February 20, 2026 • 53 mins
Yves joins us to spotlight the mysterious, mythical and Wild West story of the first Black woman to own a utility company in the US state of Montana, Sarah Bickford.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and wellcome stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'll never told you protection. I heart radio. It is
time for another edition of Female First, which means we're
once again joined by the stupidness the spectacular Eves. Welcome, Eves.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hello, thank you for the welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, thank you for being here as always. How have
you been, Eves? Any updates?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, I've been pretty good. Honestly, I have been really
in my learn new things bag because I always want
to learn a lot of things, but now felt like
a good time to try to learn a lot of them.
So I'm slow rolling them. I'm like, I'm introducing them
in stages, and I'm like, I like to commit to things,
but I'm also willing to step out if I understand
(01:00):
that something really isn't the thing for me. So I started.
I'm a piano dance classes. So I've done two classes
so far, and I love to dance, and I think
I could be well suited to the style of dance,
but I'm not. I don't know. I have the rhythm
and like I have the capacity to learn it well,
(01:22):
I think, but I'm not good at it yet. So
like I'm also never danced before, and I'm never taking
a dance class before, so I also don't know just
like the technique and the format and the learning steps,
like all of that is new to me. I just
kind of like do what I want and feel good
in my body dancing, but like the technicality of it
I'm not familiar with, so having to get used to that.
(01:45):
Hoping to start surfing class surfing lesson soon because I
want to learn something water based where I actually have
to like swim, because I have the privilege of being
around water right now and being able to surf, So
I just kind of want to do it for the
novelty and the physicality of it and to do something
that will challenge my brain and my body and ways
that haven't been challenged before. But I'll sign up for
(02:08):
that soon. I know who I want to sign up with,
but I haven't just yet, but I'm gonna I'm gonna
start that soon. But yeah, I'm doing a lot of
a lot of new things, trying things out.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
See, this is where I add all of these layers
of who you are into my tablet of what I
know of you, because we've already had many conversationations when
I'm like, I'm fascinated about you because you are unique
in this way and these levels you just keep adding.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I'm like, wait, you're doing what you're doing? What you
do it?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Like the admiration has blown. But yes, every time I
hear from you, I'm like, who are you?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, I know I'm trying to figure I'm trying to
figure it out too, Samantha.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'm trying encyclopedia like your volumes upon volumes that I
love to learn about.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Oh, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
We always love checking in with you and seeing hearing
what you're up to. So cool, So I have. I
was going back and forth about our like transition question.
I was going to ask for this one. I think
I'm gonna go with the sillier one. How are you
with the board game Monopoly? Eves?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Not good? I lose and I haven't played a lot
in my life, to be honest with you, I've played,
but it's not like Benna Staple in my households, just
like it has been in other households. For me, it
was more I was in terms of board games, it
was like Clue, Shoots and Letters. Do you remember mouse Trap?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, of course.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Game it was so.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Leration.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Oh oboration was.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Scary those silly games. The Monopoly was uh but yeah,
it was above my pay grade, to be honest with.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Y'all, so that that was probably the number one game
to cause fights.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Did you fight with people over it?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
That?
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Like? We have more thrown pieces thrown at each other
like brawls.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Wow? Yeah, that pieces thrown sounds like a choking hazard
those pieces serious.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
No, it's kind of like notoriously bad.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You missed the part of your childhood of the anger,
which probably you didn't miss.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
But I'm just saying it.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think, idea, Yeah, we weren't that much of a
Monopoly household. I'm trying to think if I have any
distinct like memorable memories from Monopoly, But no, I don't.
I think your.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Okay, so wait, what is it? What What was y'all's
experience with Monopoly?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
You heard it, we brawls, fl games.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
My dad put it away, telling us that he's gonna
burn it because he was so tired of us fighting
about it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay, Okay, yeah, I liked We had a Star Wars
version that I liked because it was Star Wars. But
I know I just never won. And one time I
cheated and I still lost. And I'm convinced my little
brother was cheating too when he just cheated better for me.
(05:29):
But I remember I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
In that memory, I will die. Yeah, that sounds pretty
appropriate for the game of Monopoly. Cheating better Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh, he had like the whole good side of the board.
He had the all the properties. You just like feel
the dread when you got over.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So intimidating it was.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It was, and he was not a chill lose the winter.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I'll say that, I.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Feel like you should glow. This is that goes the
one with the characterization of the game.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Obviously to brag about how rich you are.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yes, yeah, checks out.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I have a friend who their family wouldn't even let
them have it in the house.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
They were like, get it out, okay, because because it
was so intense. Yeah okay. I thought it was like
some sort of moral or ethical because I was thinking
about this in terms of how some families were like,
we don't mess with Harry Potter because it's like a
religious thing, like a religious or moral situation happened. Well,
(06:47):
it's like this is an anti capitalist household.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
We can know it was originally an anti capitalist game
designed by a woman, but her idea got stolen and
look what happened. Yeah, anyway, that does loosely relate to
it was one of the first things I thought when
I was looking into the story. Actually, it makes sense,
mix sense, yes, to the person we're talking about today,
(07:12):
So we are excited to get into this. Who did
you bring for us to discuss youse?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Today? We're talking about Sarah Bickford And the reason that
monopoly is related to this is because she was the
first an only black woman in Montana and the United
States to own a utility company. So that was not
something that wasn't something I was expecting to bring to
the show. I wasn't like, I wonder who the first
black woman to own the utility company was. Honestly, it
(07:37):
didn't end up that way, and I was trying to
figure out how I got to her. I don't know.
I was just as I do, just like going into
some rabbit hole and found out about her. So before
we were talking about her today, I wasn't familiar with
her story, but I probably happened upon it because I
do want to talk more about black women in the
American West, and I I don't. We've touched on some
(08:02):
people in the American West, but some black people in
the American West. But I think I could definitely bring
more of that to female first. And of course, I
mean we've talked about it a lot on this show.
But she just there's a lot about her story that
had to be uncovered and that wasn't known before. There
(08:22):
are some like unknown origins and reasoning for why she
did certain things. There was a lot of digging into
the archives that had to happen to find her stories.
I'll get to that in a second. But there is
a part of her story that just always intrigues me
and is just something I'm endlessly fascinated by and that
I'm always looking for in people's stories. Is that since
(08:43):
that built in sense of mystery that black people have
and our ability to make myths in our own personal stories,
it's like we are just so down for coming up
with a birth date or coming up with a story
or a birthplace. And I just think that the mythology
around her life and the personal myth making is just
(09:05):
so that element of blackness in history because of the
gaps in our histories, is just so magical to me.
I think there's a way in which it can be
reclaimed where it came from places of violence and of forgetting,
and all of these things that can be considered negative
that can be turned into a positive and just can
(09:27):
be so fantastical too that I think is really cool.
And I think there are parts of that in Sarah
Bickford's story. And when I mentioned the uncovering, I referring
to doctor Laura Arada, who's a historian. She wrote a
dissertation and she has a book called Race in the
Wild West, Sarah Bickford, the Montana Vigilantes and the Tourism
(09:48):
of Decline eighteen seventy to nineteen thirty, And throughout the
course of this episode, just know that I'm pulling a
lot of the information that I got from her work
because she really dedicated time to digging more into her story.
Even though she didn't have any specific personal relation to
Sarah Bigfort's story, she dug into it and found out
(10:10):
more things from the archive and was in touch with
Sarah Bigfort's family members that are alive today. So it's
just it's a really fascinating story. I'm excited to share it.
I do want to stay upfront as a content warning,
there is mention of domestic violence, but it's a very
short part of her story, and I'll let y'all know,
you know, once we get to that part that I'm
(10:31):
about to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It is a really great story. And I when I
was looking into the name after you suggested it, I
was like, Oh, I've never thought like utilities. That's so cool.
So I'm really really excited that you suggested this topic.
(11:00):
So shall I get to the history.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So, speaking of the unknowns, Sarah Bickford might have been
born in eighteen fifty two. Her birthdate is unconfirmed. It's
like I've seen I think eighteen fifty five, eighteen fifty
six at various points when her name was listed in
a census. What it didn't collaborate with like the time
that she said she was born or sources said she
(11:24):
was born with how old they said she was at
the time. But that could also be a miss documentation
of the people who were recording these things. Just we're
saying eighteen fifty two though, and that was around the
time that she was born. Sarah would give her birthdate
as December twenty fifth, but I do wonder about that
as well. Because I can't remember who it was. But
(11:45):
we've talked in a previous episode about a female first
about person who said that their birthday was July fourth,
And it's not like this fills aligned with that.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
To me.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
It's like say, saying a date that is a a holiday.
It has a lot of spiritual, religious, major social implications
that are tied to it that makes a person's life
steel bigger than it is. But me saying that out loud,
I don't even want to put it that way. It's
just like it feels appropriate for how they consider their
(12:19):
own lives. And so that's where she gave her birthdate
ass But she later told her children that she had
been born a slave in the western part of North
Carolina and that all of her immediate family had died
while she was young. Now, most sources point to her
being born into slavery in Washington County, Tennessee. So there's
(12:42):
some discrepancies around whether it was western North Carolina or
eastern Tennessee, but it's seemingly Washington County, Tennessee, and her
parents and slavers were the Blair family in Jonesboro, Tennessee.
