a Dead Man's hand of two black aces and two black eights. A few days before his death, Hickok told friends that he had a premonition he would die that night.) In her autobiography, Calamity claims she heard of Bill's death and ran from her room without her weapons. She tracked McCall to Shurdy's Butcher Shop and threatened him with a meat cleaver until other men arrived to lock him up in a log cabin. Calamity claims McCall escaped from the cabin and was later caught in Yankton and hung. Historians, however, state that McCall was tried and acquitted for Hickok's murder, then arrested a second time in Yankton when he bragged about the murder, retried, and hung for the murder.
It is clear that Calamity Jane tries hard to make herself out to be the hero in every tall tale in her short book, but this type of writing was expected from dime novels about the Wild West. If her book was published in contemporary times she might face a few lawsuits for libel and find herself chased off the Oprah show, but at the time it was published, in the late 1800s, her readers accepted her stories as truth. In the eyes of her readers, in the minds of her fans, Calamity Jane was a Wild West hero.
Following Hickok's death, however, there are also a few well-documented instances of Calamity Jane's true heroism. For instance, she did rescue passengers in an overland stagecoach that was attacked by Plains Indians. She distracted the Indians then took over the reins of the stagecoach--the driver was killed during the attack--and delivered the passengers safely to Deadwood. She also served as a health worker during a smallpox epidemic in Deadwood in 1876 and showed great compassion toward the men she nursed back to health. She also worked desperately to save the life of a young man, C.H. Robinson, who would later appear again in the story of Calamity Jane.
Sadly, according to historian James D. Horan, Calamity spent many years moving from saloon to saloon, drowning her sorrows in massive quantities of alcohol. She eventually made her way back to Wyoming where she worked on a cattle ranch, then down to El Paso where she claims in her autobiography that she met and married Clinton Burk (Burke) in 1885. (A Montana newspaper, the New Northwest, also challenged this story, claiming she had been married twice--once to a man named Washburne and a second time to Lt. Summers, who was the father of her child. Others claim she was married three times, and Calamity told many of her friends that Wild Bill Hickok was the father of her child. Some believed they were secretly married. The mysteries about the life of Calamity Jane are truly endless.)
According to Calamity, she gave birth to a daughter on October 28,l 1887. She says that she and her husband moved to Boulder, Colorado and managed a hotel until 1893. In 1893, Calamity appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show with many other great western performers, such as sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Calamity was working as a storyteller, but again, her drinking interfered with her ability to perform.
Calamity and her daughter arrived in Deadwood, without her husband, in 1896. The many years of hard drinking and smoking had changed her appearance and her friends were shocked and saddened to see these changes. One acquaintance, Ben Arnold, famous for his own exploits as an Indian fighter, wrote that she had changed so much he did not recognize her.
Nevertheless, Calamity was offered lucrative employment. She was hired to play herself in a traveling show about the Wild West. In her autobiography, she tells of her first "engagement" held at the Palace Museum, Minneapolis, January 20th, 1896. According to a 2001 article in Deadwood Magazine titled "Girls of the Gulch," Calamity's autobiography made its appearance about the same time she started performing in the show. Her first performance in the show also marks the end of her story in her autobiography.
Calamity drank so heavily during her time with the show that she was fired. She was broke, and she gave away copies of her autobiography in saloons to pay for her alcohol. In 1899, she once again arrived in Deadwood with her daughter. Her friends, saddened by her degradation and concerned for her child, arranged a benefit on her behalf. Calamity abandoned her child at a hotel and spent the evening drinking at a local saloon until she spent all of the money from the benefit. Her child was turned over to foster parents.
Calamity Jane was next spotted at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. In 1902, explorer Louis Freeman found her in Yellowstone. They shared a few beers, then he took photographs of Calamity smoking a cigar. In 1903, Calamity returned to Madam Dora DuFran's in the Black Hills, cooking and doing laundry for the other women who worked at the brothel.
In August of 1903, Calamity Jane failed to show up for work. She was found in her room at the Calloway Hotel, dying. She told her friends that she wanted to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok and they complied. According to James D. Horan, her funeral is believed to have been one of the largest to ever take place in Deadwood. The rector of the Mt. Moriah Cemetery in South Dakota where she is buried, the man who closed her coffin, was C.H. Robinson, the young boy she had saved during the smallpox epidemic so many years before in Deadwood.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
Thank you so very much!
I believe I have repaired my blog with the assistance and advice of my many readers--there was a bad url in one of the posts and for some reason this shut the entire blog down. I would not have found it without your suggestions. Thank you all so much--you are so kind!
Household Tips for Living in the Old West
In the early 1800s, four fifths of all Americans worked on farms, either as the owner of the farm or hired hands. To say such work was exhausting is an understatement and as the larger cities in the North opened more and more factories, many settlers abandoned their farms for industry jobs, including the women.
However, some women learned to thrive in their new roles on small farms, often by sharing household tips, such as these offered by a Mrs. Childs printed in The American Frugal Housewife in 1836. Some of these tips are particularly interesting to me as they are similar to advice we might offer our children today when they start their own families and move into their first home, tips such as covering the water pump in cold weather, which would be similar to the advice to insulate water pipes when the weather dips below freezing. Most of all, though, this list interests me because it is a quick glimpse into the lifestyles of women in the early to mid-1800s and the things that concerned them as housewives.
