Eating Out in the 1850s

In my latest Sweet, Historical, Western Romance (A Bride for Alastair), my characters are returning to Boston after an extended stay in Missouri. They, of course, hadn’t left any food supplies in the house, except a few dried goods like tea, as they weren’t sure how long they’d be away. In those days, although the arrival of the rails had greatly sped up travel times, it still took at least a week to make the trip one way. But that doesn’t change the fact that you gotta eat.

Interestingly, the word restaurant, from a French word, only applied to eating establishments serving French cuisine. Most famous in the East is Delmonico’s in New York which opened in the 1830s. But aptly named “eating houses” also existed, besides saloons, as well as street vendors. The further West one travelled, the more people had to rely on eating “out” as fewer people had homes. By the time one got as far as San Francisco, nearly everyone ate in restaurants most of the time as so many were living in tents or hovels. This led to cooks coming from all over the world and created a diverse eating experience. The first three Chinese restaurants in the United States were opened in San Francisco in the 1850s.

Hotels served food, of course, to their patrons. In order to protect respectable woman from unwanted advances, a separate dining space in large hotels called a ladies’ ordinary was set aside for families or ladies travelling alone. At this time, women were not permitted to dine alone or unaccompanied by a male escort in restaurants and the public rooms of luxury, urban hotels. A ladies’ ordinary provided a socially acceptable venue where respectable women could dine alone or with other women.

I find this hard to believe as I don’t like them, but in the mid 19^th century, one of the most common dishes ordered at any eating establishment was oysters. From my research, it seems like all across the country they were very popular. I can’t imagine them being very good in the middle of the country, but I suppose near the coasts they would be fresh enough.

One thing I found fascinating, because “respectable” women didn’t usually eat in restaurants, a solution had to be found as the nation prospered - wealthy women could work up an appetite while out shopping. Thus the ice cream saloon came about. These decadent eateries allowed women to dine alone without putting their bodies or reputations at risk. The first ones served little more than ice cream, pastries, and oysters, but as women became more comfortable with eating out, these establishments expanded into opulent, full-service restaurants with sophisticated menus. Although ice cream saloons or parlors had an air of dainty domesticity, they also developed more sultry reputations. At the time, they were one of the few places where both men and women could go unchaperoned. As a result, they became popular destinations for dates and other illicit rendezvous.

The research I had done for my book centered around Boston, so I’ve found researching this article absolutely fascinating. I think some of these tidbits are going to have to turn up in future books <grin>.

Secrets divide them. Could love build a bridge to help them overcome their deceptions?

Jane was full of resentment and fear when the man she had married by proxy came to collect her. She resented the circumstances that required her to marry and was afraid of being tied to a stranger, especially a stranger she had to keep secrets from.

Alastair Fredericksburg, Fred to his friends, had arranged successful proxy marriages for a few of his friends but still had mixed feelings about marriage due to his sister’s unhappy union. He was understandably hesitant when his friends Ella and Carter McLain contacted him requesting that he arrange a marriage for their friend, Jane.

When a sudden inheritance that would solve many of his sister’s problems is dependent on his marriage, Fred can’t decide if it’s the Devil or Providence watching out for him. Since Carter had already sent Jane’s proxy, Fred quickly signs and registers their marriage. After making sure his sister was secure, Fred boarded the westbound train to claim his wife.

Jane was certain it was only the sweet wine they had been drinking that had caused her to agree to Ella’s rash suggestion. She had failed to tell Ella of the secrets that made her an ineligible match for Alastair Fredericksburg. Would she be able to keep her secrets from her new husband? And could they ever be happy while divided by deception?

Available from Amazon. Free with your KU subscription.

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Lumberjacks and Farmers in the Northwoods of Wisconsin

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

My Northwoods Series is based in Upper Wisconsin in 1857. The rich history in this area provides a great background for my tales of trapping, fishing, and the harvesting of rich forests.

I belong to the Historical Society and once a year spend an afternoon in one of the two museums in our small community. My favorite of the two buildings is a small log cabin filled with artifacts used by lumberjacks and farmers. The rich forests here provide the many sawmills in the area with timber. What I've found remarkable are tools they used all those years ago for the logging business and farming.

