More from the…

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

News spead that Eleanor was attacked and choked unconscious by someone Mr. Brittain had sent to prison. A man was arrested, and was found with a watch engraved with the name of a judge’s wife, along with a butcher knife and saw. The prisoner is moved before a planned jail break. A son born in January 1864 lives only a few days. Eleanor receives a “fine bull dog” as a gift. Mr. Brittain’s business partner tries to swindle her on taxes and steal part of their land. A storm brings several feet of snow while she in en route by stage coach to Virgina City to collect some money. Eleanor describes herself as “only a little under five feet,” and the snow was up to her arm pits.

The night of September 1863 I was suddenly awakened by the rough hand of a man coming over my face. I called to Jim Preston to come to me that someone was in my room. The man said, “Hush, or I will kill you, your husband sent me to states prison.” I told him he’d better leave for I would yell as long as I had breath, and this time I called, “come here, boys”. The man then choked me until I was senseless and I knew no more until my little girl Helene ran to the neighbors and told them what had happened. The young man Preston had hidden in the closet, and the eldest girl under the bed. She said she thought I was dead. Mr. and Mrs. Wattenburger, Judge Motts and his wife, and Mrs. Arbuckle came to see what had happened to me and were there when I came to.

The next morning I looked a fright. Mr. John Fisk came to see me and I told what had happened and asked him to put a notice in the paper merely saying that there had been a robbery at Mrs. Brittain’s as I did not want the man to know that I would recognize him if ever I saw him again. The news soon spread over the town and so many began to call that the doctor said that I must be taken some place where I could be quiet so Mr. Thomas Bedford took me to his home and Mrs. Arbuckle and Mrs. Wattenburger stayed at my house. They said afterward that more than fifty people called to inquire, I presume some of them from curiosity.

The officers came and measured the tracks for the robber and made arrangements to have the house guarded at night until the robber was caught. Theodore Winters and a detective went to Folsom for Mr. Brittain and came home as quickly as they could. However, before they arrived the officers had caught one of the men whom they suspected, and Sheriff Gasharee came at once for Mr. Brittain to go to the jail and see if he could identify him.

As they were returning the man to his cell he said to my husband, “Old Brittain, you had better take another look and be sure you have the right man.” My husband then told the sheriff he was sure and if they would strip their prisoner they would find the stripes from a good whipping on his back. The sheriff then ordered the man stripped and saw the stripes and was convinced that my husband was right in his identification. In addition they found on the man a large butcher knife, a bunch of keys, a small saw and Judge Seeley’s wife’s watch and chain with her name engraved on the watch, all secreted in the sleeves of his coat. The sheriff took the booty and locked his man up again waiting to see if the other robber would be caught.

One day a man who Mr. Brittain had discharged for gambling and drinking came to the house and asked for him and I said “I will see, Ben. I don’t know whether my husband will see you or not for you know he told you never to set foot on the place again.” Ben said to tell him that he had some very important news for him. I told my husband what Ben had told me and he talked to him and Ben told him that if he would give him seventy-five dollars to leave the country he would tell him something that might save his life. My husband told him he would give him nothing and that he would stay right where he was until he had told him what he knew. So then Ben Nicholson told him that gamblers and ruffians were going to break into the jail that night and free the prisoner soon after twelve midnight. But the sheriff and Ben Nicholson and my husband took him out of jail and took him to the California officers, and he was returned to prison to serve his ten year sentence. He confessed that he was in our house the night I was choked but declared that it was Stuttering Bob who had choked me. Bob had already left the country.

The prisoner was shaking from cold and fear when they arrived in Steamboat Springs. Mr. Brittain ordered a good breakfast for him and a hot drink but he would not taste the drink unless my husband tasted it first. My husband did not drink but he had the poor wretch in his power and could see that he needed the drink so he tasted it first and then the robber drank. He told Mr. Brittain if he was a free man he would never harm a hair of his head.

