Hello 1884!
They were wealthy cattlemen, poor cowboys, railroad men, journalists, educated ladies, architects of the future, missionaries and adventurers. All founders of the Magic City of the Plains and a new territory named Wyoming.
These fortune seekers in 1884, were true pioneers of Hot Springs County, Wyoming.
The Pioneers of Outlaw Country.
Cowboys, Lawmen and Outlaws… to the businessmen and women who all helped shape Wyoming.
Here are their stories.
Hello, 1884!
140 years ago, the Cheyenne Daily Sun projected that 1884 would be a profitable year for Cheyenne and for the new territory of Wyoming. Just the year before, electric lights had been installed in the Magic City of the Plains and visitors commented how the once wild and wooley town was beginning to tame down into a dignified city.
In 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad had selected the site as a supply depot along it route and the railroad’s influence remained strong 17 years later.
“Hello, 1884!” The editor of the Cheyenne Daily Sun proclaimed, predicting a bright future for their fledging territory and young city.
“Change cars for the new twelve month’s run- all aboard!” shouts Conductor Time this morning and again the passengers on life’s trains are whirling aboard into the future.
May the rails be smooth all the way, the wheels stay on the track and no smashups occur.
The past year has been one of great progression for the world and especially for the proud Magic City of the Plains and the wonderful territory of which it is the capital and metropolis.
It is pretty safe to predict that the young 1884, who is making his introductory bow this morning, will bring as he grows in to manly dignity and strength still greater prosperity and advancement. A new railroad will be built. The building booms will surpass in numbers and quality, according to the architects, the record of 1883. The immense cattle, coal, oil and the mineral resources of the territory will be more widely known and doubly developed. In short, the future promises greater things than those of the past and more of them. So no one need regret the coming of the New Year.”
Despite the modern era of 1884, many customs from the old world were still being observed and shared in this new world. From the Isle of Man, for instance, on the last night of the old year parties of young men would visit from house to house and sing a song wishing their hosts long life and happiness and plenty of potatoes and herrings, butter and cheese, that they might sleep well during the year and not be disturbed by even “the tooth a flea.” On finishing the song, the party was invited into the house, the darkest haired member being always the first to enter, and they were regaled with good cheer. For a light-haired man or any woman or girl to enter a house on New Year’s Day was dreaded by all. If such a catastrophe takes place, on him or her would be cast the blame for every accident that befall the home during the year.
Another New Years superstition was to brush the carpet of a room from the door to the hearth and not from the hearth to the door. This made all the difference between good and bad luck, health and death, to the family during the year.
On New Year’s Eve, it was also the custom to rake the ashes of the fire over the kitchen floor. The next morning the ashes were eagerly examined for the trace of a footprint. If one was discovered with the toes pointing to the door, it signified that death would certainly carry off one of the household during the year; if the foot, however, pointed from the door to the hearth then an addition would be made to the family before twelve months had gone.
These pioneers in the new territory of Wyoming would often long to hear news of their old homes and the local editors would oblige by printing stories from back east. In 1884, people of all economic status – some in stately homes built from the funds of the railroad and cattle boom and others in crude shelters built on the prairies of dreams of future prosperity – were celebrating Wyoming’s future. They were blissfully ignorant that tragedy lurked around the corner and that 1884 would indeed be a great year – followed by years of massacres, severe winters and the great Johnson County War between the wealthy cattlemen and smaller ranchers.
For now, they were content in the knowledge that 1884 would be prosperous and many took time to indulge in the stories they found within the pages of the Cheyenne Sun such as those told by Ben Wylde from the Chicago Tribune.
Sit back with these pioneers, resting in front of coal stoves and open flames of their camp, taking a moment to transport from the territory of Wyoming to another sitting-room, a lifetime away to meet Aunt Becky’s Beau as told by Ben Wylde.
Aunt Becky, who has not a nephew or niece in the world, but is aunt to everybody, pressed me so hard that I remained over New Year’s day at her house. Aunt Becky is the woman who was present on salary, the morning I was born, and who blew in my face and helped me to catch the breath that I didn’t know how to catch alone; so I feel that there was some truth in the yarns they used to tell me about Aunt Becky being my “other mother.” She remained at our house so long that I had begun to toddle and knew how to feel deeply grieved when she went away to be married to Duncan Boggs, the well-to-do Tamarack farmer, who was killed by a threshing machine the next summer.