The water here is pure and the ground rich for growing fields of vegetables and food for livestock.

Most major cities in central and northern Wisconsin were built around or over rivers. These waterways provided an opportune way to transport pine logs from rich forests to the mills. Forests adjacent to the Wisconsin River were the first to fall from a lumberjack's ax.

Multiple rivers provided a convenient mode of transport for the pine logs to travel from the forests to the mills. These sawmills used the swift-moving rivers to power waterwheels and the huge saws they used to first to cut the logs into boards and then the logs into boards.

White settlers moved into the Northwoods and began to develop the lumber industry. Even though their settlements were established far distances from obtaining supplies and enjoying the convenience of markets, a limited form of transportation, and unimproved roads and waterways, the lumber industry grew steadily and formed the backbone of the state's economy by the middle of the nineteenth century.

Stevens Point and Wausau are two towns that can thank the mills for expanding. They provided general stores, banks, grocers, and other businesses to support the growing population of loggers and mill workers.

A Step Back into the past at Hart Square

For the last forty years, Dr. Robert Hart has rescued, and restored nineteenth century structures--the largest collection of original, historical log structures in the United States, and has furnished each building as it would have been in that time. Dating from 1782 to 1873, the seventy log structures—chapels, barns, houses, shops, and more—are all furnished, and around 220 volunteer artisans demonstrate the period techniques of flax breaking and hackling, spinning, weaving, herb dying, open-hearth cooking, broom and shoe making, shingle riving, wheelwrighting, tinsmithing, and moonshining.

The 4th Saturday of October marks the one day a year Dr. & Mrs. Hart open their restoration project, Hart Square, to the public. I've had the privilege to attend this event twice as one of the re-enactors and its a day not to be missed.

I've taken many photos of the buildings over the past two years but its the small details I find the most interesting. Take a look at the following of the general store. Dr. Hart doesn't skimp on a thing.

Tools, Harnesses & Cloth Goods

Pots, Baskets and Beans

Sewing Notions (thread, needles, buttons, etc.), Boots and Dresses

Fine China, Coffee & Tobacco

Even a wooden casket to bury your dead!

Hats, Crocheted Lace & Feathers for Hats

Hats, Bonnets and Evening Coats

Drawers full of...uh, I actually have no idea what this was used for. I just thought it was  interesting! I'm assuming small things like nails, or buttons, or ...tiny things?

Curling Irons for your hair. 

(I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but the 'end' of that has a 'bowl' where a hot coal from the fire was placed. That's where your heat came from! Neat, huh?

Ribbon for your hair.

Elixirs and Salves. Modern Medicine for the times.

Barrels and Tins

The outside of the General Store

If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Harts life-long project, and see photos of the other structures he's restored, visit the Catawba County Historical Association.

About Lily Graison

USA TODAY  bestselling author Lily Graison writes historical western romances and dabbles in contemporary and paranormal romance. First published in 2005, Lily has written over a dozen romance novels that range from sweet to spicy.

She lives in Hickory, North Carolina with her husband, three high-strung Yorkies and more cats than she can count and is mother of two and grandmother of three. On occasion, she can be found at her sewing machine creating 1800’s period clothing or participating in civil war reenactments and area living history events. When not portraying a southern belle, you can find her at a nearby store feeding her obsession for all things resembling office supplies.

To see the dresses Lily has created, visit her Pinterest page.

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An Old-Time Tale

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

There's a tale the old-timers used to tell in the sunbaked streets of old Tombstone -- the thrilling tale of Schieffelin's gold. Millions of people have read about him and seen the monument to him on the highway near Tombstone -- Ed Schieffelin.

Ed liked the excitement of being right up against the earth, trying to find her gold. He went into California first and then after a few years, to the Grand Canyon country. While there he joined some scouts who were fighting Apaches and ended up going with them into southern Arizona. He quit them to prospect in the Huachuca Mountains. He stayed in the vicinity of a camp of soldiers. When one of them asked him what he was looking for, he answered, "Oh, just stones."

"The only stone you'll ever get in this country will be a tombstone," the soldier said.

The first claim Ed staked out he named Tombstone, and from it the town took its name -- which also led the first newspaper of the town to be named Tombstone Epitaph.

