Tales Behind the Tombstones Read online

  The Emigrant Trail followed along the ridge and through Nevada City. The marking of this lone grave perpetuates the memory of all the lone graves throughout the state. Not only does the plaque signify the grave as a historic landmark, it stands as a symbol of sacrifice.

  Bodie’s Odd Fellows Cemetery Founded 1859

  “Show me your cemeteries, and I will tell you what kind of people you have.”

  —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790)

  For thousands of pioneers, the journey west was deadly. In 1875 gold miner P. Walheim wrote in his journal, “If the graves of the early settlers who died on the pilgrimage across the great plains into the wild frontier had been marked, one could have traveled the entire distance stepping on a gravestone with each stride.”

  The cemetery in the ghost town of Bodie, California, is filled with the graves of immigrants who came in search of a better way of life in the so-called “utopian west.” Disease claimed the lives of several interred there. Many others died from mining accidents or gunfights or perished in fires. Historical records disclose superficial facts about the untimely deaths of those prospectors and homesteaders and their families. Their loves, hopes, hates, joys, and sorrows faded away when they passed on.

  Bodie was one of the most notorious gold boomtowns in the Old West. Founded in 1859 by William S. Bodey, who discovered gold at the location, the find attracted thousands to the area north of Mono Lake. By 1865 the town’s population numbered more than ten thousand and included three general stores, six restaurants, a tin shop, a shoemaker business, and sixty-five saloons. The gold quartz mine around which the wild burg was situated yielded $75 million before being completely played out.

  In addition to law-abiding citizens who lived and worked in Bodie were numerous bad men. Gunfights were commonplace and crime was rampant. The local newspaper, the Bodie Daily Free Press, featured a section entitled “Last Night’s Killings,” which listed the lives lost in various violent scrapes. The lawless atmosphere and frequent gunplay earned the rowdy community the nickname “Shooter’s Town.”

  The citizens who permanently reside at the crowded cemetery came from all walks of life. The upstanding and commonly perceived as respected residents were laid to rest in the main portion of the graveyard. Soiled doves, drug addicts, bandits, and murderers were placed in the outcast section just beyond the gates of the main grounds.

  Some of the people buried in the “proper” area of the cemetery were escorted to their final resting place by horse-drawn carriages and brass bands. When the bones of the town’s founder were discovered in a spot near his initial mining claim, a lavish funeral followed. He was led to the graveyard in a massive black hearse pulled by a pair of plumed horses.

  In late 1880 the death of a popular member of the Chinese Masonic Lodge prompted his friends to arrange for a grand send-off. The end result was a chaotic and tragic adventure that made the San Francisco newspapers.

  The Bodie band, decked out in uniforms complete with military-style dress hats and plumes, marched in front of the casket as it was carried to the cemetery. Several days of rain prior to the occasion had left the streets muddy. Adorned in black and wearing overshoes, the procession slogged through the ankle-deep muck. As the musicians played a fitting dirge, mourners ran alongside the coffin distributing slips of red paper full of holes. According to Chinese custom, evil spirits had to pass through all the holes before they could gain access to the soul of the departed.

  At the conclusion of the graveside ceremonies, the crowd that had gathered started its way back into town. The band followed behind the hearse playing “The Girl I Left behind Me.” One of the horses pulling a carriage driven by a mourner who did not want to make the trip on foot became spooked by the drums and bolted away from the procession. The runaway vehicle charged over the rocky landscape, tossing the driver and passengers to and fro. The funeral attendees raced after the out-of-control carriage hoping for a chance to intervene. The coach sped down the main street of town, nearly tipping over as it rounded a corner, and throwing the passengers off in the process. The vehicle was finally brought to a stop by a giant log in the roadway. The front wheel hit the timber, and the entire rig careened over. In the aftermath of the event, three people were left dead and several others were seriously injured.

  Time has erased the inscriptions from many of the tombstones in the cemetery at Bodie. Only a few markers are left with any indication as to who the inhabitants were, how they died, and when. Partial information listed on select granite stones contains poems or Bible verses. The marker on the grave of a nameless woman who passed away in 1882 reads AMIABLE, SHE WON ALL. INTELLIGENT, SHE CHARMED ALL. FERVENT, SHE LOVED ALL. AND DYING SHE SADDENED ALL.

