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Eliza DeWolfe: Scandalous Love & Suffrage · PNW Haunts & Homicides

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Rainy Day rabbit Holes podcast, your escape
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: from the mundane. Dive into the rich history of the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest with us, and let your mind wander down
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the rabbit hole, because in the Northwest it's always raining.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Something weird. I'm Shay and I'm Jodie. Let's fall down
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the rabbit hole. Caitlin, Yeah, that's you. When I say
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the words free love? What comes to mind for you?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Definitely, hippies, peace signs, yeah, like Paisley right, flower power?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the nineteen sixties, yeah, yeah, walking it Charles Manson maybe,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Oh well, I mean, Charlie's never far from our minds
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: as true crime girls, right, He's always with us.
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well, I might just blow your mind a
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: little bit today with a tale of free love, feminism
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: and strong women in the sixties.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But here's the twist. It's the eighteen sixties. Oh shit,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: that's the time that Jody and I love to hang
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: out in. The best is the eighteen hundreds in the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: It was wild.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: What's wild here? It's so good? Well, rabbit holders, you
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: might have already noticed something different today. You can finally
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: tell the host's voices apart there. That's because today we
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: have a very special guest. It's only Caitlin from the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: PNW Haunts and Homicides podcast. Welcome Caitlyn, thank you, thank
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today. So Caitlin and
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Cassie are the dynamic duo who hosts PNW Haunts and Homicides.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It's a Pacific Northwest paranormal and true crime podcast and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: they are part of our Umbrella podcast collective.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Yes we are. Wow. Can you can you come and
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: do like our intro on our show?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Sure? Anytime? Right, So tell my listeners a little bit
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: about your show and where they can find you.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I mean can I really top that?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Can I add anything to that?
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: We're on all of the things where we're on all
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: of the socials and basically all of the major streaming
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: platforms for podcasts that I can think of.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: We always tell people if there's one.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: That you know of that we're not on, let us know,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I guess something really obscure.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: That is your preferred.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Tin Can podcast player.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, I mean it would have to be.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: But they can always go to your website to find
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: links to everything, right, It's true.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a link tree and a website.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And it's PNW Huntsonhomicides dot com.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Right it is. Yeah, we snagged her.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Well and if you ever can't remember that, guys, you
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: can always go to our website, randydayrabbit holes dot com,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: forward slash umbrella and that's where you can find links
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: to all of the podcasts under our umbrella, like PNW
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Hunts and Homicides. So definitely give them a listen. All right,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So Kalin today is kind of a side quest. I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: got sucked down this particular rabbit hole while researching last
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: week's episode about Henry Yesler. So, Henry and his wife
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Sarah had an unconventional relationship. Not only did they abstain
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: from the traditional Christian religion, they were spiritualists, which actually
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: had some interesting ties in with Christianity. Like a lot
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of Christians were spiritualists in the day. Wasn't considered to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: be like the devil worshiping side of.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Things, right, not counterintuitive to religion, right?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they also practiced and get ready to clutch
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: your pearls. Free love. Oh are we scandalized yet?
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So for most people, free love brings up visions of
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: flower crown wearing hippies getting freaky in the back of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a VW bus.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Right, definitely.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: But what was extremely so prizing is that the roots
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of this movement can be traced all the way back
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to the second century whoa with an obscure sect of
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: early Christians called the Adamites. So these free thinking dudes
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and dudets from North Africa claim to have regained Adam
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and Eve's original innocence. So I'm assuming before they ate
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the right fruit from the tree, and yeah, figured out
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that for some reason naked was being bad.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know, is naked is bad? Don't do that.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Don't need apples, it's a thing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Don't eat apples off of random trees because there's probably
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: worms in them. I don't know if you've ever been
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: like you're like, hey, there's an apple on this tree
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and take a bite and then you can see like
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the hole that the worm had gone through, and you're like,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that's why I can think of that.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I know, I'm I'm like, that's horrifying.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: But also, have you guys ever heard of like street drugs,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: because it gets worse?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: What like street drugs? You know, like right, you know,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: hard drugs. I was like, yes, I mean yeah, like
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: an apple with a worm in it is bad, but
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: like you know, I think it's worse.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Right, true podcaster? Okay, Okay, I heard where you're going.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, are they putting drugs in the apples nowadays?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: What are the kids doing these days? I mean I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: have made a bowl out of an apple back in
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: my day, but I can put together with the apple
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and the street drugs. Okay. I was not going where
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you were leading.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: I know you need bread string. Okay, it's part of
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I'm told it's part of my charm.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: You went straight from from Adam and Eve eating apples
