Today, a dispatch from Eureka, Nevada, 1876. Charlie’s band wonders how much time they have left on their land, while Thomas Detter celebrates a new chapter in his life.
Dear listener,
How do you know when you belong in a place? Is it an itch in the back of your mind that feels soothed? Is it a sense of familiarity or comfort or contentment?
For Charlie and his band of Western Shoshone, this place is who they are. But that could soon change.
There’s talk around the bands that the US government will soon open a reservation for them in Duck Valley, far to the north near the border with Idaho.1 Perhaps this news even makes its way to Charlie’s band on the outskirts of Eureka.
Moving to reservations has been a tough sell for the Shoshone, but especially reservations that are far away from their home territory. This land is like a living glossary for the bands. Valleys can be sites for ceremonies, or burial grounds, or reminders of people long gone. Lakes, rivers, and streams can contain water babies and other spirits. And caves can be entry points to different universes.2
Leaving these places behind to become farmers in a distant valley feels like abandoning more than just a home. The white settlers seem to have no trouble picking up their lives and starting fresh in some new place. But the Shoshone are rooted in this land as much as the mountain rock or the flowering sage. They say that anything living today with gray colors—the deer, the owl, the wolf, the rabbit—these are all the ancestors of the Shoshone people.3
But in this new world, movement is sometimes unavoidable. When Charlie was first born, the pinyon pines were still thick enough to harvest close to home. Now, with the furnaces of Eureka pumping day and night, the forests are thin, barren, or completely gone. Though Charlie’s band doesn’t know this, there is already talk in town that the available forests near Eureka can only last another year if the demand for charcoal remains this high.4
Maybe the US government is right. Maybe there is simply no more room for the Shoshone in this land to which they were born. Maybe they must make the choice between a life on a reservation or a life cut off from all they know.
—
Thomas Detter has been busy. This year alone, he’s expanded his Bathing and Shaving Saloon, running promo after promo in the local newspaper announcing the changes. He’s even added a separate entrance for his female clients off of a side street.5
We don’t know whether he stops to think about his wife and son, gone now almost two years. Certainly he never writes about them, but, then again, he doesn’t write much at all anymore. It seems that for Detter, his life is all-consumed with making a living.
But there are other forces at play, too, that might be keeping Thomas Detter distracted. For one, it’s a presidential election year, and if there is one thing that brings the people of Eureka out of their cabins and houses and saloons and shops, it’s an election.
The local newspaper leans towards the Democratic Party, while many local voters lean Republican. But the whole region is busy with activity leading up to the election, because this year is a big one: President Ulysses S. Grant has served two terms and he won’t run again.
So now, it’s a contest between a Republican candidate, the Civil War veteran and Ohio governor Rutherford Hayes, and a Democratic candidate, anti-corruption crusader and New York governor Samuel Tilden.6
In and around Eureka, the election is quickly becoming a hot debate. The Democratic state convention in Nevada will draw 142 party members to Virginia City, including folks who will travel more than 200 miles from Eureka to attend. For their part, the Republicans will gather together more than 30 people just from the Eureka area alone to weigh in at their county convention. Then they’ll do the same for Nevada’s 12 other counties.7
So, here’s what’s stirred up all the debate.
When he first started his term, President Grant was the most famous Union general in the country. Since then, he’s tried to push through plans to enforce civil rights law and to hire more qualified people in government. But lately he’s been hit hard by the rough economy and he can’t shake rumors about backroom dealings in his administration. That’s why voters now want to clean up DC.8
So, here comes Samuel Tilden, running on a platform that promises reform. He says he’ll change how the federal government hires workers and he’ll cut back on what some white Southern voters see as the federal government meddling in their states.9 Tilden says he’s the man for the job because he’s done it before, breaking up the notorious Tammany Hall political machine in New York City and sending its ringleader to jail.10
Here’s a flavor of what Tilden’s campaign sounds like, courtesy of his party platform. Like a lot of politicians, the party goes big on lofty statements, which you’ll hear. But they also call out what they don’t like. And right now they see the federal government pressing down too hard on Southern states.
“Reform is necessary to rebuild and establish…the Union…now to be saved from a corrupt centralism which, after inflicting upon ten States the rapacity of carpet-bag tyrannies, has honeycombed the offices of the Federal Government itself with incapacity, waste and fraud.”11
For his part, the Republican candidate Rutherford Hayes says he’s all for reform, too. He wants to cut back on the handshake deals that can lead to unqualified folks getting government jobs. But the Republican Party is still the party that won the Civil War and secured rights for Black Americans, and they take that credit in their party platform.