There is very little information about her childhood and her
younger years, but it is known that she did learn
(13:04):
to read and write when she was a child her
daughter Mabel, who obviously we haven't gotten to that part
of the story yet but later on. Just know that
her daughter, Mabel later said that Sarah was separated from
her family at the end of the Civil War and
never saw them again. There are some of the sources
that were dug up that came from Mabel speaking about Sarah,
(13:27):
so that's where some of that information comes from. But yeah,
by eighteen seventy, Sarah had made it to Knoxville, west
of Jonesborough, and there's little information once again on her
life in Knoxville as well, but she lived with an
aunt there who may have been Nancy Jones Gammon, she
(13:47):
wasn't explicitly named. And while she was there in Knoxville,
Sarah got to know a man named John Lttrelle Murphy
who had been a Union officer for the US Colored
Troop sixtieth Regiment during the Civil War, but he later
went to Montana Territory and became an associate justice there,
(14:08):
and Sarah went with him as he went west. She
cared for his children on the way over there. Not
fully clear why she decided to go west, but it
was rough in Knottsville in the years after the Civil War.
There were a lot of refugees there. Of course it
(14:30):
was Tennessee. There was the threat of racism, probably little
opportunity for work. So some of these things might have
driven her to seek a new lfe. But we don't
have the exact knowledge of why she chose to go
so far west. But also think of the conception of
the West in a lot of people's minds. It was
that way for white folks, it was that way for
(14:51):
some black folks as well, so she might have been
in part, might have speculation in part driven by that,
but that's just speculation based on the mythos of the
American West at the time. But yeah, so the background
of Montana a little bit here, it was pretty culturally
(15:12):
diverse in a certain way. There were indigenous folks that
were there, there were Chinese folks that were there, British, Germans, Italians,
because the conception of whiteness was a little different there,
so there was a lot of there were different communities
that were there, but black people were never more than
one percent of the total population of Montana itself, and
(15:37):
there was some lawlessness still, it was there. I mean,
there was a wild West element to it. The way
they say it. It was a little bit like that
there because in eighteen sixty three, residents were worried about
road agents who they thought were committing highway robbery and
murder on the roads from Virginia City out to the
(15:58):
other cities around, which I think, is this idea that's
really associated with the wild West. It is a part
of Sarah Bickfert's story and a part of her story
in Montana. So folks in Virginia City, which is the
city that we're talking about that Sarah Bickford moved to
(16:18):
Virginia City in Montana. So they people there thought this
group was led by official law enforcement, this group of
bandits road agents, that they were led by official law enforcement.
So basically, these group of vigilantes that became known as
the Montana Vigilantes formed to address this concern. Stick with me,
(16:40):
because this is related to Sarah's story. We're only going
to touch on it here because that's its own history
in itself. But they launched many people who were suspected
road agents starting in eighteen sixty three, and these were
white vigilantes and suspected road agents. By the way, they
didn't necessarily target folks based on race, like it can
(17:04):
be associated with extra judicial killings and other places around
the country at the time, and that would be the
case even more so going forth. There were, of course
racial dynamics. Like if anybody says there weren't racial dynamics
somewhere in the United States at this time, they're lying
to you. There there's always there are those elements of
that that are going to be involved. But it was,
(17:24):
but it didn't operate the same there as it did everywhere,
because you know, not everywhere it's the same. But since then,
like after, the Montana Vigilantes have been celebrated as it
is part of Virginia City's and Montana's history. So in
January of eighteen sixty four, the Montana Vigilantes hanged five
(17:45):
men next to each other. And this is like one
of the important images, the important parts of note from
the Montana Vigilantes history. One because that was like a
big part of what they were known for, but also
because is a big part of how Sarah big first
story is related to them. But we'll come back to
(18:05):
that later on, So put a pin in that, remember
that for later. Okay, So moving on to Sarah's time
in Virginia City. So, at the time, Virginia City was
a territorial capital of Montana. She got there in early
eighteen seventy one by sleigh. Apparently it is January when
she got there, so it was super cold. Never been
(18:25):
in Montana, but I can only imagine how awful, how
awful that coldness, maybe because I can deal with the cold,
but like I know, it's on a different level there.
But yeah, so she was about and she was young,
she was about like fourteen or fifteen, I think when
she made the trip, and Virginia City was this social
hub in the state at the time. Didn't stay that
(18:46):
way for long, but at the time it was. And
after Sarah got there, she started working as a cleaner
in the Madison House hotel. In October of eighteen seventy two,
she married this Irish immigrant named John Brown. So this
is the part where we're going to talk a little
bit about domestic violence. We won't go into any details,
(19:07):
but just if anybody wants to skip forward just a
little bit, then they are like welcome to at this moment.
So she went by the name Sally Brown a lot
throughout her documentation. You'll see her called Sally, and then
she took on different last names over the time. So
Sally Brown was one of the names that was in
her records, and John Brown was a minor at am
(19:29):
I n e R. I got a bite, Claire Box
am I r okay. I caught myself on that one. Yes, yes,
big part of the industry there was mining, mining.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
And gotcha, got ya, I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
There for the same page with you. She had three
children with him, James, Eva and William. So John beat
an abuse Sarah. This this was like something that she
had to deal with in her relationship with him. That
was very awful, tragically. Also, all of their children died
(20:09):
young from illness at different times, but they all died
really young, and she did. It's like I cannot only
imagine how stressful this was. Like she was in a
new place. She had gone from the South all the
way over here to the west. She was black, she
was married to a white person, like she would there was.
(20:33):
She was facing domestic violence at home, and she opened
she was still working out, so she opened the New
City Bakery and restaurant around May of eighteen eighty. There
was an ad in this newspaper called Madisonian from April seventeenth,
eighteen eighty about her bakery and boarding house, and it
said the bakery and had fresh bread, cakes, pies, and confectionery.
So she was still a working woman. She was dealing
(20:54):
what she had to do to provide for herself and
her family. But she was still going through those issues
at home. But she did file for a divorce from John,
and so according to these divorce which wasn't that wasn't
the norm, like that was not usual, especially for a
black woman this time in Montana. So according to the
(21:15):
divorce proceedings, John didn't support William, their child. He had
abandoned his family around eighteen seventy eight. There was even
a point where Sarah went to Lauren I think it's
pronounced la u ri I n Montana for a time
and she needed to support herself in Eva and John
(21:36):
left Virginia City and went to Deer Lodge where he
was served with his divorce papers and the divorce was
finalized on November thirtieth, eighteen eighty. That might have even
been the first time that a black woman successfully divorced
a white man in territorial Montana, so her daughter Eva
the adding to the tragedy honestly of this part of
(21:59):
her life and her story. Her daughter Eva died in
eighteen eighty one, and she closed the bakery. She went
back to Tennessee in eighteen eighty one and then back
to Virginia City. And I think an important part to
say that doctor Laura Arada does bring up in her
work on Sarah. She talks about how she was able
(22:23):
to travel back from Montana back to Tennessee and how
that meant that she had a little bit of freedom.
She had the amount of financial success to be able
to make that kind of travel at the time, which
was notable. But sometime between eighteen eighty two and eighteen
eighty four, she got remarried a white minor, same kind
(22:44):
as before, in her name Stephen Bigfidge. So this was
a different It seemed like a one to eighty from
the relationship that she had before with John Brown. This
partnership seemed a lot more stable, a lot more positive.
They support each other in their business ventures, and the
first year they were together they lived in this cabin
(23:05):
near his mining claims and he ended up purchasing shares
in the Virginia City Water Company in the eighteen eighties,
and she and him they had four children together from
eighteen eighty four to eighteen ninety and those kids' names
were Elmer, Virginia, Helena, and Mabel. And she sent all
(23:26):
of her daughters to school, one even earned a master's degree.
So there are some wild stories, y'all. I can't get
into them now, but like if y'all go read about
her story, there are some wild stories about what the
kids had to deal with in school. So we talked
about doctor Laura Rata talked a lot about race and
(23:47):
how race figured into her life, how it was treated
in Virginia City and in Montana in general. Some very
fascinating stuff in there. So if y'all want a deep
dive on that, you can't. But she talked a lot
about how race wasn't mentioned a lot, if at all,
like really when it came to like newspapers and media
outlets talking about black people in Virginia City at the time,
(24:10):
they just didn't mention race. However, they didn't mention race
for people who were of Chinese descent, and it was
they were treated in a very spoken about in a
very derogatory way versus it was kind of an emptiness
of the non mentioning of race when it came to
the black people in a lot of aspects. Now, that
(24:32):
didn't mean that they weren't racist though, Like there were
a lot of stories that doctor Laura Rada told and
that were mentioned about Sarah's children when they went to
school related to the menstrul se, the blackface, the singing
of the kun songs that the kids it was. It's
(24:53):
really wild, y'all, And I just feel like it is traumatizing.
It would have been trauma tizing for those children, But
they were in such a specific they were mixed black
and white children in Montana, in Virginia City in the
eighteen hundreds, and that is like they also didn't necessarily
(25:13):
have the ability to contextualize the same way Sarah would have,
having come from Tennessee and being born in that place.
So anyway, there's that. But when it comes to Stephen,
Sarah's husband and their father, they said that he was tricked.
Mabel later said there could be no disobedience of commands.
(25:37):
They were not discussed but obeyed. And as I mentioned
at the top of this episode. Some of her descendants
are still alive, so there are living descendants of those children,
and his children even said that they thought that he
might have even been a member of the Vigilantes that
is unconfirmed. May have been a sympathizer, a supporter of memory.
(26:00):
There is speculation around that, but there isn't much that's
been settled upon. But yeah, so Sarah probably been running
the Virginia City Water Company since around eighteen eighty eight,
since Steven was off mining a lot of the time.