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to street drugs.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm clubbing.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So the Adamites practiced their rituals in the nude and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: naked thyme was generally widely accepted, and they rejected the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: concept of marriage, saying it would never having but for sin.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: So they also thought that no actions could be held
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: as either good nor bad. So what do you think
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: people thought of them? They were, of course labeled as
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: devil worshipers.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think that's
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: going to go over well.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: No, and practices similar to the Adamites have sprung up
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: through the centuries, from the Brethren of the Free Spirit
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: in the thirteenth century to the Taborites in Bohemia in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the fifteenth century. Free love played a powerful part in
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: radical thinking during the English Revolution in the mid sixteen hundreds.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And so you might be wondering, then, what exactly is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: free love how we're talking about it today?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to know what you found out that
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a philosophy that challenges many of what we
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: would think of as ingrained societal norms. So it seeks
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: freedom from state regulation and church interference in personal relafe relationships.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So basically the core is the free union of adults,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that adults of legal consenting age can enter into relationships
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: without legal or religious recognition or regulation, and that they
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: can come and go as they please in those relationships.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: That's very important to it. It's basically like, you can
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: freely be in this relationship for as long or as
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: short as you want, and freely leave it whenever you want,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and that there's no legal or religious repercussions for that.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And it really came into sharp focus in the mid
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds as feminism began to grow into the modern
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: suffrage movement. So the free union term has been used
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: since then to describe a relationship into which all parties enter, remain,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and leave freely. Makes sense, and marriage is often viewed
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: as a form of slavery and human ownership, especially for
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: women and children.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that's fair.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually, back before there were any sort of legal
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: protections for people, you know, for people in marriages or
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the children, you know, yeah, you were your husband or
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: father's property property, Yeah, to do with as he wishes.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: So beating your wife for a long time not illegal.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Raping your wife right, not illegal? You know.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that one stayed l legal for a lot longer
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: than we'd like, I think, a lot longer than beating.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I think the last state to make marital rape I
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: legal was in like the nineteen eighties or the nineteen nineties,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Like it took that long.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: That sounds yeah, yeah, that sounds accurate.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So let's bring it back to the Pacific
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Northwest and Henry and Sarah Yesler. So for the Yeslers,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: a little love on the side weren't no big thing. Oh,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: when Sarah Yessler finally moved to Seattle to be with
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: her husband after seven years. And if you guys want
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to hear more, you got to listen to my Henry
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Yesler episode from last week. Just say Yesler, Yes, just
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: say Yesler to the Dressler. No, that was dumb. Sorry,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: yours is much better.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: No, I like it. Sometimes, you know, they can't they
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: can't all land No, that's the thing.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: They can't all be gyms.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've got quite a few flops. If we
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: went through on my river Side account, you would see,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: like some of the faces that Cassie has made.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: It me like when Sarah Yesler finally moved to Seattle
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  Speaker 1: to be with her husband after seven years, she was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: nonplus to find that Henry had conceived a child with
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: his living Native American housekeeper slash Indian wife. That's what
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: they call them back in Oh boy.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's totally cool.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was fine. A lot of records state that
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: she embraced the child as her own, even though they
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: did send the kid off to live with a foster
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: family pretty quickly. Oh so that's embracing. So she wasn't mad.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: But there was also a little evidence that Sarah might
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: have been having a little fun on the side as well,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: That's the whole that's fair whole arrangement, you know.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, for the late eighteen hundred, so this is
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: early Seattle. I'm sure it was scandalous. Yeah.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: In a letter from Sarah's good friend Eliza Woodard to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Sarah Yessler, dated October seventh, eighteen sixty, Eliza congratulated Sarah
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on her success with a mister meigs. Hmmm, why, I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: am perfectly astonished. That's my accent for her. I don't
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: know where she's from.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I dig it. I'm with it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Why, I am perfectly astonished and delighted at your daring
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: boldness walk right into the affections of a man. I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: hope it isn't anything bad for I want to share
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: in the spoils. And you know I wouldn't da r
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: e if it wasn't modest. Old, Well, Sarah, I'll talk rational.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: You are the most bewitching little muggins I know of.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: If only I had hold of you, I would squeeze
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you for half an hour.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm starting to pick up on the spicy.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah you were mentioning.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it sounds a little scumble.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like, oh yeah, No, honestly, I was
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: just gonna say, like, do I smell a thrubble?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it gets spicier. But who
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: is this mysterious mister Meigs?