“When…this land was to be purged of human slavery, and when the strength of government of the people, by the people, and for the people was to be demonstrated, the Republican party came into power…
The permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union and the complete protection of all its citizens…are duties to which the Republican party is sacredly pledged.”12
Like many Blacks folks after the Civil War, Thomas Detter is a Republican voter, but he’s also his own man.
He recognizes that some in the Republican Party truly believe in equal rights like their party platform says. But he also recognizes that some are using the wound of the Civil War as a political weapon against the Democrats. The newspaper editors call this “waving the bloody shirt” to remind Americans of the damage caused by the war.13
When that’s no longer effective with voters, these Republican lawmakers could easily change positions and no longer support the expensive and difficult work of civil rights.
A few years earlier, in one of his letters, he told his readers that he would lose faith in the Republicans if they didn’t continue pushing forward with civil rights protections. The mission isn’t over, he said, even if the party is losing its appetite.
—
Of course, in an election year—and maybe especially in an election year—people just want to have a good time for a little while. Usually, in Eureka, that means an after-work drink or seven and maybe a round of cards at the saloons that line Main Street.
But as the town has grown, the entertainment on offer has also become a little more sophisticated. Once the town has an actual paying audience, touring performers who make their living in front of the crowd start to arrive.
And that’s why, this year, a Scottish performer with a big mustache and an even bigger nickname is showing up. This is J.M. Macallister—or, as he prefers to be known, the Great Wizard of the World. If you’re short on space, the Great Macallister will also work.14
Macallister specializes in sleight of hand, making things appear and disappear while his audiences yelp in surprise.
And he comes from magic royalty—his uncle was the well-known Scottish magician Andrew MacAllister.15 Andrew himself apprenticed to the great French magician Phillippe, who was famous for drawing goldfish bowls from underneath his cloaks. Later, when the audience got tired of seeing fish, Phillippe would pull chickens, pigeons, and rabbits from his robes, too.16 When Andrew MacAllister would take the stage, he would light 100 candles in a row by firing a single bullet from a pistol.17
So, J.M. Macallister comes from a long lineage of magic. At least, that’s what he tells the audience. Whether or not he’s actually related to Andrew MacAllister, the Great Macallister’s real name is John Mawr, and he isn’t quite the A lister that the older Macallister was. Lately, the Great Macallister’s biggest selling point is that he gives away presents to the crowds that attend his shows.18
Still, any magic is more magic than the people of Eureka have had before. And so the Great Macallister makes his stage debut. He doesn’t pull chickens and fish from his robes, or light candles with a gun, like his famed maybe-uncle did. But for four nights, J.M. Macallister works the theater crowds, giving away 100 gifts per night to the locals who attend. He calls the tour “Four Nights in Wonder World,” and he says:
“The Great Macallister will present each evening a choice selection of his Illusions, Wonders, and Miracles, embracing Science, Mirth, and Mystery. Elegant and costly presents given away nightly.”19
Fresh from wowing the crowds in Cincinnati, the Great Macallister has a full routine of fancy-sounding tricks: the Magical Growth of Flowers, the Couch of the Angels, the Neptune’s Basin.20 But the tricks that captivate the locals of Eureka are simply old-fashioned sleight of hand.
He makes an egg appear on top of a woman’s head. He borrows a fifty-cent coin from the audience, then makes it disappear in mid-air, only to reappear in a lady’s hat. And the crowd seems to love his simplest trick the most: a random giveaway of fifteen dollars to a lucky audience member.21
Say what you will about the Great Macallister’s hazy lineage—he knows how to hit it big with the locals.
–
Thomas Detter is both a very public and a very private man.
On the one hand, he seems to have almost no fear about sharing his thoughts on the messy and polarizing world of politics. He’s made a career of sending letters out into the world to be read by anyone who pays for a paper, where he signs his name to strong opinions. He’s a Black man writing about civil rights at a time when that can lead to a haunting late-night knock on the door.
On the other hand, though, he almost never writes about his family. Maybe it’s a form of protection or anonymity or privacy, although it wouldn’t be hard to find him in the mining towns he calls home.
He didn’t write about the loss of his wife, and he barely wrote about the loss of his son. If he ever feels alone or lost or overwhelmed by grief, he never writes about it, at least not in the newspapers.
So, all of this is to say that we don’t know when and where Thomas Detter met Emily Bronson of San Francisco. There are rumors that she’s a mail-order bride, but no one would air that kind of laundry in public.22
It’s been two years since he lost Caroline and Robert. Since then, he’s given his grand speech in San Francisco celebrating the passage of the Civil Rights Act. He’s expanded his business in Eureka. He’s become the kind of person that people know by name. Some folks in town even call him Dr. Detter.23
But, as he closes up the barbershop in the desert dusk, with the sun tracing the outline of the mountains, he still goes home alone.
