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

Horse trading, selling one horse, then buying a “span” of horses. Eleanor’s dress catches fire, and daughter Helene gets smallpox from playing with old clothing. Ellen believes her dog has been poisoned and suspects another lodger. Mr. Brittain rides off, but vows to return “dead or alive.”

One time while I was living in Missouri father sent twenty five miles for me to come home. My brother was very sick. I had to go horseback and carry my baby. I had not gone many miles before I got disgusted with my horse and I asked the brother who had come for me to take the horse and let me ride his mule. I had always been used to riding good saddle horses and resolved to get rid of the horse I had with me as soon as I got home. One day a man came to fathers and wanted to buy a good work horse. Father told the man he had none to sell and I jumped at the chance to sell mine. The man was from St. Louis and asked me what I would take for the horse and when I told him sixty-five dollars he said that he would give me ten dollars cash and a nice new two-horse wagon.

This man thought a woman had the right to do as she liked, I guess, for he never asked me what my husband would say to my selling the horse, but my father asked me after the man had gone. I told him I did not know what my husband would say but that he would learn that I thought I had a perfect right to make the sale. Father said I had made a good bargain. The next thing was how I was to get home again. My brother who had been so sick was better and said one day that he would like to go home with me when I went. So father let me have a team and my brother D. R. Thomas and a negro boy and Brother Sam and I started out.

My brother Dan was to take the team and harness back. Father asked his housekeeper an old negro woman what have you to give Ellen to take back with her. She gave me a barrel of soap, lots of dried peas and beans and other useful things. We started early in the morning and reached home after dark with the baby crying and the chickens squawking.

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

Eleanor resents the men’s secrets. A secret job? She is told two Vigilant Committees would be meeting in her house. Murder at Honey Lake. Guns and clubs. Convicted of murder at a vigilance trial. A scaffold is built.

Mrs. Davy was very thankful for her new stove. I never again saw or heard of the woman who took it. Goodenough had a saloon and gambling place about a mile from our hose and he kept straight after that. Well, until my new stove came I had to resort to the damp fire to do my cooking. I did not take this as a hardship for I remembered how I had cooked over a camp fire on the plains and I still considered this as part of that trip for I had not yet reached my goal which was California.

There have been a good many bad deeds committed by thieves and murderers during my sojourn here, and now we have a Vigilant Committee to see that justice is done. The teamsters have been home for a few days and have brought lots of groceries. My new stove had arrived and my husband told me to parch lots of coffee. I parched quite a pan full and he said it was not enough. I then asked all of them what they wanted with so much coffee and none of them would tell me. Then I asked if they were expecting trouble with the Indians. My husband said, “Parch coffee until I tell you to quit.” I then said that I would not parch another grain and I did not although my brother and John Hale tried their best to get me to. When I think that I am being imposed upon I can show considerable obstinacy. The men parched their own coffee.

I was kept in suspense for a week. During that time I noticed that the men acted queerly but I said nothing. One morning I went out to the spring which was covered with clapboards. I saw Mr. Brittain on the roof and asked him what he was doing up there and he said he was going to fix it. From the roof you could see all over the valley. Suddenly Mr. Brittain jumped off the roof and said “There goes a man!” and ran to head him off and find out who he was.

The fellow said, “It is none of your business.” My husband told him he thought he knew him and the man then said my father was too poor to give me a name. It was a good joke on my husband. When Mr. Brittain came back he did not come running, for he had sprained his ankle when he jumped off the roof. Everything was quiet for the rest of the day but I was convinced that the men were working on some secret job. I concluded that I would be as perverse as they were sly.