But around eighteen ninety three, Sarah and the family moved
to this farm called Romey's Gardens to make more money.
(26:22):
They had livestock, they had, they grew things, they sold things,
all of that. But by March of eighteen ninety nine,
Steven had gotten sick with the flu, and his illness
got worse and he had to stay home. Sarah's taking
care of him and Stephen Bickford ended up dying in
March of nineteen hundred. So after Bickford died, the water
(26:45):
company still needed to be ran. Sarah took over his
shares of the Virginia Water Company, so at that point
she had two thirds ownership of the company, and that
made her the first Black American woman in the West
who owned a public utility company. This is where her
first comes in, and she would be pretty active in
(27:07):
those first years in the company. She would visit the
homes and the offices of the customers of the company.
And there was of course, I mean it's a utility.
I mean that's a lot of work. I mean at
the time, in that specific environment, that's a lot of work.
(27:28):
And I couldn't imagine being in charge of that. But
there was of course maintenance and repairs that had to
be done because there were these super below freezing winter
temperatures and as we know even in Atlanta, that can
be a problem when it comes to infrastructure. They had
to replace they have wooden pipes, there was that they
(27:49):
had to replace those, and when the metal pipes came around,
they would burst and so those had to be fixed.
And so there were issues that came up throughout the time.
There were of course customer complaints all these kinds of things.
But I mean the par for the course for running
something as major and as important and fundamental as a
(28:11):
utility for the people. So Sarah was like, I think
I need some more education to help with maintaining this business.
So she took a correspondence course, which is basically a
distance learning course by mail, and she took that in
business management from a school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yes, great Scranton,
(28:33):
stand up, do you have a connection to Scrants from
the office?
Speaker 4 (28:36):
So I'm like, look at that. What is shout out?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
So she was really tapped into the tourism sector in
Virginia City too. People would gather in the city for
July fourth celebrations and they would pass through the city
on the way to Yellowstone, So there was some environmental
recreation tourism happening there too, and there was the sentiment
from like newspapers and people in the city that they
(29:14):
wanted Virginia City to be this better place for tourists
to stop. This is pretty relatable because this is still
the kind of thing that happens today when cities are
trying to figure out what they need to make sure
that their people are taken care of, that there's income
coming into the city and all these things. So they
were like, how can we figure out how to build
up the city so that the people who are coming
through have a reason to stop and stay and enjoy
(29:36):
and spend their money here, and part of that was
including adding historic sites, and so that leads us for
a moment back to that history of the vigilantes. So
there was this what they call the Hangman's Building, and
that is related to the people who had been hanged
(29:58):
by the vigilante that I mentioned earlier. So there's this
nineteen oh one article in the Madisonian that said that
the Hangman's they called it this I'm not calling it this, okay,
they called it the Hangman's Building. That feels, you know,
it's it feels pretty inappropriate because it definitely makes a
(30:19):
light of the situation that people were hanged there. But
that's complex in itself, and there's also a particular history
behind this Hangman's Building and how that lynching was situated
among the others because it wasn't like the lynchings in
the South, and it was also it became celebrated as
(30:41):
a part of Virginia City's history. So yeah, there's all
of that. But it's called the Hangman's Building, not my moniker,
but the moniker that has been that it has been
christened with by other people. But so yeah, this article
said that it had been a pill shop, reading room,
post office, meat market, ice cream parlor, and half a
(31:02):
dozen other things. I think it was also a law
office at one point, and so Sarah ended up purchasing
this building. Later, I think in nineteen seventeen, she purchased
the Hangman's building and she moved the water Company's business
office there. So the city's thinking about tourism. The car
(31:25):
automobile tourism is picking up. There's this industry around here
ittage tourism that is growing and becoming more popular at Montana.
At the same time, the population in the city was declining.
So that's the overall population, but that includes the population
of black people who were there. And there's this As
(31:46):
time continues, of course, there's usually this. Most people are
going to feel compelled to increase modernization, you know, and
keep up with the times because you want to stay
relevant to people, you want to continue making money and
things like that. So the city is facing this challenge,
but it's also figuring out that it can turn to
(32:08):
highlighting the city's wild West ara of that history to
attract more visitors. And Virginia City started marketing itself as
a cradle of Montana history. And this Hangman's bab had
been covered up in the building, but apparently Sarah exposed it,
(32:33):
and in the nineteen twenty she even ended up opening
up the building for tourism. There is this rumor that
doctor al Arada Minshett that that she had kept some
rope in her desk and that she would sell pieces
of it to visitors as souvenirs of the original rope.
She'd be like, here you go, I mean you get
(32:54):
this original rope. Yeah. So I don't know how true
that is, but there's a room or that she did that,
and Sarah's children ended up all moving away from Virginia City.
You hear this story a lot. I would be curious
to know what Sarah's feelings about them moving away would be,
because I know parents often face this struggle of kind
(33:16):
of where they want their kids to remain. Where you
know they were, where their foundations are, you know where
the family businesses, and you know where they're parts of
their heritages and all these things. So I would be
curious to know how she felt about that. But they
all moved away from Virginia City. There's various places, I
think Chicago, d C, New York. Over the course of
(33:38):
you know, time, So they went a bunch of different places.
Though her child, Elmer, did come back in the mid
nineteen twenties to help with the water company and he
also did some plumbing work there. But by the nineteen twenties,
like basically kind of like all the black population in
Virginia City was gone and it was a very different
(33:59):
place it was when Sarah first moved there. She did
die at home in Virginia City on March twenty second,
nineteen thirty one, and she's buried there in Virginia City
next to Stephen Bickford. And after she died, the Hangman's
Building became one of the most popular tourist attractions in
the city. There is I can't tell you what the
(34:23):
answer is. It doesn't seem like historians can fully pin
down what the answer is. Only Sarah would be able
to say. But the question remains at the end of
her entire stories, like why did she promote the Hangman's
Building as this tourist element, as a black woman who
was born in slavery in the South, why did she
(34:47):
promote the building? Questions? It was it just a business opportunity?
Was it that the vigilantes she supported the vigilantes because
they kicked John Round out of town after he had
abusing her, because there was some stories about them, you know, basically,
(35:09):
there was retribution to get the people who committed domestic
a violent domestic violence. Was it that, don't know? Was
it that her late husband Steven supported the vigilantes. Was
he one of them? Was he sympathetic? Don't know. It's
not fully clear, but it is clear that it is
(35:30):
a pretty it's pretty like complicated and fascinating part of
her story that she bought this building. To me, thinking
about it in the way that I think about things personally,
it does in a way feel like a sort of reclamation.
And let me just be clear that I am placing
this narrative on it right now because I'm just doing
(35:52):
my acts of wondering that I do when I'm reading
people's stories. But it's like I went to a different
part of I'm speaking as Sarah, like I went to
a different part of the country, somewhere where I went
before lynching was happening, as it did in the early
early nineteen hundreds, And she went before then, and so
lynching hadn't become it wasn't that same exact thing that
(36:14):
it was after she had left and she was living
in Montana, and also she was in a different geographic
space in the country by being there, and she was
it was also related to this history of lynching that
was more about like it was in some ways what
some people would have considered their imagine it kind of
punching up because they were targeting people who were shady
(36:39):
law enforcement officials who weren't treating the people of Virginia
City correctly. And so I wonder if there was a
reimagining there, if there was any sort of empowerment that
was in it for her, if I just wonder what
kind of like recontextualization and n narotizing narrative there was
(37:00):
there for her. But I'm not sure. Her children did
continue to own and operate the water company for more
decades after she died, So her story arranges the gamut
of the thing she did in her life too and own.
So over the course of her life she had run
a boarding house, catering business, restaurant, and ice cream saloon,
which I am partial to because I love ice cream.
(37:23):
I wish I could taste ice cream that was in
her ice cream saloon. But yeah, she was mark Grave
was marked. You know, her name was written in the
newspapers even at the time. On April tenth, twenty twelve,
she was inducted into the Gallery of Outstanding Montana's and
the Capitol Rotunda. And there's an image on the wall
(37:46):
in a Hayman's building that includes information about Sarah's life.
And there are a couple of pictures of her, not
many so as far as I know, they're just too
There might be more than that, but that I'm not
privy to. But there's one of her that if you
google her, you'll probably see that one first. And then
there's another one that I saw that doctor la Vada
(38:07):
shared of her later in life, closer to her death.
That is very kind of it's pretty moving to see, honestly.
I mean, you know, you could learn a lot through
a picture, even if that's just like, you know, an
emotional learning that's happening through looking at a picture. So yeah,
the Hangman's building still standing, as well as the building
(38:28):
where her bakery was. And I just wanted to share
this quick quote from the historian doctor Laura Roda's dissertation
just to end. So this is what she said, perhaps
Bickford's story is most remarkable because it is in many
ways unexceptional. She accomplished incredible things, running a public utilities
company and providing the town of Virginia City with water
(38:50):
for three decades before her day in nineteen thirty one.
But Bickford never cast her success or either of her
two marriages to white men in terms of race, and
she was never notorious within her own community. Rather, she
was integrated, respected, and almost never identified by existing accounts
of contemporaries in terms of race. So that is that's
(39:14):
that's what That's what doctor Laura abowt to say it.
