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Sudden Death
A great gloom was cast over
Bodie on Tuesday by the death of Mrs. Eli Johl, a
mistake having been made, it is said, in taking a dose
of poison instead of salts. Doctors Cox and Robinson did
all in their power to save her but without avail.”
Bridgeport
Chronicle-Union November 7, 1899 |
Nick Gariaeff spent a good portion of
his life wandering up and down the dusty streets of Bodie,
California artistically recording what he saw through his camera’s
eyes. No matter how many times he visited, he couldn’t get enough of
the place, and always found himself going back for more. He made no
effort to look through the history, just photographing seemed to be
enough. Then one day, the ghosts of Bodie nudged him, and he was
compelled to know more about the former residents of the abandoned
old mining town.
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Lotie
Johl |
Among the ghosts that nudged Nick,
was Lottie Johl, the prostitute who was made respectable by the town
butcher, Eli Johl. Her romantic story and rivalry with Annie
Donnelly, the wife of Eli’s business partner, is well known and
portrayed in modern day Bodie State Historic Park. Her tragic death,
recorded in the Bridgeport chronicle on November 7, 1899 confirmed
an overdose of poison, but several gaps appeared in the history
books that Nick rummaged through.
Lottie’s house stands in Bodie, with
remnants of what may have been her furniture inside, providing a
haunting look at where she spent the last years of her life, and
where she took her last breath. The Miner’s Union Hall, now the
Bodie museum, contains portraits of Lottie and a landscape she
herself painted, next to her rival’s artistic works. The floors that
creak and moan while hundreds of visitors walk across them each
season once creaked and moaned as Lottie and other town folk danced
in the finest costume of their day. Lottie’s grave, overgrown and
unmarked amongst the desert brush and wildflowers, is well known to
everyone who loved her then and now. As Nick visited these spots
with new respect for what stories they could reveal, Lottie’s spirit
and those of many others surely reached out to him and lead him to
countless hours of newspaper, genealogy, and archival research.
Lottie came into this world as
Charlotte J. Wilson, the daughter of Nancy Ann Swearengen, and
George W. Wilson. The year was 1853, and the place was Keosauqua,
Iowa. She grew up on a farm in Farmington, Iowa, and lived there
with her parents and sister, Mary. Lottie’s mother went on to marry
two more husbands after George, never leaving Keosauqua for very
long. When Nancy died at the age of 84 her obituary neglected to
mention her first husband, George, and her daughters Mary and
Lottie.
The first fifteen years of
Charlotte’s life are virtually unrecorded. A marriage license
appears on December 12, 1868 in Van Buren County, Iowa. Charlotte
Wilson’s name was signed on the license, beside Newton Robert
Calhoun’s. Apparently, the marriage certificate itself was never
recorded but the couple lived together, bought and traded properties
with Calhoun family members, and eventually produced a daughter. The
daughter, Mattie Mary Calhoun came into the world on April 22, 1870.
Six years after the daughter’s birth, the little family found
themselves in Calaveras County, California. A year after their
arrival, the Calhoun’s split up. Lottie would next appear in the
mining camps of Nevada.
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“Eli Johl, the well known
butcher is a constant prospector: that he has men all
year around out in the hills prospecting. One day this
week a valuable find was made in one of these locations.
It is about eighteen miles from Belleville, and Mr. Johl
says that the only difficulty is the lack of water. The
ore, at a few feet from the surface shows astonishing
assays: going away up in the hundreds.”
The True Fissure,
May 21, 1881 Candelaria, Nevada |
Elias Johl was born on July 14, 1842
in Rust, Germany, near Baden-Baden. He followed the eldest of his
thirteen siblings to America in January of 1865. Other family
members went with him, and primarily settled in the South. Eli,
however, found his way to Nevada and the mines. In 1870 he landed in
Mineral Hill where silver deposits had been discovered the year
before. Here, Eli worked as a butcher in a town that swelled to a
population of 400. As the silver played out in 1873 and Mineral
Hill went to the ghosts, Eli followed the call of silver to
Belleville and Candelaria. The Candeleria newspaper, The True
Fissure, advertised Eli Johl and John Goodwin as proprietors of
the Candelaria Meat market. Eli also shared proprietorship of the
popular Bellevue Hotel with Sheriff Clemm Ogg. The hotel was noted
for it’s large ballroom and elegant bar where holiday parties were
often held, including Eli Johl’s own wedding to one Miss Lottie
Calhoun. In addition to the hotel and meat market, Eli continued
successfully prospecting for silver.