My husband was nearly exhausted when he got home, my eldest child half sick from fright and myself not feeling any too well. It is late in the winter and I am wondering what spring will bring. There is always a standstill in business at this time for the snow is still heavy on the Sierras. On the third of January 1864 I gave birth to a nice baby boy who only lived a few days. The doctor said his throat was deformed by the man who had choked me.

On January 8 we got a telegram saying that the other robber was caught and we could rest easy from now on.

Spring is here and the teamsters will soon start over the mountains and Mr. Brittain is going to San Francisco again to have treatment for his leg. I will be alone for most of the summer again. I have a nice garden and I like to work in it. One day when I was busily working in my onions some one said to me, “What are you doing?” and when I looked up who should I see but Mr. Nat Mason. He then said, “Pull up some of those onions and come in and get something to eat. Never let me see you working in this garden again, you know you are not compelled to do it.” I then told him that Mr. Brittain was in San Francisco again about his leg and that he could not attend to business and that I thought the time was coming when I would have to work and might as well get my hand in, besides I liked doing it. I told him I was afraid my garden stuff would be stolen as my dog had been poisoned and I had never gotten another. He went home that night to Virginia City and the next morning before I had gotten up some one called me at the front door and I told him to wait. He said, “I am Billy Williams the Virginia City stage driver, and I cannot wait but I have a present for you from Halk Mason.”

I told him to open the hall door and put the package in the hall. I got up as quick as I could and there was a fine bull dog and five twenty-dollar gold pieces in a note which read, “Hire you a gardener.” However I kept at work in my garden and sold two or three hundred dollars worth out of it.

Mr. Brittain is home again and asked what I had done all summer and so I told him that his partner Tim Smith thought that he would never get home alive and he first tried to swindle me on the taxes and when that did not work he said he was going to put an Irishman on our land that was not yet proved upon and was going to enter it as his land. That I had gone to W. S. Chapman, the best lawyer in town, and he had told me to take my bedding and my camp stove, go immediately to the ranch, cook and eat and sleep there and to take with me enough men to cut and bail the hay. He told me further that if any Irishman or Tim Smith himself put foot on my land to order them off.

At 4 o’clock the next morning I had my wagon loaded, shut up my house and hired Negro George and his wife to look after the garden, arrived at the ranch, and moved in, cooked, ate and slept before Smith and his Irishman were aware of it. I had the men start cutting the hay at once. It was a good crop and we sold it for eight hundred dollars. During the cutting TIM SMITH came over once in awhile but he saw that he was outdone and had nothing to say. The Irishman departed to parts unknown. The children enjoyed being in the country and Helene caught a big trout out of the Carson River, too big for her to land but she hung on and called to one of the men who landed it for her. Lawyer Chapman Had written Mr. Brittain all this tale but I did not know it and he let me tell him all about it. Chapman told him that in business I excelled all the women he ever knew.

We got along nicely until the last of February when my husband’s leg put him in bed again and he determined to go back to San Francisco to have Dr. Toland attend him. We had some money due us in Virginia City and he thought no one could go after it but me. I had Negro George and his wife take care of him and the children and Billy Wilson drive the stage up to our door. It looked as if we were going to have a snow storm.

When Wilson saw me and not my husband he said, “Are you going?” and when I said yes he did not want to take me as he was sure it was going to storm. I told him Mr. Brittain was sick in bed and I had to go on business. We caught the storm before long and when we drove up to Halk Mason’s door in Virginia City the ground was covered in deep snow. Mason came to the door and said, “Who’s aboard?” and when Wilson told him Mrs. Brittain he came outside to carry me in. I told him to let me stand first as I wanted to measure the depth of the snow and he said “No, you will be buried.” I am only a little under five feet, and the snow came up to my arm pits.

I stayed all night at Mason’s and he attended to my business for me.

Previous entries, from the beginning to most recent.