March 2008

 

Correcting Recent Bodie Myths:

Let’s Set the Historic Record Straight

 

By

Michael H. Piatt

 

            “This is the West, sir.  When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”  The most memorable lines from the John Wayne movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are well suited to Bodie.  In the days when the West was wild, legend-making fiction often masqueraded as fact.  Davy Crockett’s witty almanacs in the 1830s featured amusing back-woods yarns along with helpful advice.  Gold in California gave rise to humbugs claiming fist-size nuggets.  Mark Twain’s Roughing It challenged readers to discern between fact and fancy about Nevada silver mining.  More incredible were the imaginary adventures of pulp fiction heroes, such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Deadwood Dick.  Wild West shows, followed by motion picture and television, evoked historical accuracy yet darted back and forth between fake and authentic details selected to attract viewers.

 

Boomtown Bodie fostered whoppers of its own.  Newspapers from San Francisco to New York City printed whimsical yarns about “the Bad Man from Bodie” along with phony reports of mineral strikes intended to manipulate stock prices and enrich insider pockets.  “The mines are looking well” and other artful deceptions regularly soothed the nerves of unhappy investors.  Decades later, mythmakers reinvented the old town’s past.  Their tales, such as Bodie’s population once exceeded 10,000, its mines produced more than $100 million in gold, and the Standard Company built the world’s first long-distance electric transmission line do not stand up to research.  Misinformation abounds, and more fabrications seem to arrive daily.  Here are some recent Bodie falsehoods.

 

 

Myth #1:  W.S. Bodey and E.S. “Black” Taylor discovered gold at the place that would become Bodie.

 

Much of the confusion surrounding Bodie’s 1859 origins arise because nobody recorded the event for nearly 20 years.  Not until the mining camp seethed with excitement in 1878 did two leading citizens, Joseph Wasson, recently elected to the California State Assembly, and Judge J. Giles McClinton, former editor of the Esmeralda Union, seek to tell the discovery story.  Wasson questioned old-timers and published his findings in Bodie and Esmeralda, a pamphlet intended to promote Bodie’s mines.  He added more details a year later in Complete Guide to the Mono County Mines.  Incensed by cynics and impostors, Wasson defended his research in a newspaper column then conveyed the most complete discovery story in an interview.  In the words of the interviewer, “The only serious and conscientious attempt on the part of anyone to collect and weave into readable shape any considerable number of these facts, and who exhibits any systematic determination to that end, is Jos. Wasson....”[1]

 

In Mono County Mines, Wasson identified the prospectors who discovered gold:  “Terrance Brodigan … had a hankering after rich mines, and hearing of the placer finds at Dogtown [and] Monoville, … organized and headed a party of four (himself, John C. Doyle, Tim Garraty and W.S. Body) in quest of new diggings.”[2]  Later, the interviewing journalist changed the names slightly:  “Brodigan... was followed by Pat Garraty, Wm. Boyle and W.S. Body.”[3]

 

            E.S. “Black” Taylor did not enter the scene until later, when he joined W.S. and others who were mining the discovery site.  According to Wasson, “Body... in company with others, returned and went over the ground again. …  Body with Black Taylor (a half Cherokee), had thrown up a little dugout cabin at the head of what is now Green Street.”[4]

 

W.S. was returning to camp with supplies, when he and Taylor were caught by a November 1859 blizzard.  After W.S. foundered, Taylor wrapped the dying miner in a blanket then pushed onward to save himself.  The following spring Taylor returned to the mines and buried his companion’s bones.  But Taylor had not been a member of the four-man prospecting expedition that discovered gold.

 

 

Myth #2:  W.S. Bodey’s first name was William, or perhaps Waterman.

           

After interviewing aging Mono County pioneers in 1878 and 1879, Joseph Wasson concluded that “W.S. Body” was originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, and that he had resided in Tuolumne County before crossing the Sierra in 1859 to search for gold.  A handwritten copy of a document recorded at Sonora in 1856 reveals that “W.S. Body” deeded “one sixth undivided interest to a certain quartz claim” to “his wife Sarah.”[5]  Exhibiting fluid spelling, the document places W.S. in Tuolumne County, exactly as Wasson reported, and reveals that W.S.’s wife was named Sarah.  Coincidentally, a Sarah Bodey in Poughkeepsie reported that her tinsmith husband had joined the California gold rush, then vanished.  “He was in the habit of writing letters regularly to his family, when all of a sudden the correspondence ceased.”[6]

 

Granted the thread linking California’s W.S. Body to Poughkeepsie’s W.S. Bodey is thin, but inconsistent spelling is no reason to challenge this evidence, given the era’s liberal spelling conventions.  Most compelling is the coincidental meshing of two corroborating stories that sprang independently from opposite ends of the continent.

