History Corner

As violence escalated between the mine owners and the labor union in Northern Idaho, mine owners in the Seven Devils mines were very aware of it. The situation was somewhat different here, and mining was happening on a smaller scale, but the mining companies hated unions.

Winifred Lindsay (Dr. Wm. Brown’s daughter) wrote that operators, like Frank French who managed the Blue Jacket Mine, wanted no part of unions: “Mr. French chose his men carefully, for he wanted ‘men of character’ and none of the I.W.W.’s who had upset the Coeur d’ Alene mines. Some men had had first-hand experience with those ‘Wobblies’ when they had been in the northern section of Idaho and wanted no more of it. However, the renegades did invade Cuprum later, created a riot and burned Cohen’s ‘tent store’ before being driven out of camp. During all that early mining era, the hatred of the Miner’s Union was deeply rooted in every Seven Devils miner, for to him the union spelled Wobblies, ‘I Won’t Work’ and Trouble.”

Near the end of 1892 the steamship Norma had still not been taken down the Snake River to Lewiston, and the owners, who had bought it at a sheriff’s sale, held out hope that the ship could be used on the Snake. The Weiser Signal contained the headline: “Owners of the Norma in Suit with the U.P.” and explained: “Mr. G.W. Williams who some time ago built a boat or dredge on the Snake river above Huntington, has petitioned Secretary of War Elkins to cause the Union Pacific Railroad Company to put draws in three bridges which the company has across the Snake river – the lower on at the mouth of Burnt river and the upper at Nyssa, Or.”

The article said the Norma was “now lying below the bridge near Huntington” and unable to pass under the bridges. The Norma owners wanted to reach the Silver City area, and to “carry ores from the Seven Devils mining district” and engage in general freight and passenger business. The court ruled in favor of the Union Pacific, and the case was dismissed. The Signal said: “The Union Pacific clams that the part of the Snake river involved in their contract is not navigable. A boat, the Shoshone, was built up there many years ago, and, after making a few trips was laid up, and after being idle for three years was in flood time brought down through the great canyon of the Snake, over the Dalles and the Cascades, and was finally wrecked in front of the city of Salem.”

Around this time, a couple of efforts were made to float logs down the Weiser River. In the spring of 1892 the Signal reported: “Mr. Sommer started down the river with his boom timbers several days ago, when his boat turned over and sunk. Now he is seen hauling the timbers with teams to the Hornet creek bridge, where he will construct his boom to catch his drive of cord wood, he will find ready sale for his wood in the city.” Even at high water, the Weiser would have been quite small river on which to transport logs.

Near the end of the year the Signal said, “Levi Allen is running a large crew in his logging camp up on the Weiser.” I don’t know where his sawmill was, but he was known to have established one at Indian Valley by this time. In a separate report, it said: “Levi Allen has a very large drive of logs ready to come down the Weiser next spring.”

At the end of 1892, there was an outbreak of diphtheria that killed 9 people in the Council area. Both of William and Dora Black’s only children, their two sons, died from the disease. Harry was two years old. Ralph was only two and a half. The nearest doctor was Dr. Wm. Brown, 35 miles away in Salubria, and the medicine he sent arrived too late to save them.

The graves of these little boys are visible from both roads that go by the place along Hornet Creek today. They were buried under a pine tree on the hillside, west of the ranch buildings. In those days it was believed that burial at night would help prevent the spread of the disease, so many diphtheria victims were buried after dark. This may well have been how these little boys here were buried. If so, what an eerie, heart-breaking ceremony it must have been. The vast blackness outside the small circle of lantern light under this tree must have made it seem to Mr. and Mrs. Black that they were escorting their precious sons even farther than usual on their journey into eternity.

Later, the family wanted to move the boys bodies to a cemetery near Council, but authorities would not allow it. Diphtheria is an extremely contagious bacterial disease and it was feared that disturbing the graves might cause a new epidemic

In the spring of 2018, eleven-year-old Ethan Zollman, the son of Adams County Sheriff Ryan Zollman, died after falling from a horse and was buried near the Black boys.