Past is Present

Last week, we met Nancie Colburn Hartford and her mining husband, Miles, and explored their change in attitude toward mining over the course of a couple of years. This week, we’ll look at a different kind of change: those that so often happen in the life of a woman.

While Miles was navigating the difficulties of mining and exploring alternative options for making a living in Colorado, Nancie was navigating an entirely different set of difficulties.

Throughout her early letters, Nancie took close stock of the social atmosphere of Russell’s Gulch. In her first letter back to Maine describing her surroundings, Nancie mentioned that “The neighbors are quite handy & very social, some very fine ladies.” She went on to mention several by name who had called on her, and in a postscript seemed quite taken aback by the extent to which a cosmopolitan lifestyle was sought after, noting that “We have had several invitations, to attend Balls, since I came, but declined. They are having Balls, quite often. There is a theatre at Mountain City, don’t you think this a fast country.”

Among Nancie’s early acquaintances was a “Mrs. Thacher,” a “nice lady formerly of Vermont. her sister is teaching school here.” Two months after her arrival, Nancie went to Central City with Mrs. Thacher and a Mrs. Bensen to do some shopping. She was “really surprised to find so large an assortment, of goods, here. I never saw a better, assortment, in any retail store, &. they ask a good price.” The trip seemed to increase her acquaintance with Mrs. Thatcher, as a few days later she attended a tea party at her house and “had a splendid time. There were about eight ladies present. all very fine ladies – Mrs. Thacher is one of the finest ladies I ever knew. I think so much of her.” Despite the rustic setting and hardships of living in a log cabin in a small village, Nancie had found a comforting social circle to make her adjustment easier.

Or so she thought.  It turns out that removing oneself from “civilization,” as it were, does not remove one from human nature. About seven months into her settlement, Nancie wrote to her mother that, while she had “some excellent neighbors,” she did not “think quite as much of Mrs Thatcher as I did. She is deceitful as she can be, she has talked about every lady on the Gulch, at the same time pretending to be their friend. I don’t like such friends as that.” It appears that some relationship and personality types don’t change no matter what century or location you’re in.

In addition to dealing with the establishment of female relationships, Nancie, as a newlywed, also began to contemplate starting a family. Writing to her mother on May 26, 1861, Nancie told her that Jennie, her sister, “wished to know if I intended to help populate the mountains.” Nancie’s reply to this question is direct, and rather curious. “I think not,” she wrote. “There will be a plenty besides; &. I think I would rather be excused.” At a time when all married women were expected to produce children, was she truly indifferent to them? Or, even though she had only joined her husband about seven months before, was she beginning to worry that she was not yet pregnant and thus responded defensively?

Of course, there’s no way to know. But what we do know is that by the beginning of November 1861 she had “never had such an appetite in my life,” and in April 1862 she wrote her mother to apologize for not having written earlier, but she had “been very sick indeed, am now better &. able to be about the house. You will probably be some surprised to hear, that I have a little Daughter. but it is even so, she was born the twentieth day of March.” Today, when communication is instant and travel easy and quick, it is hard to imagine a young woman not telling her mother that she is pregnant with her first child, but for Nancie it was a matter of practicality: “I did not say anything to you about it, for I thought it would only worry you for nothing. I have had good care. Miles has done every thing in his power to make me comfortable. (he is a dear good husband) & I had a good Doctor, & Nurse, Mrs. Mitchell, one of my neighbors, took care of me during my sickness, and is with me now.”

Despite her confidence in the care she had received, childbirth away from her family was not an easy experience for Nancie. “My dear Mother,” she wrote, “you can well imagine how much I missed your ever ready hand, while lying on a bed of sickness I never knew what sickness was before, for ten days I was not stirred from the bed. & then Miles had to lift me into a rocking chair, while I had my bed made, but for a few days. I have gained quite fast. am now most well. have got one of the sweetest Babes you ever saw. I know you would love her so if you could see her…I wish I could take her home to you this summer.”

Childrearing without her mother’s ready advice also proved challenging. A few weeks after the letter announcing the baby’s birth, she wrote again saying that the baby was not gaining weight as she should, and that she had been worried. But “Dr. Barber told me he thought my milk did not agree with her & said I had better feed her some with cows milk. I did so, & now she will not nurse a bit. She has not nursed for over a week. I think it is so funny. I have to feed her all the time, I feel in hopes she will grow some now, she grows smart every day.” For Nancie, it seems, approaching hardships with a sense of humor was a key to survival.

Next week, the series will conclude with a look at how the outbreak of the Civil War affected Nancie and those around her.

