Five Hundred Brides
by
Margaret Cracknell
Seattle wasn't much of a place in 1865, but it did boast a Music Hall. The smoke-filled building was full of rowdy men. The violinist and the honky-tonk piano player sawed and pounded their way through raucous sketches and Victorian ballads. In the wings the manager was counting the night's takings.
On stage, above her tight laced stays, the soprano's ample bosom rose and fell with emotion. With ostrich feathers aquiver and silk tassels shimmering, she sang of her lover returning to their little love-nest for two.
The cigar-smoking liquor-swilling male audience roared and stamped their feet in approval. They yearned for the women that had been part of their lives. The mother, the sisters, and the girl friends they had left behind.
Outside the rain dripped off the roofs of what was little more than a shanty town. The music from the Vaudeville Theatre echoed down the muddy street.
The lights were on at the newspaper office. Mr. Asa Mercer was overseeing the insertion of his notice in the local paper, The Puget Sound. Mr. Mercer was a man who knew men. He also knew how to make a quick buck. Dapper in appearance, his mustache was waxed and twisted to impressive points.
Seattle was a pioneer town. Opportunities abounded for anyone willing to work, but it was made up almost entirely of single men. Mr. Mercer's message was to change all that. He promised to provide "a wife of good moral character and reputation" to any man that would pay him three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars! A lot of money, but before he left to go East, five hundred men had each paid him three hundred dollars for a wife!
Tom Halbert and his cousin Joseph shared a room in a lodging house with an older man. Michael was twenty-seven, Tom and Joseph were eighteen. They immediately made plans to build a cabin together. Four rooms. A bedroom for each couple, and their wives could share the kitchen, the cooking, the washing and all the work. The women would thank them; it would mean less work for them.
The town took on a new excitement. The women were coming. They'd have to build a school, maybe a church. Women liked churches.
Back East, Asa Mercer was running into difficulties. He found it took all his persuasive charm to find the promised five hundred brides. No woman in New England would admit to looking for a husband! However, they did profess to always having had a yearning to see the West. Travellers told of many geological wonders beyond the mountains. It would be an educational experience for a proper young lady to see such sights.
Amy was only fifteen and had never travelled further than the local market town. Her mother was unhappy about having the girl round the house anymore. Her second husband was showing far too much interest in her.
"Amy, dear, I love you dearly and I'll miss you something terrible. You are so good with the little ones, but don't you think you'd like to see them mountains and the mighty rivers, and smell them oranges folks talk about?"
"Oh, Mother, I could never leave you."
"Think about it, dear. I'll give you my shawl and I'll buy you some new boots."
Amy burst into tears and clung to her mother. Mrs. Avery, however, once she had made up her mind, always got her own way.
Lily O'Toole saw the notice and immediately knew that it was for her. "Anything to get out of this dump," she thought. The dump she was thinking of was the convent where she worked in the kitchen. An orphan, she had been raised by the nuns. Lily was a good looking girl and longed for her freedom. The Wild West, men, adventure! And she wasn't averse to a bit of slap and tickle either. She was going!
Elizabeth was an unmarried woman. A spinster. She played the piano for the school concerts. She looked after her nephews and nieces when her sister and brother-in-law travelled. She liked children, but she knew she would never have any. At thirty-one no one looked at her as a possible wife. Under her pleasant calm manner, she hated the life she led. She saw the notice in the paper and her heart fluttered. To be someone's wife. To be accepted as a married woman, have her own children, her own home. Her hand trembled as she answered the notice.
It was not an easy journey transporting all those women across the country and over water. When the vessel carrying Asa Mercer's five hundred wives reached San Francisco, the crew had to fight a battle to keep off the local men who were bent on kidnapping the women for themselves.
Seattle was in a state of excitement. Word had reached them that the ship was on her way. Buildings had been whitewashed. Duds had been washed. The men had shaved and bathed. Even the taverns were all closed for the occasion. The women were coming!
Within a week the first wedding took place. After that the Justice of the Peace was kept busy marrying couples, often more than one couple at a time. Some were sober, some not quite so.
I wonder, did a girl picking herself a bunch of wild flowers to carry as a nosegay, when she made her vows, save a sprig of honeysuckle or a spray of ivy to press in the back of the Bible she had brought from home? A home she would never see again.