Household Tips by Mrs. Childs
Look frequently to the pails to make sure that nothing is thrown to the pigs which should have been in the grease-pot. See that the beef and pork are always under brine, and that the brine is sweet and clean. [Brine is water filled with large quantities of salt.] An ox's gall [derived from the bile of oxen and often used in mixing paints] will set any color--silk, cotton, or woolen. I have seen the colors of calico, which faded at one washing, fixed by it. Where one lives near a slaughterhouse the gall can be bought for a few cents.
Eggs will keep almost any length of time in lime-water properly prepared. One pint of coarse salt and one pint of unslacked lime to a pailful of water. If there be too much lime, it will eat the shells from the eggs; and if there be a single egg cracked, it will spoil the whole. They should be kept covered with lime-water, and in a cold place. I have seen eggs, thus kept, perfectly sweet and fresh at the end of three years. [I think I would take her word on that one. A three year old egg does not sound appealing! However, if you are traveling by ship or in a wagon train, this type of advice on food preservation could save your life!]
If feather beds smell badly, or become heavy from want of proper preservation of the feathers or old age, empty them and wash the feathers thoroughly in a tub of suds, then spread them in your garret [I believe this refers to the attic.] They will dry, and be as light and as good as new. New England rum, constantly used to wash the hair, keeps it very clean and free from disease [No doubt!] and promotes hair growth a great deal more than Macassar oil. [Macassar Oil was a popular compound oil used as a hair conditioner and stylist in the Victorian Era that continued in use during the years of the Old West.]
Barley straw is the best for beds; dry corn husks, slit into shreds, are far better than straw. In winter, always set your pump as high as possible before you go to bed. Except in very frigid weather this keeps the handle from freezing. When there is reason to apprehend extreme cold, do not forget to throw a rug or horse blanket over your pump; a frozen pump is a comfortless preparation for a winter's breakfast.
Very hard and durable candles are made in the following manner: Melt together ten ounces of mutton tallow, a quarter of an ounce of camphor, four ounces of beeswax, and two ounces of alum. Candles of these materials burn with a very clear light. [I have made my own herbal candles. It is a bit time-consuming, but fun and rewarding.]
Honey mixed with pulverized charcoal is said to be excellent to clean the teeth and make them white. [I've recently read suggestions for honey and charcoal separately as tooth whiteners on a holistic website.] Limewater with a little Peruvian bark is very good to be occasionally used by those who have defective teeth, or an offensive breath. [And I thought they simply pulled "defective teeth" in the Wild West!]
However, some women learned to thrive in their new roles on small farms, often by sharing household tips, such as these offered by a Mrs. Childs printed in The American Frugal Housewife in 1836. Some of these tips are particularly interesting to me as they are similar to advice we might offer our children today when they start their own families and move into their first home, tips such as covering the water pump in cold weather, which would be similar to the advice to insulate water pipes when the weather dips below freezing. Most of all, though, this list interests me because it is a quick glimpse into the lifestyles of women in the early to mid-1800s and the things that concerned them as housewives.
Household Tips by Mrs. Childs
Look frequently to the pails to make sure that nothing is thrown to the pigs which should have been in the grease-pot. See that the beef and pork are always under brine, and that the brine is sweet and clean. [Brine is water filled with large quantities of salt.] An ox's gall [derived from the bile of oxen and often used in mixing paints] will set any color--silk, cotton, or woolen. I have seen the colors of calico, which faded at one washing, fixed by it. Where one lives near a slaughterhouse the gall can be bought for a few cents.
Eggs will keep almost any length of time in lime-water properly prepared. One pint of coarse salt and one pint of unslacked lime to a pailful of water. If there be too much lime, it will eat the shells from the eggs; and if there be a single egg cracked, it will spoil the whole. They should be kept covered with lime-water, and in a cold place. I have seen eggs, thus kept, perfectly sweet and fresh at the end of three years. [I think I would take her word on that one. A three year old egg does not sound appealing! However, if you are traveling by ship or in a wagon train, this type of advice on food preservation could save your life!]
If feather beds smell badly, or become heavy from want of proper preservation of the feathers or old age, empty them and wash the feathers thoroughly in a tub of suds, then spread them in your garret [I believe this refers to the attic.] They will dry, and be as light and as good as new. New England rum, constantly used to wash the hair, keeps it very clean and free from disease [No doubt!] and promotes hair growth a great deal more than Macassar oil. [Macassar Oil was a popular compound oil used as a hair conditioner and stylist in the Victorian Era that continued in use during the years of the Old West.]
Barley straw is the best for beds; dry corn husks, slit into shreds, are far better than straw. In winter, always set your pump as high as possible before you go to bed. Except in very frigid weather this keeps the handle from freezing. When there is reason to apprehend extreme cold, do not forget to throw a rug or horse blanket over your pump; a frozen pump is a comfortless preparation for a winter's breakfast.
Very hard and durable candles are made in the following manner: Melt together ten ounces of mutton tallow, a quarter of an ounce of camphor, four ounces of beeswax, and two ounces of alum. Candles of these materials burn with a very clear light. [I have made my own herbal candles. It is a bit time-consuming, but fun and rewarding.]