The Tombstone claim did not prove to be very rich, nor did his next claim, the Graveyard. The Tough Nut made him rich in silver and gold. He and his brother and a third partner traded off part interest in the mine to moneyed men who put up a mill to refine the ore. In 1879 the mine was paying $50,000 a month. For a while, Ed Schieffelin hauled the bullion from his mine to Tucson, but got restless and went to prospecting again.

In 1880 he and his brother sold out for $600,000 -- $300,000 each -- and he went to prospecting farther off. When their third partner sold out for a real fortune later, he subtracted $300,000 for himself from the sum and divided the remainder equally between himself and the two Schieffelins.

In 1897 Ed bought a fine outfit in San Francisco: wagon, mules, tools, especially fine cooking utensils, and plenty of provisions and struck north. At Grants Pass, Oregon, he saw an eighteen-year-old boy named Charlie Williams working around a blacksmith shop and asked if wanted to go into the mountains. The boy was eager to go. Ed was happy he now had a helper. They stopped on Day Creek and camped in an abandoned cabin. Ed told Charlie they could go no farther in a wagon, but would make this place headquarters while he prospected in rough country. He told Charlie he could go off for a few days as he himself would be away from camp a while. Both left.

When Williams returned to the cabin, he found the dead body of Ed Schieffelin. Ed had apparently been sitting, breaking stones with a hammer when he died. The rocks were found to be very, very rich in gold. The camp seemed not to have been molested by anybody, but some of the new cooking utensils were missing. The theory developed that Ed had taken the utensils himself and made a kind of sub-camp near where he had struck the rich ore.

Prospectors hunted for the location from which Ed brought in samples. For a long time they hoped to find the missing cooking utensils as a marker. Any camp would have been made convenient to water. When no cooking utensils could be found, the prospectors searched everywhere for the gold, near the old cabin on Day Creek and far out from it. They never located the site. Its whereabouts died with Ed Schieffelin.

True West, October, 1958 issue -- written by J. Frank Dobie

DELORES

Please welcome our guest Delores Goodrick Beggs.

Girlhood With a Horse Named Snowball

by

Delores Goodrick Beggs
I was one of the first girls in our rolling Kansas farm area to wear blue jeans, and I took up wearing them all the time. My city woman mother despaired of me to the extent she purchased for me a pair of green jodhpurs, and informed me jodhpurs were considered acceptable wear for girls who rode horses. Sad to say I never liked jodhpurs and only wore them a few times. I can't count the number of pairs of blue jeans I wore out growing up.

Bicycles were big in those girlhood times and my siblings and I enjoyed the steep hills of the rural Wyandotte County our acreage was on. I never did get the hang of riding a bicycle down our country hills, but our horses were a different matter.  We often cantered up and down over the hilly road to our friends' houses two steep hills away.

ANOTHER WHITE HORSE DELORES OWNED
NAMED MOONRISE

Snowball was the horse I rode growing up, a snow white mare except for a brown-eared "cap" on the top of her head. I won my first horse show blue ribbon riding Snowball western.

Whatever I asked of her she would do, even pace smooth as a cushioned chair, although she was strictly a Western riding horse.

Snowball had a tendency to get herself into situations. One day I came home from school to find she'd fallen down our steep hillside and lay flat on the ground with her head in the edge of the culvert creek that ran through our acres. I ran down and sat in the creek, cradling her head out of the water a while before she could be coaxed back onto her feet and walked up the path to our barn, cleaned her up and stayed with her until my father could take over when he got home from his day job.

Another time Snowball somehow got through three barbed wire strands of fence and onto the neighbor's land - we figured it was a case of the grass looking greener over there. She fell through a narrow crevasse in their hillside down to the ground level, and was stuck. The local volunteer fire department spent a long time digging to widen the tight confines and tried without success to pull her out, three men manning the rope. When they gave up, Dad (we'd called him home from work) went up and stroked her head, spoke to her. Then he backed away, pulled the rope around his wrists and shoulders, hollered to her and then leaned into the rope and pulled her out of the crevasse by himself while the rescue team and I watched. My father grew up a farm boy, plowing gardens with a hand plow, and was a very strong man

I rode Snowball growing up, and in spite of her tendency to escapades, she lived to be a very old and pampered horse. She and the other horses we had fueled my mind for my books, of which the first, Breaking Point, Book One of my Place in the Heart series, came out May 11, 2012 from Desert Breeze Publishing, www.DesertBreezePublishing.com.