Maybe he’s ready for that to change. And however long he’s known Emily Bronson, it’s long enough for him to invite her to make a life with him in Eureka. And she says yes.
So, four days before election day, Thomas Detter marries Emily Bronson at their home. He wears a black suit with a white vest. She wears a white dress made of silk with orange blossoms in her hair. The turnout is a testament to Thomas Detter’s reputation in town. Pretty much every Black person in Eureka—probably around 40 people—shows up, plus 25 white guests.24 They toast each other with champagne and cake, and when the party is over, Detter sends the leftovers to the local newspaper, where he’s one of the most popular advertisers.25
It’s a welcome relief from the election craziness all over town. And for a moment or two as the party fades away and the champagne kicks in, Detter must enjoy this respite.
Within days, though, the election campaign heats up. Emily, having moved to Eureka from San Francisco, is getting an up-close look at what an election feels like in a mining town. Because everyone knows everyone else, politics is personal and intimate here in a way that it’s not in a big city. And the local newspaper covers the race breathlessly, with no shame about cheering for Tilden and the Democrats. They write:
“It is a contest between the advocates of an honest government, of a nation of states held together by the ties of common interest…against the supporters of a military despotism.”26
The newspaper fills up with columns and ads speculating about the outcome. One woman, seeing an opportunity, even advertises her homemade sauerkraut for sale to celebrate Tilden’s inevitable victory.27
But as the votes are tallied, the picture is not so clear. Tilden has 184 electoral votes, with Hayes at 165. That means Tilden just needs one more electoral vote to win the presidency. But the electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon are still up in the air. Some votes are tossed out as fraudulent and both parties now argue over the vote count.28
The streets of Eureka go quiet as the town awaits the results. The newspaper reports:
“We expected the election to produce a boundless crop of…fights, cuttings and shootings, and broken heads, but there has not, up to late last night, been a single fight growing out of it, and business in court is as dull as if there had been a general religious revival instead of an election.”29
A few days ago this election seemed to be a commentary on the past president. Now, if it can’t be resolved quickly, it’s brewing up to be a political mess that might shake Americans’ faith in their elections.
And caught in the middle are men like Thomas Detter, who hope that the Republican party won’t turn away from the fight for civil rights. Although it’s been ten years since the end of the Civil War, there’s still so much more to be done.
If you’d like to learn more about the contested presidential election of 1876, check out By One Vote by Michael F. Holt.
Works Cited:
1. Steven J. Crum, The Road on Which We Came: A History of the Western Shoshone (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), pgs. 35-36
2. Ginny Bengston, “Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone Land Use in Northern Nevada: A Class I Ethnographic/Ethnohistoric Overview,” U.S. Department of the Interior Cultural Resource Series No. 12, 2003.
3. Robert D. McCracken, “An Interview with Lucille Allison Estella,” Eureka Memories, 1993
4. Eureka Daily Sentinel, April 19, 1874
5. Eureka Daily Sentinel, July 14, 1876
6. “The Election of 1876,” Supreme Court Historical Society.
7. Eureka Daily Sentinel, August 9, 1876
8. “The End of Reconstruction,” Digital History
9. “The Election of 1876,” American Battlefield Trust, November 1, 2024.
10. “Governor Samuel Jones Tilden,” National Governors Association.
11. Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, “1876 Democratic Party Platform Online,” The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara.
12. Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, “1876 Republican Party Platform Online,” The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara.
13. Michael F. Holt, “The Contentious Election of 1876,” History Now, Issue 33, Fall 2012.
14. Wheeling Daily Register, November 13, 1873
15. Conjurers’ Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, September 1906-August 1907
16. Henry Ridgely Evans, The Old and the New Magic (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1906).
17. “Macallister at the Bowery Theatre,” The Magic Posters Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
18. Eureka Daily Sentinel, September 21, 1876
19. Ibid.
20. Eureka Daily Sentinel, September 17, 1876
21. Eureka Daily Sentinel, September 23, 1876
22. Chris Enss, “Wild Women of the West: The Busy Bee Club,” Cowgirl, June 2, 2020.
23. Eureka Daily Sentinel, June 15, 1876
24. Elmer Rusco, Good Time Coming?: Black Nevadans in the Nineteenth Century (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), pg. 127
25. Eureka Daily Sentinel, November 3, 1876
26. Eureka Daily Sentinel, November 7, 1876
27. Eureka Daily Sentinel, November 16, 1876
28. Sheila Blackford, “Disputed Election of 1876,” University of Virginia Miller Center.
29. Eureka Daily Sentinel, November 11, 1876