 

Wasson never assigned W.S. a first name.  Another Bodie citizen, Sylvanus B. Cobb, claimed his former partner in Tuolumne had been Poughkeepsie native “William S. Bodey.”[7]  Meanwhile, a Bodie newspaper reproduced an article telegraphed from the New York Times, which printed “Waterman” in the missing Poughkeepsian’s biography.[8]  These frequently quoted sources, Wasson, Cobb, and the New York Times, disagree on W.S.’s first name, but they all said he was from Poughkeepsie.  Historic documents in Poughkeepsie, however, list only Wakeman S. Bodey. Two Poughkeepsie census takers, a decade apart, penned “Wakeman S. Bodey” near Sarah Bodey’s name.  And the roster of firemen for Poughkeepsie’s Hose Company No. 1 lists “Body, Wakeman” on July 12, 1842.[9]

 

Twentieth-century writers were just as confused about W.S.’s identity as their nineteenth century predecessors.  Ella Cain’s collection of folktales, The Story of Bodie (1956), cites Sylvanus B. Cobb:  “. . . he was a Dutchman from Poughkeepsie, New York, named William S. Bodey.”[10]  Frank Wedertz relied on the New York Times for his book Bodie:  1859-1900 (1969):  “. . . a native of Poughkeepsie, New York,... Waterman S. Bodey was a tinsmith of superior skill.”  Not until Warren Loose researched Bodie Bonanza (1979) did anybody consult Poughkeepsie records.  Loose realized that Bodie’s discoverer must have been “Wakeman S. Bodey.”  Recently discovered documents support Loose.

 

So, who was the gold seeker whose wintry death gave Bodie his name?  The answer lies in a single question:  Where was he from?  If the dead prospector left Poughkeepsie, New York, as Wasson and other contemporaries believed, he was “Wakeman S. Bodey,” sometimes spelled “Body.”  Wasson recorded recollections of Mono County eyewitnesses, and his version of the discovery story remains our best source.  Wasson’s research, coupled with Poughkeepsie records, leaves little doubt.  Until stronger documentation is presented, my money’s on the tinsmith.

 

 

Myth #3:  “601” stood for “six feet under—no trial—one rope.”

           

This gem seems to have materialized out of thin air, introduced to Bodie mythology a few years ago.  The sudden appearance of “six feet under—no trial—one rope” belies the fact that it is not mentioned in books or articles by former Bodie residents Grant Smith, Ella Cain, Emil Billeb, Frank Wedertz, or Warren Loose—strong evidence that it was never a local tradition.  Yet, since 2003 the explanation has turned up in one book, a magazine article, a History Channel documentary, and in the narration on a CD.  So far, no one has provided a shred of documentation proving that this was the actual meaning behind “601.”

 

The expression “601” originated during a vigilante uprising on the Comstock.  Dan De Quille (William Wright), a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise, recalled the event.

 

In the spring of 1871 there sprang into existence in Virginia City a secret organization known as “Six Hundred and One.”  It was a “Vigilance Committee” similar to that organized in San Francisco in the early days....  The first that was publicly known of the organization was on the night of March 24, 1871, when Arthur Perkins Heffernan, who a short time before had shot down a man in cold blood at the bar in the principal hotel of the town, was taken from the county jail and hanged.  In the morning, when the coroner went to cut down the body of Arthur Perkins, as he was commonly called, there was found pinned upon it a paper on which were the figures “601.”  This was taken to be the name of the “vigilante” organization, and “601” it has ever since been called.[11]

 

If meanings for the three digits were known, De Quille did not reveal them.  A decade later, Bodie’s vigilant citizens modeled their secret committee after Virginia City’s, calling themselves “601.”  In April 1880 Bodie’s press probed the mysterious group, but failed to find answers.  “A party here has been handed a notice signed ‘601,’ ordering him to leave Bodie within 24 hours, or suffer the consequences....  But who composes the ‘601’?”[12]  Another investigation proved equally vague:  “A report was current on the streets last (Tuesday) night and this morning that an organization calling itself "601" had notified several parties that a longer stay in Bodie would be at the risk of having their supply of oxygen curtailed....  The whole story lacks confirmation, however.”[13]

 

After the town witnessed a string of “dastardly murders,” an angry editor intensified the call for action and beckoned Bodie’s shadowy committee:

 

It is our opinion that a little “hemp practice” would be beneficial in this town.  Although the majesty of the law should in all cases be sustained, there are circumstances which occur that compel the law-abiding citizens to band together for protection and wrest from the official clutches, cowardly assassins and set a signal example of them and so strike terror into the hearts of cowardly murders, highwaymen, and robbers.  Vigilance committees are sometimes an absolute necessity, and it is the general opinion of the tax paying citizens of Bodie that the sooner a 601 organization is instituted the better for this section of the country.[14]

