Dakota Diary 17

 

“How much do you want to know about this bridge, girls? I understand that you are going to write an article for the New York Herald about it,” asked Linda on the way home.

“Well, we will if we think we can say anything they don’t already know that they will find interesting. How close is it to being finished?”

“They will be working flat out to get it done before the bad weather sets in. That can be an early as October around here - so they will hope to get it done in September, and then they can have a big ceremony with the laying of the golden spike - where the railways meet. I know they are planning that for early October, and all sorts for dignitaries are invited, including the president.”

“I heard that Sitting Bull is going too,” added young Linda.

“I suppose he feels that he is the spokesman for the Indians - and it is their land that is being crossed.”

“He isn’t happy about the railway. I know Mr. Marsh told us that he said he hated the white men and all they represented - and the railway is a symbol of that.”

“Let’s get back to this story of the river.  The eastern pier was placed on a twenty-foot-thick concrete foundation which bottomed in bedrock clay stones at a depth of 40 feet below the surface. The two middle piers were located in the river and, therefore, posed more difficult construction problems. The excavations for these two piers were made possible by the use of pneumatic caissons, much like giant diving bells, which enabled the men to work below the water line.

“On October 21, 1882, the soundness of the bridge was tested by slowly transferring eight locomotives onto the three spans and measuring the deflection of each span under the accumulated weight. The successful completion of the test was marked by sounds of whistles from the eight locomotives, and the cheers of the thousands of on-lookers. But then, the east pier began shifting toward the Missouri River. The pier moved 3 to 3.6 inches last year but they think they've shored it up sufficiently now.

“I sure hope it's safe to cross on,” said Cora Sue.

 

 

“I don’t know if you girls have come across one of Bismarck’s favorite citizens - Eber Bly. You might well see him going around town with his water truck. He gets it from the Missouri and sells it for 25 cents a barrel. But anyway, this story I am going to tell you about had to do with the railway. To build the system, the traincompany needed a lot of ties and Eber thought he could solve the problem for them. And it all resulted in quite a court case, let me tell you.

“In May of 80, he contracted with the Northern Pacific Railroad to deliver about 50,000  ties over two years to the railroad's Little Missouri River crossing, which is in the Badlands - close to where you girls will be going. 

Blyplanned to fulfill the contract by cutting pine trees in southeastern Montana, and floating them down the Little Missouri to the railroad crossing, a distance of about 270 miles.

But the river was too low to floar them, so for that year and the next, he didn't deliver any.

On August 11th, the Tribune reported that Bly was loading about 47,000 ties and that the 'second run is about 100 miles up, and will not get down until next spring.' Then this last spring, on May 25, the Tribune wrote that 'all' Bly's ties had arrived but that Bly's contract with the Missouri Pacific Railroad had 'been a losing one' for him.

“The District Court found that Eber Bly had so much trouble transporting the ties on the River in 80 and 81 that he had to resort to hauling ties overland.  Bly evidently decided it was easier to haul eight-foot railroad ties 100 miles overland, than float them down the Little Missouri. The district court found that even after dragging the ties overland to an area closer to Medora, the ties only made it down that section of the River with the benefit of high waters. The Supreme Court has stated: 'The mere fact that logs, poles and rafts are floated down a stream occasionally and in times of high water does not make it a navigable river.'

We greatly enjoyed our trip to the river and with all our notes, we were sure we could produce an interesting article for Mr. Bennett.

When we returned home, we had several letters in our slot at the hotel. One was what we had been waiting for - from the Marquis de Mores. He said he would be very pleased to see us, but that his wife was not there at the moment. He was putting up in the half completed house, and he thought it was important that we should stay in the hotel, but he would pay our costs, as he could not entertain us properly. He said to come as soon as we liked. He ended it with, “I could use
some friendly faces around here.”

“When shall we go, then?” said Cora Sue, very excited.

“Well, let’s see. We can’t really go until Monday at the earliest - that’s the 26th. And maybe we can stay most of the week.”

“I don’t see why we can’t go on Sunday.   We can go to 8 o’clock mass and catch the train right from outside the church.”

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Now that we had decided that, we read our second note.

Dear Misses Kellogg,

I know you don’t know me or anything about me. But I knew your father quite well. I am the Marshal in the town, and one of the jobs your father had was being the jailer for our little jail here at the court
house. We had lots of time to sit and talk when things were quiet, so he told me quite a lot about you girls, and I am so pleased that you have come to town so that we can meet you.

Would you both be willing to come to supper at our house tonight? There is my wife, Rosie, her sister, Annie, and our little child. We usually eat about six. Send me a note at the court house and I can let them know at home whether to expect you.

Yours
faithfully,

John Waldron

Well, that settled our Thursday evening, and we asked George how we could get a note to Mr. Waldron at the courthouse. He gave us directions, and we made that our first stop of the morning.

We also checked on train times, and finding out we could get one on Sunday, we sent a note off to the Marquis to say that we would be arriving in Little Missouri at about 5 p.m. and would go to the
Pyramid Park Hotel as he had suggested.