That is something she was situating in terms of comparing
her to other black women, specifically who had histories in
the American West, like Mary Fields, stagecoach Mary as some
people I know that we've talked about her before on
the show, And so a lot of times when people
(39:38):
stand out in history is because they have this anomalist
character or they did anomalous things, they stood out in
their communities in certain ways. And so I do think
it was interesting that doctor rata Like made this connection
that in this case, Sarah Bickford was a black woman
in the American West, and what she did was pioneering
(40:01):
and it was singular, but it wasn't necessarily remarkable because
of her outside like her larger than life character per se,
and something like a utility company is so foundational, you know,
it's not so it's not as much of a spectacle
if you put it that way. So I do think
that that was interesting that she pointed that out. And yeah,
(40:26):
the race thing is a whole a whole other element
to it, because you know, it was notable that she
was married to two white men over the course of
her life there, but there also that's what was there,
Like she wasn't surrounded by a lot of other black
men either. So it's her story is just really fascinating.
(40:48):
And I think if folks want to dig into the
history of vigilantism of indigenous people in the area, of
how Chinese people of Chinese descent were treated in Montana,
of the history of Montana, of the history of mining,
I mean, it's a lot in there that that you
can dig into if you want to look more into
(41:08):
serious history.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Look, this story just is definitely like the Wild West
story that I like, it's such a separate state of
being compared to the South, like the timelines, I don't
even get it. Yeah, I can't even put it together
because in my mind they are such separate worlds and
separate stories. So I could definitely understand because especially with
a vigilante story West, justice versus racism, and all the
(41:46):
cultural contexts that was happening in the South and over
in the East area seems so separate that it kind
of made sense to me of her like yeah, obviously,
Like I was actually expecting you to say that she
was a part of this.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Like that's kind of where I thought it was.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
For a second, I was like, oh, but she this
bad thought of force with some gun slinging doing her thing,
Like yes, let's let's go.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
We need that story.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
I'm just kidding. I'm not promoting violence in any way,
but I'm just saying, in like the historical context, it
made sense that she's like yeah, like it's not necessarily
what we know. It could also make sense again because
the West Wild West has its own loss that she
was just making money and this is one of the
ways to do it, and it's just like one more
(42:29):
thing to add to her like legacy of I'm gonna
survive and this is what I'm doing, but it's so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah it is, And yeah, I think who knows, maybe
she did have something to do with it and she
just never told me body or we don't have that
record of documentation.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
So she was that good at hiding it, like she
was one of them.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
To truly pull off something, you need to be like yeah, lowly,
it needs to be a secret. So she really held
it in regards to that. That would be an amazing story.
So when this is also one of those is I'm like,
I need a movie.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I was thinking that. I was like, yeah, like how
how could you know? They would have to up the
drama in the spectacle And that's why I'm where I'm like, yeah,
I don't know, but I would love to see this
told as I would honestly love to see her story dramatized,
Like I think it would be pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
He's pretty satisfying that she got a divorce from an
evil man like that that you don't need to do
much more that the fact that she had the audacity
to actually file for divorce. I'm like, come on, yeah,
that especially in this time as yeah, against a white
man who could have made it worse. So good thing.
He had to run away anyway, but like there's so
many things to that, and like that's hard to do today.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Sometimes I'm laughing because you're thinking, like you're thinking like
a Hollywood writer. You're like, yes, there actually is a
dramatic story here, and it is the story of a
wife's revenge. Okay, right, and then nothing else, everything else
doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
But at top of the fact that she owned and
I'm just trying you again, this is from my knowledge
of entertainment and just a few of the Westerns that
I've seen. In any of those because Montana also, we
had a guest on here was from Montana. I was like,
I've never met a person from Montana. And that's not
the sentence that I hear in general even today. But
like in that like water was really precious. Again, this
(44:21):
is my very small knowledge in entertainment life, and like
because they had a lot of livestock, they had all
these things, and like it was pretty best lands and
it was hard to get to get like all these things.
And for her to be a utilities person that control
the water and helped make sure that it was accessible,
that seems like a huge undergoing test but also a
huge like power, not like in this level of like
(44:46):
during a time where water is precious and it is
today obviously, but it seems like a story in itself
as well.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Wow, Samantha, that really that was really moving. I didn't
really I didn't really think about that. I'm serious that
that that really that touched me because you're right, like's
it was a precious resource. And I think this is
something I was trying to situate as I was reading
Sarah Bigfot's story because also my focus right now in
(45:16):
the work that I do is a lot about how
black people are related to the land environment. I'm focused
more on environment and the outdoors in the land. And
I knew that that I felt that through her story.
One because it's Montana and it's it's the time that
it was, but also because she was in public utility.
But there was something that wasn't fully connecting with me,
(45:38):
which like, I know this is an outdoor and environmental story,
but I'm not fully sure about what that is yet
because that's not necessarily how her story was presented through
doctor Laura Arada's work. So that is very a suit
point because she she like Virginia City was not an
(45:59):
insignificant place if it was this cradle of Montana's history
and it was this social center at the time that
she got there, and for her to have that power,
like you say, I will, that power of being the
person who people had to come to when they had
issues with water and the person who was delivering that
(46:19):
very necessary part of people's everyday lives. Yeah, I must.
I mean I must have imagined it's so big. That's
that is really big. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
No, it is. And it's funny when, like I said,
when I was like, oh, who are we talking about?
What did they do? And I was like utilities? But
when you think about it, it is like so important
and it matters so much like when your utilities are
not working. That is when you're like, oh, I didn't
realize how valuable and important this is. So I do.
(46:56):
I think all the elements are there for them to
make Hollywood. The story is there, the myth making is there.
Like you said, Eves, there's a lot of cool like
rumors they could pursue.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
There was one instance in her story of like she
didn't sue. She sued one person in her the course
of her so she got into there were some people
who came it was like, yeah, this isn't this payment
isn't right, the water blah blah blah. You know, they
had issues with her. But there was one a known
person who she had to like bring legal action against,
(47:30):
And I could imagine inserting some some imagina there, right, yeah, yeah,
but yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
I'm also interested because this should be the basis of
generational wealth, like this should be the conversation where she
was able to help set up her family for the
rest of their lives, like all of and the generations
to come in order to take care of them, because
this is what we see with like the beginning of
the establishment of the US or before. Yeah, where are
(48:01):
our descendants? Do we know?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I don't know. I don't know much about where they are.
Seemingly from what was said about her children, because it
would be her children's children who could still be alive.
But from what they said about her children, it was
that they were pretty well off when they did they
(48:26):
were doing well when they moved to other parts of
the country. I think one was married. One of her
children was married to the Howard professor she worked out.
I can't remember something like this, But in terms of
where they want where her children went at the time,
I think they were doing pretty well, But I don't
know about the state of her the rest of her,
(48:48):
her family.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
I'd just say that because you know, as we're talking
about monopolies and as we talk about the level of
wealth that has happened over the years in the US
for a lot of people, like, of course, it would
be an interesting, like a phenomenal thing to see a
black woman to be able to establish that. And she
should have been if she was in that same conversation
(49:13):
with the equity that should have been given to her.
But of course, you know, that's the whole different thing.
I just wondered where that was because she could been
like it could be a measure of what we could see.
And then like I could also see her fear of
her the children leaving. And I know you didn't get
into us get into it, but like if she had
experienced the times of enslavement and seeing those repercussions in
(49:35):
the East, her children going back to that had probably
been horrifying, even though they didn't but.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
Like they did, so they did go back to Tennessee.
She took them back to Tennessee at a certain point, Yes,
and there was part of her story that we didn't
get a touch on today that was about how she
felt about who her children should marry, and she did
want them to, you know, understand, be around other black
(50:01):
people basically at certain times. And so, yeah, there is
a little part of her stories. It seems pretty complicated
in how she viewed race because, like I said, she
was also married to white men and there was someone
who wanted her children got married to who was black
she didn't want them to be married to, but there
was also a white person she didn't want them to
be married too. So it wasn't a cut in dry
(50:23):
situation for her seemingly, but she did. As far as
what I can tell and what is written about her history,
it wasn't She didn't seem to speak much about any
resentment or it didn't seem to be much of a
(50:44):
point for her because she did go back, So it
wasn't like I'll never go back to Tennessee. There seemed
to be still a connection there for her that wasn't
a completely lost cause if that makes any sense. Yeah,
it does so much depth. Yeah, it's tough for.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
Movie times.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah, I think a mini series, I think it's a
mini series.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, yeah, people are liking the wild the wild West situation.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Actually so last movies like that is the thing, and
this is like exactly her going at a young age
on a sled.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Come on the.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Sled right, Yeah, well pretty, we can only hope, We
can only hope. Thank you so much has always used
for bringing this story to us. It's a great conversation.
I really loved learning about her. Where can the good
listeners find you? Y'all can find me on my website.
(51:51):
You can just go there and get to all of
the other things. But my website is Eves Jeffcoat dot com.
That's y v es j E F fcat dot com.
Y'all can also go to Instagram I'm at not apologizing,
or you can just go to listen to a bunch
of other episodes of stuff Mom Never Told You with
(52:13):
me talking about other female first. Yes, yes, can't wait
to check back in with you, Eves and see what
new adventures, new skills you've acquired next month. But listeners,
go check out all of that stuff if you haven't already.
