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

Eleanor delivers a baby boy for Christmas. She kills a rattle snake, then concocts a remedy for arsenic poisoning. 1859 brings Spring calves. Making (and selling) butter. She persevered. Returning to Nevada.

It is now the year 1858 and nearing Christmas. On Christmas day my husband gave me some nice presents and I presented him with a nice boy. Early that morning he had started the twelve miles for Sacramento for a doctor. The hired men had all gone and I soon realized that Mr. Brittain and the doctor could not get back in time. My cousin Mr. Scott was the dairy man and I sent him for an old woman three miles away. As it turned out I had to act as my own nurse and doctor. When my husband and the doctor came the doctor said everything was all right and told my husband there were not many women who could have done what I had. My husband certainly was surprised and delighted when I gave him our son for a Christmas present. I got along finely.

About ten days later I was lying on the bed with my baby and my next to the youngest child. I called to my eldest daughter to put some wood in the stove and I would get up and write to her Uncle Joe. She stooped down to get a stick of wood and called, “Oh, mama, here is the prettiest thing here and you have ever seen.” I again told her to put the wood in the stove and she called, “Mama, it is licking its tongue.” I immediately got up put her on the bed beside the other children and went out and got a willow pole off the fence and with it killed an old rattle snake with nine rattles.

I remembered my father telling the story about a rattle snake. His father had told him and the little negros that if they ever saw a rattle snake and did not kill it they would get a whipping if he ever found it out on them. Father and one of the negroes were riding to the mill one day and a large one ran across the road, in front of the horses but he did not get to kill it. So he did not know what to do except to get off the horse and hit the mark on the road and make believe he was killing it. That is what he did and then told his father that he had killed the snake.

I sent the rattles from the one I killed to father and he thought I had been very brave. Well, after I got over that scare nothing happened for two weeks when my brother took a drove of hogs to the mines to sell and Mr. Brittain and Cousin Tom took some milch cows to Sacramento for the same purpose. They started early in the morning and before my husband left he said he would put the arsenic, which we had to kill rats, in the roof of the kitchen so the children could not get it. The roof was slanting and he put the arsenic under the shakes just over the table. My eldest daughter had evidentially seen him hide something and before the men had been gone long she climbed on top of the table, took a stick and knocked the arsenic down and gave some of it to her little sister and ate some herself.

Soon after that Helene came to me and said she was so sick. I saw that she was very pale and could hardly stand and she soon began vomiting. I asked her if she had drank any of the cherry pectoral and she said “No. Bruns gave me something out of a paper bag.” Then I knew that my children were poisoned. I gave them both an emetic, then oil, white of eggs and strong coffee. Then I sent Mr. Scott for a doctor, who lived seven miles away in what is now Woodland. Then there was nothing there but the Christian church, Sam Hines’ store and the post office. Scott made a quick trip and brought the doctor who expected to find the children dead. He worked quite a while over the children but said that I had undoubtedly saved their lives. We did not get any sleep that night. The doctor asked me how I happened to have the necessary things to do with and how it happened I knew what to do. I told him my mother’s brother was a very fine physician and that always I had read every medical book I could get my hands. My uncle had encouraged me in reading and said I would make a good doctor if I was a man. When I was a young girl it was not thought that a woman could be anything but a housewife.

The next morning I was surprised by my husband coming home. I had not expected him for another day at least. He said that he knew that there was something wrong at home and he had left the cattle in the corral with Tom Graves to watch them. I am not superstitious but I do know that my husband always knew when I was in trouble. My husband went back to Sacramento and sold his cows for a good price and brought me home a new buggy. My cousin also made a good deal.

It is now about the middle of March 1859. The wildflowers are beginning to bloom and are beautiful. The grass is good and the men will soon begin to bring the spring calves and their mothers in. The cows must be milked until the calves are old enough to take it all and when that time comes they will all be turned out together. Several families living near us have no cows so we allow them to milk our fresh ones. Mrs. Bradley and Mrs. Coles, our nearest neighbors always have fresh cows to milk. They are careful not to stint the calves and as soon as the calves are old enough they are turned out and new ones brought in.

We killed a lot of the young steers for beef. My husband was a very generous man and every beef he slaughtered he saved the choicest part for Preacher Pendergast at Woodland. Pendergast lived in a fine house in Woodland and had plenty so I told my husband that I objected to him giving him so much good meat when my neighbor Mts. Cole needed it more. I seldom left home and so did not realize how destitute she was until one day she came to me and asked if she might have some skimmed milk. I gave her a bucket of good milk and told her to come every morning when the men were milking to get what she needed before the milk was strained.

She was a lovely woman and had six or seven little children whom she was trying to raise alone. Her husband had left her one morning and said he was going to look for work and she had never seen him again. I told Mr. Brittain but he did not give her any meat and the preacher still got his. One day she came and asked what we did with the head and feet of the beef, and when I told her we did nothing with them she asked if she could have them. I afterward ate some of the sauce that she made out of them and it was delicious. I told Mr. Brittain about this too, and he finally decided she really was in need and after that she got good beef, too.

It is now winter and I have decided to make some butter from some of my own fine milch cows. The men laughed at me and said I would soon get tired of it. But I am not a person to get tired of anything that I start. I wanted this butter all my own so I could have something to write home about. I persevered churning my cream in one of the old fashioned churns with a dasher. By the spring of 1860 I had quite a keg of butter packed.

My husband began to make preparations to drive his cattle over to Nevada again, and I began to wonder what to do with my butter. One day he came in and told me butter was a dollar a pound and if I would pack it in five pound tins he would load the oxen with it and take it to Virginia City, Nevada. So when the time came for us to leave Yolo Co. my butter was packed over the Sierras and when sold it brought me one hundred dollars.

I went as far as El Dorado Co. with them and stayed in El Dorado City with the children until Mr. Brittain had a place prepared for me go to in Nevada. He left some fine cows with their calves in a large pasture owned by a man by the name of Mason. Mr. Mason also owned the hotel in Nevada City where we boarded. He had owned this hotel since 1850. Before the man left me Mr. Brittain or my brother made a trade and got a very fine looking cow and calf which they put in the pasture and told me to sell as soon as I could, that all that I got for them over twenty-five dollars I might have. The men did not want to take the cow with them because she was a Spanish cow and had very long horns and would not pass as an American cow.

Not long afterward a man came along who wanted a milch cow and I showed him the Spanish cow and he liked the looks of her but would not buy her until his housekeeper had seen me milk her so she could be sure that he was gentle. The man and his housekeeper came the next morning and I milked a nice bucket of milk and the man gave me fifty dollars for her and the calf. Before paying me he asked for a bill of sale and I wrote one describing every spot on her. He then asked me if my husband allowed me to sell of his cattle and I told him I had equal rights in the stock with my husband. I never saw him again after he drove off with them.

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