Honey mixed with pulverized charcoal is said to be excellent to clean the teeth and make them white. [I've recently read suggestions for honey and charcoal separately as tooth whiteners on a holistic website.] Limewater with a little Peruvian bark is very good to be occasionally used by those who have defective teeth, or an offensive breath. [And I thought they simply pulled "defective teeth" in the Wild West!]
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Artist Alfred Jacob Miller: Creating the American West
There are many ways to define the creation of a country. A country is built by its people, cultures, history, literature, and art. For instance, when the United States was still in its early stages of formation, it didn't have centuries of literary greats like England's William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe and it certainly did not have a vast collection of artistic masterpieces like those created by Peter Paul Rubens or Hans Holbein. The work of Alfred Jacob Miller is of great importance to Americans because he was dedicated to documenting the early years of this country--the people, towns, and land--when it was first forming.
Alfred Jacob Miller was born in 1810, the son of a local grocer in Baltimore, Maryland. Miller's father raised him on the types of tales that thrill young boys, stories of mountain men sharing meals with local Indian tribes and wrestling giant grizzly bears. These stories were so vivid in Miller's young mind that he decided to dedicate his life to paint, to document the early years of the American Old West, the Wild West.
Miller was in luck. He had talent. His early work showed such great promise that his family encouraged him to pursue his dream--a career in art. He was blessed to be able to study with the talented portrait artist Thomas Sully in Baltimore, and his work soon attracted the attention of the wealthy entrepreneur Johns Hopkins who commissioned Miller for a portrait of a family member. Hopkins (Johns Hopkins University) and Baltimore merchant Robert Gilmor decided to sponsor Miller’s European education, which started in Rome, continued at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and possibly included some time in Switzerland. When Miller was 27 he returned to the United States and settled in New Orleans where he resumed his painting career.
In 1837, Miller received an invitation for adventure. He was approached by Sir William Drummond Stewart, a captain who served under Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. Stewart was friends with traders, trappers and mountain men in the Wyoming territory through his many travels and was planning to return to the territory with alcohol, cigars, and survival supplies for these friends. Drummond invited Miller to join him to make on-site sketches of his long-time companions. This was a dream come true for Miller who was eager for adventure.
Miller, Captain Stewart and his men traveled along the Platte and Missouri rivers near St. Louis to the end of the Oregon Trail in Wyoming territory. Miller recorded every personal encounter with his sketch pad, including meetings with Lakota, Shoshone, and Nez Perce. He made over 100 sketches of the first wave of European men to make their living off the lands of the American West, men whose livelihood would soon disappear as wave after wave of settlers moved in and the American West transformed into the Wild West we know so well today. Miller later used these sketches to make detailed oil paintings of the fur trappers and traders, paintings that were particularly valuable to adventurers who had also traveled through the Rockies in the early 1800s and treasured Miller's documentation of their past.
Miller made one trip through the Wyoming territory, his adventure with Captain Stewart and his men, but in that short period of time, Miller created American history by sketching some of the most famous mountain men of the Rocky Mountains. With paintings such as his 1837 "Bartering for a Bride," also known as "The Trapper's Bride," and "Medicine Circles," Miller also documented a moment that was rarely repeated in American history. Miller spent the rest of his life revising these images for the citizens of Baltimore in a more dramatic style, his signature style, that became popular for the times. Sadly, he retired from professional painting in 1872 and died two years later in 1874. He left behind a remarkable legacy. Miller created far more than simple works of art, Miller made history, creating a body of work that now represents the talent and abilities of American artists.
Alfred Jacob Miller was born in 1810, the son of a local grocer in Baltimore, Maryland. Miller's father raised him on the types of tales that thrill young boys, stories of mountain men sharing meals with local Indian tribes and wrestling giant grizzly bears. These stories were so vivid in Miller's young mind that he decided to dedicate his life to paint, to document the early years of the American Old West, the Wild West.
Miller was in luck. He had talent. His early work showed such great promise that his family encouraged him to pursue his dream--a career in art. He was blessed to be able to study with the talented portrait artist Thomas Sully in Baltimore, and his work soon attracted the attention of the wealthy entrepreneur Johns Hopkins who commissioned Miller for a portrait of a family member. Hopkins (Johns Hopkins University) and Baltimore merchant Robert Gilmor decided to sponsor Miller’s European education, which started in Rome, continued at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and possibly included some time in Switzerland. When Miller was 27 he returned to the United States and settled in New Orleans where he resumed his painting career.
In 1837, Miller received an invitation for adventure. He was approached by Sir William Drummond Stewart, a captain who served under Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. Stewart was friends with traders, trappers and mountain men in the Wyoming territory through his many travels and was planning to return to the territory with alcohol, cigars, and survival supplies for these friends. Drummond invited Miller to join him to make on-site sketches of his long-time companions. This was a dream come true for Miller who was eager for adventure.
