BY JOHN W. LUNDIN

Life in the frontier lacked many amenities of the settled areas, issues that were discussed in Wood River Valley newspapers. Accounts of early settlers in the Wood River Valley, collected by the Ketchum Community Library, give an interesting insight into the practical aspects of life in those days.

In Bellevue in 1880, cats were a scarcity and mice were plentiful. A Mr. Buckly sold his cat for five dollars and immediately ordered 150 more to be brot [sic] in on the next stage, which he made a cleaning on, selling them at five dollars a head.

In 1881, several Chinamen came into this part of the world over Galena. In a box on the back of one such wagon outfit, Mrs. Williams spied a cat, which she purchased for $2.50.

Social affairs also made the news. The Wood River Times of September 13, 1882, announced “Girls for Single Men: A Marriage Bureau is About to be Established in Hailey.”

“A man from Marblehead, Mass., who learning that there were many rich prospectors and modest miners on Wood River who were well fixed financially, but wanted wives, will try to establish correspondence with the buxom, Yankee girls of New England and supply the demand here,” the article said.

“It is stated that young men whose capillary growth is sparse are preferred, as it is indicative of early piety and deep study. As shortness of stature has been the choice East in ladies, many tall, stately young ladies are left on hand there, who, strangely enough, prefer short men. This being the case, several eligible gentlemen of Wood River can brace up as the shorts can go long on the market when it opens.”

Rice and Foster was a partnership that recruited people from all parts of the nation to move to the Camas Prairie, with significant success. Dr. James Rice was one of the principals of the firm, who brought a number of immigrants to the Prairie in the 1880s. He also had a plan to bring in single women for the bachelors and servants for those in need of such help.

The Wood River Times reported on April 8 and 10, 1884, that settlers being brought in to homestead on Camas Prairie arrived in Hailey. The first carload of immigrants for Idaho, recruited by Rice and Foster, arrived in Hailey, containing 150 persons. Nearly all were able-bodied men; only about a dozen women arrived.

They came principally from Iowa and Wisconsin but some came from as far east as Maryland.

“Another carload from Nebraska is expected tomorrow...” the newspaper said. “The newcomers will move out to Camas Prairie to take up homesteads as soon as the snow disappears from the ground.”

The Wood River Times of February 19, 1886, reported that Dr. Rice was in Omaha, where he was working on another colonization scheme similar to that of two years earlier.

“He has been given a special rate by the railroad company and has been supplied with 100,000 pamphlets descriptive of Idaho. He expects to bring in from two to five carloads. The first carload will leave Omaha early in April and be met at Cheyenne by another carload of immigrants from Kansas City. The train will arrive between the 15th and 20th of April.5.”

The Wood River Times of March 28, 1886, said Dr. Rice reported that a party of 50 or more colonists from Nova Scotia would leave Omaha that week to come to Camas Prairie to join the colony there. Another number from Iowa were to come,  as well.

“Everything looks favorable for a colony of 200 to 500,” the newspaper added.

Life in Idaho could be lonely, and there were many single men without prospects of finding a wife. Dr. Rice had a scheme to change this situation, as reported in the Wood River Times of March 21, 1886, expressing the anti-Chinese attitudes that were prevalent at the time:

“For every twenty men in Idaho, there is not more than one woman. This is certainly embarrassing and will continue so until there is an effort made to secure female help. If my advice is followed, in less than four months, the maidens of the East will be found in abundance all over the Territory. First, let each bachelor wanting a wife, put into a pool $5.00, and each person wanting a servant also add $5.00 to the pool. This will pay the expenses of those girls, and those sent out will be such as any bachelor in our Territory would be pleased to select from.

“By following this advice, the families get their servants, society is benefitted, the bachelor is made happy by securing himself a loving wife, and the girls sent out will write back East to their friends to come out so before the first installment is married off, there will be abundant help to take their places as servants and each bachelor will be certain of a wife. Anyone who cannot afford to pay $5.00 for such a luxury would not treat his wife with as much consideration as his mules, and one who would not pay $5.00 to get a good servant girl, would not pay her wages after she has earned them. You have responsible people that you can trust this business to and not until you have done this can you rid the country of the heathen Chinese.”

Dr. Rice followed up with more advice that appeared in the Wood River Times of April 24, 1886: “There were plenty of good Scandinavian girls who were willing to come to Idaho to work for five dollars a week, but there were few who could pay their $25 passage, which must be paid from this end. All who want girls must deposit $25 for each girl in McCormick’s bank in Hailey, and pay $5.00 to Dr. Rice to make the arrangements.”

Rice wrote that the immigration agent who had already brought several car loads of people to Idaho from the east arrived in Hailey in early 1887, to “become posted on our progress during the past year and will return East to report to some persons at whose request he came here.”

The story of matchmakers at work in the early days of settlement in the west was not unusual. A story told in Crosscut.com, titled “How We Look at 'Mercer Girls' today,” told of Asa Mercer, the son of a local judge, getting the idea to bring marriageable white women to Seattle from the East. Local bachelors were enthusiastic, and some paid him $300 to bring them a bride.

However, the press criticized his efforts, saying he was recruiting a “Cargo of Heifers,” a “Petticoat Brigade,” and that he was engaged in being a “Moses of this Exodus of Women.”

Mercer targeted places in New England where there were war widows and orphans, unemployed cotton mill workers and other “spinsters” willing to go West. In 1865, he advertised in Eastern papers, saying he wanted 700 war orphans to be brides, asking them to pay their passage. He brought back only 80 people, including adults, couples and children, but only 34 were marriageable white females.

The numbers of eligible women paying for passage did not come close to meeting projections. Many were scared off by the bad publicity. Men who thought they paid for wives did not necessarily get them, and those who paid in advance did not get their money back. Some of the single women left the ship in San Francisco, as its prospects looked better than those in rough-hewn Seattle.

Many of the women who made it to Seattle did get married to men around Puget Sound, though not to loggers so much as men of more means, such as sea captains, tradesmen, lighthouse keepers and a judge. Many took jobs as schoolteachers.

Being a pioneer wife was a tough job, especially when expected to produce a new generation of locals. The ones who arrived in Seattle have been known as the Mercer girls, ever since.

In the 1960s there was a TV show called “Here Come the Brides” based on the Mercer girls, about a bunch of plucky gals in calico dresses who came out to civilize the loggers of a fictional pioneer Seattle. You may remember the theme song sung by Perry Como, if only because it may have made your scratch your head as it went: “The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle….”

Editor’s Note: John W. Lundin, a lawyer and historian, has written a number of award-winning books, including “Sun Valley Skiing:  A History from Union Pacific to the Holdings.” His ancestors moved to central Idaho early on, establishing the McFall Hotel in Shoshone and a hotel in Bellevue.