Yesterday, as we sat by her warm fire eating doughnuts and drinking cider, there came a rap at the side door. Bobby, a bright lad whom Aunt Becky adopted from a foundlings’ home some seven or eight years ago, ran to the window and peeped out.
“It’s Deacon Podson,” said the boy, loud enough, I am sure, for the deacon to hear if his ears had not been muffed in a long, crocheted tippit that went around his neck and over his head nobody dare guess how many times.
When Aunt Becky went to the door to let the deacon in, Bobby ran up to me and whispered, “That’s ma’s beau.”
I had met the deacon before. Indeed, he had been Aunt Becky’s beau for some ten years now, and I have met him at her house on the occasion of each of my annual visits. Moreover, I have often thought Aunt Becky would like to marry him if he only had spunk enough to ask her about it.
Deacon Podson is a tall man, with shoulders as round as Atlas’, and perhaps from a somewhat similar cause, since the affairs of Tamarack, which amount in his estimation to a whole world of affairs, rest mainly on him. He is chairman of the village board, one of the school directors, chief pillar of the church, and master of ceremonies at all times and in all places. I don’t wonder that he is round-shouldered. For five years, to my knowledge, he has been “nigh onto 60,” which leads me to believe that he is not far from that age, either one side or other other of it. As he came into the room he began to unroll and unravel and untwist the long tippet from his neck, speaking not a word. Then he took off his outside coat and laid it all snowy over the coal box in the corner. Presently he happened to think to take off his hat and he held it in his hand as he said:
“How d’y do?”
“How d’y do?” said Aunt Becky.
“Uncle Ben is here,” said little Bobby, calling the deacon’s attention to me.
“How d’y do?” said the deacon, standing with his hat in his hand, and looking like a great hulk of a boy about to speak a piece to his first audience.
“Won’t you take a cheer?” asked Aunt Becky, pushing a big rocker near the stove.
“No, I can set here just as well,” replied the deacon, confusedly, as he let himself down on a corner of the coal box.
“You’d better take the cheer,” urged Aunt Becky.
“Waal, I don’t care if I do.”
Aunt Becky drew up her old-fashioned sewing char, and the two put their feet on the stovehearth, pretty near each other. A long, embarrassing silence followed, during which Deacon Podson warmed his hands by the stove, and rubbed them together, with a few grunts and phews, as he were very cold.
“Is it so cold out?” I asked.
“Tol’able cold,” said the deacon.
Another long silence.
“How hev you been?” asked Aunt Becky.
“Oh, tol’able.”
After more oppressive silence the deacon arose from his chair and said: “Waal, I just some over to say wish you happy New Year.”
“Waal, waal, you hain’t a goi’ yit,” said Aunt Becky. “Law sakes! You hain’t but just come.”
The deacon sat down again. He hadn’t intended to go, but the poor man had to say something.
I began to think it was occasion when two are company and three or four are not, so I told Bobby if he would come out in the kitchen I would play checkers with him.
“I guess you don’t remember it’s New Year’s Day, do you, Benny?” said Aunt Becky.
“Well,” said I with a pretty good imitation of surprise and shame. “that’s so. I declare I came near playing checkers, never once thinking it was New Year’s day.” How I lied! Only I didn’t know that checkers were tabooed on such occasions in Tamarack or I should never have suggested the game.
“We can play dominoes, though, can’t we, Uncle Ben?”
I wasn’t dead sure whether dominoes were in the prescribed list, so I pretended not to hear Bobby.
“Ma, dominoes are all right, ain’t they?”
“Yes; you can play dominoes, of course,” said Aunt Becky.
“Dominoes!” I echoed, as if I had just caught Bobby’s question. “Oh, yes; dominoes are all right.”
So Bobby and I went to the kitchen, and as I passed through the door, I left it open a little, for I was resolved to see how a widower of 60 and a widow of 50 odd would make love after ten years of courtship. I drew the table near the door, where I could hear and see what was going on in the sitting-room, and Bobby brought out the harmless dominoes. I made so many errors that the little fellow had no trouble in beating me, which made him happy to continue, and so served my purpose.