“Let’s go to Linda’s and tell her our good news,” I said. “And maybe she will have some advice for us about when go to the Badlands, if she's been there.”

So we walked up the now familiar route to the Slaughters' house, and were very pleased to find that she was in.

“We're going to the Badlands on Sunday,” I said, anxious to get the news out. “The Marquis has invited us. But we don’t know anything about him. Is he a real nobleman? Do we have to do anything special when we talk to him? Do we have to kiss his ring or anything like that? Do we have to wear special clothes?”

“Slow down, Mattie. He’s only a man. I’ve never met him, but I do know quite a lot about him, so I can fill you in on that. Let me put the kettle on and then you can take some notes.”

So we sat and drank our coffee, and we told her that we were invited to the Marshal’s for supper.

“You’ll like him. He’s from Scotland. Get him to tell you what his life there was like.”

“Okay, we'll do that, but now you must tell us all you know about the Marquis.”

“Well, I’ll start at the beginning. Born June 14, 1858, so that makes him, 25, the Marquis de Mores is from a family of Spanish, Italian and French nobility. He began life as a soldier, graduating in 1879, when he was 21, from St. Cyr, the leading military academy of France. After St. Cyr, he entered Saumur, France's premier cavalry school, where he trained to be an officer. He was later sent to Algiers, helping to put down an uprising. It was while in Algiers that he had his first duel, starting his career as the most celebrated duelist of his day.”

“Did he kill anybody?”

“I think maybe he did. Anyway, he resigned from the cavalry in 1882 and married Medora von Hoffman, from New York, sometimes called the Marquise. Soon thereafter, he moved to the North Dakota badlands to begin ranching, purchasing 44,500 acres for that purpose. And he is busy buying cattle and building up his ranch, as well as building a mansion for his wife. That’s about all I know.”

“We are so excited.”

“I kind of thought you were. Well, tell me, what have you girls got up to this week that I haven’t already heard about. You said you had had lunch with Christina Dunn, but you didn’t say much about it. Did she say anything helpful about your Pa’s things?”

“Well, she acted pretty oddly. She did say they got his clothes back from the camp, but she said they weren’t worth much so they gave them away to a charity for the Indians. She said she was sorry, but if they'd known where we were, they would have saved them for us.”

“And you believed her?”

“No, not at all. But we sort of think that she was sweet on Pa. I’m not saying that she had an affair with him or anything like that, but I think she really cared about him. When she talked about him, her eyes lit up and her voice got all soft and silly. And she could remember every single thing she served him for the last meal they had at her house.”

“They were good friends for a long time. I never suspected that anything romantic was going on between them. Mark was a great friend of John's and I don’t think he would have felt right about cheating on him with his wife.”

“She seems so much younger than her husband. Was John married before?”

“Oh yes, his first wife died, and that was something he and your father had in common way back when they met - in Brainard, before they came to this part of the world. Cassius is his son from his first wife. John and Christine were married just before he moved here back in 71 - and Fannie was born here.”

“She’s my good friend,” put in Jessamine. “We're the same age.”

“Yes, the girls see quite a lot of Fannie, but haven’t much use for her younger or older brothers.”

“Christine said how much we look like Pa - especially Mattie’s eyes.”

“Yes, now that I look at you, I expect you do rather favor him.”

“But the way she said it, it made it sound as if she knew him really well.”

“Well, if you are hinting that there might have been a romance there, I think you're wrong. But he might well have known her before she married John. He was working in Brainard for several years there. But the whole family were friendly with your father, so, of course, she saw a lot of him. But there was never any scandal involved at all.”

“But Mommy, when he died, she cried and cried. I had taken Jessamine over to play with Fannie, and it was the day that we heard about all the soldiers and your daddy too,” Rosalind added, with a look at us, “and Mrs. Dunn, when she heard, she cried and cried, like her heart was broken.”

“Well, I expect she did. I had a bit of a weep myself, if you need to know, Missy. We all liked Mark - and of all the people who died, he was the one we knew best. It was a terrible tragedy for all those soldiers, but especially for him, because he was only there to tell the story - not to kill anybody.”

“Well, we best be getting on. Thanks for the coffee. See you Saturday. Sorry we won't be able to come to you for lunch on Sunday, as you asked us.”

“Bye girls, and you’d better be practicing your curtseys,” she added with a laugh as she closed the door.

When we got back to the hotel we asked George if there was a library in town, because we wanted to look up books on the Badlands.

“Nope, no library, but I expect you can find books like that at the temporary capitol building. You went there before, I think you said.”

“Oh, yes, thanks. We’ll go there. And by the way, George. We won’t be needing our room from Sunday to at least Wednesday.”

“Okay, but I doubt if we'll rent it out. But if you clear it out, you can store your extra luggage behind here, so you don’t need to take everything with you.”

So we had a quick lunch at a cafe in town and called in at the Capitol and were shown into a reading room which had books about everything that had ever been written about Dakota Territory. We found a couple which seemed to deal with the Badlands, and began reading and taking notes.

A few hours later, satisfied that we had found out all we could, we headed home, and decided that we would have a rest before our evening out with the Marshal and his wife.