If you would like to contact us, you can you
can email us at hello at stuff Onnever Told You
dot com. You can find us on Blue Scott Mom
(52:34):
Stuff podcast on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never
Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise
at Coombureau and we have a buck you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks to So It's Too,
our super produce Christina or Executi Produce My and your
contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening
Stuff Never Told You to protection my Heart Radio for
more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out
that heart radio app, Apple Podcast wherever you listen to
(52:55):
your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and wellcome stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'll never told you protection. I heart radio. It is
time for another edition of Female First, which means we're
once again joined by the stupidness the spectacular Eves. Welcome, Eves.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hello, thank you for the welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, thank you for being here as always. How have
you been, Eves? Any updates?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, I've been pretty good. Honestly, I have been really
in my learn new things bag because I always want
to learn a lot of things, but now felt like
a good time to try to learn a lot of them.
So I'm slow rolling them. I'm like, I'm introducing them
in stages, and I'm like, I like to commit to things,
but I'm also willing to step out if I understand
(01:00):
that something really isn't the thing for me. So I started.
I'm a piano dance classes. So I've done two classes
so far, and I love to dance, and I think
I could be well suited to the style of dance,
but I'm not. I don't know. I have the rhythm
and like I have the capacity to learn it well,
(01:22):
I think, but I'm not good at it yet. So
like I'm also never danced before, and I'm never taking
a dance class before, so I also don't know just
like the technique and the format and the learning steps,
like all of that is new to me. I just
kind of like do what I want and feel good
in my body dancing, but like the technicality of it
I'm not familiar with, so having to get used to that.
(01:45):
Hoping to start surfing class surfing lesson soon because I
want to learn something water based where I actually have
to like swim, because I have the privilege of being
around water right now and being able to surf, So
I just kind of want to do it for the
novelty and the physicality of it and to do something
that will challenge my brain and my body and ways
that haven't been challenged before. But I'll sign up for
(02:08):
that soon. I know who I want to sign up with,
but I haven't just yet, but I'm gonna I'm gonna
start that soon. But yeah, I'm doing a lot of
a lot of new things, trying things out.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
See, this is where I add all of these layers
of who you are into my tablet of what I
know of you, because we've already had many conversationations when
I'm like, I'm fascinated about you because you are unique
in this way and these levels you just keep adding.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I'm like, wait, you're doing what you're doing? What you
do it?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Like the admiration has blown. But yes, every time I
hear from you, I'm like, who are you?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, I know I'm trying to figure I'm trying to
figure it out too, Samantha.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'm trying encyclopedia like your volumes upon volumes that I
love to learn about.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Oh, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
We always love checking in with you and seeing hearing
what you're up to. So cool, So I have. I
was going back and forth about our like transition question.
I was going to ask for this one. I think
I'm gonna go with the sillier one. How are you
with the board game Monopoly? Eves?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Not good? I lose and I haven't played a lot
in my life, to be honest with you, I've played,
but it's not like Benna Staple in my households, just
like it has been in other households. For me, it
was more I was in terms of board games, it
was like Clue, Shoots and Letters. Do you remember mouse Trap?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, of course.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Game it was so.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Leration.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Oh oboration was.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Scary those silly games. The Monopoly was uh but yeah,
it was above my pay grade, to be honest with.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Y'all, so that that was probably the number one game
to cause fights.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Did you fight with people over it?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
That?
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Like? We have more thrown pieces thrown at each other
like brawls.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Wow? Yeah, that pieces thrown sounds like a choking hazard
those pieces serious.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
No, it's kind of like notoriously bad.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You missed the part of your childhood of the anger,
which probably you didn't miss.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
But I'm just saying it.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think, idea, Yeah, we weren't that much of a
Monopoly household. I'm trying to think if I have any
distinct like memorable memories from Monopoly, But no, I don't.
I think your.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Okay, so wait, what is it? What What was y'all's
experience with Monopoly?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
You heard it, we brawls, fl games.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
My dad put it away, telling us that he's gonna
burn it because he was so tired of us fighting
about it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay, Okay, yeah, I liked We had a Star Wars
version that I liked because it was Star Wars. But
I know I just never won. And one time I
cheated and I still lost. And I'm convinced my little
brother was cheating too when he just cheated better for me.
(05:29):
But I remember I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
In that memory, I will die. Yeah, that sounds pretty
appropriate for the game of Monopoly. Cheating better Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh, he had like the whole good side of the board.
He had the all the properties. You just like feel
the dread when you got over.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So intimidating it was.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It was, and he was not a chill lose the winter.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I'll say that, I.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Feel like you should glow. This is that goes the
one with the characterization of the game.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Obviously to brag about how rich you are.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yes, yeah, checks out.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I have a friend who their family wouldn't even let
them have it in the house.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
They were like, get it out, okay, because because it
was so intense. Yeah okay. I thought it was like
some sort of moral or ethical because I was thinking
about this in terms of how some families were like,
we don't mess with Harry Potter because it's like a
religious thing, like a religious or moral situation happened. Well,
(06:47):
it's like this is an anti capitalist household.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
We can know it was originally an anti capitalist game
designed by a woman, but her idea got stolen and
look what happened. Yeah, anyway, that does loosely relate to
it was one of the first things I thought when
I was looking into the story. Actually, it makes sense,
mix sense, yes, to the person we're talking about today,
(07:12):
So we are excited to get into this. Who did
you bring for us to discuss youse?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Today? We're talking about Sarah Bickford And the reason that
monopoly is related to this is because she was the
first an only black woman in Montana and the United
States to own a utility company. So that was not
something that wasn't something I was expecting to bring to
the show. I wasn't like, I wonder who the first
black woman to own the utility company was. Honestly, it
(07:37):
didn't end up that way, and I was trying to
figure out how I got to her. I don't know.
I was just as I do, just like going into
some rabbit hole and found out about her. So before
we were talking about her today, I wasn't familiar with
her story, but I probably happened upon it because I
do want to talk more about black women in the
American West, and I I don't. We've touched on some
(08:02):
people in the American West, but some black people in
the American West. But I think I could definitely bring
more of that to female first. And of course, I
mean we've talked about it a lot on this show.
But she just there's a lot about her story that
had to be uncovered and that wasn't known before. There
(08:22):
are some like unknown origins and reasoning for why she
did certain things. There was a lot of digging into
the archives that had to happen to find her stories.
I'll get to that in a second. But there is
a part of her story that just always intrigues me
and is just something I'm endlessly fascinated by and that
I'm always looking for in people's stories. Is that since
(08:43):
that built in sense of mystery that black people have
and our ability to make myths in our own personal stories,
it's like we are just so down for coming up
with a birth date or coming up with a story
or a birthplace. And I just think that the mythology
around her life and the personal myth making is just
(09:05):
so that element of blackness in history because of the
gaps in our histories, is just so magical to me.
I think there's a way in which it can be
reclaimed where it came from places of violence and of forgetting,
and all of these things that can be considered negative
that can be turned into a positive and just can
(09:27):
be so fantastical too that I think is really cool.
And I think there are parts of that in Sarah
Bickford's story. And when I mentioned the uncovering, I referring
to doctor Laura Arada, who's a historian. She wrote a
dissertation and she has a book called Race in the
Wild West, Sarah Bickford, the Montana Vigilantes and the Tourism
(09:48):
of Decline eighteen seventy to nineteen thirty, And throughout the
course of this episode, just know that I'm pulling a
lot of the information that I got from her work
because she really dedicated time to digging more into her story.
Even though she didn't have any specific personal relation to
Sarah Bigfort's story, she dug into it and found out
(10:10):
more things from the archive and was in touch with
Sarah Bigfort's family members that are alive today. So it's
just it's a really fascinating story. I'm excited to share it.
I do want to stay upfront as a content warning,
there is mention of domestic violence, but it's a very
short part of her story, and I'll let y'all know,
you know, once we get to that part that I'm
(10:31):
about to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It is a really great story. And I when I
was looking into the name after you suggested it, I
was like, Oh, I've never thought like utilities. That's so cool.
So I'm really really excited that you suggested this topic.
(11:00):
So shall I get to the history.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So, speaking of the unknowns, Sarah Bickford might have been
born in eighteen fifty two. Her birthdate is unconfirmed. It's
like I've seen I think eighteen fifty five, eighteen fifty
six at various points when her name was listed in
a census. What it didn't collaborate with like the time
that she said she was born or sources said she
(11:24):
was born with how old they said she was at
the time. But that could also be a miss documentation
of the people who were recording these things. Just we're
saying eighteen fifty two though, and that was around the
time that she was born. Sarah would give her birthdate
as December twenty fifth, but I do wonder about that
as well. Because I can't remember who it was. But
(11:45):
we've talked in a previous episode about a female first
about person who said that their birthday was July fourth,
And it's not like this fills aligned with that.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
To me.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
It's like say, saying a date that is a a holiday.
It has a lot of spiritual, religious, major social implications
that are tied to it that makes a person's life
steel bigger than it is. But me saying that out loud,
I don't even want to put it that way. It's
just like it feels appropriate for how they consider their
(12:19):
own lives. And so that's where she gave her birthdate
ass But she later told her children that she had
been born a slave in the western part of North
Carolina and that all of her immediate family had died
while she was young. Now, most sources point to her
being born into slavery in Washington County, Tennessee. So there's
(12:42):
some discrepancies around whether it was western North Carolina or
eastern Tennessee, but it's seemingly Washington County, Tennessee, and her
parents and slavers were the Blair family in Jonesboro, Tennessee.
