P a g e 2 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r chores, encounters with Indians, historical landmarks, weather conditions and camp life: “Our camp life has commenced and I am lying here on my back in a covered wagon with a lantern standing on the mess box at the back end of it. Have pinned back the curtain so as to let the light in but it is so situated that I have to hold my book above my head to see. Will write ‘till the light goes out. We left the Herndon tonight after tea our wagons having gone on some hours before. Most of the oxen are young- never having been driven before and they were determined to go every way but the right way. The driversGridley, Chipman, Booth, and Harry Tilden were completely tired out trying to drive them. They scurried perfectly wild and ran from one side to another of the road, smashed through fences and finally broke one yoke in pieces.”-June 16, 1863. Finally, on September 17, 1863, the Edgerton party arrived at Salt Lake Hill and surveyed the settlement of Bannack. Although they had intended on continuing to Lewiston, Idaho, the weather conditions would keep them here at least until spring. They moved into the only home available, it had five rooms and had once served as a store. Lucia recorded her thoughts on Bannack: “Bannack was tumultuous and rough. It was the headquarters of a band of highwaymen. Lawlessness and misrule seemed to be the prevailing spirit of the place.” Lucia and her family could see they were needed here. Residents with children were eager for them to go to school and Lucia took on the task of educating them. She would open the first school in her home with about 20 students. Makeshift desks and chairs were gathered but the biggest challenge was obtaining books. They used whatever they could find including some books brought by covered wagon from the east and those donated by friends and parents. Lucia remembers those early days in her journal: “The school was opened in a room in our own house, on the banks of the Grasshopper Creek near where the ford and foot bridge were located, and in hearing of the murmur of its waters as they swept down from this mountain country through unknown streams and lands in the distant sea.” Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz In 1864 a new school would be built with Lucia serving as teacher. That was the same year that the Montana Territory was established with Bannack serving as the capital and Lucia’s Uncle Sidney serving as first Territorial Governor. Lucia strived to give the Bannack children the best education possible. She reflected in a later entry: “I cannot remember the name of all the scholars in that school, I very much regret to say that, and I know where only a few of them are living, at the opening of the twentieth century… A few pupils of mine are scattered in other lands. I trust that all of them are living, and remember
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