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Well, luckily I have a subscription to newspapers dot com
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and we have historylink dot org. Thank you for your
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: work historylink dot org. So George Anson Meegs was another
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest titan of industry. He owned Blake Island, He
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: built a large sawmill at Port Madison on Bainbridge Island,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and he also built the very first foundry in Seattle.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: So it makes sense that Sarah might have been rubbing
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: elbows with this man, given her own husband's prominence in Seattle.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: But who's to say what his relationship with Sarah really was.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: We can only speculate, and I like to speculate.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Let's speculate.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So, oh, by the way, Blake Island, after ga Meagus
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: stripped it of all of its profitable timber, he stopped
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: paying his property taxes to King County, and so they
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: had to forgive him two thousand dollars worth of back
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: property taxes, which was around seventy six thousand dollars today.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So that they didn't have to repossess it, but then
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the bank that held mortgages had to foreclose on him
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and take possess to know the island, So you know,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: good job, dude.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Wow, So he's a real dick.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I'm like kind of finding that the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: early founders of Seattle had something in common, and that's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: that they did not like to pay their debts.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that makes sense. I guess, like who
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: wants to pay their bills, but like the rest of
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: us do.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: So I'm just saying.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: The rich ones didn't, right, That's he's man.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: He walked so the elon could run, right, you know,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: bezos literally also from Seattle.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: All right, So the most spicy, juicy and scandalous evidence
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of Sarah's possible secret love life comes from two earlier
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: letters that same year from Eliza. So Sarah would often
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: sail down to San Francisco to take a water cue,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: which was just hydrotherapy. It was very, very big in
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, and it was offered by Eliza's husband
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and oh, we will get to him later. So these
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: letters appear to be shortly after one of Sarah's San
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Francisco trips and hint at a deeper and more personal
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: relationship between the two ladies. In one letter, Eliza exclaims, oh, Sarah,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I wish to stay so much and could not say anything.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I want to sleep with you again.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's the real Samford.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, co Tree, good one. Damn Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: It just keeps getting spicier.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, and here's one more. At the close of another
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: letter about a month later, Eliza writes, I would like
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to step into your bathing room tonight and take an abolution,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and you might shower me too, and I would not
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: squeal so bad. I would like to tell you how
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I spanked the captain last night, but have time now. Sorry,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think that that's actually like an then you
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: window listen.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: That was spicy for the time though.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: She would talk about this this Captain and a lot
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of the letters, and she did refer to spanking people
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: a lot, like for some reason the eighteen hundreds, people
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: really like to spank their friends. I don't know, but
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: did they or did she? When in this context, when
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: you say I would like to tell you how I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: spanked the captain last night, but having time now, it
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: does sound rather filthy.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: It does that's what.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it from now on, right.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go spank the captain, if you know what
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Fill a little tense. I need to spank the captain.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I call him Blackbeard the Captain.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: Oh okay, Okay, Joni's gonna be so upset that she
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: missed this.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: She loves that sort of stuff.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Now, this is all open to interpretation. Some authors and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: historians have taken these letters in their close relationship as
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a possible sexual one like me, Yeah, but just because
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I want to h Yeah, I mean shipping ragged. But
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: others are of the opinion that we might not be
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: taking differences in how friends spoke to each other back
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: in the day.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I do think that was more common with female friends
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: in particular.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was common for female friends to share
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: beds at the time. And because Eliza and her husband
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: operated a water cure therapy clinic, it's very possible and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: not out of the question that Eliza and Sarah would
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: have bathed together, and not even in a sexual way. Yeah, yeah,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I like the to imagine the spicy version though.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Listen, I'm just working with the information that I have presented,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: and I'm.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Saying a raise of the eyebrow to you, good sir, exactly.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, we've talked a bit about the free love
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: movement and a few characters in that story here in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. But how does this tie into the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: early feminist movement? But that's why we've brought miss Eliza
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and Woodard Heard into our story. She was breaking hearts,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: breaking rules, and maybe breaking a few corset laces. And
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: while we catch our breath, let's hear from our sponsors.
