The Story of Bodie

Ella M. Cain

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781787209411
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la guerre de Sécession

First published in 1956, this is a history of California's official state gold rush ghost town, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 became Bodie State Historic Park.
The account is written by Ella M. Cain, a native of Bodie, whose father-in-law James S. Cain and family owned much of the land the town is situated upon and had hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures following its decline in 1914.
"Bodie deserved and sustained its reputation of being the most lawless, the wildest and toughest mining camp the Far West has ever known."—Ella M. Cain

 

CHAPTER ONE—The Story of William Bodey

On a hot July day in 1859 the forms of a trudging prospector and his burro were silhouetted against the sky on the ridge of a steep peak. The man paused, pulled on the worn rope to stop the burro, and knelt down to scan the earth as he had done hundreds of times before. He finally arose, took the prospecting pick from the saddle bag, and began to dig. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Say, old Peter, this looks like pay dirt at last, and, if it is, you know and I know we came a hell of a ways to find it.”

He was a man about 5 feet 6 inches in height, light complexioned, with hair and mustache turning gray; and aged about 45 years. He had followed the gold rush to California, coming around “the Horn” in 1848, in the sloop Matthew Vassar. He was a Dutchman from Poughkeepsie, New York, named William S. Bodey. There he had left a family: a wife, a daughter of nineteen, and a son of seventeen—who was preparing to enter college. (His history was told by S. Cobb, his partner, and was published in the Chronicle of Nov. 3rd, 1879.)

That evening he panned the dirt as his three companions—Doyle, Garraty and Black Taylor, who had crossed, the mountains with him, via Sonora Pass, looked on. To their amazement a long string of the bright yellow metal lay coiling around the edge of the pan. They slapped each other on the back, then threw their hats in the air, and finally Doyle shouted, “Come on, boys, we can’t do any less than drink the last part of the last bottle. We’ll take our chances on a snake bite to drink a toast to Bodey, and the best showing we’ve seen on the Eastern slope of these Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

The four prospectors thought so well of their placer prospect, in what they called Taylor Gulch, that they built a cabin and established a camp near a spring of bubbling cold water. This was afterwards known as Pearson Spring, and is a little northwest of the present town. (The site of Bodey’s cabin has been shifted around so much by the various writers, he must have occupied as many cabins as Mark Twain did in Aurora.)

The winter of ‘59 came early and was severe. Bodey and Taylor were alone in their little cabin in the gulch. In November they found themselves getting short of food, and had to go on foot to Monoville for supplies. On the return trip they were overtaken by a blizzard and lost their way. Only one who has experienced a Bodie winter can realize the fury with which the blinding snow, driven by the wintry blast, can sweep those barren slopes; nor can one imagine the depth of snow which can pile up in the course of a few hours. The miners lost their way. The packs on their backs became burdensome. They left them one by one. Their safety lay in staying together. Finally Taylor realized that Bodey’s strength was failing. He tried to encourage him by saying that they were near home, that he could recognize landmarks, but Bodey, who was now lagging behind, did not seem to hear. At last he fell exhausted in the snow. In the blinding blizzard Taylor had difficulty in even finding him. He groped in the snow banks, which were now waist deep, and called him by name. The wind caught his voice and it trailed off in a sort of wail. He finally stumbled on to Bodey’s prostrate form, and, after several attempts, was able to lift it to his shoulders. He staggered on for a few hundred yards, but the wind and blinding snow held him back like a demon that was possessed. He finally laid Bodey in the snow, in order to rest and regain his own strength, but when he tried to lift him again it was impossible. Taylor wrapped a blanket around him, put his mouth close to Bodey’s ear, and told him they were not far from the cabin and that he would soon come back. Struggling on blindly, he at last ran up against a stony cliff. He leaned against it for support. Then suddenly the fact that it was the black bluff which rose some little distance behind their cabin filtered into his benumbed brain. Some way, he never knew how, he eventually reached the cabin and staggered in. He kindled a fire, made coffee, and ate some food.

The thoughts of Bodey out there in the snow were driving him mad. Putting on some dry clothing, he opened the door and again plunged into the fury of the storm. All night long he hunted for his companion, and called him by name, but no answer came back excepting the moan of the mocking wind.

In the morning he staggered back exhausted to the cabin. It continued to snow the next day—and the next. On the third day, when the storm finally cleared, and the snow lay like a blanket deep and white over the mountains, no tell-tale spot disclosed the place where Bodey’s body lay buried. It remained for the prowling, hungry coyotes to find it; even before spring, and when Taylor at last came upon the spot, only naked bones, bowie knife, pistol and blanket told him at last he had found the place where his companion and friend had perished. Reverently he buried him where he had found him, wrapping all that remained of him and his belongings in the blanket. He made a mound of earth above him and placed a large boulder at the head as a marker. How little he dreamed his own fate would be more tragic than that of the companion he had buried.

