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

Trapped in an overturned stagecoach in a snowstorm. She gives away a new fur cape that failed to keep her warm. Eleanor reaches Mr. Brittain, who is an invalid. She is told Lincoln has been assassinated. “Well, he is dead and my husband is still alive and must have money.” She learns her brother, Daniel Thomas, has been wounded and is a prisoner of war held in Illinois. She sends him $5. She and Mr. Brittain sell everything except their home, rent it out, and they start the trek back to California. “Nevada is at an end for me.”

The next morning it looked as if we were going to have still more snow and Mr. And Mrs. Mason wanted me to stay over until the next day but I told them I must go or my husband would be terribly worried. Mr. Mason telegraphed Mr. Brittain and said I was leaving on the 1 o’clock stage for Carson City. I was all ready when the stage came, bundled up good and warm and with hot bricks to keep my feet warm. I was the only woman passenger with five men. Mason said to them, “Gentlemen, take care of Mrs. Brittain.”

We got along all right until we were in the vicinity of Washoe City and the horse began to give out as the snow was very deep. It was mining county and the first thing we knew the driver had driven into a prospecting hole and the stage turned over. The man sitting next to me weighed about two hundred and I called to Billy to right the stage at once for I did not want to be crushed under all that weight and you know I must get home if I have to walk. Billy replied that he would get me home if he had to ride the horse that was in the best shape and take me on behind him.

While the men were helping him try to get the stage righted I said to them, “Gentlemen, I hope you do not think that I have taken this trip for pleasure. My husband Mr. Brittan is home sick in bed and he has been an invalid for so long that he now thinks that no one can do any business for him but me.” One of the men repeated the name Brittain, and then said, “I know your husband, I met him at the Masonic Lodge in Virginia City. We are brother Masons and I will get you home if we have to carry you.”

This gentleman was Senator Proctor of Nevada . The men finally got the stage up on its wheels and the horses had rested a little, and we arrived at Washoe City where we got a fresh team. When we arrived at Hot Springs Hotel Billy had the landlord Mr. Wilson bring out something hot to drink although it was midnight. He was about frozen. The gentlemen wanted me to have something to drink with them but I told them no and then told them why. Once my father and I were caught in a snowstorm on Cumberland Mountain and he told me that if ever I was caught again in a storm never to take any stimulant to drink as when it work off I would be more likely to freeze.

Billy King the tiler of the Masonic Lodge was waiting at the stage office when we got in and he had them drive to our house. They had to carry me inside. Mr. Brittain had had a telegram sent me not to come home but I had already left when it arrived. He was so excited and nervous that he had gotten up and had a warm fire going and George and his wife had plenty of hot water and coffee. I did not go near the fire until the negroes had rubbed my feet and body warm. I do not know how the other passengers fared but the driver’s feet, hands and ears were frozen. I had worn a new fur cape on my trip and it was nothing but ice and did not keep me warm, a blanket would have been better, and I was so disgusted with it that I gave it to George’s wife.

The next thing was to get everything ready for Mr. Brittain and get him off to San Francisco as soon as the weather permitted. My brother who had been with us all this time had died and I mourned for him as he had always been so good to me and the children when Mr. Brittain was away. It is now March of 1865 and we have sold all of our teams and my husband has gone to have Dr. Toland look after him. I have a girl by the name of Emma Bell and a young man by the name of Harvey Barnard who crossed the plains in an emigrant train with us when he was a little boy in 1857. My husband told me when he left that he would never leave me alone again after this trip. I will not do much gardening as I do not believe we will be here this winter.

It is now April 13, 1865. I have just received a telegram from Mr. Brittain. He wants me to send him some money so early on the morning of the 14th I started to the express office early. I noticed that the flags were at half mast. I met Billy King on my way and he asked me where I was going and when I told him he said there was no use my going to the office for it was closed. Lincoln had been assassinated. I said, “Well, he is dead and my husband is still alive and must have money.” I knew that if I had to wait until the next day Mr. Brittain would have to wait for two days. I went on down town and the first man I met was the express office man, A. G. Rice. I told him that I must send my husband some money and for him to open the office for me long enough to send it. I said I am sorry about President Lincoln, but my husband is dear to me, too. Mr. Rice accepted my money then and sent it in time for Mr. Brittain to get it that night.