• 17:48
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• 18:10
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• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Excellent.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Well, I am here with Caitlin from the PNW Haunts
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and Homicides podcast and we were about to talk about
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: how free love, feminism, and the Pacific Northwest are intertwined.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Ah a beautiful baby.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So Eliza Ann woodard Heard migrated to the Pacific northwest
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: via the Oregon Trail with her family in the summer
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty two, when Eliza was just eighteen years old.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, actually I say just but at that point
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: eighteen years old, like you are.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: She's practically an old maid, right.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And by early eighteen fifty three they had settled
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in Olympia, Washington. She married Jane Heard in eighteen fifty five,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a respected market owner in Olympia who had one of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the largest meat packing businesses in the area. Well, hello,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and that's not an innuindo to anything else. They just
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: packed me unfortunately. I mean I was really hoping we
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: could go somewhere with that one.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Hey, we can take this wherever we That's right.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there was some meatpacking bag in those days.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Right. He's like an old timey mister big.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: He had meatpackers working for him as far away as
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: eastern Washington. He also employed someone you might have heard of,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Nisqually Chief Leshi.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, I'm not sure if I can totally place it,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: but it sounds very, very familiar.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Well, Leshie is a community in Seattle named after this chief.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: He was pretty well known in the early founding of Seattle,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and he was accused of murder in eighteen fifty seven.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And James heard testified in Leshie's defense during this murder trial.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And that's all I'll say about Leshi. I'll save that
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: for another episode, Okay. So, unfortunately, James was attacked by
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: a wild ox and killed in eighteen fifty seven, leaving
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: it behind his wife an infant child.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: God damn.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The heartbroken Eliza turned to spiritualism to cope with
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: her grief. She believed that she was able to contact
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: her husband's spirit and took comfort from it. In a
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: letter to Sarah, she writes, he lives. I know it
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: because I feel it permeate my entire being. And if
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: he lives, he still loves me and is cognizant of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: my thoughts, aspirations and whereabouts. Ah, peaceful thought, What comfort
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: it brings to my yearning soul. Oh yeah, I know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like a little cheery. She was a beautiful writer.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: After her husband died, she wrote this full page poem
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: about her grief to Sarah that like, I would not
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: be able to read on this podcast because I would
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: just ball like a little baby. You just cry. Yeah.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: So she actually was a beautiful writer. In eighteen fifty one,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: while visiting family in Santa Cruz, California, she developed connections
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: in the spiritualist community. From then on, she regularly communicated
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: with the spirit world, took water cures, and adhered to
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a vegetarian diet, which was big with that community back then.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what, they had me and then
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: they lost me.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And well I thought at first she said they had
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: meat and then they lost meat, and I was like, oh, well,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that's a weird way to refer to her husband.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Oh no, oh god, yeah, that works in multiple ways.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Her circle of spiritualist friends became very important to her,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and she would often travel from Olympia to San Francisco
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: to visit. In the same letter to Sarah, she writes,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: we will indeed try to be harmonious and happy, thereby
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: be enabled to communicate with the unseen world. I fear
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: my advantages for being developed as a medium will be
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: very limited my friends here in the abc of the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: beautiful philosophy of spiritualism. So it sounds like she was
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: maybe wanting to be a medium. She did speak several
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: times about doing sciences where there was table tapping and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: some clairvoyance sleep. I'm not sure what that.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Is, neither am I to be honest.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So she was, Yeah, she was definitely involved in the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: spiritualist community, which, interestingly enough, the spiritualist community had a
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: lot of women's suffrage in it because it was something
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: and that was what I was going to get into
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: further and here before I ran out of time. Yeah,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: so I'll just touch briefly on it here. So spiritualism
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: was important in the women's suffrage movement because a lot
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of women were mediums and would work in giving sciences
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, and so it gave women
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: a way to have some income and some power, right,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And so that was one of the big reasons why
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of suffrages would do that. Now, unfortunately, a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: lot of women were still being taken advantage of by
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: men in that by and I'm saying by oh, fathers
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and husbands basically like spiritualists pimping out their wives and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: children to do this. Like Victoria Woodhall, that's how she started.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Her dad was forcing her and I'm not forcing they
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: like to do it, but he would starve them so
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that they would look more wafy and have them go
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: hold seances and fully helped them grift people through this.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Wow, you'd have to starve me for me to look wafy.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my wafe days are far behind me, like forty
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: years behind me.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Wafy. I never knew her.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So Early in eighteen sixty, a man by the name
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: of Charles Henry D. Wolfe was a popular lecture in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, holding forth about the wonders of phrenology and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: accompanying sciences. If you're not familiar, phrenology is the pseudoscience
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that involves measuring the skulls bumps to predict a person's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: mental traits and personality. Very popular in the nineteenth century,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and it was also quite racist.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was gonna say, oh that old.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Jem Yes, yes, And Charles Henry fancied himself a doctor
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of this science.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Oh excellent.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, back in those days it was pretty
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: easy to call yourself a doctor without any credentials.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say, you know what, I've always felt like,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: you know, I should just self nominate.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: You know, well, people can check on things nowadays. Yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: they didn't have Google back then to look up your credentials.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And also, you know, given that phrenology isn't actually a science.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: You can feel free to make up whatever crap you
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: want about it and call yourself a doctor of it,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and people will as long as you got confidence, man,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you can do it.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's that charis exactly. It's classic cult leader stuff.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Here.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Why I say I could always be a cult leader?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Oh maybe I could doctor too of some made up