  The tombstone over W. S. Bodey’s grave doesn’t include his name either. It reads SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. In the midst of carving a sentiment on Bodey’s stone, the sculptor was informed that President Garfield had been assassinated.

  Shocked by the news and confused by the loss, the thoughtful inscription was etched.

  Among the known individuals that reside at Bodie’s Odd Fellows Cemetery are miners who lost their lives on the job. Swedish-born Alex Larson rests next to his coworker Norman McSwain. Larson survived an explosion at the mine that claimed the life of McSwain in July 1881. A few weeks after the blast, Larson fell backwards into an ore car and fell two hundred feet down a steep incline.

  Tombstones containing the names of various children who died are scattered throughout the burial grounds. The marker over Nathan Cook Gregory’s plot reads SUFFER LITTLE CHILD TO COME UNTO ME AND FORBID THEM NOT, FOR OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

  Murder victims such as Thomas Treloar reside at the cemetery as well, but his tombstone is too weathered to read. He was killed by his wife’s lover when confronted with the affair. The man shot Treloar in the head at point-blank range and fled the area. He was apprehended seven days later eight miles outside of town and hanged.

  Antone Valencia was shot down on Main Street by Jesus Revis after stabbing Jesus in the chest over a financial matter. Valencia died a few hours after having received the fatal wound. Both men were buried in the cemetery.

  In mid-December 1881 a gruesome mystery led authorities to search the plot of Mary Turner, a nineteen-year-old woman interred at the graveyard. The young bride had died on December 9, and her grieving husband had her laid to rest close to W. S. Bodey’s burial spot. Unbeknownst to him, and the majority of the townsfolk, her body had been exhumed by a local doctor and dissected.

  After the macabre physician had completed the procedure, he dropped the remains in a mine shaft. A night watchman discovered the body and alerted the sheriff. The offense was traced back to a Doctor Blackwood. His office was searched and the woman’s skull was found. Blackwood fled the area before he could be arrested and was never heard from again. Mary’s remains were returned to her original grave.

  Tombstones containing the names of prominent citizens stand beside Mary Turner’s marker. Painter Lottie Johl rests in the main section of the cemetery. Lottie was married to Eli Johl, co-owner of one of Bodie’s two butcher shops. The two met at a local dance hall where Lottie was one of the entertainers. Although her profession and past were questionable, Eli fell in love with her and the two wed.

  Eli was able to see beyond Lottie’s time spent as a divorced prostitute, but the prim and proper women in town could not. She was often the subject of scorn and ridicule. Eli showered his wife with gifts in spite of the criticism he took, and Lottie was grateful. She was left alone by her neighbors and the wives of her husband’s business associates and used the time to learn to paint. Once she mastered the talent, she became one of the most respected artists in the area. Lottie died on November 7, 1899, after being accidentally poisoned by a druggist.

  In between the times the local newspaper reported on the departed moving to the cemetery, it ran stories about the graveyard’s feuding caretakers. In the winter of 1879, the gravedigger and
the town undertaker battled it out in court over the cost of their services. According to the Bodie Daily Free Press, “an interesting case” involving Pat Brown, the gravedigger, and H. Ward, the undertaker, passed before the local courts on December 9. “From the testimony it appears that Brown has dug 30 graves, and charged $162 for the work,” the newspaper explained. “Twenty-five of these graves were occupied—the balance remaining tenantless. Brown claimed that all he received was $17. The question arose as to whether he should receive pay for the uninhabited grave he had dug.” A judge found in favor of Pat Brown and ordered that he be paid an additional $123 for the job he had done.

  On December 21, 1879, Brown took Ward to court again to force him to pay for further services rendered. According to the Bodie Daily Free Press, “during the trial it came out that it cost more to bury a rich man than a poor man.” The comment caused merriment among the spectators. It was explained that a rich man’s coffin was placed in a big box, but a poor man was buried in a box just the size of the body.”