Miller, Captain Stewart and his men traveled along the Platte and Missouri rivers near St. Louis to the end of the Oregon Trail in Wyoming territory. Miller recorded every personal encounter with his sketch pad, including meetings with Lakota, Shoshone, and Nez Perce. He made over 100 sketches of the first wave of European men to make their living off the lands of the American West, men whose livelihood would soon disappear as wave after wave of settlers moved in and the American West transformed into the Wild West we know so well today. Miller later used these sketches to make detailed oil paintings of the fur trappers and traders, paintings that were particularly valuable to adventurers who had also traveled through the Rockies in the early 1800s and treasured Miller's documentation of their past.
Miller made one trip through the Wyoming territory, his adventure with Captain Stewart and his men, but in that short period of time, Miller created American history by sketching some of the most famous mountain men of the Rocky Mountains. With paintings such as his 1837 "Bartering for a Bride," also known as "The Trapper's Bride," and "Medicine Circles," Miller also documented a moment that was rarely repeated in American history. Miller spent the rest of his life revising these images for the citizens of Baltimore in a more dramatic style, his signature style, that became popular for the times. Sadly, he retired from professional painting in 1872 and died two years later in 1874. He left behind a remarkable legacy. Miller created far more than simple works of art, Miller made history, creating a body of work that now represents the talent and abilities of American artists.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Popular Civil War Songs
The American Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865, during the prime years of the American Old West. In the early years of the war, marching songs became popular for both the North and the South. One such song is "Dixie's Land." Although some sources claim the song was written by Daniel Decatur Emmett in the early 1860s, there is evidence that the song was sung in Blackface (later, Vaudeville) minstrel shows as early as the 1850s.
Among the reasons Emmett's authorship is questioned is his delay in filing for copyright of the lyrics as well as his variations on how he came up with the lyrics. Nevertheless, sources still attribute the lyrics to Emmett. It's interesting to note that Emmett was a Northerner, though, and through the Civil War years, the song clearly represented the longings of the Southern soldiers to return to their homes.
Surprisingly, the song has six verses, but it was the chorus that seemed to elicit the strongest emotional response in the soldiers of the South: "Then I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie Land I'd take my stand, to live and die in Dixie! Away! Away! Away down South in Dixie!"
In 1861, Daniel Decatur Emmett did copyright another inspirational song, this one dedicated to the soldiers of the North. "Victory's Band" was, oddly enough, sung to the same tune as "Dixie's Land." This song reflected the increasingly vindictive feelings creeping into marching songs of the times, with lyrics such as, "We're marching under the flag of the Union, keeping step in brace communion! March away! March away! Away! Victory's band! Right down upon the ranks of rebels, Tramp them underfoot like pebbles, March away! March away! Away! Victory's band!"
One of the most emotionally exciting songs written during the Civil War, and my favorite, is the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was sung at President Abraham Lincoln's funeral, US Senator Robert Kennedy's funeral, and President Ronald Reagan's funeral.
The song was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1862. This song was set to the tune of a popular drinking song that had rather risque lyrics. Her decision was a wise one--Howe must have known the soldiers would all know that tune well! Indeed, she came up with the tune while listening to soldiers at a Union Army camp in Virginia. Howe and her husband were volunteers for the Sanitation Commission, which oversaw conditions for prisoners of war. They didn't have much authority to enact change, but they were known for their determination to improve the living conditions of prisoners. Howe heard the soldiers singing a song about abolitionist John Brown and composed her own lyrics to accompany the tune.
It is the first verse of this song that is most well-remembered: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, he has loosed his fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on."
Eventually, some commanders refused to allow soldiers to sing these favorite songs because they thought the songs made them miss their homes, therefore lowering morale. In spite of such prohibitions, the songs were sung, and new songs, sad songs, became popular as the war continued, such as Walter Kittridge's "Tenting on the Old Campground" composed in 1861. As the song begins, "We're tenting tonight on the old campground. Give us a song to cheer. Our weary hearts, a song of home, and friends we love so dear."
The chorus of this particular song is haunting. When you read the words, you can almost see the pale, gaunt faces of the starving soldiers, their emaciated bodies shivering in the dark and shadowy corners of the prison yards as they quietly sing the chorus, "Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, wishing for the war to cease; many are the hearts looking for the right to see the dawn of peace."
Among the reasons Emmett's authorship is questioned is his delay in filing for copyright of the lyrics as well as his variations on how he came up with the lyrics. Nevertheless, sources still attribute the lyrics to Emmett. It's interesting to note that Emmett was a Northerner, though, and through the Civil War years, the song clearly represented the longings of the Southern soldiers to return to their homes.
Surprisingly, the song has six verses, but it was the chorus that seemed to elicit the strongest emotional response in the soldiers of the South: "Then I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie Land I'd take my stand, to live and die in Dixie! Away! Away! Away down South in Dixie!"
In 1861, Daniel Decatur Emmett did copyright another inspirational song, this one dedicated to the soldiers of the North. "Victory's Band" was, oddly enough, sung to the same tune as "Dixie's Land." This song reflected the increasingly vindictive feelings creeping into marching songs of the times, with lyrics such as, "We're marching under the flag of the Union, keeping step in brace communion! March away! March away! Away! Victory's band! Right down upon the ranks of rebels, Tramp them underfoot like pebbles, March away! March away! Away! Victory's band!"
One of the most emotionally exciting songs written during the Civil War, and my favorite, is the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was sung at President Abraham Lincoln's funeral, US Senator Robert Kennedy's funeral, and President Ronald Reagan's funeral.