I had not been home long when a community of men came to my door carrying a bolt of black cambric. My little girls were frightened of them but I knew what they wanted. I had been told when I was downtown that these men had some trouble making some of the southerners drape their houses. These people tore the cambric off as fast as it was put on. So when I asked them what they wanted and they said they were going to drape my house I told them, “Not with that cambric you are not. I will drape my own house.” I had just lost my little son and my brother and had plenty of crepe. I tied a bow of black crepe and white swiss on the doors and windows of my house and even the storage house. My shutters on the dwelling house were painted green and the drapes showed off to advantage. Everyone in town said that my house was the nicest draped in Carson City.

The next day there was going to be a sham funeral and I, though a Southerner, was asked to ride in the mourners’ hack which was driven to my door. The children and I were dressed in black as we had just been out of mourning. They had a large procession and an expensive casket. I thought Lincoln was a good man and was doing the best that he could for both the north and the south. I thought it showed bad judgment in those southerners who acted as they did, when their houses were draped. My husband wrote and asked me what I had done when I was asked to let them drape my house, and when I wrote him the circumstances he replied, “You showed your usual and commendable good sense.”

My father had a brother-in-law, Robert Jameson , in the Union army. On the last raid General Price made through Missouri after Lincoln’s death, I received a letter from him telling me that my brother Daniel R. Thomas was shot during the raid and was a prisoner in distress at Alton, Illinois. He said, “Dan is in need and if you are able you can send him five dollars at a time but no more. Send it in care of the Commander of the post there.” In my letter to the Commander I told him just what I thought about my crippled brother being held there and undernourished when I could take care of him and other prisoners, confederate or union, if they needed help, and that five dollars at a time was not enough to buy them a drink of water much less nourishing food.

I wrote my brother: “Dear brother, if you are disabled as I hear you are, take the oath and get out of prison and if you do take the oath let me tell you now, never violate it.” I wrote several things in that letter besides which my southern friends said would cause my brother never to get even the five dollars.

In due time, however, I received an answer to my letter to the Commander of the Post. In it he hold me that my letter to him had been read aloud that day and that my brother had been removed to Rock Island where my letter to him would be forwarded including the five dollars. The letter was signed Thomas H. Forsythe.

When I went back to Missouri after the war was over I did not see my brother but I met a soldier who had fought side by side with him and was taken prisoner at the same time. He told me he had seen the five dollars Mr. Forsythe had sent him from me, given to my brother. I have been in many a hard place but have always conducted myself as a lady and have found through life that a true lady can always command the respect of a gentleman.

Mr. Brittain is home again and we are getting ready to travel as the doctors all say for him to live out of doors as much as possible and to have a change of scene. That this was the only cure. We will sell everything but our home and have the cash in hand. The house we will rent furnished to a Mr. Cox and his wife who have no children.

It is now September 1865 and we are ready to start to California. We have all the things we need to camp out. My cousin Thomas Graves will go with us from here and if we need another man or two we will pick them up in California. We started out with the dog Halk Mason gave me and the children had a cat or two but those we found we could not keep and gave them away. Now we are just ascending the Sierras and Nevada is at an end for me. I never expect to go there again. I have entered on my travels with my sick husband with the intention of going wherever he desires as long as he lives. I am hoping the travel in the open will cure him. I am reconciled to the life. I have never shown a morose disposition in my previous life no matter what the hardships and he would be very quick to note it if I showed anything now.

I am often sad at heart when I think of my little baby boy and my dear brother laid to rest in Nevada soil. They seem very lonely to me, but I presume it will be my fate also to be laid in some lonely grave without even a board to mark the spot. I hope some kind friend will build a rockery over it to show some poor human is at rest beneath. Adieu for now.

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