The Strange Tale of The Iron Mountain Baby by Bea Tifton

William Moses with his valise

In 1902, William Helms was a 72 year-old Civil War veteran living in Hopewell, Missouri with his 51 year-old wife, Sarah. Although some, including William’s descendants, say William was bringing his horses to water in the Big River, most sources say William was looking for scrap wood near the railroad track to finish his shed when he heard something squeaking in distress. He followed the sounds to a valise near the Big River along the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway, later to be called the Missouri Pacific Railroad. He found a five day old infant stuffed into a valise with baby clothes and a spool of black thread. The general theory is that someone threw the valise off the train intending to hit the river, and missed. Later some railroad workers would remember a young woman with a valise who seemed very distressed.

 

The baby was relatively unscathed except for a slight wound on his head and an injured leg that would give him a limp for the rest of his life. William took the baby back to his wife and she nursed him back to health and insisted the couple raise him as their own. They named him William Moses Gould Helms. William, after the man who saved his life, Moses, after a baby who was also found in the reeds, Gould, after the railroad baron, Helms.  Quite a big name for such a small baby.

William, Sarah, and William Moses with the infamous valise.

The press soon got wind of the story when a local minister named John Barton wrote a 14 stanza song called “The Iron Mountain Baby.”  The Helms were flooded with visitors, including one mysterious young woman in black who sadly kissed the baby on his forehead and slipped away. One woman tried to claim him but could not provide any proof of maternity so the Helms held firm and raised him as their own son, eventually formally adopting him. Notoriety followed William his entire life, although his descendant said William did not like being so well known.

William as a young man

William worked as a newspaper printer throughout high school in Hopewell, then attended what is now Missouri State University in Springfield. The railroad covered all his tuition and other college expenses. He became a newspaper editor in Fair Grove, Missouri after college and caused a minor sensation when he left town for no apparent reason. In 1933 he married and moved to Houston, Texas, where he lived until his death at the age of 50 in 1953. He was buried in Hopewell near his parents and close to where he was originally found.

The version of “Iron Mountain Baby” that people sing now is thought to have been altered from the original. Notice a couple of the details are off. The baby was William Moses, not William Rosco, he was found by William Helms, and it was the number four train. "The leaves" refers to the valise.

The lyrics of “The Ballad of the Iron Mountain Baby” are as follows:

I have a song I'd like to sing

It's awful but it's true

About a baby, thrown from a train

By a woman, I know not who.

Th' train was running at full speed

T'was northbound number nine

An' as it crossed th' river's bridge

She cast it from the door.

A Mother unkind, a Father untrue

And yet, I'm bound to say

It must have grieved that Mother's heart

To cast her baby away.

The leaves in which this baby was found

Was fourteen inches long

Five inches wide, six inches deep

An', O, so closely bound.

It was Bill Williams who found this babe

He heard its helpless cry

He took it to his loving wife;

She would not let it die.

She bathed and washed its little head

An' soon, it hushed its cry

God bless them both while they live

God bless them when they die.

We'll name him William Roscoe

Because he has no name

Then, if he grows to be a man

He'll wear it just th' same.

This ends my song, my story I've told

I'll say, goodbye to all

Until we meet around the throne

In that bright world above all.

Steve Martin and Edie Brickell recorded their version as “Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby” and also collaborated on a bluegrass musical based on the Iron Mountain Baby story called Bright Star that played on Broadway.  Their song “Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby” is available on
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i7hCIFDuRA

August 17, 1902 Note the word "Clew"

The internet has some fascinating articles about the Iron Mountain Baby. Read some, listen to the musical score, and watch the YouTube videos of interviews and renditions of the song, as well as giving a listen to Steve Martin's and Edie Brickell's take on this fascinating story of a little baby who had a big adventure.

Further Reading:

https://calebandlindapirtle.com/the-mystery-of-the-baby-in-a-suitcase/ https://dailyjournalonline.com/news/local/popular-saga-of-iron-mountain-baby-unfolded-here/article_aab903e7-a0af-5256-b76f-36cc93f08ff0.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Mountain_Baby 

https://www.thesalemnewsonline.com/article_0db58dec-2dbc-11e6-8b16-43e0af93ed0d.html

WHOSE JOURNEY by E. AYERS

Research sends us down endless trails as we look at how our characters live their daily lives. The year, the season, the location can change things. Will the winter be a hard one or mild? 

As I write my diary of Clare Coleman, I’m also dealing with a woman who matures over the years. She started out as a slightly naive and idealist teen and eventually she hardens into a woman who isn’t phased by what the West and life tosses at her.