The song was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1862. This song was set to the tune of a popular drinking song that had rather risque lyrics. Her decision was a wise one--Howe must have known the soldiers would all know that tune well! Indeed, she came up with the tune while listening to soldiers at a Union Army camp in Virginia. Howe and her husband were volunteers for the Sanitation Commission, which oversaw conditions for prisoners of war. They didn't have much authority to enact change, but they were known for their determination to improve the living conditions of prisoners. Howe heard the soldiers singing a song about abolitionist John Brown and composed her own lyrics to accompany the tune.
It is the first verse of this song that is most well-remembered: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, he has loosed his fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on."
Eventually, some commanders refused to allow soldiers to sing these favorite songs because they thought the songs made them miss their homes, therefore lowering morale. In spite of such prohibitions, the songs were sung, and new songs, sad songs, became popular as the war continued, such as Walter Kittridge's "Tenting on the Old Campground" composed in 1861. As the song begins, "We're tenting tonight on the old campground. Give us a song to cheer. Our weary hearts, a song of home, and friends we love so dear."
The chorus of this particular song is haunting. When you read the words, you can almost see the pale, gaunt faces of the starving soldiers, their emaciated bodies shivering in the dark and shadowy corners of the prison yards as they quietly sing the chorus, "Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, wishing for the war to cease; many are the hearts looking for the right to see the dawn of peace."
Saturday, May 19, 2012
A Brief History and Explanation of the Manufacture of the Cowboy Hat
The cowboy hat is a shield from harsh elements, a representation of style, and a symbol that shows the wearer is an integral part of the American West. The cowboy hat says, "I am the Wild American West. I belong here."
Tracking the origin of the cowboy hat is like trying to come up with a standard recipe for cowboy stew--there are so many ingredients, it's difficult to say what does and does not belong in the official recipe. There is evidence that wide-brimmed hats with high crowns were worn by Mongolian horsemen in the 13th century!
As for the American Old West, the cowboy hat was not the only hat worn by those who lived and died in the Wild West. In fact, there were many hats worn in the Wild West, including sailor hats, uniform caps from the Civil War, and the Bowler, which Lucius Beebe referred to as "The Hat that Won the West" in an October 25, 1957 issue of The Deseret News. Beebe claims the Mormons wore "black, flat-brimmed sombreros" and the Wells Fargo Chief of Detectives wore a Derby, but photographic evidence shows that bowlers were more common to those who lived in town and cowboy hats were more common in Texas. The best way to explain it is to say that men wore whatever hat fit their personality and their role in the Wild West.
Credit for the invention of what we now know as the "cowboy hat" is most often given to John Batterson Stetson, who began his manufacturing operation of cowboy hats in the 1860s with $100 in a one-room building and called his company the John B. Stetson Company. He called his hats the "Hat of the West" or the "Boss of the Plains." Stetson started his company by creating his own hat from beaver pelts. He made his hat to protect his head from the elements while he panned for gold in Colorado. When he was 35, Stetson returned to Pennsylvania, perfected the design of his hat, and sent samples with a form letter to store owners asking for minimum orders of the "Hat of the West" before agreeing to shipment. Stetson's business approach, and his hat design, were remarkably successful. By 1886, Stetson was the largest hat manufacturer in the world.
A 2009 television documentary titled How do They do it? explains the process of cowboy hat manufacture with a visit to the Resistol Hat Company, which was started in Texas in 1920 by the young millionaire E.R. Byer. Byer invested in the talents of hat maker Harry Rolnick and the two formed a legendary partnership--Resistol. Resistol stands for "resist all weather."
To make their hats, Resistol uses a traditional method and machines that are over 100 years old and require a great deal of maintenance and special order replacement parts. Some of their machine parts were made in the 1820s. There are many machines involved, too, as the manufacture of a cowboy hat requires 200 different processes.
Although contemporary cowboy hats are made from many things, the Resistol cowboy hats are made from a mix of beaver, rabbit, and wild hare. The fur arrives in bales and is layered by hand, but shredded and mixed by machine. The end result is very dense, so the mix is placed in a blowing machine to separate the fibers. The product now looks like clothes dryer lint. A rolling machine then draws out long hair and creates a blanket of short fur, but it still has to be made into felt. If the product is rubbed between the palms of the hands with a bit of water and forms a mat that cannot be pulled apart, then it is considered ready for the next step.
The fur is weighed into hat-size portions and fed into a hat-forming machine and a giant vacuum sucks the fibers onto a spinning cone. The foreman, a craftsman whose skill has been passed down through generations, then gathers the cones, wraps them in damp cloth, slides a metal form on top and immerses the cones into vats of hot water, which loosens the fibers. The fabric is then sent through giant rollers that bind the fibers into the dense felt needed to form a hat. The fabric is rolled again, and the felt continues to constrict, becoming denser and stronger.
Now the hat must be shaped to look like the iconic cowboy hat. The felt is sent through a steamer and vibrating shaper that forms the felt into the hat. The hats are now "basic" cowboy hats, but basic isn't good enough for the American cowboy, so the hats are trucked 120 miles away to Hatco, Inc.'s finishing factory in Garland, Texas, the largest cowboy hat finishing factory in the world.