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: your leader.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: It kind of sounds like, you know, when you're a
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: kid and you're like, I want to be Like actually,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I was listening to another show where they were talking
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: about he wanted to be a lawyer slash wrestler, so
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: he would be a daytime wrestler, a nighttime lawyer, so
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: always seeking justice.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: It sounds like it sounds like that, kind of like
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: a superhero by day. You know.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think this guy was superhero in anyway.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: No, No, only if it was you, oh it was me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: You know, I would be a doctor of essential because
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I used to. I went through a real crunchy phase
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: when I was in my thirties where I was like,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: everything's bad for you except for essential ills, and you
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: should just put them on everything. And I got over that.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I gave myself ezema because I, oh no, I was
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: putting it raw on my face, like undiluted, and I
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: got this huge abscess on the side of my cheek
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that was literally weeping, and I would not I was
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: like refusing to do anything except for book more essential
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: oil ont and I finally was like, what am I
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: doing and gave up on that as special oils smell nice,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and I think that's about all they really do. But
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I do know a lot about what people say they do,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: so I could be a doctor of essential oils and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I could actually sound like I know what I'm talking about.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: People would believe me.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And you know what, thanks to Dotera, that really is
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: like still doctor Colt, right, Doctor Colt.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: The pseudoscience is strong with these ones.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, Oh my gosh, it's wild.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I love essential oils too.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff that I'm like, hey, listen,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: though there's not science.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and when people say that it can
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: cure like real diseases, and then people don't seek treatment
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: for their cancer because somebody has told them that they
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: just need to, like I don't know, put coffee up
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: there butt and then use essential oils and then they die.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's right, criminal it for sure. Yes, yeah,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I think essential oil I have. I use essential oils
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: all the time. We have a diffuser in our studio.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: They smell amazing. I put them in my laundry because
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: they smell great, and I feel like essential oil smells
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: don't give me headaches like fake smells do, and putting
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: it in like my laundry doesn't irritate my skin like
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you know, like all the chemical stuff does. But they
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: also still are chemicals, people like, don't fool yourself. Chemicals
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: are just the makeup of life. Everything is a chemical.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Water is a chemical.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean chemical has gotten a real bad
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: rap as it.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: But you can't live chemical free because you wouldn't be living.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I mean you literally can't, just because it's already it's
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: in the water.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: You are chemicals. Yeah anyway, Okay, I could go on
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and on, I could rant over. Oh okay. So Charles
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Henry had lived in Old Town, Maine in the eighteen
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: forties and fifties, and he considered himself a preacher, among
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: other things, but more of a do what I say,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: not what I do kind of spiritual leader. Because he
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: was eventually chased out of town after a scandalous tryst
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with an unmarried young woman. Fantastic, So yeah, good job, preacher.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: So he began publishing, lecturing, and organizing for reform groups
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: across the country. Now it didn't mention what kind, but
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: then there was a mention that he was traveling with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a free love enclave by this time, so I think
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it was freelove reform groups, or maybe marriage reform or
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: something like that. And in eighteen sixty his sixteen year
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: old daughter had grown really fond of San Francisco and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: refused to leave, so he settled in. To make a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: name for himself, so he traveled throughout northern California, Oregon,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and Washington giving lectures, although many towns rebuked his presence.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: There was a two page article in a newspaper and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Just cliff notes, I'm just gonna.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Read like my favorite little part about the in this.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It was in a newspaper in Salem, Oregon, stating beware
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of the fell Destroyer. This he wolf in sheep's clothing,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: whose only object is to seek out victims on whom
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to satiate the brutal lusts of his corrupted and extremely
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: violated carcass whoa tell us tell you he really feel,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Sailor Morgan, seriously, don't hold back. Doctor C. H. De
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: wolf is an inflated montebank. Whatever that is sounds bad, wow,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a thorough going rotten heart and hypocrite, a miserable, low
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: bred self abandoned and letitious, profligate, and an internet libertine.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I'm very scandalized, too unfit to run at large amount
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: his own kind, and utterly unworthy the appellation of a man.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand most of that, but it sounds bad.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, listen, through context, I am able to establish
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: that he is not only bad, but he is not good.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: No, no, And it goes on further, calling him more names,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: speaking of his demeanor and actions, especially with some of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the ladies in town. But you get the point.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think, so I'm interested, so I'll need
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: the leak.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I know, we're like, I want to know
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: more about him.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: So.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Eliza first mentions doctor de Wolfe in eighteen sixty one
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: in a letter to Sarah, saying that she had received
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a letter from him announcing that he had arrived in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Portland and would be in Olympia within five weeks. It
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: is most likely that she met him on one of
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: her trips to Santa Cruz or San Francisco. In May
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty two, doctor de Wolfe arrived in Olympia,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: where he presented a public lecture on the vegetarian diet.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And like we said, vegetarianism was also connected with social
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: reform movements such as temperance and individualism. So vegetarianism was
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: also called a plane diet. And oh interesting it was
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: meant to I think, like doctor Kellogg had a whole
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: thing about a plane diet.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say, it sounds yeah, port yeah, in
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: that same vein, just like, don't eat anything that could
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: be exciting. Yes, literally the word I was looking for exciting.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I mean I would argue appetizing.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Right, it might caust you to masturbate after all, right.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can't have too much excitement. You
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: might start touching yourself.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, that's my favorite part about corn flakes is
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: that it was made to keep people from touching themselves.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh is this one a bad touch? Is that elbow? Okay?