With a heavy heart he returned to the diggings. It was “uphill work” mining alone. The thoughts of Bodey haunted him. In the dead of night the wind howling around the cabin seemed to carry Bodey’s last cry for help to his ears. He decided to seek new fields. After prospecting around Monoville, Bog Town, and the other places where miners were working, he drifted south to the little settlement of Benton.

He again took up his abode in a lonely cabin. Benton was the gathering place for the hostile Paiute tribe, who were attracted there by the hot springs which gushed forth from volcanic formations. One night when they were on the warpath they broke into Taylor’s cabin. Although taken unaware, he grabbed his gun from above his bed and fought them back with the ferocity of a tiger. When his ammunition was exhausted he used the butt of his gun, and not until ten savages lay dead on the floor was he finally taken. They then dragged him outside into the moonlight, and amid savage yells severed his head from his body.

So was the miners’ superstition of tragic deaths for the discoverers of worthwhile camps borne out again.

The name of Bodey was almost forgotten, as the little camp that was destined later to bear his name sank into oblivion. Prospectors came and prospectors went, but the attention of the mining world was centered first on Virginia City and later on Aurora.

Finally in 1879, when the Standard and Bodie Con mines had made mining history, and ten thousand people called the gulch their home, suddenly an awakened interest and sentiment for the founder of the camp sprang into being. The spelling of the name of the camp had some way been changed to Bodie.

There was one dispute after another, in the papers of that day, as to where the remains of Bodey were actually buried. This disagreement was settled by J. G, McClinton, who had inadvertently stumbled upon the grave in 1871, while searching for his horse. In the fall of 1879, the boom year of Bodie, McClinton and Joseph Wasson together exhumed the remains. The Chronicle of Nov. 3, 1879, has the following article in regard to what happened:

“On Sunday last Judge McClinton and Joe Wasson went to the grave of William S. Bodey and commenced exhuming the remains of the pioneer whose name is bestowed upon the town of Bodie. The remains having been discovered, operations were suspended until the following day, when, in the presence of several citizens, they were removed and brought to town. The much mooted question as to the location of the grave has thus been settled. There was found the skull, a few bones, gun, necktie, bowie knife, shoe button, blanket and cloth. His remains will be reinterred tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock, under the auspices of the Pacific Coast Pioneers of Bodie. A general invitation is extended to citizens to attend.”

The Chronicle of Nov. 8, 1879, tells of the funeral as follows:

“On Sunday last the remains of William S. Bodey were reinterred under the auspices of the Pacific Coast Pioneers of Bodie at 2 o’clock. The remains were placed in the Masonic Hall, where they were reviewed by a large number of citizens and ladies. All work was suspended for the day, and the Miners’ Union members walked in the funeral procession. At the grave President B. B. Jackson introduced the Honorable R. D. Ferguson, who delivered the funeral oration. He did not dwell upon Bodey’s character further than to state that he was a man of that indomitable pluck and energy which led him up these steep slopes in winter, when the blasts of a wintry sky, chill and frozen, were too severe for his powerful constitution and rigorous manhood; that he fell, wrapped in winter’s snowy mantle, away from friends and home, with no loving hands to smooth his fevered brow, or soft eyes of affection to tenderly beam upon him or cheer the agony of his departing spirit. He went on further to say, ‘Let him repose in peace on this lofty summit amid these everlasting hills; here where he blazed the trail and marked the first footprints to our golden peaks. Let a fitting and enduring monument be reared in his memory. Let it be wrought from the chiseled granite of these mountains. Let its shaft rise high above with sculptured urn o’ertopping, with the simple name of Bodey there to kiss the first golden rays of the coming sun, and where his setting beams may linger in cloudless majesty and beauty, undisturbed forever.’”

And so the citizens of Bodie, fired with enthusiasm, and full of gratitude to the discoverer of their now booming camp, subscribed a fund of five hundred dollars to erect the very monument the Honorable R. D. Ferguson had described.

Some time in the latter part of 1880 a sculptor was brought to Bodie for the sole purpose of chiseling out of the native granite of the Bodie hills the majestic shaft described by the orator. Even the “sculptured urn” adorned its top, and now it was in readiness for the inscription.

But the bones of William Bodey might well rattle in their second grave at the fickleness of human nature.

