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MEMOIRS OF MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER,
ELEANOR HOWARD (THOMAS) BRITTAIN KNOWLTON
November 1834 – August 1908

A visit from even Indians in full war dress. Eleanor aids a prospector named Comstock, who offers her an interest in his mine. A plague of bedbugs. Piutes return, and she lets them harvest wheat. Mormans and Indians leave for Utah. Preparing for another attempt to cross the Sierras.

It is now the month of April 1858 and the Mormons are all getting ready to go to Salt Lake. I think that Brigham Young called them there, and it was rumored that the Piutes were all leaving too. I had gotten over my scare and everything was quiet. The men I suppose had forgotten, too, for they soon began to go to town again and leave me alone with my children, my husband with the rest, and as usual they stayed a long time. I really liked solitude and one night I was sitting in front of the fire with only a light from a pine knot. I was thinking about my former associates and what I had been through recently. My reverie was broken by some one knocking at the door. I called out, “Who is there?” The answer was “Piute Jess, let me in.” This time I asked what he wanted and he replied, “We are going away and want food to take with us. We won’t hurt you.”

Jess had been raised by the Mormons and spoke good English and he had worked for us at one time, so I let him in. There were six Indians beside Jess and they were in full war regalia, all painted and wore buckskin suits all beaded and ringed and carrying hatchets and bows and arrows. All together they made a very good appearance. I told Jess to take what ever food he wanted and while he was getting it and grinding coffee the other Indians stood in front of the fire and conversed in their own language. I was not afraid until they bid me goodbye and mounting their ponies gave a war whoop. Then I began to shake from fear. When the men finally came home my husband said, “Ellen, you are as white as a sheet. Are you sick?” I then told him what had occurred and said I gave the Piutes all the food we had, I guess. He said, “Why did you do it?” But a moment later he said, “You were right. If we had been here we would have refused them and then there might have been trouble.” This was the last time they left me alone while we were there.

We decided to move to another house near the Carson River. A man by the name of Jameson had it from a Mormon who had seven wives. The house was large but unfinished and Jameson sold it to Mr. A. H. Mason, and he and Mr. Brittain kept their cattle there. When we moved Mr. Mason stopped with us and I did the cooking for all with what help the men could give me.

I forgot to tell you what happened just before we moved from the other house. A strange man came to the house and said he wanted to stay all night. My husband told him that he could and the men got him something to eat. The next morning he came to my door and wanted to pay me for the night with pins and needles but I of course did not take them. I gave him enough food to last him several days as he said he was going to Ragtown to prospect, that he knew where he could find a rich mine and that he would give me an interest in it. I asked him his name and he said it was Comstock and in a few days the news came that Comstock had struck it rich.

It was no time at all until the sharps knew of his find and soon poor Comstock had no mine. He was robbed of everything that he had found and I have now a newspaper clipping saying that he died a pauper in the Stockton insane asylum. At the time I wanted Mr. Brittain to go and see him and ask him for the ‘interest’ he had given me, but my husband said, “No, there have been enough people have already robed the poor fellow.” I supposed there are not many people who know that it was Mrs. E. H. Brittain who gave him food for his prospecting tour.

I will now tell something more of my new home. It was another one of those log houses partitioned off to suit the convenience of the owner’s seven wives. The men gave me the best part, it was lined overhead. Before long the men began going outside to sleep and when I asked them why one man said the Mormon plagues were too much for him. So far I had not been annoyed but when the men went outside to sleep I was the next victim. I took my children and slept on the porch that night. The men all laughed at me as I said I would try it again. I put the children to bed and although they slept they were restless. I got up and lit the lamp which was an old tin cup that had in it some lard and a plaited wick in the center and went to my children’s bed. I found it covered with bed bugs! I then knew what the men had meant by the Mormon plague. I looked about the room and then up over head and saw the lining moving. I called for one of the men to come inside and Mr. Sublet came in. I pointed to the ceiling and told him to cut a hole in the cloth and when he did a whole hat full of bed bugs fell out.

I did not try to sleep that night and in the morning I sent to town for sulphur and every thing else I thought might rid us of the plague. We tore all the lining off the walls and everything out of the cracks, sprinkled sulphur in them, scalded the house with lye and our fight was over for the time being. I once read a story about a man who said he had stayed all night in the territory and was awakened by bed bugs as large as tree frogs. I never believe that story but after this I will believe any story you can tell bout them in that territory.

My husband had gone to California for provisions and when he came home with them and heard my story he said, “Never mind, we will go over to California this fall and take the cattle into Yolo County for there is a fine range there.” And besides, he wanted to move the cattle before the wild parsley began coming up for he did not want them poisoned as they had been in the spring of ’58. I have seen fifteen or twenty head down at once from eating it and it is very hard to save them. I found that sweet milk mixed with gunpowder and whiskey was the best remedy.

The men always left the house early when they had cattle to round up and now they wanted to break oxen to put on the wagon so I was again alone all day. Soon after the men left that morning Capt. Winnemucca and his whole tribe of Piutes came to the house and asked me if they might glean the wheat that was growing near the fence and in the willows where a scythe could not reach it. I let him have it but told him not to let his dogs kill my chickens. He did not let them kill the chickens but he let his men and squaws take very bit of the wheat and they were not long doing it. He had his old wife and his wife Sarah about whom the papers had so much to say at the time, but she was young. The wheat was just ready to cut and when the men came home that night they asked me what had become of it and when I told them that I had let old Winnemucca have it they thought it was a joke that he had taken all of it. That was the last trouble that I had with the Indians for they all left for Utah for the winter.

The next thing that I had to do was to cook up plenty of food for the teamsters to take over the mountains. The men were all away again and I thought I would be smart and do a lot of nice cooking. An old lady from Wales, whom I had nursed when she was ill, had bought a cook stove from Jameson when he sold the house and on account of her illness had never gotten it.

When I had gotten the stove good and hot a man and woman came for the stove. I told them it was hot and they could not take it and besides I had the right to use it from the woman who had bought and paid for it and had a receipt to show that she had bought it. The woman said she was going to take it anyway and asked for cloths to lift it out with. I refused to give her any thing to lift it with and she took off her petticoat and used that and they took the stove hot as it was. I told the man he would pay for coming into my house and acting in such a manner and said, What is your name?” He said it was Goodenough. I said, “Is this woman your wife?” and he said no.

I told my husband about it when he came home. The next day when Mrs. Davy heard of it she got up out of her sick bed and walked a half mile to our house carrying her baby and cried about it. My husband told her she should be paid for her stove. Then he went to Goodenough and told him that he would either pay for the stove or he would get the worst whipping any man ever had. Goodenough did not want to pay for it for he said it was the woman who took it. My husband then told him that no woman could have taken the stove without his help and that he would give him the money or he would get the thrashing. So Goodenough gave my husband fifty dollars and said if there was any more charges bringing the new stove over the mountain he would pay them, too.

Previous

Crossing the Plains from Missouri to Nevada in 1857, May 21, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: On to Missouri, May 25, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Setting Out, May 27, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Nebraska to Wyoming, June 5, 2024

Gublet’s cutoff, quicksand, and gravesites, June 15, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Reaching the Rockies, June 20, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Anticipating attacks, Ellen arms herself and prepares to fight, June 27, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Lawson’s Meadows to the Truckee, July 4, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Snow storm forces the train to return to Nevada, July 13, 2024

“Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: After an attempted robbery, a “vigilance committee” is formed to enforce law and order,” July 22, 2024