Estelline Bennett

My reactions to reading this book in 2004.

I can see why this is a classic primary source for Deadwood history. It has some faults. It sometimes reads like the various chapters were magazine articles since Bennett repeats herself sometimes. It also doesn't have any sort of chronology. I only got the vague sense that she arrived with her mother and siblings in Deadwood in the early 1880s at about four years old, had an interlude in Washington D.C. when her father, Deadwood's first federal judge, served in the U.S. Congress, and left sometime after 1890 which is the date the railroad arrived in Deadwood which was, incidentally, Dec. 29, 1890 -- the date the Wounded Knee episode was wrapped up.

Bennett sees the arrival of the railroad as, rightly, the start of a new era in Deadwood. The book ends with her father amusingly noting that now they'll have to lock their doors. Ironic, since the railroad was supposed to tame a town of wild desperadoes with civilization.

This book was nice in how it portrayed the society of Deadwood in the 1880s -- particularly the prostitutes, actors, gamblers, and ministers (including the father of Badger Clark). Once again, the impression of the mining camp culture being one of "consensual homicide" (to use an historian's phrase) was reinforced as I read about all sorts of killings unpunished (either no prosecution or acquittals). The treatment of prostitutes was interesting. Many society ladies and churchmen tried to help them out, particularly the street whores. It seems to have generally been felt that being employed by a good Madam like Madam Haskell was preferable to freelancing. I was surprised to learn about the notorious Al Swearenger, owner of the Gem Theatre, a den of iniquity. He seems to not only have prostituted his actresses but beat his wife. He was the basis for villain in the HBO series Deadwood.

The chapter on Calamity Jane was interesting. Bennett notes that she was kind and generous, beloved even by the husband she abandoned (who showed up at her funeral), and the rare human being whose evil deeds were buried with her and her good deeds left in memory.

I was fascinated to learn that, unlike other places I'd read about in the Old West, horse thieving was considered a hanging offense in Deadwood. As you would expect, stage coach robbery was common. I was also interested in the accounts of a proto-gold rush in the Black Hills, perhaps in the 1840s, as evidenced by numerous diggings and artifacts found by the crowd of miners arriving in 1876. The book is full of colorful, sometimes sad, characters who really did have names like Slippery Sam and Bummer Dan. Some of them are sad. Some became the noted "stagecoach aristocracy", the first settlers and builders of Deadwood.

I found it interesting that, even though her father did particularly like gamblers, he appreciated that professional gamblers were "good losers", a virtue that was much respected on the frontier, the refusal to despair at downturns, the realization of chance in life, and the combination of "courage, philosophy, and self-control". I found the briefs parts on the Chinese in Deadwood interesting including their respect for Judge Bennett and attempts to learn English. As told in other books, there seems to have been a lot of laudanum use and suicide amongst prostitutes in Deadwood. Bennett also remembers a West where the Indians were feared and respected and pitied. I was amused to see that Deadwood's breaking of state statutes was alive even in the late 1800s when several bars openly operated during state prohibition (unless run by one of the mayor's political opponents), a tradition that continued with near open prostitution through 1980.

A good book of western history.… (altro)