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Last Monday evening at
Belleville, Eli Johl and Miss Lottie Calhoun were joined
in the bonds of wedlock. A large number of personal
friends of high contracting parties were present, and
after the ceremony wine flowed like water. The bride was
elegantly and tastefully dressed in a lavender silk
trimmed with bands of velvet of a darker shade, fringe
of balls and tassels, and the whole finished and
enriched by light corn colored lace. The toilette was
extremely rich and becoming. The bridegroom wore the
usual regulation black with white vest. A feature of the
festivities was the visit at a late hour of ten or a
dozen masquers who added much to the hilarity of the
occasion by their antics. At a late hour the company
withdrew, but on the following day and evening the
festivities were renewed, the many friends of the newly
wedded couple vying with each other in having a good
time.
The True Fissure
July 9, 1881 Candelaria, Nevada. |
Where and how Eli and Lottie Calhoun
were introduced to one another is unknown. In his search for more
information, Nick Gariaeff dug up an old 1880 Candelaria census.
There was no mention of a Charlotte Wilson, or Lottie Calhoun, but
the name Lottie Roberts stuck out like a sore thumb. Lottie Roberts
lived a block away from Eli’s meat market with Lulu Gordon at Lulu
Gordon’s Dance Hall. At this point Nick remembered that Lottie’s
first significant other was named Newton Robert Calhoun. It’s highly
conceivable that Lottie took his middle name as her own last name
when she went into prostitution. Further background on Lottie
Roberts showed her living in Reno, Nevada, before she moved to
Candelaria. An old Reno Evening Gazette advertised a Saturday night
“Social Dance” at Lottie’s Lincoln Avenue address. At a later date,
when Lottie Roberts moved from this address, the landlord filed a
complaint against her for stealing the bed sheets. On November 8,
1879, Lottie was dubbed by the same Reno newspaper as “Naughty
Lottie” when “Wicked” Charles Gray robbed her of $1,520 worth of
money and jewels. Several years later, Wicked Charles turned up in
the Bodie newspapers, when he was arrested for battery of a “lady
well known in Bodie” who demanded payment for breaking her jewelery.
Could this be further evidence that Eli Johl’s wife was the former
“Naughty” Lottie Roberts?
The Johl’s marriage took place on
July 4, 1881, a few months after Eli gave up his partnership in the
Candeleria Meat Market. A house behind his Belleville Hotel, became
their first home. Before the marriage, the couple had recorded
claims in the Garfield Mining District for several mines, including
the Lottie, which was named after her.
The successful miner and business
proprietor and his former prostitute wife had not been married more
than a year when tragedy began to strike. Bad blood between Eli and
mining partner J. C. McDonald showed up in newspaper headlines when
Eli opened fire on McDonald with a double barreled shotgun following
a day of altercation and unwelcomed entry by McDonald into the
Johl’s Belleville house. Three months later, on September 10, 1883,
a fire burned down the Bellevile Hotel and their house. Somehow the
Johl’s managed to salvage doors, windows furniture and a few other
items then moved to Bodie. By the next year, Eli was selling mules,
wagons, and mining equipment, and working at the Union Market.
In spite of modern traditions touting
the Johl’s romantic meeting at a Bodie dance hall, subsequent
marriage, and failed attempts at acceptance into Bodie society, Eli
and Lottie celebrated many happy times when they arrived as Mr. and
Mrs. in the booming mining town. Newspapers of April 1886 boasted “A
BODIE BELL IS REMOVED FROM OUR MIDST” but it was it was Lottie’s
daughter, Mattie Mary Calhoun and her fiancé William O. Toon who
were joined in union complete with wine of various varieties,
liberal toasts, and a banquet of oysters, ice cream and coffee, in
her mother’s Bodie home.