 

Six months later, Joseph DaRoche[15] fired a pistol ball into the back of Thomas Treloar’s head, but by then Bodie’s law-abiding citizens were openly impatient with incessant crime, an ineffectual police force, and the likelihood that a jury would fail to convict even a depraved killer.  Yet, the local press had discovered little about the mysterious “601.”  “It was currently reported on the streets last Thursday evening that a large but secret meeting of citizens was in session to devise a means for the swift and certain punishment of crime and of criminal negligence on the part of [police] officers, but what action, if any, was taken our reporter could not learn.”[16]

 

No newspaper reporting the January 17, 1881, vigilante lynching of Joseph DaRoche at Bodie disclosed coded meanings for the numerals “601.”  A note pinned to the dangling body provided meager clues, bearing the inscription, “All others take warning.  Let no one cut him down.  Bodie 601.”[17]

 

The event led one editor to reflect, “Law-and-order bluffs hard, telling what it is going to do, but 601 goes right ahead and does what it proposes without telling it all to the newspapers beforehand.  In fact, it is a peculiarity with 601 that newspapers never have a chance to publish their intentions, but only their achievements.”[18]

 

Although “601” meant peril to bad guys, nowhere does “six feet under—no trial—one rope” appear in period accounts.  It’s a colorful fable, but that does not make it true.  Until a reliable source is disclosed, this tale should be viewed with more than a touch of skepticism by everyone seriously interested in Bodie’s history.

 

The best account of Bodie’s “601” and its lynching of Joseph DaRoche is in Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters, Highwaymen & Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier (Berkeley CA:  University of California Press, 1984), 234-245.

 

 

Myth #4:  Immediately before he was murdered by Joseph DaRoche, Thomas Treloar stepped outside the Miners Union hall to smoke a cigarette.

 

Eyewitnesses near the hall on the frigid night of January 14, 1881, told a different story.  E.S. Butler and G.W. Alexander were standing in front of Kilgore’s market, when Treloar and DaRoche passed by.  According to Butler, who testified before a coroner’s inquest, “Alexander made some remark about the men being at outs about a woman.  I turned and watched them until the shooting took place.  The men were perfectly quiet and walking along side by side until the little man (Treloar) stepped down from the sidewalk, thus getting a little ahead of the other, when the other man (DaRoche) fired.”[19]

 

Next to Butler stood G.W. Alexander, who also testified.  “I was with Mr. Butler at the market, and said to him as DaRoche and Treloar passed, ‘that’s the two gentlemen who are likely to have trouble about the wife of the smaller man.’ ... I turned and looked after them.  The smaller man appeared a step or two ahead.  As they stepped off the sidewalk a shot was fired.... .  [I] saw the men continuously from the time they passed me until the shot was fired.  Saw no movement on the part of Treloar except his stepping off the sidewalk, when he seemed to pass a little to the front of DaRoche.”[20]

 

No witness recalled anyone smoking a cigarette, a form of tobacco that would not become popular until later in the decade, when automatic rolling machines made cigarettes affordable.  Based on advertisements in newspapers that reported Treloar’s murder, cigars were Bodie’s preferred smoke in January 1881.

 

 

Myth #5:  Bodie’s mines were hot inside, and the majority of Bodie miners died from “instant pneumonia,” an affliction caused by ascending a mine shaft too quickly from sweltering heat to bitter cold.

 

While researching Bodie’s mining history, I read hundreds of articles by mining correspondents, mine superintendents, and foremen, including William Irwin, Thomas Leggett, and Theodore Hoover.  No one with first-hand knowledge ever complained that Bodie’s mines were hot.  I also studied reports from the California State Mineralogist, Director of the U.S. Mint, and the American Institute of Mining Engineers, none of which mentioned high temperatures below ground.

 

Some 85 miles north of Bodie, however, mines on the Comstock were known for oppressive heat, first encountered in 1866 on the 900-foot level of the Belcher Mine.  When the Washoe District’s mines reached 1,200 foot depths in 1868, 110 degree Fahrenheit temperatures required blowers and ductwork to cool work areas.  Passages were also driven to connect shafts and create air currents that removed sweltering air.  Meanwhile, underground workers found refuge in cooling stations supplied with ice and cold water.[21]

 

When Washoe’s mines reached 2,000 feet below the surface in 1879, temperatures as high as 150 degrees were measured, but 120 degrees was normal.  Reporting Comstock mine fatalities from 1863 through 1880 for the U.S. Geological Survey, Eliot Lord counted nine miners who died from heat, all between 1876 and 1880.  “Of late years heat has killed strong men in almost every deep mine on the lode, and in some mines the deaths so caused have been frequent.”[22]

 

Excessive heat below ground also proved deadly in another way.  Rapid change in temperature overcame some miners riding to the surface on fast-moving cages.  A sudden temperature drop from stifling heat to a winter night’s chill could produce nausea and dizziness, occasionally causing a man to slip into unconsciousness.  If fellow passengers failed to catch him in time, the fainting man might collapse against the shaft wall to be ripped apart in the narrow space between the rapidly moving cage and the mine’s timbers.