  The jury returned a verdict for Brown, and Ward was ordered to pay the gravedigger the sum of $124.

  Death was a recurring part of time spent in the West and especially in Bodie. It was such a dominant presence in “Shooter’s Town” that, with few exceptions, it inspired little notice. When President James A. Garfield was killed on September 19, 1881, no one could overlook his passing. Businesses draped their storefronts with black bunting and funeral services were held. Following a graveside ceremony in which an empty coffin carried by twelve pallbearers was placed in the ground, a procession of civic groups, miners, and Civil War veterans paraded behind a hearse drawn by six coal-black horses. Thousands of sad and reverent citizens stood in silence as mourners filed past.

  In spite of the sobering truth that death was sure for all, some Bodie inhabitants possessed a sense of humor on the subject. Such frivolity was displayed in an article that ran in the December 3, 1879, edition of the Bodie Daily Free Press. It read, “KEEP THE GATE CLOSED! Someone left the gate of the cemetery open last night and let in a terrible draft of cold air. It was so cold that Bill Bodey got up and shut the gate with such a slam that both hinges were broken off. The residents of that section state that his language, on the occasion, was frightful.”

  The silent city that is the Bodie Odd Fellows Cemetery sits on a hill overlooking the sprawling town it was named after. Bodie became a state park in 1964 and is currently in an arrested state of decay. Thousands visit the site year-round and spend time walking through the graveyard inspecting the remnants of old wooden headboards that will eventually rot away.

  Rattlesnake Dick d. 1859

  “Rattlesnake Dick dies; but never surrenders . . . ”

  — THE NOTE FOUND IN DICK BARTER’S HAND

  WHEN HIS BODY WAS RECOVERED, 1859

  It was the harsh treatment miner Dick Barter received from his fellow forty-niners that drove him outside the law. The notorious self-proclaimed “Pirate of the Placers” had tried unsuccessfully to live out his days as an honest citizen, but bad luck and his unfortunate capacity for making enemies made that way of life impossible.

  By 1856 Barter had twice been in trouble over a matter of theft. Both times his innocence was proved, and he was released from custody. His reputation was ruined after that, however. He moved from Rattlesnake Bar in Placer County, California, to another mining camp in Shasta County and changed his name to Dick Woods. He was eventually recognized by a Bar resident passing through the area. Rumors about Barter being a thief caught up with him in his new home, and his bad luck started all over again.

  This time Barter told an acquaintance, “I can’t stand it any longer! I have been driven to it. Hereafter, my hand is against everyone and I suppose everyone is against me!” Barter decided that if he were to “have the name he might as well have the game too.”

  One night he poked his pistol into the face of a lonely traveler and got enough money to further his adventures in Northern California. Still young enough to require a seasoning of melodrama with his misdeeds, he told the victim that if anyone asked who robbed him to tell them it was Rattlesnake Dick.

  “Rattlesnake Dick” Barter was described as naturally able and clever but selfish, vain, and devoid of the ordinary sense of right and wrong. He was one of those men whose course in life was governed by conditions that shaped his actions. One of those conditions was his debonair good looks and high enthusiasm. This irritated the men around him who were soured by ill fortune.

  Rattlesnake Dick soon enlisted a group of six men to help him with his wholesale banditry and theft throughout the foothills of the Gold Country. The men robbed stores, cabins, stages, and gold shipments. Once honesty had been the rule throughout the canyons and gulches, a man could leave his tools and even his gold unguarded on his claim or in his cabin and no one thought of disturbing them. Now with Dick Barter and his gang on the loose, a new lawlessness sprang up throughout the area.

  Rattlesnake Dick’s career came to a bloody end on July 11, 1859. But just who fired the shot that killed the outlaw remains a mystery. Barter and his gang of highwaymen were all set to rob a stage full of gold when the sheriff and his deputies got the news of their whereabouts. Three deputies rode out to meet the bandits and were immediately engaged in a gunfight that left one deputy dead and another wounded. The deputy left standing insisted he had shot Rattlesnake Dick. He reported seeing him sway and come near to falling off his horse. The deputy was astonished to see the bandit rise in his saddle again and spur his horse down the road.

