Volume 044-1 - January 1990 (8 pages)

(Lizzie was married by that time), several of whom were teenagers. An interesting little item came from a newspaper, dated October 1884: “At a torchlit Democratic demonstration, postmaster Bosworth’s front curtain took fire when he illuminated his house. The fire was discovered and put out before it caused any damage.” When Bosworth bought the house from Lola Montez, all the furniture was included. Edwin Franklin Morse, whom we already quoted in Part One of this article, wrote in 1927 that he owned a “‘little straight backed chair which was formerly part of Lola’s parlor set.” And he added a note: “Mr. Bosworth’s son, now in business in San Francisco, still has some of the Lola Montez furniture.” Lately, Eric Rood told me that he has a mirror, believed to have belonged to Lola. Hence it appears that some of Lola’s furniture was already dispersed at the time Bosworth occupied the cottage. Solomon Bosworth died on the first of July 1896, at the age of 72 years, of heart failure. On 26 September 1898 Emma sold the cottage, “together with all carpets, furniture and fixtures, save such as are especially excepted by written memoranda, signed by the grantee” to W.S. Berriman. The price was ten dollars in gold coin. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Dr. Hjalmer Berg very much for the material on the Lola Montez House and Mr. H.D. Spiller of the California Land Title Company for providing a “chain” on the Lola Montez cottage. I also thank Father David Davidson for opening the archive of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church. I hoped to find much Bosworth material there, but was disappointed. Bosworth apparently was not a member of the congregation as I had assumed. THE ORIGIN OF THE EMMANUEL EPISCOPAL CHURCH While doing some research on the records of this church, I encountered the following document. Grass Valley, Nevada County Dec. Ith 1856 At a meeting of the trustees of the Gold Hill Quartz Mining Company, held at the office of said Company at Grass Valley, there were present Melville Atwood, Wm. J. Lambert and James Walsh. Mr. Atwood was called to the chair. On motion of James Walsh, seconded by Wm. J. Lambert, it was resolved that the secretary be authorized to convey to the Episcopal Church of this place, known by its corporate name as Emmanuel Church, a certain lot with the improvements thereon, said lot being the one, formerly owned by Meredith and Stoutenburg, on Mill Street and opposite the residences of Zenas Wheeler and Mr. Griffith 8 on said Mill Street. said lot extending through from said Mill Street to Church Street, being in front of Mill Street about one hundred feet. more or less, and being in front of Church Street about two hundred feet, more or less, said lot being the same consigned to said Gold Hill Quartz Mining Company by James Walsh and Wm. J. Bryant: provided the vestry of said Emmanuel Church erect on said premises a place of worship within eighteen months from this date. In case of failure to erect said place of worship, as afore said, the said lot to revert back to said Gold Hill Quartz Mining Company. On motion of J.S. Lambert the meeting then adjourned. James Walsh, Sec. GHQMCo. Melville Atwood was an assayer who, at the same time as Ott, made the first assay of silver ore from the Territory of Nevada. He was associated with the Emmanuel Episcopal Church until his death on 19 October 1862. He was buried in the Masonic Cemetery. 1 am not certain that I got the name of Win. J. Lambert correctly. I could not find anything on him. At the end of the document, the name appears as J.S. Lambert. John S. Lambert was County Clerk for Nevada County 1859-60; he lived on High Street, Nevada City. James Walsh, of course, is well known from the sawmill episode (see the Bulletin for July 1989, page 22). Peter van der Pas. BOOK REVIEW Phyllis Zauner, Those Spirited Women of the Early West, a mini-history. Zanel Publications, 1989. One of a series of Zanel Publications minihistories about California and Nevada, this booklet is devoted exclusively to thumbnail sketches of 18 females, important in western history. Some were important in various fields, while others were ordinary women doing the hard work in mining camps, but who took the time to write diaries or letters back home. In writing of their everyday drudgeries, such women preserved forever the feelings and hardships endured by many miner’s wives. In general, women were so rare that they were treated with reverence and respect. It must have been a wonderful thing for a miner to find a boarding house run by a woman who could cook like their mothers or wives at home, despite food shortages. The women in the book are divided by occupations, including the settlers, miners wives, entertainers, and even prostitutes who were certainly important in most early towns. The women range from the very young 13-year-old Virginia Reed of the Donner Party, to the women who were famous most of their lifetimes into old age, such as Donaldina Cameron or the reclusive Sarah Winchester. Some