The nineteenth-century gold rushes continue to have a strong hold on the imagination of the American public. Perhaps it’s the promise of wealth or adventure or simply starting a new life. In any case, the gold rushes opened not only new physical and political frontiers for the United States, but also very personal ones for the people who partook in them. And although we usually focus on the miners themselves, theirs were not the only lives transformed by the decision to chase the golden dream—it was also those of their parents, siblings, spouses, children, and friends.

This was certainly the case for one Nancie Colburn Hartford who, in September of 1860, left her home in Maine and headed out west by railroad and stagecoach to meet up with her husband, Miles, who had left for the Pike’s Peak gold rush (located in what would soon become Colorado territory) shortly after they had been married in 1859 or 1860. Once there, Nancie wrote extensively to her mother and sister back in Winterport, Maine, giving us a rare glimpse of what life was like for those women who followed their husbands into the mining camps (or at least those of the post-California years).

Nancie (whose letters can be found in the Shaw-Webb Family Papers, 1756-1936) wrote about her journey to the territory, the scenery, her life in a log cabin, the Civil War, and pioneer and mining life in general. Over the course of several years, Nancie’s letters shifted in tone and focus as the enthusiasm of starting a new adventure waned, the complications caused by the Civil War dragged on, and the realities of sustaining a family on the frontier set in. Watching these shifts is what makes these letters so fascinating—and so human.

The most obvious way in which one sees this shift is through Nancie’s attitude toward pioneer life and more specifically what brought them there, mining. In the beginning, as one usually is at the start of a new adventure, Nancie was full of enthusiasm and hope for the future. After being in Colorado a week, she wrote to her sister:

I think you would almost envy us our happiness, it is true we have not many of the luxuries of life, but most certainly we have many comforts. Our house is made of hewn logs, nicely finished. Miles built it all himself it is just as quick as I want, in this country, as we think of making but a temporary stay. We have parlor, sitting room & kitchen, all combined in one, but as there is but two in the family, it answers very well. my work will be light. The neighbors are quite handy & very social, some very fine ladies. I do wish you could see some of the cabins here where there are respectable ladies too just thrown together, without any floor & a piece of canvass hung up for a door…You may think you should be would be homesick to live in this way, but I tell you there is a kind of excitement about it which I like for a while. here Ministers, Doctors, Lawyers, & Mechanics, are all brought on a level & throw aside that formality & reserve, so prevalent in the states…

…I know I shall like here firstrate. every thing is so different from what I expected. I can sit here by the window &. count over twenty houses, all within five minutes walk, besides two Mills, which run night and day. There are meetings every Sabbath a short distance from here, also a school. There is so much novelty and excitement about this kind of life that one can not be lonesome.

Nancie put a positive spin on her situation and was determined to not only enjoy, but also find charm in her new life “roughing it” on the frontier. But of course, the situation was to be temporary.

Just before Christmas 1860, eight weeks after arriving at “the ‘Peak’,” Nancie wrote to her sister lamenting that she had not yet received any letters from home, which made her very anxious, but “I like my Mountain home very much, indeed.” Nonetheless, the beginnings of concerns about making a living on the frontier had already begun to set in. She acknowledged that “This is going to be a hard winter at the Peak, there are a great many who have no money to get home, no money to even buy their food, and cannot get trusted….people expect good times next summer, but this winter money is scarce. & provision high… Miles almost gets the blues sometimes….I tell you this is a hard country to get rich in any one of less pluck than Miles would have left in disgust, but he is all courage he says he does not expect to get rich. but he is bound to get something worth coming for.”

Even after spring arrived, she continued to be concerned about money. In May 1861 she told her mother, “I go to walk every morning Miles has gone to work on his claim. it does not pay very well.” Come November, Miles had begun to look for alternative ways to make some money. “Miles commenced mining in the spring,” wrote Nancie, “but had such poor luck that he gave it up in July and commenced teaming, he has three yoke of oxen, now, we laugh considerable about his coming to ‘Pikes Peak’ to drive oxen, but he says anything to make money.”

By the middle of 1862, the Hartfords had managed to create a decent living for themselves by running a dairy farm. They had fourteen cows, which they milked themselves (with the help of a hired boy), and Nancie sometimes churned butter. Nancie could “hardly get time to think, I have so much to do,” but by selling the milk and butter they were “doing pretty well, better than mining.” “You know little about this country by what the papers say,” Nancie wrote to her mother. “There is now & then a claim paying pretty well, but they are rare. Miles says he shall not mine any more in this country.” After two years of constant toil and worry, Miles realized something many miners had realized before him: you make more money at the mines doing something other than mining.

Nancie’s letters can be found in the Shaw-Webb Family Papers, 1756-1936. Next week we’ll take a closer look at the particular challenges women faced on the mining frontier.