  The next morning the body of Rattlesnake Dick was found lying in the road, a mile out of Auburn, California. His horse was nowhere to be found. Barter had been shot twice, both bullets passed from his breast to his back. There was also a third bullet through the brain.

  Newspaper accounts at the time speculate that Rattlesnake Dick must have realized he was too badly wounded to live. They believed he shot himself or ordered his companion to do it.

  One month after Dick Barter was buried, an obscure item appeared in the local paper: “The horse of highwayman Rattlesnake Dick was found near Grass Valley, alive but with a bullet in the neck.”

  Historians record that this evidence pointed to the most tantalizing mystery in the whole story of Rattlesnake Dick. On that fatal July night, two of the deputies fired one shot each. The other deputy had no time to shoot. When Dick’s body was found, there were two wounds in the breast and one through the head, the last supposedly his own or his companion’s mercy shot. But whose bullet wounded the horse?

  Rattlesnake Dick was laid to rest at the county’s expense in the Old Auburn District Cemetery in Auburn in 1859. The outlaw’s remains were moved when the town’s new cemetery was founded in 1893. The tombstone over Barter’s grave includes a common verse used on many headboards in the Old West: NO FUR THER SEEK HIS MERITS TO DISCLOSE, NOR DRAW HIS FRAILTIES FROM THEIR DREAD ADOBE. THEY THERE ALIKE IN TREMBLING HOPE REPOSE, THE BOSOM OF HIS FATHER AND HIS GOD.

  Children of the Trail ca. 1850s

  Crude rock markers and wooden crosses dot the various trails used by settlers heading west in the mid-1800s. A significant number of those markers indicate the final resting places of children. The trek across the frontier was filled with peril. Violence, disease, and accidents claimed the lives of thousands of infants and toddlers. So uncertain were some pioneers of the longevity of their offspring born en route, they held off naming their babies until they were two years old.

  The leading causes of death for children younger than age six traveling overland were cholera, meningitis, and smallpox. A number of children suffered fatal injuries when they fell under wagon wheels, fell into campfires, fell down steep canyons, or drowned in river crossings.

  In 1852 a family from Kentucky who were caught up in the gold rush barely made it out of Independence, Missouri, when their four-year-old daughter died from meningitis. The leaders of the wagon train they were a part of stopped the caravan, and the men in the
party cut down a medium-size oak tree to use as a casket for the girl. As carefully as possible they cut a slab off one side and hollowed the tree trunk. The girl’s body was laid in the shell, and the slab was placed over it and nailed down. They dug a grave alongside the trail, lowered the impoverished casket, read a few words from the Bible, and prayed over the plot. After the grave was filled in, they flattened it by driving the wagons back and forth over the fresh earth. Pioneers believed this action kept wild animals from digging up the area. When the trip resumed the mother of the deceased child stood in the rear of the wagon, staring back at the spot where they had left her daughter. She continued staring at the spot hours after the grave was out of sight.

  An emigrant mother who lost her four-month-old child on the way to the fertile land of Oregon recorded a bit of the heartbreaking ordeal in her journal. In April 1852 Suzanna Townsend wrote, “we did feel very happy with her all the time she was with us and it was hard to part with her.”

  The journey across the rugged plains was so treacherous and risky some political leaders suggested only men should make the trip. In 1843 Horace Greeley wrote, “It is palpable homicide to tempt or send women and children over the thousand miles of precipice and volcanic sterility to Oregon.”

  Centuries-old cemeteries throughout the West are filled with small burial sites. More than one-third of the graves in the historic St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Grass Valley, California, represent children who have long since been gone. As in many gold-mining-camp cemeteries, marble cherubs are the most common overseers of the graves. Sculptured lambs representing innocence were also frequently used.

  The stories of the many lives that ended before they had a chance to make their mark on the frontier are lost forever. Only by their weathered tombstones are we able to know the tale of sacrifice to settle a new land.