 Besides riding Snowball in parades and horse shows in my teen years I had a job driving a buggy pulled by a matched team of four black ponies in parades for a local eatery. The buggy carried a sign promoting the business. I was amazed to learn later the sum paid for driving in the parades was the amount a woman could rent a monthly apartment for back then; it wouldn't begin to go so far nowadays, but it sure helped our family out at the time.

DELORES WITH STAR, ONE OF THE
PONY RING PONIES,
AND HER FOAL, SHIEK

Also during my teen years we kids, with help also from a neighbor boy, ran the first Pony Ring in the Kansas City, Kansas area on weekends and holidays except in bad weather. Those were busy times. With no local competition our Pony Ring Ranch was a big family attraction. My father set us kids a great example when he made the effort to include every child that wanted to ride a pony. He walked the ring himself many times, holding in place a disabled child who beamed with a bright smile at his or her new accomplishment. Some of those special children returned regularly to ride and their families became friends of ours.

Of an early Sunday morning when my father was home from work, and if the Kansas weather was decent, then we would saddle up and ride, Dad on Snowball and me on Satin, a large donkey we had, and my brother and younger sister on other mounts.  We would sedately climb to the high pasture hill following Dad on a prancing Snowball. 

There's something tall about being atop your mount and your world, something free about charging your steed through the wind; we kids would race back down the hill, and wait. When Dad caught up with us on Snowball he would caution us not to tell our mother those consarned horses got away from us. Those delightful family Sunday rides were the glory days of my girlhood.
~*~*~

Blurb:
Mauranie Wells and her sister Tennyson are at odds. Mauranie is content with their Wells Double Bar ranch home and working on the progress of her fledgling horse business. Tennyson wants the town life social scene and pretty new gowns, not a dusty horse ranch. She spends as much time as possible in nearby Mescal Flats, and when she is home at the ranch, cowboys come to call on her.
Cowboy banker Stemson Arroyo Smith needs help. He rides into the Bar W on a day when the sisters are not speaking. He unknowingly escalates the tension by ignoring Tennyson to pull his horse up beside the corral where Mauranie is exercising a black colt.

~*~*~

EXCERPT

   "Good colt. I'm Stemson Arroyo Smith, by the way."
   Each crisp word shot a thrill of pleasure through her. Her eyes widened, and she smiled. He didn't drawl the way Tennyson's cowboy friends did. Cultured, she thought, and with a deep voice she could hear well.
   "He needs work, a lot of work."
    "A little at a time will do it. He's young yet."
   "The house is over there." She nodded in Tennyson’s direction, drinking in the wonderful experience of not having to tilt her head in order to hear him.
   Stemson made no move to leave.
   Mauranie ground her teeth and clenched her fists, staring at him. She glanced past him to where Tennyson stood pressed against the veranda rail, her body rigid again, a grimace on her face.
   "My sister sometimes keeps her suitors cooling their heels. I warn you, yours will be a long wait if you remain here. Tennyson’s hand-made boots have never seen the inside of a corral." Mauranie turned her back to   Stemson and clicked the colt into motion.
   "My business is with Mauranie Wells." His deep voice caused her to pause and turn back to better catch his words. "I daresay it’s you? Scott Ringer at the feed store in Mescal Flats told me your sister is a blonde. So you see, I am, after all, where I should be." 
   Warmth started in the core of her being and spread to engulf her. At the same time, uncertainty struck her. Had she heard him right? This nice man had come to see her? She well knew how her poor hearing sometimes tripped her up. She tensed. She had to check if she'd heard him right. She drew Showman to a stop and led him to the pole fence where the stranger stood.
   "Me? What can I do to help you?" She scanned the crinkled corners of his silvered eyes, letting her gaze drop down smooth cheeks darkening with new afternoon shadow. Her tight muscles relaxed. She lifted her gaze and stared into the smile of those silvery-blue eyes.
**************
Place in the Heart: Book One, Breaking Point, was released May 11, 2012
Place in the Heart: Book Two, Substitute Lover, will release in December, 2012
BUY LINKS:
http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-290/From-The-Heart-Book/Detail.bok

http://www.amazon.com/Place-The-Heart-Book-ebook/dp/B008251M7U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339269798&sr=1-1&keywords=Delores+Goodrick+Beggs

Thank you, Delores, for being such an excellent guest! I know readers will want to read this book--I know I do.