There is very little information about her childhood and her
younger years, but it is known that she did learn
(13:04):
to read and write when she was a child her
daughter Mabel, who obviously we haven't gotten to that part
of the story yet but later on. Just know that
her daughter, Mabel later said that Sarah was separated from
her family at the end of the Civil War and
never saw them again. There are some of the sources
that were dug up that came from Mabel speaking about Sarah,
(13:27):
so that's where some of that information comes from. But yeah,
by eighteen seventy, Sarah had made it to Knoxville, west
of Jonesborough, and there's little information once again on her
life in Knoxville as well, but she lived with an
aunt there who may have been Nancy Jones Gammon, she
(13:47):
wasn't explicitly named. And while she was there in Knoxville,
Sarah got to know a man named John Lttrelle Murphy
who had been a Union officer for the US Colored
Troop sixtieth Regiment during the Civil War, but he later
went to Montana Territory and became an associate justice there,
(14:08):
and Sarah went with him as he went west. She
cared for his children on the way over there. Not
fully clear why she decided to go west, but it
was rough in Knottsville in the years after the Civil War.
There were a lot of refugees there. Of course it
(14:30):
was Tennessee. There was the threat of racism, probably little
opportunity for work. So some of these things might have
driven her to seek a new lfe. But we don't
have the exact knowledge of why she chose to go
so far west. But also think of the conception of
the West in a lot of people's minds. It was
that way for white folks, it was that way for
(14:51):
some black folks as well, so she might have been
in part, might have speculation in part driven by that,
but that's just speculation based on the mythos of the
American West at the time. But yeah, so the background
of Montana a little bit here, it was pretty culturally
(15:12):
diverse in a certain way. There were indigenous folks that
were there, there were Chinese folks that were there, British, Germans, Italians,
because the conception of whiteness was a little different there,
so there was a lot of there were different communities
that were there, but black people were never more than
one percent of the total population of Montana itself, and
(15:37):
there was some lawlessness still, it was there. I mean,
there was a wild West element to it. The way
they say it. It was a little bit like that
there because in eighteen sixty three, residents were worried about
road agents who they thought were committing highway robbery and
murder on the roads from Virginia City out to the
(15:58):
other cities around, which I think, is this idea that's
really associated with the wild West. It is a part
of Sarah Bickfert's story and a part of her story
in Montana. So folks in Virginia City, which is the
city that we're talking about that Sarah Bickford moved to
(16:18):
Virginia City in Montana. So they people there thought this
group was led by official law enforcement, this group of
bandits road agents, that they were led by official law enforcement.
So basically, these group of vigilantes that became known as
the Montana Vigilantes formed to address this concern. Stick with me,
(16:40):
because this is related to Sarah's story. We're only going
to touch on it here because that's its own history
in itself. But they launched many people who were suspected
road agents starting in eighteen sixty three, and these were
white vigilantes and suspected road agents. By the way, they
didn't necessarily target folks based on race, like it can
(17:04):
be associated with extra judicial killings and other places around
the country at the time, and that would be the
case even more so going forth. There were, of course
racial dynamics. Like if anybody says there weren't racial dynamics
somewhere in the United States at this time, they're lying
to you. There there's always there are those elements of
that that are going to be involved. But it was,
(17:24):
but it didn't operate the same there as it did everywhere,
because you know, not everywhere it's the same. But since then,
like after, the Montana Vigilantes have been celebrated as it
is part of Virginia City's and Montana's history. So in
January of eighteen sixty four, the Montana Vigilantes hanged five
(17:45):
men next to each other. And this is like one
of the important images, the important parts of note from
the Montana Vigilantes history. One because that was like a
big part of what they were known for, but also
because is a big part of how Sarah big first
story is related to them. But we'll come back to
(18:05):
that later on, So put a pin in that, remember
that for later. Okay, So moving on to Sarah's time
in Virginia City. So, at the time, Virginia City was
a territorial capital of Montana. She got there in early
eighteen seventy one by sleigh. Apparently it is January when
she got there, so it was super cold. Never been
(18:25):
in Montana, but I can only imagine how awful, how
awful that coldness, maybe because I can deal with the cold,
but like I know, it's on a different level there.
But yeah, so she was about and she was young,
she was about like fourteen or fifteen, I think when
she made the trip, and Virginia City was this social
hub in the state at the time. Didn't stay that
(18:46):
way for long, but at the time it was. And
after Sarah got there, she started working as a cleaner
in the Madison House hotel. In October of eighteen seventy two,
she married this Irish immigrant named John Brown. So this
is the part where we're going to talk a little
bit about domestic violence. We won't go into any details,
(19:07):
but just if anybody wants to skip forward just a
little bit, then they are like welcome to at this moment.
So she went by the name Sally Brown a lot
throughout her documentation. You'll see her called Sally, and then
she took on different last names over the time. So
Sally Brown was one of the names that was in
her records, and John Brown was a minor at am
(19:29):
I n e R. I got a bite, Claire Box
am I r okay. I caught myself on that one. Yes, yes,
big part of the industry there was mining, mining.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
And gotcha, got ya, I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
There for the same page with you. She had three
children with him, James, Eva and William. So John beat
an abuse Sarah. This this was like something that she
had to deal with in her relationship with him. That
was very awful, tragically. Also, all of their children died
(20:09):
young from illness at different times, but they all died
really young, and she did. It's like I cannot only
imagine how stressful this was. Like she was in a
new place. She had gone from the South all the
way over here to the west. She was black, she
was married to a white person, like she would there was.
(20:33):
She was facing domestic violence at home, and she opened
she was still working out, so she opened the New
City Bakery and restaurant around May of eighteen eighty. There
was an ad in this newspaper called Madisonian from April seventeenth,
eighteen eighty about her bakery and boarding house, and it
said the bakery and had fresh bread, cakes, pies, and confectionery.
So she was still a working woman. She was dealing
(20:54):
what she had to do to provide for herself and
her family. But she was still going through those issues
at home. But she did file for a divorce from John,
and so according to these divorce which wasn't that wasn't
the norm, like that was not usual, especially for a
black woman this time in Montana. So according to the
(21:15):
divorce proceedings, John didn't support William, their child. He had
abandoned his family around eighteen seventy eight. There was even
a point where Sarah went to Lauren I think it's
pronounced la u ri I n Montana for a time
and she needed to support herself in Eva and John
(21:36):
left Virginia City and went to Deer Lodge where he
was served with his divorce papers and the divorce was
finalized on November thirtieth, eighteen eighty. That might have even
been the first time that a black woman successfully divorced
a white man in territorial Montana, so her daughter Eva
the adding to the tragedy honestly of this part of
(21:59):
her life and her story. Her daughter Eva died in
eighteen eighty one, and she closed the bakery. She went
back to Tennessee in eighteen eighty one and then back
to Virginia City. And I think an important part to
say that doctor Laura Arada does bring up in her
work on Sarah. She talks about how she was able
(22:23):
to travel back from Montana back to Tennessee and how
that meant that she had a little bit of freedom.
She had the amount of financial success to be able
to make that kind of travel at the time, which
was notable. But sometime between eighteen eighty two and eighteen
eighty four, she got remarried a white minor, same kind
(22:44):
as before, in her name Stephen Bigfidge. So this was
a different It seemed like a one to eighty from
the relationship that she had before with John Brown. This
partnership seemed a lot more stable, a lot more positive.
They support each other in their business ventures, and the
first year they were together they lived in this cabin
(23:05):
near his mining claims and he ended up purchasing shares
in the Virginia City Water Company in the eighteen eighties,
and she and him they had four children together from
eighteen eighty four to eighteen ninety and those kids' names
were Elmer, Virginia, Helena, and Mabel. And she sent all
(23:26):
of her daughters to school, one even earned a master's degree.
So there are some wild stories, y'all. I can't get
into them now, but like if y'all go read about
her story, there are some wild stories about what the
kids had to deal with in school. So we talked
about doctor Laura Rata talked a lot about race and
(23:47):
how race figured into her life, how it was treated
in Virginia City and in Montana in general. Some very
fascinating stuff in there. So if y'all want a deep
dive on that, you can't. But she talked a lot
about how race wasn't mentioned a lot, if at all,
like really when it came to like newspapers and media
outlets talking about black people in Virginia City at the time,
(24:10):
they just didn't mention race. However, they didn't mention race
for people who were of Chinese descent, and it was
they were treated in a very spoken about in a
very derogatory way versus it was kind of an emptiness
of the non mentioning of race when it came to
the black people in a lot of aspects. Now, that
(24:32):
didn't mean that they weren't racist though, Like there were
a lot of stories that doctor Laura Rada told and
that were mentioned about Sarah's children when they went to
school related to the menstrul se, the blackface, the singing
of the kun songs that the kids it was. It's
(24:53):
really wild, y'all, And I just feel like it is traumatizing.
It would have been trauma tizing for those children, But
they were in such a specific they were mixed black
and white children in Montana, in Virginia City in the
eighteen hundreds, and that is like they also didn't necessarily
(25:13):
have the ability to contextualize the same way Sarah would have,
having come from Tennessee and being born in that place.
So anyway, there's that. But when it comes to Stephen,
Sarah's husband and their father, they said that he was tricked.
Mabel later said there could be no disobedience of commands.
(25:37):
They were not discussed but obeyed. And as I mentioned
at the top of this episode. Some of her descendants
are still alive, so there are living descendants of those children,
and his children even said that they thought that he
might have even been a member of the Vigilantes that
is unconfirmed. May have been a sympathizer, a supporter of memory.
(26:00):
There is speculation around that, but there isn't much that's
been settled upon. But yeah, so Sarah probably been running
the Virginia City Water Company since around eighteen eighty eight,
since Steven was off mining a lot of the time.
