Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 063-2 - April 2009 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-26 07:29:08 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:03 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:03

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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NCHS Bulletin April 2009 Gi hive Jee riot Ce erthVagian s i Ger, (Le Le Can = Veer, PDF cs pe ae tte — Seance Lo Bee CLP Pere elk = + eusbctar-diieniasaamnate ie nme pi i The Washington Hotel register for December 20, 1901 shows the signature of W. Earp or Earps. (Author s photo.) Wyatt Earp. I had read the newspaper account of the interview, and now the call from Hawaii tweaked my own curiosity so that my desire to uncover the identity of the mysterious Alma Russell became an obsessive challenge during the next few years. I learned Alma Russell’s name occasionally had appeared in the “Personal and Social” columns, or in the letter lists of the two local newspapers, The Morning Union and the Nevada Daily Transcript. Some examples were: “Miss Alma Russell came down from Maybert today.” (Transcript, July 24, 1900.) “Miss Alma Russell returned yesterday to Maybert, after a visit at Sacramento.” (Zranscript, September 18, 1900.) “Miss Russel [sic] arrived here on the stage yesterday from Maybert.” (Union, August 13, 1903.) “Russell, Miss Alma.” (Letter List for Union, December 15, 1897.) In addition, there were several other personal mentions that lacked a first name: “Mrs. Russell came down from Camptonville today on her way to San Francisco.” (Zranscript, March 17, 1896.) “Mrs. Geo. Hodkiss and Mrs. Russell, of Pleasant Ridge, were here yesterday on a visit.” (Zranscript, June 16, 1897.) “Russell [has] returned to Camptonville after a trip to the Bay Cities,” (Zranscript, September 18, 1900.) “Mrs. Joseph Russell has returned from Oakland where she was called by the serious illness of her father. He is now improving.” (Union, January 11, 1903.) “Mrs. Grace and Alice Russell have located the Alice and Grace quartz claims in the Meadow Lake district.” (Union, January 28, 1908.) “Mrs. Russell is quite ill at her home in Wolf District. She is the mother of Mrs. Harry Sweet of that section.” (Union, January 24, 1909.) The authenticated signature of Wyatt Earp on an official document. (From the Internet.) However, further research on the Russell families living in the area at the time eventually ruled out all of the people mentioned above—except the one about Camptonville. I concluded early on that Alma Russell did not run off with Wyatt Earp in 1901. There is no mention of Earp’s arrival in or departure from the county in either the Grass Valley Union or the Nevada City Transcript, which may seem curious to us today, but his face may not have been as rec@™, ognizable to people then as it became at a later time. The guest named Earp or Earps (who appears to have visited the hotel only once) might have come here to look at a Nevada @™, County mine as an investment, but . found no documentary evidence of the fact. No Nevada County deeds were recorded under his name. Wyatt Earp’s known mining interests during that time period were in San Diego and in the states of Nevada and Arizona. It is possible that he slipped in and out of town, not wanting to be recognized, but in that case, why would he register under his own name in the hotel’s register? Oral history sometimes conflicts with written records. Having a handwriting expert compare the signature from the register with known examples of Earp’s signature (many examples are available on the Internet) might be a way to prove Earp did indeed stay at the Washington Hotel. (See specimen signatures in this Bulletin.) Asa genealogist, I concluded that the first and most obvious record group to search was the 1900 U.S. Federal Population Census, closest in time to the last newspaper mention of Alma Russell. Almost everyone appears on the decennial population census (taken every ten years since 1790 in the™ > U.S., and available to the public after 72 years have passed). Checking microfilm copies of original handwritten returns, I examined the entire section, line-by-line, of the Nevada . County pages, starting with Washington Township (where Maybert and the town of Washington would be found).