P a g e 4 they had seen. The “Indian” turned out to be one of the train’s own men, stripped to the waist, his skin rubbed with mud to darken his complexion. It was his way of teaching the children the danger of wandering too far.3 Montana’s early population moved with the gold rushes. Many Virginia City residents relocated to the camp at Last Chance Gulch, newly named Helena, drawn by fresh opportunities. Mollie Sheehan’s family moved to Helena in July 1865. One of her first memories there was of a camel train unloading goods. She got a ride on one of the strange creatures, an event she never forgot. The family’s log cabin at the foot of Broadway had a dirt floor, but was cozy and comfortable. In her recollection of those times, Mollie astutely noted that people were constantly coming and going, and that friendship, “like everything else in a mining camp, was in a constant state of flux and change.”4 First Impressions Like their parents, children recognized Montana’s primitive conditions, and their impressions mirrored those of adults. Five-year-old James Sanders, son of Wilbur and Harriet Sanders, crossed the plains with the Henry Edgerton family from Ohio to Montana in 1863. James heard the excited talk about the great gold camp at Bannack and of Montana’s golden gulches. Upon arriving at last at far-famed Bannack, however, James took one look at the ugly settlement, where the dirt was everywhere churned into mud and primitive cabins and tents straggled along Grasshopper Creek. He then expressed well what the adults probably thought but did not want to admit when he blurted out his disappointment, declaring, “I fink Bangup [sic] is a humbug.”5 Another child who reported early Montana’s rough circumstances was seven-year-old Homer Thomas. He wrote to his grandmother back in Illinois that the miners at Alder Gulch “dressed in old dirty & ragged clothes; they do not look nice, like at home.” Homer’s letter is well written and thought out, and in it he expressed his dislike for Montana’s remoteness. He especially missed apples and cider, and his grandmother’s cake. “ Well Grandmother,” he continued, “it is pretty near to Christmas time and I do not expect to get many things this year, for it is not like home, because Santa Claus do[es] not come out here to give children things, because he thinks the children too smart to come to this old place.”6 Frances Gilbert Albright was just a toddler when her large family came to Alder Gulch, where she would spend the rest of her life. Her earliest memories were more gentle. They included rides on a Newfoundland dog whose owner, her father’s partner, always had a sack of candy. She recalled lines of freight wagons in the muddy street that brought their groceries and glorious moonlight sleigh rides under piles of buffalo robes.7 Children caught the gold fever too. Ten-year old Mollie Sheehan’s family arrived at Bannack as the first rumors of a new strike at Alder Gulch began to circulate. Her father freighted the first load of goods to 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 Mary Ronan left a lively reminiscence of her life in Montana’s gold camps. (83-138, University of Montana, Missoula)
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