At the finishing factory, the basic felt cowboy hat is covered with shellac, a resin secreted by the female Lac Bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. The shellac not only helps shape the hat, it also gives the felt its shiny appearance. Next, the hats are air-dryed, then steamed and shaped for specific head sizes. Now it's time to form the crown, which insulates and protects the head of the cowboy from the rain. The felt is sent through yet another shaping machine to create the cowboy hat "dent" in the felt of the crown. The hat is then sent to the trim department for unique bands on the outside and protective linings sewn onto the inside bottom rim. Quality control checks the hat carefully, then the hat is boxed up and delivered to stores.
Although the cowboy hat may have had many influences contributing to its current state, it is now as unique as the American cowboy, one of a kind, a symbol of the American Wild West.
Tracking the origin of the cowboy hat is like trying to come up with a standard recipe for cowboy stew--there are so many ingredients, it's difficult to say what does and does not belong in the official recipe. There is evidence that wide-brimmed hats with high crowns were worn by Mongolian horsemen in the 13th century!
As for the American Old West, the cowboy hat was not the only hat worn by those who lived and died in the Wild West. In fact, there were many hats worn in the Wild West, including sailor hats, uniform caps from the Civil War, and the Bowler, which Lucius Beebe referred to as "The Hat that Won the West" in an October 25, 1957 issue of The Deseret News. Beebe claims the Mormons wore "black, flat-brimmed sombreros" and the Wells Fargo Chief of Detectives wore a Derby, but photographic evidence shows that bowlers were more common to those who lived in town and cowboy hats were more common in Texas. The best way to explain it is to say that men wore whatever hat fit their personality and their role in the Wild West.
Credit for the invention of what we now know as the "cowboy hat" is most often given to John Batterson Stetson, who began his manufacturing operation of cowboy hats in the 1860s with $100 in a one-room building and called his company the John B. Stetson Company. He called his hats the "Hat of the West" or the "Boss of the Plains." Stetson started his company by creating his own hat from beaver pelts. He made his hat to protect his head from the elements while he panned for gold in Colorado. When he was 35, Stetson returned to Pennsylvania, perfected the design of his hat, and sent samples with a form letter to store owners asking for minimum orders of the "Hat of the West" before agreeing to shipment. Stetson's business approach, and his hat design, were remarkably successful. By 1886, Stetson was the largest hat manufacturer in the world.
A 2009 television documentary titled How do They do it? explains the process of cowboy hat manufacture with a visit to the Resistol Hat Company, which was started in Texas in 1920 by the young millionaire E.R. Byer. Byer invested in the talents of hat maker Harry Rolnick and the two formed a legendary partnership--Resistol. Resistol stands for "resist all weather."
To make their hats, Resistol uses a traditional method and machines that are over 100 years old and require a great deal of maintenance and special order replacement parts. Some of their machine parts were made in the 1820s. There are many machines involved, too, as the manufacture of a cowboy hat requires 200 different processes.
Although contemporary cowboy hats are made from many things, the Resistol cowboy hats are made from a mix of beaver, rabbit, and wild hare. The fur arrives in bales and is layered by hand, but shredded and mixed by machine. The end result is very dense, so the mix is placed in a blowing machine to separate the fibers. The product now looks like clothes dryer lint. A rolling machine then draws out long hair and creates a blanket of short fur, but it still has to be made into felt. If the product is rubbed between the palms of the hands with a bit of water and forms a mat that cannot be pulled apart, then it is considered ready for the next step.
The fur is weighed into hat-size portions and fed into a hat-forming machine and a giant vacuum sucks the fibers onto a spinning cone. The foreman, a craftsman whose skill has been passed down through generations, then gathers the cones, wraps them in damp cloth, slides a metal form on top and immerses the cones into vats of hot water, which loosens the fibers. The fabric is then sent through giant rollers that bind the fibers into the dense felt needed to form a hat. The fabric is rolled again, and the felt continues to constrict, becoming denser and stronger.
Now the hat must be shaped to look like the iconic cowboy hat. The felt is sent through a steamer and vibrating shaper that forms the felt into the hat. The hats are now "basic" cowboy hats, but basic isn't good enough for the American cowboy, so the hats are trucked 120 miles away to Hatco, Inc.'s finishing factory in Garland, Texas, the largest cowboy hat finishing factory in the world.
At the finishing factory, the basic felt cowboy hat is covered with shellac, a resin secreted by the female Lac Bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. The shellac not only helps shape the hat, it also gives the felt its shiny appearance. Next, the hats are air-dryed, then steamed and shaped for specific head sizes. Now it's time to form the crown, which insulates and protects the head of the cowboy from the rain. The felt is sent through yet another shaping machine to create the cowboy hat "dent" in the felt of the crown. The hat is then sent to the trim department for unique bands on the outside and protective linings sewn onto the inside bottom rim. Quality control checks the hat carefully, then the hat is boxed up and delivered to stores.
Although the cowboy hat may have had many influences contributing to its current state, it is now as unique as the American cowboy, one of a kind, a symbol of the American Wild West.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Haunted Cheesman Park in Denver: Built on the Graves of Arapaho Indians and Denver's Pioneer Families
Period postcard of the Cheesman Memorial Pavilion in Cheesman Park, Denver, Colorado. Wikimedia/Public Domain
Aerial photograph of Cheesman Park, ca. 1908. Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.