The next day they all went away leaving me and the children alone. They told me to tell anyone that came to the house that they were all at the corral. They had not been gone long when a man and a little boy came, knocked on the door and asked if the landlord was at home. I told him that the men were at the corral. He then asked if he could come in and wait until the boss comes. I gave him a chair, really a stool as chairs were scarce with us emigrants. I told him that I thought he would find it more comfortable on the porch but he seemed not to pay any attention to what I said but walked across the room to one of several small rooms that happed to be my bedroom, turned the knob and opened the door and turning to me said, “Can I wait in here until the landlord comes?” I said, “No, that is my bed room and what will my husband say to your being there?” Nevertheless he and the little boy went in and I shut and locked the door on them. I did not think he was a thief but thought that he was in insane and how very fortunate I was that the door was of good strong planking and had a lock on it instead of a wooden button as on one occasion that I have mentioned. My prisoners were very still.

When my husband Mr. Brittain came in after they had been locked in for about two hours. The first thing he said was, “Has any one been here?” I asked why. “Oh nothing, only I just wanted to know.” When I told him about a man and a little boy calling, he asked where they had gone and seemed disappointed. I then told him they were in the bedroom and he tried to open the door and the man and boy inside never uttered a word. He then asked me if the door was locked on the inside and I gave him the key and he then went inside the room and stayed there a long while seemingly discussing something very confidential. Like any other woman in a similar position I tried my best to hear what they were saying but I could not get a single thing. Finally they all came out, the men looking as guilty as if they had committed a crime and my prisoner said, “Brittain, I think we should take your wife into our confidence, for a woman with the iron nerve that she has can be trusted.”

Then it all came out that the Vigilant Committees of Honey Lake and Carson City were to meet at our house the next day. That was why they wanted enough coffee ground for sixty men. Everything was gotten in readiness for their coming. There was a long table in the room with lots of milk and coffee. The men had no time to eat. They were going after LUCKY BILL THORNTON and a man by the name of EDWARDS who had killed a Frenchman at Honey Lake early in the Spring. The men had written out a bill of sale of his cattle to themselves and told every one that the Frenchman had sold out and gone back home. This Frenchman was an honorable and hard working man and his neighbors thought well of him. He had a drove of fine cattle which he had picked up from the emigrants when the cattle were found to be too poor to cross the Sierras. When the water lowered in Honey Lake the body was found and word was immediately sent to the vigilants at Carson City. My husband knowing of this was anxious to know about the man whose father was too poor to give him a name. The man who I had locked in was THEODORE WINTERS, head of the Carson City Vigilante and Mr. Brittain next in line.

When they started out Mr. Winters said if he got killed I was to have his boy as his mother was dead. Mr. Brittain bade me goodbye and he and Winters and WILLIAM SUBLET and the rest of our men left. My brother and JOHN HALE stayed with me.

They first went to Genoah to Thornton’s house. He had a wife and son but he was seldom at home. He had a woman across the Carson River with whom he lived. Mrs. Thornton was insane at the time on account of her husband’s conduct. When Winters and my husband went in the house they asked for Thornton and when she said he was not there they told her son JEROME must lead them to his father’s camp across the river. Mrs. Thornton said that she did not care what they did to Bill Thornton but to have compassion on her son who had been made to hold the pan to catch the blood of his father’s victims more than once but was innocent of any crime himself. My husband promised the boy should not come to any harm but that he must lead the way.

The Vigilants were all well armed for they did not know what they were getting into but they did know that there was a band of robbers in the valley. They went to the camp where the woman met them and said that Bill was not there. They then entered the house with their guns and clubs handy and took both Thornton and Edwards with out much trouble.

They brought their men back by my house to a place along the road about two miles away and there gave them a vigilance trial and convicted them of the murder of the Frenchman and the robbery of his cattle. They erected a scaffold to hand Lucky Bill Thornton and just as they were about to put the rope about his neck he said, “Boys, give me that rope.” And they gave it to him and he put it around his own neck and stepped off the scaffold and broke his own neck. Thornton had made quite a bit out of his robberies but his wife had little of it. The woman across the river had profited by most of it.

Previous entries, starting from the beginning.

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

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: April 1858, July 29, 2024