The mid through late 1800’s is also a time of change with the Civil War, its aftermath, and all the industrial inventions. These things impacted the West. And while fashion raised and lowered bustles, changed changed the hip lines on skirts and the shape of corsets in the East, women in the West didn’t have time for such nonsense. They wore practical fabrics and horrors upon horrors pants(!) because they were practical. They rolled up their sleeves.

But Clare had another influence on her. Indians. Tribal people that she and her husband had befriended. Their ways and customs were different and often shocking. She had to learn to accept the differences. 

As Clare experiences and encounters life’s adventures, I must research so that the reader can follow along an accurate path. Timelines, maps, language translation, fashion, recipes and dozens of other things clutter my desk. It’s supposed to be Clare’s life, but it’s become my journey.  I can't wait to share it with you.

African American Pioneers By Cora Leland

African American Pioneers By Cora Leland

The Terrible History of African American Pioneers in the Northwestern Territories

When the Northwest territories were opened in 1830 to everyone, regardless of color, education or religion, black settlers were promised, by law, the right to own land, to own firearms and  to vote. The first African American man to hold elected office in the United States was John Langston. In 1855 Mr. Langston was voted town clerk by a community of white and black citizens in Ohio.

Another startling development occurred in a Randolph County, Indiana preparatory school. The student body was co-educational and racially diverse. The board of education was the same, and president was black.

A historian of African American pioneers, Anna-Lisa Cox, found that the Northwest Territory frontier had been home to numerous free black communities, with churches and schools that welcomed everyone, since before the civil war. But the Northwest Territory frontier was not completely free of racism.  Individual townsmen continued to enslave people, even though it was illegal.  One such enslaved woman, Polly Strong, took the slave owner to court in 1820 and won.

Unfortunately, African Americans in the Northwest Territories met with a violent backlash because of their numerous achievements.  Editors of town newspapers, both black and white, were dragged from their offices, tarred, feathered and beaten, their printing presses broken; farmers and their families were forced, at gunpoint, to relinquish their property;  a mill owner was likewise threatened until he gave up his mill and left. The scourge began in the 1830’s and ended after the civil war. African American voting rights were rescinded; ‘Black Laws’ were put into effect; and in 1857 black men were no longer citizens.

In Ms. Cox’s words, the younger generation of Northwest Territory began to speak of people who belonged and those who did not, as if these were the core values of the American Revolution. Clearly, to them, African Americans did not belong.

During this checkered time, the gag rule began (in the 1830s) in Washington. Any petition that discussed ending slavery was stopped by the federal government. Also in the 1830’s Abraham Lincoln’s first published speech concerned the rising violence against African Americans.

Uneasy Beginnings for African Americans in Kansas

The only difficulty with resettling in ‘Bleeding Kansas’ was the hostility toward free and  formerly enslaved Afro Americans coming from two rather violent groups.  Abolitionists, such as John Brown in 1854, fought the ‘Free Soilers’ (who wanted no African Americans in their territory at all) and the ‘Pro-Slavers.’

This deterrent to African American settlers ended, first in 1861, when Kansas entered the Union as a Free state, then on January 1, 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation.

   

After reconstruction, African Americans in the South suffered under laws that reduced or removed their civil rights. Coming out West was the best solution. They left the South after 1877, when the gains they’d found during Reconstruction were reversed, and the lands they’d owned were taken away from them.  In order to survive, many of these people became sharecroppers on land their families had worked as slaves.

Agencies in Kansas sought black families to settle in western Kansas, and by mid-1877, 300 African Americans had formed a new town, Nicodemus. In 1879, a homestead agency (owned by Benjamin "Pap" Singleton in Tennessee) recruited black people to travel to Texas. (Just as homestead agencies recruited other groups to settle in the West.) By 1800, 9,500 African Americans had moved to Kansas from Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

African Americans Homestead in Nebraska

The Homestead Act of 1862, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, granted 160 acres of public land to male citizens over 21, veterans of all ages, widows and unmarried women, women heads of households, and immigrants who certified they’d become citizens. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 affirmed African Americans as citizens, and they were eligible for homesteading under the Homestead Act of 1862.  Also, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed black people’s rights to homestead in 30 states (according to a study shared by the National Parks Service and the Nebraska University’s Center for Great Plains Studies).  There were numerous other forms of the Homestead Act in Nebraska.

The most common homesteading areas in Nebraska for African Americans were Dawson, Custer and Harlan Counties.  About 30% of African American homesteaders eventually accepted more challenging homesteads of 640 acres completely removed from their friends and families.  The first free African American settler in Nebraska was Sally Bayne. She settled in Omaha in 1855.  Before that, Nebraska Territory counted four slaves as residents and numerous African Americans came through Nebraska in covered wagons.

African American settlers first moved into Kansas, then into the other plains states.  Known as ‘Exodusters,’ a small group moved in Lincoln in mid-1879. More settlers followed, getting land grants through the Kinkaid Act in the twentieth century, dotting the plains with their sod houses.

When Nebraska was known to be a safe place for African American settlers, more black people moved to Omaha and Nebraska City. In 1870, Robert Anderson, a former slave, became the first black to homestead in Nebraska. His first claim was in eastern Nebraska and consisted of eighty acres. 

Unfortunately, grasshoppers and drought forced him to give up his land and work in Kansas as a farm laborer.  Undaunted, he returned to Nebraska, this time in the western part of the state, to get a land grant via the Timber Culture Act.  By 1918, this former Kentucky slave and US Army infantryman owned over 2,000 acres of land.

Buffalo Soldiers, highly respected African American military men, also settled in Nebraska and nearby states. These members of United States military services assigned to the plains and nearby areas  were given the name ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ by Native Americans, for their coloring and hair texture. The Buffalo Soldiers were said to have accepted this name as respectful.

Afro American cowboys were also important settlers to the Great Plains.  They took on the roughest jobs on the trail runs (those of wrangler) and their other skills included cook and cowboy. There were approximately 9,000 Afro Americans riding the cattle trails. 

To get a sense of the state’s vitality and African Americans’ energetic response, there were 789 African Americans living in Nebraska in 1870. The number was 8,900 by 1890.

*

Further Reading

http://nebraskastudies.org/1850-1874/african-american-settlers/

http://homestead.unl.edu/projects/homesteading-the-plains/

https://www.unl.edu/plains/homesteading-research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/settlement-in-kansas/14546

http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.afam.004.xml

Photo NoteThe cabin belonged to John Brown’s brother-in-law. It was the site of the "Battle of Osawatomie" where John Brown and thirty free-state defenders fought in 1856 against 250 pro-slavery militia. The Nebraska settler is Jim Shores, Custer County Afro American homesteader, 1877. The four people in the final photo are 'Exodusters.' They moved from Tennessee to Kansas. The opening photo is of the first African American settlement in Nicodemus, Kansas,  The portrait in the Kansas section is John Brown, abolitionist (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) 

SWEET HISTORY By Cheri Kay Clifton

Although our characters, settings and plots may be fictional, our historical western stories should remain true to important facts in order to make them believable for our readers. Thus, when we authors do research, obviously we check for dates of major events, inventions, the founding of states, cities and towns and the famous and infamous who inhabited them. But we also put emphasis in making sure the small historical things in our stories are factual as well.

Where am I going with this? Well, in the historical western time-travel I just released, YESTERYEAR’S DESTINY, (which BTW, I hope you all will check out!), the main character, Angela Moore chews Juicy Fruit Gum quite regularly. However, transported back in time to 1890, stores didn’t sell that brand yet. So, was chewing gum available then? And if so, what kind? For that matter, when she looked around the local general store, what other kinds of candy would she see? Could she pick up a Hershey’s chocolate bar? How about a Tootsie Roll?

Hence, my post on the American candy industry from the 1800’s forward.

The brand name of the gum Angela did chew was Adam’s Black Jack Gum.

Thomas Adams first created the chewing gum in his kitchen by boiling chicle, a natural tree gum. In 1871, he received a patent on the popular gum and in 1884, he added licorice flavoring, the first flavored gum in the U.S. It was also the first gum to be offered in sticks.

Even though the history of candy-making dates back thousands of years, as major advances in candy production developed, it became a major industry. Penny candy in America could be easily produced and sold by the pound, from glass jars in drugstores and general stores. As sugar prices decreased, both home based candy makers and candy factories refined their skills with candy brittles, taffy, caramels and simple hard candies.

However, it wasn’t until the latter 1800’s that candy making became even more popular with the addition of an ingredient called chocolate. Before this time, powdered chocolate was primarily used to create hot chocolate as a drink. Chocolate became more popular with advances made to offer chocolate as a solid, not just a powder. The ingredient could be molded into a bar, used as a flavoring, as well as a coating. Milton Hershey was the first American to bring the chocolate bar into mass production with machinery he purchased from a German company.

Out of the hundreds of sweets that could be listed, below is a timeline of some of the favorites I recognize. Many retro candies and their founding companies have come and gone. However, a large percentage of American candies have been around for more than a hundred years.

Hope you enjoy the journey through Sweet History....

1847 Oliver Chase invents a machine for cutting lozenges, which were made into flavored candy wafers. Not until 1901 was NECCO Wafers introduced by the company it was named after — New England Confectionery Company.

1848 John Curtis produces the first branded chewing gum, made from tree sap, called The State of Maine Spruce Gum.

1854 The first packaged box of Whitman's Chocolate is produced.

1868 Richard Cadbury makes the first Valentine's Day box of chocolates, a tradition that continues today.

1880s Wunderie Candy Company creates candy corn, which remains a best-selling Halloween candy.

1893 Quaker City Confectionery Company, located outside Philadelphia, introduces Good & Plenty which becomes the oldest retro candy still in production.

1893 Milton Hershey attends the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago and watches chocolate being manufactured. Impressed, he purchases the German equipment for his factory in Pennsylvania.

1893 William Wrigley, Jr. introduces Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum and Wrigley’s Spearmint Chewing Gum

1894 Milton Hershey creates what is known as the first “American” candy bar, although his famous Milk Chocolate Bar won’t be invented for a few more years.

1896 Leo Hirshfield, New York confectioner, introduces Tootsie Rolls, named after his daughter’s nickname, Tootsie.

1900 Milton Hershey introduces a variation of what will become the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar.

1900 Clark Gum Company introduces Teaberry Gum.

1902 New England Confectionery Company makes the first Conversation Hearts which remains a thriving Valentine’s tradition.

1904 Emil Brach starts Brach’s Candy.

1906 Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses appear in the famed silver foil wrapping. The town of Derry Church changes its name to Hershey. The first name for the popular candy was called Silvertops.

1906 The American Chicle Company, founded by Thomas Adams, introduces Chiclets, the candy-coated gum that uses chicle (derived from the sweet sap of a tropical tree and means chewing gum in Spanish) inside.

1911 Ethel and Frank Mars open a candy company in Tacoma, Washington. The company, later Mars, Inc., would become one of the largest, privately owned candy companies in the entire world.

1912 Life Savers, reportedly named because of their resemblance to life preservers, are introduced in peppermint flavor. The five-flavor roll isn’t marketed for another 22 years.

1912 The Whitman's Sampler box of chocolates debuts and is the first box of chocolates to include an index for chocolate lovers to pick exactly which piece they want to eat.

1913 Goo Goo Clusters is introduced, the first candy bar to combine milk chocolate, marshmallow, caramel, and peanuts.

1914 The Heath Bar is introduced by L.S. Heath & Sons.

1914 Mary Janes, a peanut-butter and molasses flavored taffy-type candies are created by Charles N. Miller in Boston, MA.

1916 George DeMet introduces the Turtle, a chocolate covered caramel and nut candy that resemblances a real turtle.  

Hope this post satisfied your “sweet tooth!”

Also, I hope you’ll check out my new release, Yesteryear’s Destiny, an adventure-filled time-travel, available at Amazon and soon available at many more distributors.

Amazon - click here

www.cherikayclifton.com

Kansas Forts Along the Santa Fe Trail- FORT ZARAH

By Zina Abbott

To protect commerce on the Santa Fe Trail, the U.S. government established a line of forts from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Dodge. Among those was Fort Zarah, which built along Walnut Creek in 1864. The site was a logical choice for several reasons. It was built near the old Rath Ranch Trading Post which, prior to the time of the fort, had served as both a stagecoach station for the Kansas Stagecoach Company and post office. In addition, Rath and his predecessor, named Peacock, had built a considerable trade with the plains tribes. Unfortunately, that trade was fraught with uncertainty due to the government agents not fulfilling treating obligations or changing terms. There were also disputes over Rath’s trading license and whether or not he traded in alcohol, firearms, and ammunition to the tribes. During the early 1860s, tensions between the whites and tribal members continued to escalate.

Ft. Riley to Ft. Larned Road-established before either Forts Harker, Hays,  or Zarah

On June 14, 1864, Maj. T. I. McKenny, inspector-general and his party were en route to Fort Larned escorting a mail stage. After a 40-mile journey from Smoky Hill crossing, the site of early Fort Ellsworth where construction on a blockout was underway, they reached Walnut creek. According to his report, he "camped at a point where the road intersects the old Santa Fe road, and where the Leavenworth and Kansas City mails are due at the same time"; "found the ranch [Rath's] entirely deserted." (He saw the owner next day at Fort Larned.)

In his June 15 report, written at Fort Larned, Major McKenny included his intent to "build a block-house" at Walnut creek on his return trip. Camp Dunlap was established two miles east of present-day Great Bend in July 1864. The major left Captain [Oscar F.] Dunlap with 45 men, Fifteenth Kansas there. Initially, it was comprised of dugouts and tents, but the men were left to build a stone fort.

Work soon began on a more permanent facility about 100 yards distant with General Samuel R. Curtis in command. The post was renamed Fort Zarah for General Curtis’ son, Major H. Zarah Curtis, who was killed at the Baxter Springs Massacre while serving on the staff of General Blunt.

 

Fort Zarah

In 1866, the post was replaced by a more substantial fort about one-half mile up Walnut Creek. Built of sandstone moved from the bluffs about three miles away, the fort was 116 feet long and about 50 feet wide and cost about $100,000 to build.

The fort was abandoned in April 1866 then reopened two months later. In November 1866 as the U.S. continued to secure lands from the Indians, Fort Zarah hosted a council with Plains tribes. That year had seen fewer battles, but more conflicts would occur the year after the council. Part of the reason for the discontent among the tribal people can be summed up by this 1866 statement from Woqini, or Roman Nose, of the Cheyenne warrior society:

We made peace on the North Fork of the Platte. We have kept it. Every time we meet the whites in council, they have new men to talk to us. They have new roads to open. We do not like it.

Up to July, 1868, Fort Zarah was under Fort Larned's control; On September 30, 1868, by order of President Andrew Johnson, the Fort Zarah military reservation was established, and it was surveyed the same year. It contained about 3,700 acres and extended from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad north to the hills. From July 1868, until it abandoned in December, 1869, it was an independent post.

Two sketches of Fort Zarah (1864-1869) were drawn in 1867 by Ado Hunnius, a U. S. soldier, who was at Fort Zarah in 1867. The following statements, from an April, 1867, military report, help to identify the structures. "There are two public buildings of stone at Zarah." "A trader named Rath claims a stone building near the Round Tower as private property and also a toll bridge over Walnut Creek." "The mail Station occupies a building on the south side opposite the round tower."

Part of the trading post evidently was constructed of stone, but Ado Hunnius who was at Fort Zarah in 1867 described the trader's place as "Adobe Mud Roof House partly underground." 

Peacock Ranch, the Rath Ranch, or the Douglas trading post, depending on who operated it. The ranch was destroyed by Indians in May 1868.

With trail traffic shifting to rail traffic, the fort was no longer needed and closed in December 1869.

The fort was dismantled in December 1869, and an act of Congress, approved February 24, 1871 provided for the survey and sale of the reservation. in July 1874 the assets were offered at public sale at Salina, but less than 50 acres were sold at that time. The rest sat abandoned. 

Bernard Bryan Smyth, in his Heart of the New Kansas,” published in 1880, said: “After the abandonment of the fort it became a den of thieves and general rendezvous for bats and marauders. These occupied it day and night by turns — he former hiding by day, the latter by night.” The stone used in the construction of the fort was gradually appropriated by the settlers in the vicinity. 

A small town called Zarah grew up around Fort Zarah. At its peak, Zarah had a hotel, two saloons, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable, a general store, a post office, and several homes. Several thousand Texas cattle were wintered there. The town of Zarah is now a wheat field 3 miles east of Great Bend. The last citizen left Zarah in 1875 about 6 years after the fort was abandoned. Fort Zarah lay in ruins by 1880. Nothing remains of the site today, but it is designated with a historical marker located about 1.5 miles east of Great Bend on U.S. Highway 56.

Fort Zarah marker at nearby Fort Zarah Park - ctsy Chris Light

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I have two books so far in which Fort Ellsworth serves as part of the setting. In Hannah’s Handkerchief, book 24 in the Lockets & Lace series set in 1865, Jake Burdock often finds his quartermaster duties take him to Fort Ellsworth. Hannah’s Handkerchief is now available. To find the book description and purchase link, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

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In Mail Order Roslyn, book 9 in the Widows, Brides & Secret Babies series set in 1866, my heroine finds herself and her baby in the Ellsworth Stage Station near the town and Fort Ellsworth. At that time, hostile tribes, particularly the Cheyenne, frequently attacked stagecoaches and stations in an attempt to capture livestock and either kill or drive away the white Americans invading their favored hunting grounds. This book is now available. To find the book description and purchase link, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Sources:

https://www.kshs.org/index.php?url=p/kansas-historical-quarterly-the-ranch-at-walnut-creek-crossing/13210

https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-markers/14999

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/fort-zarah-kansas/

Wikipedia