Cattle Kate (30 page)

On her family's history:
Court records show Thomas Watson became a citizen of the United States on December 17, 1884, and his homestead was proved up on May 23, 1885. Printed obituaries say Thomas Watson died on May 29, 1921, and is buried in the Odessa Cemetery near Lebanon. Frances Close Watson died on April 3, 1924.

Chapter Six
—
My Train to a New Life

On Jacob Stone:
Brumbaugh says the family history notes Ella went to work for Jacob Stone after filing for divorce.

On enticements to immigrate:
Railroads issued brochures with titles like “Wonderful Opportunities for Homesteader or Investor” and one included a poem entitled “Mary Had a Little Farm.” (The author has rewritten the ditty for Ella. The original portrayed it as an investment opportunity and Ella never intended it for anything but her own farm.)

• •
  Brumbaugh told the author in a 2009 interview that Ella wanted to go west so she could own land like her father and grandfather.
  

On Jesse James:
Jesse James was a notorious train robber—he and his gang held up seven trains in a sixteen-year crime spree. He was shot in the back of the head and killed by Bob Ford on April 3, 1882.

On women voting:
On December 10, 1869, fifty-one years before national suffrage, Wyoming became the first government in the nation to give women full voting rights. One reason historians give for this momentous move is that men in the territory hoped it would attract unmarried women to move to Wyoming. But when it came to statehood, Congress demanded Wyoming rescind its woman suffrage. History gives us two versions of the strongly worded telegram that told Washington that wouldn't do: “We may stay out of the Union for 100 years but we will come in with our women,” or “We will remain out of the Union a hundred years rather than come in without the women.” Wyoming, known as the “Equality State,” entered the union in 1890 with full suffrage for women. Wyoming again made history in 1924 when its voters elected Nellie Tayloe Ross, the nation's first female governor.

On poodles:
According to Anne Seagraves'
Soiled Doves
, poodles were the preferred pet of western prostitutes. “These soft, cuddly little dogs were a favorite of the parlor ladies, so no ‘decent' woman dared to own one,” she wrote.

On Frances Willard:
Called “Saint Frances,” Willard led the Woman's Christian Temperance Union from 1879 until her death in 1898. In the first nine years of her leadership, she spoke in every American community of ten thousand people and many of five thousand, according to the PBS documentary
Prohibition
by Ken Burns. History now realizes Prohibition was the nation's first campaign against domestic violence. A popular Literary Society topic in the 1880s was “Intemperance causes more sorrow than war.”

On boiling coffee:
This is taken from
The Old West Quiz & Fact Book
by Rod Grace, who recounts that an Eastern matron in a Western train station was dismayed by the boiling hot coffee, when a cowboy came to her rescue, offering her his coffee “that's already saucered and blowed.”

On Cheyenne:
Ella Watson had arrived in “The Magic City of the Plains.” According to the
Cheyenne Centennial
report, in the decade of the 1880s, Cheyenne was the wealthiest per capita city in the world. It had the first municipal electric and telephone systems in North America. It would have the first library in the territory when it opened in 1886. The coming capital that the fictional Sally Wills bragged about would be as grand as anyone could imagine, built for the princely sum of one hundred fifty thousand dollars and dedicated on May 18, 1887, just in time for Wyoming to become the forty-fourth state on July 10, 1890. And yes, all the territories would become states—even Arizona, even though it would be the last one, not admitted until 1912 as the forty-eighth state.

On the Cheyenne Club:
There wasn't a boast about the Cheyenne Club that was over-the-top. Sitting like a beacon on Seventeenth Street, it was about the most lush and exclusive club in the nation. You had to be a member of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association to join and there was always a waiting list. Its description is taken from Wyoming historical records, as is the description of Cheyenne's major attractions and the Whipple House. The club lost its luster in the early 1900s and the building was eventually used for the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce until it fell into disrepair and was torn down in 1936.

On Herefords:
Historical records of the Cheyenne Club show they called their white tie and tails “Herefords” in honor of the beloved sturdy beef cattle with white faces and chests. Tuxedos were not yet a common style in America. Herefords and Texas longhorns were the favorite cattle breeds in Wyoming Territory at the time.

On women homesteaders:
In her article “Ella Watson. Rustler or Homesteader” for the
Annals of Wyoming
magazine, Sharon Leigh wrote in 1992: “The opportunities for women changed dramatically with the passage of the Homestead Law of 1862…. It enabled women to provide for themselves and their families by continuing, for the most part, the same kind of work they were used to doing. However, being able to homestead in their own names changed the power structure of the family as well as the roles of women.”