But around eighteen ninety three, Sarah and the family moved
to this farm called Romey's Gardens to make more money.
(26:22):
They had livestock, they had, they grew things, they sold things,
all of that. But by March of eighteen ninety nine,
Steven had gotten sick with the flu, and his illness
got worse and he had to stay home. Sarah's taking
care of him and Stephen Bickford ended up dying in
March of nineteen hundred. So after Bickford died, the water
(26:45):
company still needed to be ran. Sarah took over his
shares of the Virginia Water Company, so at that point
she had two thirds ownership of the company, and that
made her the first Black American woman in the West
who owned a public utility company. This is where her
first comes in, and she would be pretty active in
(27:07):
those first years in the company. She would visit the
homes and the offices of the customers of the company.
And there was of course, I mean it's a utility.
I mean that's a lot of work. I mean at
the time, in that specific environment, that's a lot of work.
(27:28):
And I couldn't imagine being in charge of that. But
there was of course maintenance and repairs that had to
be done because there were these super below freezing winter
temperatures and as we know even in Atlanta, that can
be a problem when it comes to infrastructure. They had
to replace they have wooden pipes, there was that they
(27:49):
had to replace those, and when the metal pipes came around,
they would burst and so those had to be fixed.
And so there were issues that came up throughout the time.
There were of course customer complaints all these kinds of things.
But I mean the par for the course for running
something as major and as important and fundamental as a
(28:11):
utility for the people. So Sarah was like, I think
I need some more education to help with maintaining this business.
So she took a correspondence course, which is basically a
distance learning course by mail, and she took that in
business management from a school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yes, great Scranton,
(28:33):
stand up, do you have a connection to Scrants from
the office?
Speaker 4 (28:36):
So I'm like, look at that. What is shout out?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
So she was really tapped into the tourism sector in
Virginia City too. People would gather in the city for
July fourth celebrations and they would pass through the city
on the way to Yellowstone, So there was some environmental
recreation tourism happening there too, and there was the sentiment
from like newspapers and people in the city that they
(29:14):
wanted Virginia City to be this better place for tourists
to stop. This is pretty relatable because this is still
the kind of thing that happens today when cities are
trying to figure out what they need to make sure
that their people are taken care of, that there's income
coming into the city and all these things. So they
were like, how can we figure out how to build
up the city so that the people who are coming
through have a reason to stop and stay and enjoy
(29:36):
and spend their money here, and part of that was
including adding historic sites, and so that leads us for
a moment back to that history of the vigilantes. So
there was this what they call the Hangman's Building, and
that is related to the people who had been hanged
(29:58):
by the vigilante that I mentioned earlier. So there's this
nineteen oh one article in the Madisonian that said that
the Hangman's they called it this I'm not calling it this, okay,
they called it the Hangman's Building. That feels, you know,
it's it feels pretty inappropriate because it definitely makes a
(30:19):
light of the situation that people were hanged there. But
that's complex in itself, and there's also a particular history
behind this Hangman's Building and how that lynching was situated
among the others because it wasn't like the lynchings in
the South, and it was also it became celebrated as
(30:41):
a part of Virginia City's history. So yeah, there's all
of that. But it's called the Hangman's Building, not my moniker,
but the moniker that has been that it has been
christened with by other people. But so yeah, this article
said that it had been a pill shop, reading room,
post office, meat market, ice cream parlor, and half a
(31:02):
dozen other things. I think it was also a law
office at one point, and so Sarah ended up purchasing
this building. Later, I think in nineteen seventeen, she purchased
the Hangman's building and she moved the water Company's business
office there. So the city's thinking about tourism. The car
(31:25):
automobile tourism is picking up. There's this industry around here
ittage tourism that is growing and becoming more popular at Montana.
At the same time, the population in the city was declining.
So that's the overall population, but that includes the population
of black people who were there. And there's this As
(31:46):
time continues, of course, there's usually this. Most people are
going to feel compelled to increase modernization, you know, and
keep up with the times because you want to stay
relevant to people, you want to continue making money and
things like that. So the city is facing this challenge,
but it's also figuring out that it can turn to
(32:08):
highlighting the city's wild West ara of that history to
attract more visitors. And Virginia City started marketing itself as
a cradle of Montana history. And this Hangman's bab had
been covered up in the building, but apparently Sarah exposed it,
(32:33):
and in the nineteen twenty she even ended up opening
up the building for tourism. There is this rumor that
doctor al Arada Minshett that that she had kept some
rope in her desk and that she would sell pieces
of it to visitors as souvenirs of the original rope.
She'd be like, here you go, I mean you get
(32:54):
this original rope. Yeah. So I don't know how true
that is, but there's a room or that she did that,
and Sarah's children ended up all moving away from Virginia City.
You hear this story a lot. I would be curious
to know what Sarah's feelings about them moving away would be,
because I know parents often face this struggle of kind
(33:16):
of where they want their kids to remain. Where you
know they were, where their foundations are, you know where
the family businesses, and you know where they're parts of
their heritages and all these things. So I would be
curious to know how she felt about that. But they
all moved away from Virginia City. There's various places, I
think Chicago, d C, New York. Over the course of
(33:38):
you know, time, So they went a bunch of different places.
Though her child, Elmer, did come back in the mid
nineteen twenties to help with the water company and he
also did some plumbing work there. But by the nineteen twenties,
like basically kind of like all the black population in
Virginia City was gone and it was a very different
(33:59):
place it was when Sarah first moved there. She did
die at home in Virginia City on March twenty second,
nineteen thirty one, and she's buried there in Virginia City
next to Stephen Bickford. And after she died, the Hangman's
Building became one of the most popular tourist attractions in
the city. There is I can't tell you what the
(34:23):
answer is. It doesn't seem like historians can fully pin
down what the answer is. Only Sarah would be able
to say. But the question remains at the end of
her entire stories, like why did she promote the Hangman's
Building as this tourist element, as a black woman who
was born in slavery in the South, why did she
(34:47):
promote the building? Questions? It was it just a business opportunity?
Was it that the vigilantes she supported the vigilantes because
they kicked John Round out of town after he had
abusing her, because there was some stories about them, you know, basically,
(35:09):
there was retribution to get the people who committed domestic
a violent domestic violence. Was it that, don't know? Was
it that her late husband Steven supported the vigilantes. Was
he one of them? Was he sympathetic? Don't know. It's
not fully clear, but it is clear that it is
(35:30):
a pretty it's pretty like complicated and fascinating part of
her story that she bought this building. To me, thinking
about it in the way that I think about things personally,
it does in a way feel like a sort of reclamation.
And let me just be clear that I am placing
this narrative on it right now because I'm just doing
(35:52):
my acts of wondering that I do when I'm reading
people's stories. But it's like I went to a different
part of I'm speaking as Sarah, like I went to
a different part of the country, somewhere where I went
before lynching was happening, as it did in the early
early nineteen hundreds, And she went before then, and so
lynching hadn't become it wasn't that same exact thing that
(36:14):
it was after she had left and she was living
in Montana, and also she was in a different geographic
space in the country by being there, and she was
it was also related to this history of lynching that
was more about like it was in some ways what
some people would have considered their imagine it kind of
punching up because they were targeting people who were shady
(36:39):
law enforcement officials who weren't treating the people of Virginia
City correctly. And so I wonder if there was a
reimagining there, if there was any sort of empowerment that
was in it for her, if I just wonder what
kind of like recontextualization and n narotizing narrative there was
(37:00):
there for her. But I'm not sure. Her children did
continue to own and operate the water company for more
decades after she died, So her story arranges the gamut
of the thing she did in her life too and own.
So over the course of her life she had run
a boarding house, catering business, restaurant, and ice cream saloon,
which I am partial to because I love ice cream.
(37:23):
I wish I could taste ice cream that was in
her ice cream saloon. But yeah, she was mark Grave
was marked. You know, her name was written in the
newspapers even at the time. On April tenth, twenty twelve,
she was inducted into the Gallery of Outstanding Montana's and
the Capitol Rotunda. And there's an image on the wall
(37:46):
in a Hayman's building that includes information about Sarah's life.
And there are a couple of pictures of her, not
many so as far as I know, they're just too
There might be more than that, but that I'm not
privy to. But there's one of her that if you
google her, you'll probably see that one first. And then
there's another one that I saw that doctor la Vada
(38:07):
shared of her later in life, closer to her death.
That is very kind of it's pretty moving to see, honestly.
I mean, you know, you could learn a lot through
a picture, even if that's just like, you know, an
emotional learning that's happening through looking at a picture. So yeah,
the Hangman's building still standing, as well as the building
(38:28):
where her bakery was. And I just wanted to share
this quick quote from the historian doctor Laura Roda's dissertation
just to end. So this is what she said, perhaps
Bickford's story is most remarkable because it is in many
ways unexceptional. She accomplished incredible things, running a public utilities
company and providing the town of Virginia City with water
(38:50):
for three decades before her day in nineteen thirty one.
But Bickford never cast her success or either of her
two marriages to white men in terms of race, and
she was never notorious within her own community. Rather, she
was integrated, respected, and almost never identified by existing accounts
of contemporaries in terms of race. So that is that's
(39:14):
that's what That's what doctor Laura abowt to say it.
