Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-07-22

and the door had no panels. But it was
a good mining camp house, and Mrs.
Miller was greatly pleased with it. It had
taken three weeks to complete it. One
hardly knows whether to laugh or to
shed tears when hearing Mrs. Miller tell
how she began to run a restaurant In
that cabin.
my stove was very old and broken.
For table had an old door, obtained
up town. 1t was nailed on a short log
of wood set on end in the middle of the
room. For chairs l had empty boxes
boxes and two or three blocks cut from
log. l had three plates, tin cup for
| coffee, and enough knives and forks to
| 90 with the plates. Ihad one kettle and
frying pan, and that's all. But the
miners did not care. They said: Just
give us what you have and it is all right
| They were very kind to me-"
Her provisions, including bread, pur-
chased on credit, had to be brought from
| Del Norte, forty miles away, down the
valley, at cost of two cents pound for
freight. But she sold from seventy to
one hundred meals day for good many
weeks at fifty cents meal, ard she be-
gan to get ahead little. The grocery
bills were met promptly, and Mr.. Ma
honey got the $110 for his work sooner
| than he had anticipated.
Then turn came in the tide. The
| pros pectors who had fioated in on the
story of tie Holy Moses tloated away
again. The much-talked-of railroed did
not appear. 1t was told that the road
would not be built at all. Times were
hard at Creole in midsummer, 1891,
but CHEEKY Mrs. Miller never shed
| tear.
cit was berry time, those days." she
said: ''raspberries, blackberries. I do
not know how many. | took my boy
and went every day after berries and
made jam of them. l knew could sell
that any time, but I didn't sell it the
way l expected to. Before the berries
were all gone they began to build the
railroad, and then came a rush such as
| you never saw"
Meantime, however, Mrs. Miller had
had an eye for real estate speculation.
She had had four logs placed on each
of four lots, on what is now Creole
avenue, including the corner of First
street. There was no town there-noth-
ing but willows and creek bottom; the
land had not then been surveyed out for
a town, but Mrs. Miller guessed from the
| lay of the land that that would be a
good parcel of land to tie to. The four
| logs Oh each lot were laid together as for
foundations for log houses, and in all
mining camps such foundations are re-
spected as Improvements" sufficient to
give title. Like improvements were
made in the two lots adjoining her
restaurant. Later in (JulY), having
little money to spare, she had each of
the Creole avenue foundations raised six
logs higher at cost of $62. SO.
They laughed at that little Dutch
woman" as they called me, for doing
that, but knew what was about" she
says now.
Then came the fall rush, and Mrs.
Miller, having no money, promised to
pay $500 and get her four little log cab
ms finished. Then she rented her res
taurant building to D. R. Smith, who
disc about that time, and she moved to
the little corner building, where she
began taking boarders as we'll as selling
meals at all hours. She had a better
outfit for the business by this time, but
the habitues of the restaurants about
Madison square would have considered
the place rather crude, nevertheless. The
place was neat, however, for a mining
camp, and Mrs. Miller kept herself and
bow looking we'll.
But although a prosperous business
was now opening for her. her real
troubles were at hand. Hitherto she
had to do the drudgery of kitchen
from early morning until late at night,
but now she had to do that and fight for
the rights she had acquired as we'll. The
novelists and some other mining camp
writer's tell of the chivalry of mining
camp men, but in an examination of
Creole history one finds that it took a
mighty long time to develop the chiv-
airy. Mrs. Miller's four cabins were
built on plot 125x125, which was reg
ularly surveyed out in November, 1891,
under orders of the County Judge of
Saguache County. There was a house on
each lot, but between the corner house
and the corner was a plot about
twenty-five feet square that was vacant.
While Mrs. Miller was still at work COM
pleting her cabins, there came man
who hired a carpenter at IS a day to
build foundation on Mrs. Miller's va
cant plot. Mrs. Miller ordered him away,
but he would not go. Creole founda-
lions in those days consisted of slender