of the women were famous for their outrageous activities, such as Baby Doe Tabor, while others wrote of their life in mining towns in diaries or letters back home in a most vivid descriptive manner. Some names we all recognize of women we hear of often, like Lola Montez, but don’t actually know what they did in their varied lives.Other names were new to me, and I was impressed with how dedicated and liberated they were for their times. Some were dirt poor and had to earn every penny they could to survive, others were millionaires. The three women who impressed me the most were the ones who worked for years for a cause above and beyond their personal families. We all know of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, the Oregon missionaries who died in an Indian Attack in 1847. But less well known is Sarah Winnemucca, granddaughter of Chief Truckee, and her life-long work to improve the life of Nevada Indians, or Donaldina Cameron, who spent a lifetime in San Francisco rescuing young Chinese girls from prostitution. A mini-book like this, which can be digested in an evening, is interesting because it may stimulate you to look further into the lives of some of these women, some ordinary yet aweinspiring, others truly amazing and shocking in their day. It is an enjoyable little book with many early-day drawings and photographs. It is available in the Firehouse Museum in Nevada City. Priscilla van der Pas. NEVADA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Board of the Society for 1990 will be composed as follows: President....... Peter van der Pas First Vice-President.... Robert Austin Second Vice-President.. . Michel Janicot Recording Secretary... Frances Burton Membership Secretary.. Marilyn Dittmann Executive Secretary...... Ed Tyson Theasurefssrrsurncrns x 42495 Murry Kirksey Past President......06. Gene Jones Directors with terms ending 1992 Nevada City...... Elizabeth Bennett Grass Valley....... Rebecca Miller County at Large.... Roman Rozynski Directors with terms ending 1991 Nevada City........ Don Schmitz Grass Valley.......-. Gay Conner County at Large.... Arthur Karnesky Directors with terms ending 1990 Nevada City...... John Christensen Grass Valley.......-00005 Vacant County at large...... Al Dittmann THE NCHS BULLETIN Administrative Office: Nevada County Historical Society P.O. Box 1300 Nevada City, California 95959 Subscription Fee: $10.00 per year Editorial Office: Peter W. van der Pas, Pacific Library 212 Hill Street Grass Valley, California 95945

(Lizzie was married by that time), several of whom were teenagers. An interesting little item came from a newspaper, dated October 1884: “At a torchlit Democratic demonstration, postmaster Bosworth’s front curtain took fire when he illuminated his house. The fire was discovered and put out before it caused any damage.” When Bosworth bought the house from Lola Montez, all the furniture was included. Edwin Franklin Morse, whom we already quoted in Part One of this article, wrote in 1927 that he owned a “‘little straight backed chair which was formerly part of Lola’s parlor set.” And he added a note: “Mr. Bosworth’s son, now in business in San Francisco, still has some of the Lola Montez furniture.” Lately, Eric Rood told me that he has a mirror, believed to have belonged to Lola. Hence it appears that some of Lola’s furniture was already dispersed at the time Bosworth occupied the cottage. Solomon Bosworth died on the first of July 1896, at the age of 72 years, of heart failure. On 26 September 1898 Emma sold the cottage, “together with all carpets, furniture and fixtures, save such as are especially excepted by written memoranda, signed by the grantee” to W.S. Berriman. The price was ten dollars in gold coin. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Dr. Hjalmer Berg very much for the material on the Lola Montez House and Mr. H.D. Spiller of the California Land Title Company for providing a “chain” on the Lola Montez cottage. I also thank Father David Davidson for opening the archive of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church. I hoped to find much Bosworth material there, but was disappointed. Bosworth apparently was not a member of the congregation as I had assumed. THE ORIGIN OF THE EMMANUEL EPISCOPAL CHURCH While doing some research on the records of this church, I encountered the following document. Grass Valley, Nevada County Dec. Ith 1856 At a meeting of the trustees of the Gold Hill Quartz Mining Company, held at the office of said Company at Grass Valley, there were present Melville Atwood, Wm. J. Lambert and James Walsh. Mr. Atwood was called to the chair. On motion of James Walsh, seconded by Wm. J. Lambert, it was resolved that the secretary be authorized to convey to the Episcopal Church of this place, known by its corporate name as Emmanuel Church, a certain lot with the improvements thereon, said lot being the one, formerly owned by Meredith and Stoutenburg, on Mill Street and opposite the residences of Zenas Wheeler and Mr. Griffith 8 on said Mill Street. said lot extending through