Celia Yeary

You can find Delores here:

http://www.goodrickbeggs.wordpress.com

http://deloressworld.blogspot.com/

Show Mo

Bobby Slaughter's Half A Million Dollar Horseback Ride

By Paisley Kirkpatrick, taken from the November, 1961 issue of the Real West

Cattle king of Texas, Colonel C. C. Slaughter awakened his ten year old son Bobby in the cold darkness of a Dallas hotel room on a night in 1881. He told his son to hurry and dress in his lightest outfit and leave off the jacket. Bobby jumped out of bed and did as his father asked. The Colonel took his son to a nearby livery stable and roused the proprietor. He made a quick deal for a thoroughbred mare and a light English riding saddle. After lifting the small boy upon the horse, he placed a canvas sack in the saddle bag and handed the lad a slim envelope.

Patting the boy's knee, he said, "Bobby, I've got a job, a mighty important one that only you can do because of your size. You've got to ride to the Long S ranch without stopping except to change horses. You must beat the Englishmen who left here three days ago. When you arrive, give this envelope to my foreman. He will know what to do. There's $500 in gold in your saddle bag to buy fresh mounts. You can do it son, you've got to -- or we lose the Long S and half a million dollars. Your mother and I will start tomorrow and we'll meet you at home in a few days."

"Sure I can do it," Bobby answered. "I can ride like a real hand now and I can even help break horses." Flicking his spurs against the sides of the mare, Bobby was off in a flurry of hoof beats that rang out shrilly in the silent darkness of the winter night. The chill air hit his thinly clad body like a spray of ice water but the small boy galloped on.

Five days before the fateful night, the colonel had sold his ranch, the Long S near Big Spring, to a group of men, one who claimed to be of the nobility representing an English syndicate and had taken a British bank draft for a half a million dollars in full payment for the land and all holdings thereon. After giving the Englishmen a written order to his foreman to transfer the Long S, Slaughter had rented a carriage and dispatched the new owners toward the ranch at his own expense.

When Colonel Slaughter presented the draft to the Texas Land & Mortgage company, a Dallas branch office of an English loan corporation, the firm refused to hand over the cash without an investigation. A cablegram was sent to England and the loan company manager, suspicious of the English "lord" and his party, remained open that night awaiting the answer. His doubts proved correct. The answering cablegram revealed the men were imposters and the draft quite worthless. Slaughter, who had started on a shoe string and built the Long S into a mighty cattle empire, felt a stab of naked hopelessness. He had been taken to the tune of half a million dollars.

He came up with a hair-brained idea, but if it worked he wouldn't lose everything. He'd send his son...the only chance he had.

Bobby galloped through the cold dark night. It wasn't yet dawn when he reached Fort Worth where he watered the mare at a public drinking trough. The thoroughbred kept up a steady running gait into Weatherford, her slick coat was lustrous with foam and sweat. Bobby hastily bought a fresh mount. On and on Bobby rode over the austere Palo Pinto Mountains, heading ever westward to Clear Fork near Phantom Hill. He stopped only for water over the weary miles through the unmarked, rough country.

His horse started to limp. He headed toward the next ranch and when the horse almost collapsed he ran by foot to the ranch. The only horse they had available was a mustang that had been ridden only once. Bobby told them he had to go on and asked them to head the horse in the right direction and put him on the horse's back. The hands roped the rearing horse, blinded him, headed him west and threw the saddle upon his back. Bobby leaped in the saddle. The mustang reared and bucked, but Bobby stayed on. Then the animal bolted, running westward with the speed of the wind. Gradually the animal became accustomed to his light burden. He began to move with such exactness and precision that he lapped up the miles and sent the endless prairie whirling behind him. By dark Bobby found himself in the foothills of Taylor County.