In her book,
Staking Her Claim
, Marcia Hensley estimates as many as two hundred thousand women attempted to homestead and as many as 67,500 were successful. She quotes a study that found before 1900, single women made up twelve percent of homestead claims, and after 1900, about eighteen percent. Nowhere in her excellent book on women homesteaders does Hensley mention the name of Ella Watson, one of the first and few single women homesteaders in Wyoming Territory in the 1880s.

On the Rock Springs Massacre:
By September 2, 1885, the Rock Springs coal mine employed almost six hundred Chinese workers and three hundred whites—all digging up coal to fuel the hungry engines of the Union Pacific Railroad. The portrayal of the massacre is based on the historical record, and an excellent article by Wyoming historian Tom Rea, published on his website.

Chapter Seven
—
The Man I Love

On Rawlins:
Rawlins was founded in 1868 as a railroad settlement and incorporated as a city in 1886, according to its official website. It was named for General John A. Rawlins, a decorated Civil War veteran who was guarding a work crew building the Transcontinental Railroad in 1867 when he asked for a drink of fresh water. Scouts went out, bringing back what Rawlins declared as the best water he'd ever tasted. He said he hoped if anything were ever named for him, it would be a good spring. By 1870, Rawlins had 333 electors (mainly men who could vote—but there also were uncounted women and children); in 1884, it had 1,906, according to a report to the Secretary of the Interior. When Ella Watson arrived in Rawlins, in the fall of 1885, it was the second wealthiest area in the territory, with its grazing, mining, and railroads. It was and remains today the county seat of Carbon County.

On Ella Watson:
She is described by her nephew and others as five-foot-eight inches tall and weighing about one hundred seventy pounds.

On Jim Averell:
He is described as five feet six inches, with no weight specified, but his pictures show he was a slight man. Hufsmith's 1993 book
The Wyoming Lynching of Cattle Kate, 1889
—considered an authoritative source on the hanging—notes he was called “Jimmy.” He was born March 20, 1851, in Renfrew County, Ontario. He was married in 1882 to Sophia Jaeger, but she died soon after giving birth to a son, who also died. On February 24, 1886, he filed Homestead Claim No.1227 on one hundred sixty acres on Horse Creek.

On Rawlins House:
Mary Hayes and her husband, Larry, originally from Missouri, were among the first businesspeople in Rawlins, Wyoming Territory, arriving with the railroad in 1868, according to an article in the Rawlins
Daily Times.
They owned and operated the Union Pacific Hotel for a decade—then the city's “leading establishment,” but moved “uptown” in 1880 when they bought and expanded a boardinghouse they named the Rawlins House, which became “the leading hotel” of the town. Mary Hayes was a strong Irish Catholic woman who demanded decency in the girls who worked for her. Wyoming historian Rans Baker told the author in an interview that Mary Hayes said of Ella Watson, “She was a very fine domestic.” And he noted: “I guarantee you, if Mary Hayes felt Ella was immoral, she wouldn't have worked in Rawlins House.” Mary Hayes operated Rawlins House until 1900. It was torn down in November, 1958 in the name of “progress” to make way for a parking lot, the
Times
reported.

On vinegar pie:
Heritage Recipes from Kansa
s supplied the recipe for Vinegar Pie: “2 tablespoons butter; 1/2 cup sugar; 3 tablespoons flour; 2 teaspoons cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves; 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice; 1 egg, lightly beaten; 2 tablespoons cider vinegar; 1 cup water; 1 pie crust. Cream butter and sugar. Sift together flour and spices, then add to flour mixture, mix well. Beat in egg, vinegar, and water. Pour into double boiler and cook over boiling water until thick. Pour into pie shell and bake about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.”

On territories:
What is now Wyoming was originally part of Dakota Territory, as were North and South Dakota and most of Montana. Wyoming was established as its own territory on July 25, 1868.

On Ella missing out if she married:
The ins and outs of homesteading that Jim tells Ella are based on the rules of the Homestead Act. According to
Staking Her Claim
, a single woman with a claim was no longer the required “head of household” if she married within the five years of “proving up,” and her claim would revert to her husband. Jim complaining that one hundred sixty acres in Wyoming was way too skimpy was indeed the much-heard complaint about the Homestead Act.