Deacon Podson sat there twirling his hat and looking into the fire. Aunt Becky learned back comfortably in her chair and looked at the ceiling. Not a word was spoken for a long, long time. Presently, Aunt Becky began to rock back and forth and hum good old “Coronation” softly and slowly, and after a few measures, Deacon Podson broke in with his cracked bass, out of tun and out of time, but somehow, after all, in pleasing harmony. For a long time, they sat and hummed that simple, old tun, the thumping of Aunt Becky’s loose rocker marking the time, her voice creaking and scraping over the highest notes, but her heart full of the sweet, peaceful music. I though she ought to be married, and that Deacon Podson ought always to stay right there and blunder his bass notes in, rough though they were, to give tonic to Aunt Becky’s weaker tones. (*written in 1783 by Oliver
Time sped along as the two old lovers sat and sang, yet the deacon, who had come only to wish a happy New Year, made no sign of going. The sun had traveled quarter round the house just to get a peep in at the little west window and see this comfortable old couple; and the sight was worth all the trouble of subduing the snowstorm for the purpose. Then, when the sun had dodged behind the leafless orchard, and finally hidden his big, red face behind the little knoll where sleep the dead of Tamarck, the scene became even more peaceful. The warm glow of the fire filled the room with lovers’ light, and I saw Deacon Podson’s hand steal over and close upon the long, slender fingers of his satisfied old sweetheart. This was all. No rapturous embraces, no lingering kisses spoiled the peaceful scene. Aunt Becky’s face, touched by the gleam from the window in the stove, seemed so full of tender love and gentle satisfaction that I said to myself we young people do not know what real, comfortable love is. Never again can I believe that true love does not run smoothly. It is the heyday passion of youth that finds obstructions in its course, but the steady current of Aunt Becky’s love, as she sat there hand in hand with Deacon Podson, flowed on as grandly and serenely as a mighty river out of torrent time.
At last the darkness closed in upon them and with Bobby fast asleep in his chair, I had only to listen. Was it wicket thus to play the eavesdropper? Perhaps so. I thought so; and I doubt not that was my prevailing reason for doing it.
“How long is it since Sister Podson passed away?” asked Becky, with quivering tenderness of tone.
“It’s nigh on sixteen years now,” replied the deacon with a heavy sigh, which was echoed by Aunt Becky.
“Sister Podson was such a dear, good soul,” said Aunt Becky, softly. “it seemed a pity we couldn’t a’kept her always. But God’s will be done.”
“Yes, God’s will be done,” repeated Deacon Podson, with another deep-drawn sigh.
“She was so lovin’like, and good!” said the dear old woman, without a shade of that jealousy which shrivels the heartless compliments of younger women under such conditions.”
“Yes, Sister Boggs, she was---”
“Call me Becky, Deacon Podson.”
“An’ you call me Josh!”
“Yes, J-J-Joshua,” and I know Aunt Becky put her gingham apron up to her face. Ten years of courtship, and I doubt not that this was the first time she had addressed him by his Christiam name. I thought surely the deacon would see his chance and throw both arms around her neck, fold her to his big breast and say: “My Becky, my own, own Becky.” That is about what I should have done, but Deacon Podson is older that I, and has passed the gushing point of life.
“I hev been a-thinkin’ about somethin’ a big, long time, Sister Bo—that is, B-Becky. I’ve been a-thinkin’ thet—”
What on earth could the man be waiting for? Had he fainted? Had his tongue been paralyzed by the burden thrown upon it? I strained my ear, but could catch no sound. Long, long, oh, how provokingly long the silence dragged. At last, I heard a kiss – yes, I could not have been mistaken, it must have been a kiss—and then a few soft sobs that told of tears of joy in Aunt Becky’s eyes. Had their souls read each other in the darkness, and flowed together in eloquent silence as their cheeks lay close against each other! It must have been so, for after Deacon Podson had gone away, Aunt Becky stood and looked out at the window a long time; and when she turned back and lighted the lamp to put Bobby to bed there were tears in her eyes and a blessing from the god of love had fallen on her heart.
Back in Wyoming, we leave you with a New Years Blessing from the journalist of the Cheyenne Daily Sun.
Hello, 1884!
The Beaming “Sun” Sends Worlds of Cheer to Friends and Readers, and a “Happy New Year!”
May All Anxious Maids of Single State, be Sure to Catch the Longed-for Mate
May Business Boom and Coal Keep Low, that we May Laugh at Frost & Snow!
May Cheyenne Prosper as of Old and the Wealth of Mine and Plain Unfold!
May all Grow Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, and in the Race for Happiness win the Prize!
So We’ll Never Mind if the Ice King’s Near, But all Give a Cheer for the Glad New Year!
Thank you for listening to Pioneers of Outlaw Country. I am your host, Jackie Dorothy.
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