from said Mill Street to Church Street, being in front of Mill Street about one hundred feet. more or less, and being in front of Church Street about two hundred feet, more or less, said lot being the same consigned to said Gold Hill Quartz Mining Company by James Walsh and Wm. J. Bryant: provided the vestry of said Emmanuel Church erect on said premises a place of worship within eighteen months from this date. In case of failure to erect said place of worship, as afore said, the said lot to revert back to said Gold Hill Quartz Mining Company. On motion of J.S. Lambert the meeting then adjourned. James Walsh, Sec. GHQMCo. Melville Atwood was an assayer who, at the same time as Ott, made the first assay of silver ore from the Territory of Nevada. He was associated with the Emmanuel Episcopal Church until his death on 19 October 1862. He was buried in the Masonic Cemetery. 1 am not certain that I got the name of Win. J. Lambert correctly. I could not find anything on him. At the end of the document, the name appears as J.S. Lambert. John S. Lambert was County Clerk for Nevada County 1859-60; he lived on High Street, Nevada City. James Walsh, of course, is well known from the sawmill episode (see the Bulletin for July 1989, page 22). Peter van der Pas. BOOK REVIEW Phyllis Zauner, Those Spirited Women of the

Early West, a mini-history. Zanel Publications, 1989. One of a series of Zanel Publications minihistories about California and Nevada, this booklet is devoted exclusively to thumbnail sketches of 18 females, important in western history. Some were important in various fields, while others were ordinary women doing the hard work in mining camps, but who took the time to write diaries or letters back home. In writing of their everyday drudgeries, such women preserved forever the feelings and hardships endured by many miner’s wives. In general, women were so rare that they were treated with reverence and respect. It must have been a wonderful thing for a miner to find a boarding house run by a woman who could cook like their mothers or wives at home, despite food shortages. The women in the book are divided by occupations, including the settlers, miners wives, entertainers, and even prostitutes who were certainly important in most early towns. The women range from the very young 13-year-old Virginia Reed of the Donner Party, to the women who were famous most of their lifetimes into old age, such as Donaldina Cameron or the reclusive Sarah Winchester. Some of the women were famous for their outrageous activities, such as Baby Doe Tabor, while others wrote of their life in mining towns in diaries or letters back home in a most vivid descriptive manner. Some names we all recognize of women we hear of often, like Lola Montez, but don’t actually know what they did in their varied lives.Other names were new to me, and I was impressed with how dedicated and liberated they were for their times. Some were dirt poor and had to earn every penny they could to survive, others were millionaires. The three women who impressed me the most were the ones who worked for years for a cause above and beyond their personal families. We all know of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, the Oregon missionaries who died in an Indian Attack in 1847. But less well known is Sarah Winnemucca, granddaughter of Chief Truckee, and her life-long work to improve the life of Nevada Indians, or Donaldina Cameron, who spent a lifetime in San Francisco rescuing young Chinese girls from prostitution. A mini-book like this, which can be digested in an evening, is interesting because it may stimulate you to look further into the lives of some of these women, some ordinary yet aweinspiring, others truly amazing and shocking in their day. It is an enjoyable little book with many early-day drawings and photographs. It is available in the Firehouse Museum in Nevada City. Priscilla van der Pas. NEVADA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Board of the Society for 1990 will be composed as follows: President.............. Peter van der Pas First Vice-President........ Robert Austin Second Vice-President... .. Michel Janicot Recording Secretary...... Frances Burton Membership Secretary... Marilyn Dittmann Executive Secretary........... Ed Tyson Theasurefssrrsurncrns x 42495 Murry Kirksey Past President............06. Gene Jones Directors with terms ending 1992 Nevada City........... Elizabeth Bennett Grass Valley............. Rebecca Miller County at Large........ Roman Rozynski Directors with terms ending 1991 Nevada City............... Don Schmitz Grass Valley.............-. Gay Conner County at Large........ Arthur Karnesky Directors with terms ending 1990 Nevada City........... John Christensen Grass Valley..............-00005 Vacant County at large............ Al Dittmann THE NCHS BULLETIN Administrative Office: Nevada County Historical Society P.O. Box 1300 Nevada City, California 95959 Subscription Fee: $10.00 per year Editorial Office: Peter W. van der Pas, Pacific Library 212 Hill Street Grass Valley, California 95945