 

While deaths occurred below ground as a result of high temperature, and men fainted aboard cages to be ground to pieces in the machinery, not once did Lord record a Comstock miner dropping dead from “instant pneumonia” during or after riding to the surface.  Lord tabulated Storey County, Nevada, deaths and their causes between 1865 and 1880, but did not list “instant pneumonia.”  A table of mine fatalities charted twelve workplace dangers, including cave-ins, explosives detonating prematurely, fires, “heat or foul air,” and “crushed by cage in motion,” but not “instant pneumonia.”[23]

 

Instant pneumonia is a good story, but bad history.  The affliction never existed on the Comstock and it was even less likely at Bodie, where the deepest mineshafts reached only 1,200 feet and all available documentation indicates underground temperatures were not excessive.

 

 

Myth #6:  “Goodbye, God.  We’re going to Bodie!”  Some authors say a little girl leaving Aurora uttered Bodie’s most famous quotation.  Others claim she was from Truckee.

 

Neither version is correct.  The quotation first appeared at Bodie on February 13, 1879, in a newspaper column reprinted from Carson City’s Nevada Tribune (which probably ripped it off from another newspaper).  “‘Good-bye, God; we are going to Bodie in the morning,’ was the suggestive termination of a sweet little three-year old's prayer the other evening at San Jose, just prior to the departure of the family for the wicked mining camp mentioned.  Not bad that, but rather severe on Bodie.”[24]

 

Bodie’s immediate rebuttal has been largely forgotten.  “All right, pardner; but we have no particular use here for a god that confines himself to the limits of San Jose; and we don't wonder that even a little three-year-old was willing to say ‘good-bye’ when she thought she had a chance to get out of that delectable place in order to come to Bodie.”[25]

 

The newspaper that published the town’s most popular response has been lost.  Instead, the editor’s remarks are preserved in a 1934 typed transcription of an unidentified 1879 Bodie daily:  “We would like to make a slight correction to the punctuation of the above.  It should read; ‘GOOD.  By God we are going to Bodie in the morning’.”[26]

 

 

Myth #7:  Bodie was once the second largest city in California, surpassed only by San Francisco.

 

A little research quickly debunks this whopper, yet it still reappears from time to time.  Here are official population figures for California’s largest cities in 1880.[27]

 

·      San Francisco      233,959

·      Oakland                34,555

·      Sacramento           21,420

·      San Jose               12,567

·      Los Angeles          11,183

·      Stockton              10,282

 

Even if nearly 10,000 fortune seekers populated Bodie during its 1879-1880 grandeur, the frontier boomtown was never California’s second, or even its third, largest city.  The U.S. census counted only about 5,400 inhabitants.  Local newspapers argued that the government’s enumeration was too small and cited people whose names did not appear on the list.  Newsmen estimated the population at around 7,000, maybe 8,000.

 

For eyewitness estimates of Bodie’s boomtown population, see the population essay.

 

Myth #8:  Peter Eshington and Louis Lockberg discovered the famous Fortuna Lode when their mine caved, exposing a vein that was “almost solid gold.”

 

According to surviving documents and the only eyewitness account of the discovery, Peter Eshington and Louis Lockberg were working the old Bunker Hill Mine when it caved, revealing an ore body they called the “Bullion Lode.”[28]  The discoverers filed their claim, documented by Mono County records:  “BULLION LODE, Notice:  Said claim is known as the ‘BULLION LODE.’  Peter Eshington, Louis Lockburg, June 11, 1875.”[29]

 

Eshington and Lockberg mined the ledge for about a year, then sold it to San Francisco speculators, who organized the Standard Company and set up industrial-scale mining.  The Bullion Lode became Bodie’s first bonanza, inciting a gold rush that began in 1877.

 

The “Fortuna” would not be discovered until 1879, in the adjacent Bodie Mine.  The ledge was rich, described by one observer as “flecked with shining particles of pure gold.”  The Fortuna became the Bodie Company’s primary source of revenue during the next 17 years as miners followed it 1,200 feet into the earth.

 

 

Myth #9:  Peter Eshington spelled his name “Essington.”

 

Peter Eshington and partner Louis Lockberg were working the Bunker Hill Mine when it caved in 1875, revealing an ore body that would make Bodie famous.  In The Story of Bodie (1956), author Ella Cain misspelled Eshington’s name and unwary writers have been repeating her error ever since.  Peter Eshington served as district recorder during the early 1870s, and his signature appears frequently in Mono County documents. [30]