On Billy Owen:
William “Billy” Owen was one of Wyoming's earliest surveyors and became U.S. mineral surveyor for Wyoming. A partial autobiography—eighty-four typewritten pages, single-spaced, written in about 1930—is on file at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming.

On Mary Agnes Hellihan:
She married Tom Sun in Rawlins in 1883; their descendents still ranch in the Sweetwater Valley. Sun met Mary at the Union Pacific Hotel where she worked for Mary Hayes. They ranched near Devil's Gate, one of the geological formations in the area.

On Ella's claim:
Carbon County court records show Ellen L. Watson filed a “squatter's claim”—Claim No. 2003—to one hundred sixty acres on Horse Creek on August 30, 1886.

Chapter Eight
—
The Man I Hate

On Robin Red Vest:
Hufsmith notes this was the derisive nickname for A.J. Bothwell. He details Bothwell's family history and shenanigans, as does Daniel Y. Meschter, who devoted twenty-five years to researching the legal records of this affair. He self-published his findings in 1996 under the title
Sweetwater Sunset
. Bothwell was born February 18, 1854, in Iowa, where his well-off parents ran a “temperance” boardinghouse. He was the seventh of eight children and always idolized his older brothers, J.R., Frank, and George. He was an educated man, although tales that he was a Harvard graduate were fabrications. His oldest brother, J.R., was a Civil War quartermaster whose career ended in disgrace when he was court-martialed for stealing the army blind. But J.R. and his brothers went off into one financial scheme after another. Little brother Al decided to show his own mettle when, in about 1880, he tried cattle ranching in Colorado. But he was forced out as homesteaders moved in. By then, his brothers were in Wyoming Territory and lured him over to join their efforts: an oil well that had no oil; a railroad that had no rails. Every adventure brought in lots of investors, but no returns. Finally, Albert John Bothwell decided to try ranching one more time. He established his Broken Box Ranch in the Sweetwater Valley around 1883.

On John Fales:
He was the handyman for Ella and Jim, whose mother made Ella a new bonnet. No physical description of him exists, so his look and personality are the author's imagination.

On joke Fales tells Ella:
This is paraphrased from the joke “Horse Tale,” found on the Only Funny Jokes website about Old West humor.

On James Averell:
His background is recounted from the documentation of several historians, including Hufsmith and Meschter. Averell enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1871 in Wisconsin, but was soon assigned to Fort Fred Steele near Rawlins, Wyoming Territory. By a string of luck, he missed the major battles of the Indian Wars. His first five-year hitch was uneventful; he was discharged on May 22, 1876, but on June 20, reenlisted for another five years. He was sent to join General George Crook in Wyoming. Three days before Averell reenlisted, Chief Washakie saved General Crook and his men from an ambush by Crazy Horse and a large group of Ogallala Sioux in the Battle of the Rosebud. Had it not been for this battle, General Crook was slated to join George Armstrong Custer in searching out the Sioux in Montana. A month later, on July 25 and 26, 1876, Crazy Horse was among the Indian chiefs who annihilated Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

On final Pickell divorce:
Pickell refused to answer the notices of Ellen's claim for a divorce, but filed his own, claiming she had abandoned him. The divorce was finally official in early 1886, when Ella was already with Averell, Brumbaugh notes.

On Jim killing Charlie Johnson:
This wasn't a clear-cut case of self-defense as Averell would always insist. There had been bad blood between the men for months and Averell had even alerted his fort commander that Johnson was out to get him for some slight that was never spelled out. On May 2, 1880, Johnson entered the bar in Buffalo and called Averell a “cowardly son of a bitch,” demanding a fistfight. Johnson did not draw his revolver, but Averell had his out and shot at the advancing Johnson three times. While there was agreement on the first two shots, there was a conflict on the fatal third shot. Not everyone agreed Johnson had spun around when he was shot in the leg. Some say he was “rushing for the door” when he was shot in the back. The next day, Averell wrote to a prominent friend asking for help and declaring “I was compelled to do so or be shot myself.” Before Johnson died several days later, he told a court official that he had no intention of killing Averell but, “My intentions were to settle the afare [sic] between us with a fistfight. I drew no weapon.” After many delays over the next year, the court got weary of the case and used the excuse of it being a military matter to get rid of it. This information came from several sources, including Grand Jury testimony, May 5, 1880, Wyoming State Museum, Meschter and Hufsmith.