Darkness dropped and with it came the cold. He hunched low over the mustang's neck to absorb what warmth he could. At dawn he headed toward Rock Springs which he knew was near the river bed. He and the mustang desperately needed water. Bobby's heart sank when he found the Englishmen camped at the river. He hastily skirted the camp and pushed his weary animal on toward the Long S. Now it was with the greatest effort that he held his eyes open. At noon he realized he was within the boundaries of his father's ranch. He was so tired that the countryside began to blur. He wrapped his arms about the neck of the mustang and urged him on.

At two o'clock that afternoon a Long S line rider saw a thin veil of dust on the far horizon. As it moved slowly nearer, he saw that it was preceded by a moving dot which gradually emerged into the shape of a slowly moving horse with a prone figure on its back. He summoned the ranch foreman and together they rode out to meet the mount and its burden. They found Bobby unconscious with his hands clasped tightly around the mustang's neck, so sound asleep they couldn't rouse him. But, the foreman found the envelope with Colonel Slaughter's orders in the lad's shirt pocket.

Leaving the lone rider to bring in the tired horse, the foreman gathered Bobby in his arms and galloped post haste to the ranch where he sent out a call for the entire Long S crew to assemble at the ranch house.

In the late afternoon the Englishmen drove up with a flourish. Haughtily the bogus "lord" demanded the Long S. Suddenly the coach was surrounded by the grim faces of the ranch crew. The foreman spoke only a few words, but the Englishmen realized their lives were in danger and immediately left the ranch.

A few days later colonel Slaughter and his wife arrived by carriage. They found their ten year old son fully recovered from the long ride and the Long S still Slaughter domain.

Written for the Real West publication by Louise Cheney

Social Etiquette in the 1800s

As a writer, I’m usually leery of challenging myself, but there are times when it turns out to be fun. And I don’t merely mean making the leap from historical writing to contemporary and back again.  I’m talking about moving outside of my comfort zone.  To put it quite simply: my heroes have always been cowboys. *G*  Well, cowboys, gunfighters, lawmen, bounty hunters—in other words, men who don’t have “purty” manners and are basically take-me-as-I-am kind of guys.  And pairing them with a heroine who will at least pretend to be offended when he cusses, spits or smokes is a lot of fun.  But lately my heroes have been moving in another direction, and I find myself writing about men who either need to fit in with polite society, or who already belong to it. 

And that’s what has led me (kicking and screaming!) out of my comfort zone into the cold, frightening land of the unknown, LOL.  Sure I knew the basic customs of the era, but I’ve never written a character that had to—or wanted to-- adhere to them.  Some I already knew and have had fun deliberately ignoring in past stories. Others were no-brainers (ex: it’s bad manners to pick one’s teeth at the table. LOL. I’ll bet even my most trail-weary cowboy knows that one!) But they were all fun and chock full of "what if's" for having one character or another break the rules.  

Here are some of the more interesting tid bits my research has turned up:

It was not considered appropriate for a young man to approach a young lady. Even if they had already met, he must still be introduced by a mutual friend a second time before he can speak to her freely.

In any stage of courtship, the couple always walked apart - the only contact allowed was for him to offer her his hand over rough spots while walking.

Women never rode alone in a closed carriage with a man who was not a relative. (oooh isn't that what made Rhett Butler so scandalous?)

Women did not call on an unmarried gentleman at his home.

Men could not be received into the home if a woman was there alone, a family member must be present at all times.

A true gentleman always tips his hat when greeting a lady, opens doors and always walks on the outside.  (Sigh.)

When introduced to a man, a lady should never offer her hand, merely bow politely and say “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

A gentleman may delicately kiss a lady’s hand, forehead or at most, her cheek. (I suspect even my most noble heroes’ have broken this rule a time or two. *G*)

A lady should never be neglected.  A gentlemen should help her with her cloak, shawl or any other outer garment she may wish to remove. (A safe bet to say my heroes are quite capable in this area.)

When ascending a staircase with a lady, a gentleman is to go at her side or before her. 

Happy Writing!