When the news of the death of President Garfield reached Bodie, sentiment ran so high that the citizens agreed to place an inscription on Bodey’s monument—to the memory of their martyred President. And so it stands, in the Masonic Cemetery in Bodie, to this day, bearing the inscription “ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES A, GARFIELD.” While further up on the hill in a grave overgrown with sagebrush, and unmarked, lie the remains of one William S. Bodey.

 

 

CHAPTER TWO—Development of the Mines and the Growth of the Camp in Riches and Lawlessness

From the day William Bodey made his first placer location, until Bodie took its place among the real gold camps of the Ear West, there was a long drawn out, and, at times, a disappointing struggle.

A scarcity of water made it impossible to wash the placer deposits, and this led to a prospecting for quartz’ ledges. In August of 1859 the first quartz ledge was located, the claim being named the Montauk, later to be known as the Goodshaw. This location was directly above the place where Bodey had discovered the placer ground.

These first claims were recorded in Mono District. On July 10th, 1860, the miners of “Bodey Diggings” met and organized the Bodey Mining District, and adopted a set of laws by which they would be governed. Some of these laws were elastic to say the least—for instance, Article 6 reads:

“All persons holding claims in this district shall do one day’s work every week on said claim when there is sufficient water to work with an arrastra, or rocker.”

“ARTICLE 11.”

“Any person, or persons, discovering a quartz ledge shall be entitled to one extra claim for discovery.”

“ARTICLE 12.”

“All claims in this district shall be laid out and not be forfeited from the 1st day of October, 1860, until the 1st day of May, 1861.”

The quartz claims located were two hundred fifty feet in length, with fifty feet on each side of quartz lode allowed for right of work.

Jeremiah Tucker was elected recorder for the term of one year.

The spelling of Bodey District is found throughout the mining records until October 15, 1862, when, on the Notice of Location of The Seneca Quartz Lode, the name Bodie appears for the first time. W. A. Chalfant tells, in his “Outposts of Civilization,” that the spelling was changed by a sign painter, Bob Howland by name, who was ordered to paint a sign in Aurora for a livery stable owned by Bob Hazelton of the Body Ranch. He painted “BODIE STABLES” and, as the spelling was more pleasing, and there could be no doubt as to the pronunciation, it remained Bodie from that time on.

The most important location of any made in this camp, then in swaddling clothes, was the one dated July 1, 1861, when O. G. Leach, E. Donahue, and L. H. Dearborn located the Bunker Hill Mine, later to be called The Standard, on the eastern slope of Bodie Bluff. It looked so promising they soon sold out their interests for twenty thousand dollars to an actor named James Stark, and his partner, a jeweler named John W. Tucker, both of whom had been mining in Aurora.

Stark owned an opera house in San Jose, and conceived the idea that it could be used to advantage in this new venture in Bodie. But the job of transporting it to the latter place, and transforming acoustics built for Patti into the framework for a quartz mill, was a sad experience for actor Stark and jeweler Tucker. They soon ran out of money, and were forced to sell their “Opera House Mill” to The Aurora Company.

A consolidation of different claims was resorted to in March, 1863, and a new company was formed, bringing in outside men and capital. Leland Stanford, who was then Governor of the State, was named President, and Judge F. T. Bechtel, who had been mining in Aurora, was elected Secretary. The new company was called the Bodie Bluff Consolidated Mining Company, and was incorporated for over a million dollars. (Mining Records—Book B.)

The Governor paid a visit to...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER ONE-The Story of William Bodey
• CHAPTER TWO-Development of the Mines and the Growth of the Camp in Riches and Lawlessness
• CHAPTER THREE-Bodie Cemetery and Boot Hill
• CHAPTER FOUR-History of the Camp up to the Present Time
• CHAPTER FIVE-Story of Rosa May
• CHAPTER SIX-Wells Fargo Messengers and Desperadoes of the Road
• CHAPTER SEVEN-Story of Jim Cain
• CHAPTER EIGHT-Jim Pender’s Stories of Lundy
• CHAPTER NINE-Rivalry Between the Butchers’ Wives
• CHAPTER TEN-Jim Pender’s Story of Buffalo Bill
• CHAPTER ELEVEN-“Ould” Lady O’Brien and Her Son “Moike”
• CHAPTER TWELVE-The Bodie Fire Department and Stealing of the Fire Bell
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN-Story of Father Cassin
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN-The Editor’s Story
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN-Jim Pender’s Story of Mary McCann
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN-Story of Pretty Maggie and Tong Sing Wo
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN-Jim Pender Goes with Strangers on Tour of the Camp Today Telling the Story of Hank Blanchard and Others
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-Jim Pender Resumes his Stories to Tourists next Day
• CHAPTER NINETEEN-Conclusion
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER