Winter 1884

I've neglected the blog for several weeks while catching up on non-book related activities.  We put up a tree for the first time in more than a decade, got our Christmas newsletter ready, cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for ten all by myself (something else I have not done in many years) and enjoyed the lovely fall weather.  But the high here yesterday was 32 so I am inspired to stay inside by the wood stove and get back to work on VERMONT CLIPPINGS.  Here are a few clippings from December 1884.

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The relatives of Carrie J. Welton, a Waterbury, Conn., girl, who was frozen to death on Pike’s Peak, have determined to contest her will on the ground of mental unsoundness.  [Author’s Note:  The relatives lost.  Carrie lived for a while in Colorado Springs. It was there she discovered a love for climbing mountains and she was one of the first women to climb several of the higher peaks in the area.  She was stranded by a snowstorm on Long’s Peak, not Pike’s Peak, and was the first fatality on that peak. In her will she left $7000 for a statue of her horse, Knight, to be placed on Waterbury Green and $100,000 to the ASPCA.]

Lake Champlain is frozen over from Whitehall to Port Henry.  There is good skating at Rouses Point.

The choirs are busily practicing Christmas music.

A regular old-fashioned snow storm, Wednesday afternoon and evening, giving excellent sleighing.  The thermometer descended to 22 degrees below zero downtown and 26 on the hill, Saturday morning.  Through the day the mercury steadily rose and Sunday morning it was 20 above zero.

Some rules for winter:  Never lean with the back upon anything that is cold.

Never take warm drinks and then immediately go out in the cold.

Keep the back, especially between the shoulder blades, well covered; also, the chest well protected.

In sleeping in a cold room establish the habit of breathing through the nose and never with the mouth open.

Never go to bed with cold feet.

Never omit regular bathing.  The cold will close the pores and favor congestion or other diseases.

Merely warm the back by the fire only until it has become comfortably warm.  To do otherwise is debilitating.

Never stand still in cold weather and always avoid standing on ice or snow or where exposed to a cold wind.

A dilemma, a divorce, and a spool of thread.

Yesterday didn't feel at all like Monday so therefore the blog didn't even cross my mind.  This is one of the hazards of being retired but a small price to pay.  What did we do on a day that felt more like Wednesday or Friday than Monday?  We went to the pool only to discover two school buses of kids there so we walked past the pool and  into the spa, where no children are allowed, sat in the hot tub and in the sauna, floated around in the lap pool, and took a nap.  Small price to pay.  :-)

I have been spending most of my time finding goodies in the Burlington, Vermont FREE PRESS - 1884.  Here are a few clippings I found yesterday that made me laugh:

The season is furnishing novelties in horrors.  It was found one day last week by the relatives of Horace Baldwin, who had died at Oak Creek, Wis., that the coffin provided was quite too short for the remains, and a nephew proceeded to sever the legs of the dead man, using a common saw.  While at this ghastly work he imagined that the corpse moved, whereupon he fainted.  At this juncture another stalwart relative finished the job and the funeral was proceeded with.  Soon after the occurrence the neighbors threatened to mob the nephew, though why the other guilty man should escape their criticism is a matter that can hardly be understood outside of a community where such occurrences as misfits in coffins and their remedies are tolerated.

The wife of a western undertaker applies for a divorce on the ground that her husband is a sleep walker and annoys her very much by getting up in the night and attempting to lay her out for burial.  We should think this might disturb her sleep a little.

 A certain pretentious shopper, after teasing the clerks of a dry goods store beyond the forbearance limit, pompously ordered a spool of thread to be sent to her house.  It was agreed that she should be made an example of and a warning to her kind.  She was surprised, and her neighbors were intensely interested, shortly after she arrived at home.  A common dray, drawn by four horses, proceeded slowly up to her door.  On the dray, with bare arms, were a number of stalwart laborers.  They were holding on vigorously to some object which she could not see.  It was a most puzzling affair.  The neighbors stared.  After a great deal of whip cracking and other impressive ceremonies the dray was backed against the curb.  There, reposing calmly, end up, was the identical spool of thread which she had “ordered.”  With the aid of a plank it was finally rolled, barrel fashion, safely to the sidewalk.  After a mortal struggle it was finally “up ended” on the purchaser’s doorstep.  The fact that the purchaser came out a minute later and kicked her own property into the gutter detracted nothing from the scene.

The Coffin War

I am sorry for being two days late.  I've been busy freezing peaches and fermenting, not pickling, dill pickles and salsa.  Anyway, to make up for it, here is the story that started it all, the one that got me addicted to news from a century.  The story comes from an 1881 issue of the San Antonio Light.  Enjoy!

THE COFFIN WAR:
Once, in an isolated Nevada mining town a man died, and his brother ordered a handsome coffin from a man named Hotchkiss.  The mother-in-law of the dead man, not knowing this, ordered a coffin, too – a cheap one from a man named Sudberry.

Hotchkiss arrived to measure the body, followed a short time later by Sudberry who was mistaken as Hotchkiss’ assistant.

Hotchkiss returned in the afternoon with the coffin. It fit like a glove.  As he was taking care of the finishing touches and making the corpse comfortable, 

Sudberry arrived with his cheap, wooden coffin.

Sudberry saw that Hotchkiss’ coffin was not only a very handsome one, but he had arranged things so that the corpse looked proud of being dead.

Hotchkiss and Sudberry had words.

Sudberry blurted out:  “You’ve taken a mean, sneakin’ advantage of me.”

Hotchkiss:  “The coffin was ordered of me in a reg’lar way”

Sudberry:  “I’d like to furnish a coffin to bury you in.”

Hotchkiss:  “I’d rather live forever than be buried in one of your cheap coffins.”

Sudberry:  “I’ll cut down the price of coffins until you have to pack your blankets out of town.”

Hotchkiss:  “Cut away.”

Sudberry proceeded to cut his prices so low that he took all of Hotchkiss’ business so Hotchkiss cut his prices below Sudberry’s.

Sudberry cut again.

Hotchkiss matched the cut.

Then Sudberry began paying $1 for the privilege of undertaking a corpse and his business livened up.  The increase in the death rate in town was very noticable.  It became cheaper to die than to live.

Old Gudsey, who as a matter of economy, ate only one meal a day, took this occasion to get off and avoid the expense of even one meal per day.

Teddy O’Flynn, who had a partner he could not get along with, availed himself of this opportunity to dissolve the partnership and make $1.  His partner died very unnaturally.

Hotchkiss, too, began to offer a reward of $1 per corpse with a drink of whiskey thrown in.  Yankee Bill, a desperate character of the town, stopped before Hotchkiss’ shop with four dead Chinamen in a wagon wanting $4 and the four drinks.  When Hotchkiss objected because he didn’t like Chinamen, Bill said he could take them or be dumped in with them and taken to Sudberry’s.  Hotchkiss took the Chinamen and Yankee Bill collected his $4 and whiskey.

Now Hotchkiss had a large family dependent on him and could not go on this way.

Sudberry had no family at the time.  He had previously buried several members of his family, as it came right in time, and he did it at first cost. 

Hotchkiss approached Sudberry to discuss restoring the old prices.  Sudberry refused but offered to sell.  Hotchkiss bought.

Hotchkiss, in order to retrieve his losses, knowing it would be weeks before anyone else could deliver coffins to the remote town, put up his coffins to exorbitant prices.  There was a great falling off in the mortality that had prevailed.  None but the wealthy could afford to die – die decently, that is.