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Some people are into that. You're too saucy.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get kicked off the radio with the elbow
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: touching the radio. Yeah, this is the way. We are
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: not swearing on this podcast because we are on the radio.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, I wish you'd told me that earlier.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: You haven't said anything as far as I remember. Well,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: that's a nice job. Nice job's being temperateure. You must
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: be a vegetarian.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: How dare you.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Now? We don't have much to tell us the early
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: story of Eliza's relationship with Charles Henry. It's possible that
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: sparks flew upon their initial meeting and their fondness for
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: each other grew through letters. But within a few weeks
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: of him arriving in Olympia, the conjugal alliance and matrimonial
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: co partnership of doctor C. Hdwolf and Eliza A. Hurd
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: was announced in the Washington Standard.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, What did they have to do? Take out
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: a half page ad just for the title?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Practically this started a chain of events that shocked and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: scandalized the Olympia community.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Excellent.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: The couple were joined in their non traditional ceremony on Tuesday,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: May thirteenth. The announcement read, we the Undersigned hereby announced
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: to the world that we have contracted a conjugal alliance
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and entered into a matrimonial co partnership, believing in the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: divine right of souls to dictate their own forms, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the inspiration of Mother Nature and Father God as being
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: above custom. That was all in caps. That's why I
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: said that way. And priestly ceremony, however long dignified by
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: legal enactment and Christian dictation, those are all capitals.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: My goodness.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't know what any of that meant, but
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: but you know what sounds good.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: It's not important.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: What is important is that it's not going on right now,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: because that is probably a could I would join.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Right the following Saturday evening, Eliza was get this seeing
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: riding a horse through town. Get ready to clutch your
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: pearls again. Bloomers, bloomers, I can't even so scandal.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Clearly not sights at all, No as.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: No skirt, bloomers pants, pants on a woman?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Was that? Do you know? Was that illegal at that point?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Because I mean, yeah, it was illegal to dress. It
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: was illegal to cross stressed in many places.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So now that was not only to keep women from
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: dressing in men's clothing, but it was also to keep
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: down the gay community. Well sure and yeah. Now, then
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: on Monday morning, so this was Saturday evening that Eliza
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: was seen riding a horse. They got married on Tuesday,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and then Saturday she was riding a horse and Beato merse.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And then on Monday morning the couple prepared to board
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: a steamboat to Victoria and they were arrested. The couple
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: appeared in front of Justice Bigelow on a charge of
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: having attempted to unite I'm I'm.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Sorry, you said, Justice Bigelow.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Bigelow like the keea like males. Oh sure, let's call
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: him that. The couple appeared in front of Justice Jigglow
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: on a charge I'm not a very good historian though,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: just does Bigelow, on a charge of having attempted to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: unite parties in the bond of matrimony without the authority
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: of law. I didn't know that was a thing. So
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: they pleaded not guilty. And in his own defense, Charles
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Henry claimed to be, along with a minister of the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Gospel and a judge, a justice of the peace, and
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: therefore qualified to marry himself everything.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, man, it must be nice to just be a
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: white man in eighteen hundreds, who can.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Just make up whatever stuff you want.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Honestly, it reminds me of that scene in the office
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: where he's like.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I declare by crops, right.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: Like, oh, so you think you just say it and
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: then it becomes the truth.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay. So he then went on to breate the court,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: calling them sneaking, lying, pedaling, begging, lyrical sons of ahab oh,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: sickburn dude yeah, and drunken justices besotted judges. But their
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: charges were sustained and the couple was released on bond
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: by Eliza's father.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, Daddy's got you.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Yep, Daddy's got you. The next day, Charles was arrested
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: again on Charles of fornication.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Oh boy.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Again he berated the court, stating that he would never, never,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: never be married by the law, that he would bow
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to no fawning, hypocritical, thieving priest, no drunken mercenary justice,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: nor corrupt judge for the senseless words I pronounced you,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: man and wife. My goodness, The judge had had enough
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: and was too clever to be swayed by the pompous,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: in vain man in front of him, before he rendered
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: his decision, Justice McGill said that he would like to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: ask the defendants a question that would influence his final decision.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: He turned to Charles Henry and asked, do you consent
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: to take this woman as your wedded wife, to which
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Charles replied I do. The judge then turned to Eliza.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Do you consent to take this man as your lawful husband?