That is something she was situating in terms of comparing
her to other black women, specifically who had histories in
the American West, like Mary Fields, stagecoach Mary as some
people I know that we've talked about her before on
the show, And so a lot of times when people
(39:38):
stand out in history is because they have this anomalist
character or they did anomalous things, they stood out in
their communities in certain ways. And so I do think
it was interesting that doctor rata Like made this connection
that in this case, Sarah Bickford was a black woman
in the American West, and what she did was pioneering
(40:01):
and it was singular, but it wasn't necessarily remarkable because
of her outside like her larger than life character per se,
and something like a utility company is so foundational, you know,
it's not so it's not as much of a spectacle
if you put it that way. So I do think
that that was interesting that she pointed that out. And yeah,
(40:26):
the race thing is a whole a whole other element
to it, because you know, it was notable that she
was married to two white men over the course of
her life there, but there also that's what was there,
Like she wasn't surrounded by a lot of other black
men either. So it's her story is just really fascinating.
(40:48):
And I think if folks want to dig into the
history of vigilantism of indigenous people in the area, of
how Chinese people of Chinese descent were treated in Montana,
of the history of Montana, of the history of mining,
I mean, it's a lot in there that that you
can dig into if you want to look more into
(41:08):
serious history.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Look, this story just is definitely like the Wild West
story that I like, it's such a separate state of
being compared to the South, like the timelines, I don't
even get it. Yeah, I can't even put it together
because in my mind they are such separate worlds and
separate stories. So I could definitely understand because especially with
a vigilante story West, justice versus racism, and all the
(41:46):
cultural contexts that was happening in the South and over
in the East area seems so separate that it kind
of made sense to me of her like yeah, obviously,
Like I was actually expecting you to say that she
was a part of this.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Like that's kind of where I thought it was.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
For a second, I was like, oh, but she this
bad thought of force with some gun slinging doing her thing,
Like yes, let's let's go.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
We need that story.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
I'm just kidding. I'm not promoting violence in any way,
but I'm just saying, in like the historical context, it
made sense that she's like yeah, like it's not necessarily
what we know. It could also make sense again because
the West Wild West has its own loss that she
was just making money and this is one of the
ways to do it, and it's just like one more
(42:29):
thing to add to her like legacy of I'm gonna
survive and this is what I'm doing, but it's so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah it is, And yeah, I think who knows, maybe
she did have something to do with it and she
just never told me body or we don't have that
record of documentation.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
So she was that good at hiding it, like she
was one of them.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
To truly pull off something, you need to be like yeah, lowly,
it needs to be a secret. So she really held
it in regards to that. That would be an amazing story.
So when this is also one of those is I'm like,
I need a movie.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I was thinking that. I was like, yeah, like how
how could you know? They would have to up the
drama in the spectacle And that's why I'm where I'm like, yeah,
I don't know, but I would love to see this
told as I would honestly love to see her story dramatized,
Like I think it would be pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
He's pretty satisfying that she got a divorce from an
evil man like that that you don't need to do
much more that the fact that she had the audacity
to actually file for divorce. I'm like, come on, yeah,
that especially in this time as yeah, against a white
man who could have made it worse. So good thing.
He had to run away anyway, but like there's so
many things to that, and like that's hard to do today.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Sometimes I'm laughing because you're thinking, like you're thinking like
a Hollywood writer. You're like, yes, there actually is a
dramatic story here, and it is the story of a
wife's revenge. Okay, right, and then nothing else, everything else
doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
But at top of the fact that she owned and
I'm just trying you again, this is from my knowledge
of entertainment and just a few of the Westerns that
I've seen. In any of those because Montana also, we
had a guest on here was from Montana. I was like,
I've never met a person from Montana. And that's not
the sentence that I hear in general even today. But
like in that like water was really precious. Again, this
(44:21):
is my very small knowledge in entertainment life, and like
because they had a lot of livestock, they had all
these things, and like it was pretty best lands and
it was hard to get to get like all these things.
And for her to be a utilities person that control
the water and helped make sure that it was accessible,
that seems like a huge undergoing test but also a
huge like power, not like in this level of like
(44:46):
during a time where water is precious and it is
today obviously, but it seems like a story in itself
as well.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Wow, Samantha, that really that was really moving. I didn't
really I didn't really think about that. I'm serious that
that that really that touched me because you're right, like's
it was a precious resource. And I think this is
something I was trying to situate as I was reading
Sarah Bigfot's story because also my focus right now in
(45:16):
the work that I do is a lot about how
black people are related to the land environment. I'm focused
more on environment and the outdoors in the land. And
I knew that that I felt that through her story.
One because it's Montana and it's it's the time that
it was, but also because she was in public utility.
But there was something that wasn't fully connecting with me,
(45:38):
which like, I know this is an outdoor and environmental story,
but I'm not fully sure about what that is yet
because that's not necessarily how her story was presented through
doctor Laura Arada's work. So that is very a suit
point because she she like Virginia City was not an
(45:59):
insignificant place if it was this cradle of Montana's history
and it was this social center at the time that
she got there, and for her to have that power,
like you say, I will, that power of being the
person who people had to come to when they had
issues with water and the person who was delivering that
(46:19):
very necessary part of people's everyday lives. Yeah, I must.
I mean I must have imagined it's so big. That's
that is really big. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
No, it is. And it's funny when, like I said,
when I was like, oh, who are we talking about?
What did they do? And I was like utilities? But
when you think about it, it is like so important
and it matters so much like when your utilities are
not working. That is when you're like, oh, I didn't
realize how valuable and important this is. So I do.
(46:56):
I think all the elements are there for them to
make Hollywood. The story is there, the myth making is there.
Like you said, Eves, there's a lot of cool like
rumors they could pursue.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
There was one instance in her story of like she
didn't sue. She sued one person in her the course
of her so she got into there were some people
who came it was like, yeah, this isn't this payment
isn't right, the water blah blah blah. You know, they
had issues with her. But there was one a known
person who she had to like bring legal action against,
(47:30):
And I could imagine inserting some some imagina there, right, yeah, yeah,
but yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
I'm also interested because this should be the basis of
generational wealth, like this should be the conversation where she
was able to help set up her family for the
rest of their lives, like all of and the generations
to come in order to take care of them, because
this is what we see with like the beginning of
the establishment of the US or before. Yeah, where are
(48:01):
our descendants? Do we know?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I don't know. I don't know much about where they are.
Seemingly from what was said about her children, because it
would be her children's children who could still be alive.
But from what they said about her children, it was
that they were pretty well off when they did they
(48:26):
were doing well when they moved to other parts of
the country. I think one was married. One of her
children was married to the Howard professor she worked out.
I can't remember something like this, But in terms of
where they want where her children went at the time,
I think they were doing pretty well, But I don't
know about the state of her the rest of her,
(48:48):
her family.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
I'd just say that because you know, as we're talking
about monopolies and as we talk about the level of
wealth that has happened over the years in the US
for a lot of people, like, of course, it would
be an interesting, like a phenomenal thing to see a
black woman to be able to establish that. And she
should have been if she was in that same conversation
(49:13):
with the equity that should have been given to her.
But of course, you know, that's the whole different thing.
I just wondered where that was because she could been
like it could be a measure of what we could see.
And then like I could also see her fear of
her the children leaving. And I know you didn't get
into us get into it, but like if she had
experienced the times of enslavement and seeing those repercussions in
(49:35):
the East, her children going back to that had probably
been horrifying, even though they didn't but.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
Like they did, so they did go back to Tennessee.
She took them back to Tennessee at a certain point, Yes,
and there was part of her story that we didn't
get a touch on today that was about how she
felt about who her children should marry, and she did
want them to, you know, understand, be around other black
(50:01):
people basically at certain times. And so, yeah, there is
a little part of her stories. It seems pretty complicated
in how she viewed race because, like I said, she
was also married to white men and there was someone
who wanted her children got married to who was black
she didn't want them to be married to, but there
was also a white person she didn't want them to
be married too. So it wasn't a cut in dry
(50:23):
situation for her seemingly, but she did. As far as
what I can tell and what is written about her history,
it wasn't She didn't seem to speak much about any
resentment or it didn't seem to be much of a
(50:44):
point for her because she did go back, So it
wasn't like I'll never go back to Tennessee. There seemed
to be still a connection there for her that wasn't
a completely lost cause if that makes any sense. Yeah,
it does so much depth. Yeah, it's tough for.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
Movie times.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah, I think a mini series, I think it's a
mini series.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, yeah, people are liking the wild the wild West situation.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Actually so last movies like that is the thing, and
this is like exactly her going at a young age
on a sled.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Come on the.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Sled right, Yeah, well pretty, we can only hope, We
can only hope. Thank you so much has always used
for bringing this story to us. It's a great conversation.
I really loved learning about her. Where can the good
listeners find you? Y'all can find me on my website.
(51:51):
You can just go there and get to all of
the other things. But my website is Eves Jeffcoat dot com.
That's y v es j E F fcat dot com.
Y'all can also go to Instagram I'm at not apologizing,
or you can just go to listen to a bunch
of other episodes of stuff Mom Never Told You with
(52:13):
me talking about other female first. Yes, yes, can't wait
to check back in with you, Eves and see what
new adventures, new skills you've acquired next month. But listeners,
go check out all of that stuff if you haven't already.
If you would like to contact us, you can you
can email us at hello at stuff Onnever Told You
dot com. You can find us on Blue Scott Mom
(52:34):
Stuff podcast on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never
Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise
at Coombureau and we have a buck you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks to So It's Too,
our super produce Christina or Executi Produce My and your
contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening
Stuff Never Told You to protection my Heart Radio for
more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out
that heart radio app, Apple Podcast wherever you listen to
(52:55):
your favorite shows
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