There is no doubt that Eli Johl and
Charles Donnelly were partners in business and society. In addition
to the butcher shop and meat market, Charles sponsored Eli as a
member of Ancient Order of United Workmen, and the Knights of
Pythias. Charles wife, Annie, may have shunned Lottie and tried to
make her life miserable, but Bodie newspaper clippings commonly
described the Johl’s as the “couple” of the ball.
“ Mrs. Johl was the most richly
dressed lady on the floor. The costume attracted attention. Eli
Johl, as Prince Carnival was gorgeously attired – the most richly
dressed male character on the floor.”
“Eli Johl appeared as Eli Johl in a
black domino. Mrs. Eli Johl – Flower girl- This ladies costume was
very much admired”
“Mrs. Johl, California-a gorgeous
golden glittering costume; Eli Johl, Domino”
The Johl’s not only appeared to have
a happy and healthy social life in Bodie, but they amassed wealth
and property as well. Nick Gariaeff’s searches lead him to the Mono
County personal property tax archives.
1887: watch $25, furniture
$40, piano $75, sewing machine $10.
1890: a home was added
1896: dog $5, piano 450,
jewelry $120, furniture $250, and eight more houses were added
In addition, records showed the Johls
owned a number of mining claims, including the “Little Stringer”
which pulled out at least 20 tons of ore.
Lottie’s death in November of 1899
was indeed the talk of the town, with accidental poisoning listed as
the cause. Town gossip and Reno newspapers insisted that Lottie had
committed suicide. Regardless of what or why, Eli was devastated by
his beloved wife’s death.
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| Terri Geissinger
(right) portrays Lottie Johl being tormented by Annie
Donnelly and other society women in front of the Johl
house on Main Street at Friends of Bodie Day, 2005. |
An article by Nell Murbanger in the
October, 1960, issue of Desert Magazine describes the
turmoil surrounding Lottie's burial. "Rosa
May, pert, pretty and popular —at least with the men—was given a
reasonably good position outside the fence, while Lottie, a "fallen"
woman who had later married Eli Johl, Bodie butcher, and lived with
him respectably for many years, won a place inside the
fence—but only after a hassle that threatened to split the town.
Those seated in judgment at last grudgingly agreed to her burial in
hallowed ground, but only if she were buried in the farthest-out
grave of the "respectable" section."
A photograph more recently unveiled in
Terri Geissinger’s Images of America Bodie 1859-1962 from
Arcadia Publishing, shows Eli at Lottie’s grave, a little snow still
on the ground, unidentified children nearby, her portrait hanging on
the fence and the gravesite decorated with trees and flowers.
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“Eli Johl and daughter,
Mrs. Toon, and child, of Bodie, drove over from Bodie on
Thursday to enjoy our balmy spring weather a few days.”
March 31, 1900 Bridgeport
Chronicle Union |
What was recorded in the newspaper as
a simple spring outing, was probably a trip to Bodie to settle
Lottie Johl’s estate, as she had $2,000 worth of property still in
her name. A few weeks later, on April 18, a petition was made to the
Superior Court by Eli for Lottie’s property. By April 30, the
petition was granted because the property was community.
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| Terri Geissinger and
Dave James portray Lottie and Eli Johl at Lottie's grave
in the Bodie Cemetery, 2005. |
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Nick
Gariaeff |
In his self-published book
Discovering Bodie, Nick Gariaeff continues to take you down
the trail of Lottie’s husband Eli Johl. The ghosts of 19 other
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Discovering Bodie |
residents of Bodie also speak
through Nick, and reveal their tales. The book is available at the
Bodie Museum or at
www.bodiefoundation.org for online
or phone ordering.
Special thanks to Nick for taking
time off from his photography to listen to what the ghosts of Bodie
had to tell and to research it for authenticity. It was a pleasure
for this author to meet him at this year’s Friends of Bodie Day, and
obtain to permission to reveal his findings on the Butcher of Bodie
and His Bride.
Bibliography
Discovering Bodie
by
Nick Gariaeff
Published by the author. ISBN 97
80984363407
Bodie Today
by
Nell Murbanger.
Desert Magazine, Volume 23, Number 10, October, 1960. Pages
10-17
The Butcher of
Bodie and His Bride
by
Cecile Page Vargo
Explore Historic California, February, 2006
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