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: She replied yes. Then the judge replied icily, by the
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: power invested to me and in the presence of these witnesses,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I pronounce you man and wife.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: You just got married.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: The cheeky judge had tricked the couple into getting married legally,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: thus ending the case, much to Charles Henry's rage.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: But what of Eliza's boldness and daring to traps about
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: town and wearing only bloomers, Well not only bloomers. She
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: was fully dressed, but no skirt over her bloomers. The
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Washington Standard posted an editorial chiding her for her boldness.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: The good people of our town were not a little
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: shocked on Saturday evening last to witness a woman dressed
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: in men's apparel. Further in the exhibition referred to, she
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: showed that she was but a weak, silly woman. Determination
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: is sometimes mistaken for strong mindedness. Okay, rude, Yeah. However,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Eliza's chosen apparel of pants was considered a protest, inspired
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: by women like Amelia Bloomer, an early women's rights advocate.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: She also advocated for dress reform, stating, let men be
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: compelled to wear our dress for a while, and we
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: should soon hear them advocating for a change.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, a woman after my own heart. Honestly so.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Eliza and her new husband moved to Victoria established a
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: bathhouse and water cure clinic. The couple continued to make
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: waves and bring criticism down on their heads. In June
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty three, the comedian John Wood passed away
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: under the care of the erstwhile doctor, apparently from an
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: overdose of lobelia, a poisonous plant that was sometimes used
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century cures, but had been pretty much discontinued in
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the medical establishment at this point.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: And I think we know why.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. De Wolf had many professional claims without the bonafides
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: to back them up. He was unable to provide a
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: diploma for the jury, and other physicians testify that his
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: treatment was unusual and improper. De wolf was true to form,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: sarcastic and belligerent. During his trial, he claimed that mister
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Wood was responsible for his own death as he was
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: not honest with how much alcohol he regularly consumed, so
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: it was his fault.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Wow, I'm feeling very attacked right now. I'm gonna go
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: ahead and just take a little sippy sip, you know,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: helps some medicine go down.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I need a little liquid courage. So at this point
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: it seemed prudent for the couple to get out of Dodge.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: They relocated to the Bay Area. In eighteen sixty five.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Doctor de Wolfe was still lecturing now along with phrenology,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: dress reform, marriage and divorce, and his wife and daughter,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Ella began to assist him in these lectures. Eliza became
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: more and more involved in the growing woman's suffrage movement.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty three, San Francisco outlawed cross dressing. Eliza
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: ramped up her dress reform lectures, and then in eighteen
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: sixty six she began publicly demonstrating while wearing bloomers. She
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: strolled down the streets of San Francisco, boldly wearing what
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: was considered men's attire and was later arrested. These public
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: demonstrations were soon local gossip and regional newspapers as far
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: away as Olympia were reporting on the scandal. Eliza was
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: not deterred. Love this woman, I know, good for her.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Dress reform was an integral part of nineteenth century women's suffrages.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: The bloomer movement was sparked by the October eighteen forty
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: nine issue of the Water Cure Journal, which is interesting
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: because her and her husband had a water cure clinic. Yeah,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: so they must have gotten that journal, urging women to
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: develop a healthier style of dress that represented unrestricted movement.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: So styles yeah. Styles at the time included heavy floorlink skirts,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: multiple layers of stiffed and starched petticoats that would have
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: either horsehair or straw woven into the bottom, and of course,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: whale's bone corsets.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Good god.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: By the early eighteen fifties, women began sporting versions of
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: the Turkish dress throughout the country, a shorter skirt worn
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: over bloomers. This clear challenge to the established gender roles
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: and power structures threatened men everywhere. Oh Oh my gosh,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: uppity women her ankles, We could see her legs kind
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: of sort of all the humanity. Bloomers became a symbol
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: of women's rights. Even Susan B. Anthony adopted the new
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: form of dress, calling it the Freedom Dress. Eliza continued
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to wear her bloomers and became more and more involved
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: with a women's suffrage movement. She was inspired by women
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull, who was also
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the first woman to run for president, and I think
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: we're going to have to do a little bonus episode