The morbid history of Cheesman Park explains the hauntings. According to the Denver Public Library's history of Denver area cemeteries, Cheesman Park was the first organized cemetery in Denver. The cemetery grounds were selected by William Larimer and William Clancey in 1859. At this time, Denver was still part of the Kansas Territory, and the Kansas Territorial Legislature granted a charter for the cemetery on February 27, 1860. The site chosen for the cemetery was once an Arapahoe burial ground. The bodies were not moved from the original burial ground to make room for the new cemetery.
The new cemetery was called Mount Prospect. There are a few different versions as to who was the first miner buried in the cemetery, but it should not be forgotten that the cemetery was originally an Indian burial ground. However, most sources agree that the first man documented as buried in the cemetery was Jack O'Neill, who died in a gunfight on March 30, 1859. According to a news article on ABC7News The Denver Channel.com, John Stoefel, the man who murdered O'Neill, was buried the same day.
Mount Prospect was divided into separate sections to honor those of different religious beliefs. There was a section for Roman Catholic burials called Mount Calvary and a Jewish section called the Hebrew Burying and Prayer Ground. There was a Masonic and Improved Order of Odd Fellows. In addition, there was a section of Mount Prospect--later called Prospect Hill or City Cemetery--set aside for the Chinese residents, the poor, and members of a Civil War Union veterans organization.
After many years, the cemetery began to look rather shabby. According to the History of Cheesman Park, in 1870, the US Land Office determined that the cemetery's location was federal property and in 1872 the Land Office sold the property to the City of Denver. Clever Land Office! In 1890, the US Congress decided the graves, and bodies, should be moved to build a park, a park that would be named "Congress Park," of course.
Undertaker E.P. McGovern (the lowest bidder) was awarded a contract instructing him to remove the remains of the early residents of the cemetery and transfer them to the Riverside Cemetery. McGovern was to be paid $1.90 for each body he moved, but he discovered greater profits could be made by hacking up the bodies and bones and stuffing the remains into child-sized caskets rather than caskets made for adults, and sometimes using the same casket for more than one body.
According to one of my favorite websites, Legends of America, the task began on March 14, 1893, and in order to meet the time constraints of the contract, McGovern's crew often left body parts lying on city sidewalks and park grounds. Graves were looted, jewels were stolen, and the people of Denver were appalled and disgusted by what they saw, particularly when reporters and photographers from the Denver Republican Newspaper interviewed residents and photographed the bones on the sidewalks for a March 19, 1893 article titled "The Work of Ghouls!" The article also showed workers hacking up bodies, ripping clothing, and walking on remains while they did their work. The situation was quickly brought under control and one year later, work began to convert the cemetery into a park.
According to Keith Wheeler's The Townsmen (which provides an excellent, detailed description of the history of Denver) Walter Scott Cheesman was a real estate and railroad baron, but in his times, he was known for his work in organizing Denver's water supply, a very important task when establishing a city. Cheesman was a popular and generous man who was known for his concern for the people of Denver, and I must say, it is a shame that this wonderful man's name is forever associated with the morbid deeds that took place in the construction of the park. When Cheesman died in 1907, he was buried in Fairmount Cemetery near what was then known as Congress Park. His wife and daughter donated a pavilion in his honor to the City of Denver with the agreement that the name of a large portion of Congress Park should be renamed Cheesman Park.
There have been many reports of hauntings and ghost investigations at Cheesman Park, but the most famous involves the 1980 film The Changeling, starring George C. Scott, which is considered one of the scariest movies of all times (by me, at least!) due to the fact that many of the incidents used in the film are based on true events. The film was written by scriptwriter and television music arranger Russell Hunter, who lived for a short time in the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion at 1739 East 13th Avenue. The mansion was on the north edge of Cheesman Park and has now been replaced by condominiums.
In an October 26, 1986 interview with reporter Frances Melrose of The Rocky Mountain News, Hunter explained that he had originally rented the mansion for $200--he was told no one else wanted to live in the building, which explained the low price. Within a week of moving in, Hunter was awakened by strange sounds coming from the bedroom fireplace. He witnessed doors opening and closing on their own, and paintings that would fall to the floor for no apparent reason. He was told by a stranger that his house was inhabited by a poltergeist. He then met another stranger at a party who told him there was a third floor in the mansion that was blocked off, and Hunter could reach this floor through a second-floor closet. Hunter claimed he found the closet and a stairway leading to the third floor, which had a child's clothing trunk and the diary of a 9-year-old boy that partially explained the haunting.
These events are also shown in the film. According to the diary the boy was crippled and his family locked him up on the third floor because they were ashamed of him. He died on the third floor. After he read the diary, Hunter held a seance in the home and learned that the boy's favorite toy was a red ball, which also began to appear in the house, witnessed by many people. The seance revealed even more disturbing information--the child had been replaced by the family with an adopted child so they could collect the boy's inheritance. The medium conducting the seance said that the child was buried in the home and his body would be found beneath a gold medal that had his name and birthdate on it. The medal was found, but not the body, and the disturbing events continued until the building was destroyed.