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: on her. So she ran for president well before women
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: even had the right to vote. She was arrested for
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: voting for herself too. The d Wolfs moved to San Diego,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: where Eliza beegame an officer for the San Diego Suffrage Society.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Charles Henry passed from a stroke in eighteen sixty nine,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: but Eliza continued her work. In eighteen seventy two, she
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: addressed the California judicial community with a party of delegates
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: from the California Suffrage Society. She moved back to Santa
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Cruz in the eighteen seventies to be closer to her family,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and operated a bookstore there in the eighteen seventies and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: eighties and still worked in the women's suffrage movement. Unfortunately,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: she passed away in nineteen oh eight, three years before
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: women achieved the right to vote in California. The road
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: to suffrage in the Pacific Northwest was a long and
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: arduous journey. Arthur Dinny attempted to give white women the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: vote in eighteen fifty four, but failed. Susan B. Anthony
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: toured the region in eighteen seventy one, but was met
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: with critics who felt that giving the vote to women
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: would undermine their domestic supremacy and moral values.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're going to be too busy voting to clean
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the house.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Honestly, I'm just so sad that all I have is
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: the two middle fingers. You know.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I thought only I could flip you off of my
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: toe to I train. Yeah exactly. But despite these challenges,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Washington became the third territory in the United States to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: approve women's suffrage in eighteen eighty three. For a few
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: glorious years, women were able to have their voices heard
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: through their ballots. Unfortunately, the powerful saloon lobby pressured the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: courts to find the suffrage law unconstitutional, and they lost
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: it in eighteen eighty seven, the women went back to work,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and the state Constitution was amended to guarantee women's suffrage
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ten. The Nineteenth Amendment was passed in the
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: United States in nineteen twenty, a step on the path
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: towards equal rights and full participation in all aspects of life. Now,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I love the story of Eliza Ann Woodard de Wolf
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: because it gives us a peek into the life of
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: an unconventional and extraordinary woman. She was fiercely individual to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the end of her life. She paints a picture of
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: what early women's suffrage look like in the Pacific Northwest,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and her fearlessness and unapologetic way she lived her life
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: should be an inspiration to all women to Despite her
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: maybe poor taste, yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, hey, listen, a lot of great women that
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: have horrific taste in men, and yeah, other things.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: But he also was a champion of women's rights and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: dress reform and women's suffrage, So he wasn't all bad.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: And that's your right to choose terrible, terrible men.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And she believed in free love that it was her
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: right to choose this terrible man.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, do you boo, yep?
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I hope we can celebrate more Pacific Northwest women like
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: her in the future. And I want to thank Bethany K. Matthews,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: whose two zigons on Eliza Ann Woodard heard were basically
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: all of my resources for this episode, because there's nothing
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: else out there about her. So thank you, Bethany, and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: thank you to my wonderful guest Caitlin for joining me
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: on this ride. I appreciate you being here.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, this was such a blast. No, thank
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: you for having me.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: You're an excellent guest, and I really do hope that
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I can have you back again because this was really fun.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: You're going to have to be my pitch hitter for
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the future.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you're going to talk about the
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: first lady who ran for president and then got arrested.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: If I don't get a call, I'm going to be upset.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Well. Thank you again, and listeners, remember you can go
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to PMW Haunts and Homicides dot com to find links
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: to their show, and again, you can always find those
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: links and links to all the other Umbrella podcasts collective
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: members at raindydayerrabbit Holes dot com, forward Slash Umbrella. Make
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: sure to go listen to PMW Haunts and Homicides and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: make sure you give them a good review on Apple
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Podcasts and you can give them a five star review
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: on Spotify. We'll have you on again because this was
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: a deep light. So everyone, if you want to hear
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: more of Caitlin, if you listen to their podcast and
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: then also tell me if you want to hear more
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: of Caitlin on our podcast.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and please tell her that you do.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much and we will see you next time.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: See you down