The story does not end here. In November of 2010, workers on the Cheesman Park irrigation system found even more skeletons that remained from the original cemetery. According to a November 1, 2010 ABC News article titled "Skeletons From Old Cemetery Unearthed In Cheesman Park", workers found four more bodies that were never moved. No wonder there are so many reports of hauntings!
The new cemetery was called Mount Prospect. There are a few different versions as to who was the first miner buried in the cemetery, but it should not be forgotten that the cemetery was originally an Indian burial ground. However, most sources agree that the first man documented as buried in the cemetery was Jack O'Neill, who died in a gunfight on March 30, 1859. According to a news article on ABC7News The Denver Channel.com, John Stoefel, the man who murdered O'Neill, was buried the same day.
Mount Prospect was divided into separate sections to honor those of different religious beliefs. There was a section for Roman Catholic burials called Mount Calvary and a Jewish section called the Hebrew Burying and Prayer Ground. There was a Masonic and Improved Order of Odd Fellows. In addition, there was a section of Mount Prospect--later called Prospect Hill or City Cemetery--set aside for the Chinese residents, the poor, and members of a Civil War Union veterans organization.
After many years, the cemetery began to look rather shabby. According to the History of Cheesman Park, in 1870, the US Land Office determined that the cemetery's location was federal property and in 1872 the Land Office sold the property to the City of Denver. Clever Land Office! In 1890, the US Congress decided the graves, and bodies, should be moved to build a park, a park that would be named "Congress Park," of course.
Undertaker E.P. McGovern (the lowest bidder) was awarded a contract instructing him to remove the remains of the early residents of the cemetery and transfer them to the Riverside Cemetery. McGovern was to be paid $1.90 for each body he moved, but he discovered greater profits could be made by hacking up the bodies and bones and stuffing the remains into child-sized caskets rather than caskets made for adults, and sometimes using the same casket for more than one body.
According to one of my favorite websites, Legends of America, the task began on March 14, 1893, and in order to meet the time constraints of the contract, McGovern's crew often left body parts lying on city sidewalks and park grounds. Graves were looted, jewels were stolen, and the people of Denver were appalled and disgusted by what they saw, particularly when reporters and photographers from the Denver Republican Newspaper interviewed residents and photographed the bones on the sidewalks for a March 19, 1893 article titled "The Work of Ghouls!" The article also showed workers hacking up bodies, ripping clothing, and walking on remains while they did their work. The situation was quickly brought under control and one year later, work began to convert the cemetery into a park.
According to Keith Wheeler's The Townsmen (which provides an excellent, detailed description of the history of Denver) Walter Scott Cheesman was a real estate and railroad baron, but in his times, he was known for his work in organizing Denver's water supply, a very important task when establishing a city. Cheesman was a popular and generous man who was known for his concern for the people of Denver, and I must say, it is a shame that this wonderful man's name is forever associated with the morbid deeds that took place in the construction of the park. When Cheesman died in 1907, he was buried in Fairmount Cemetery near what was then known as Congress Park. His wife and daughter donated a pavilion in his honor to the City of Denver with the agreement that the name of a large portion of Congress Park should be renamed Cheesman Park.
There have been many reports of hauntings and ghost investigations at Cheesman Park, but the most famous involves the 1980 film The Changeling, starring George C. Scott, which is considered one of the scariest movies of all times (by me, at least!) due to the fact that many of the incidents used in the film are based on true events. The film was written by scriptwriter and television music arranger Russell Hunter, who lived for a short time in the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion at 1739 East 13th Avenue. The mansion was on the north edge of Cheesman Park and has now been replaced by condominiums.
In an October 26, 1986 interview with reporter Frances Melrose of The Rocky Mountain News, Hunter explained that he had originally rented the mansion for $200--he was told no one else wanted to live in the building, which explained the low price. Within a week of moving in, Hunter was awakened by strange sounds coming from the bedroom fireplace. He witnessed doors opening and closing on their own, and paintings that would fall to the floor for no apparent reason. He was told by a stranger that his house was inhabited by a poltergeist. He then met another stranger at a party who told him there was a third floor in the mansion that was blocked off, and Hunter could reach this floor through a second-floor closet. Hunter claimed he found the closet and a stairway leading to the third floor, which had a child's clothing trunk and the diary of a 9-year-old boy that partially explained the haunting.
These events are also shown in the film. According to the diary the boy was crippled and his family locked him up on the third floor because they were ashamed of him. He died on the third floor. After he read the diary, Hunter held a seance in the home and learned that the boy's favorite toy was a red ball, which also began to appear in the house, witnessed by many people. The seance revealed even more disturbing information--the child had been replaced by the family with an adopted child so they could collect the boy's inheritance. The medium conducting the seance said that the child was buried in the home and his body would be found beneath a gold medal that had his name and birthdate on it. The medal was found, but not the body, and the disturbing events continued until the building was destroyed.
The story does not end here. In November of 2010, workers on the Cheesman Park irrigation system found even more skeletons that remained from the original cemetery. According to a November 1, 2010 ABC News article titled "Skeletons From Old Cemetery Unearthed In Cheesman Park", workers found four more bodies that were never moved. No wonder there are so many reports of hauntings!
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