By: Peggy L
Henderson
Kite Hill Graveyard near Mammoth Hot Springs |
Since it’s only a
few days after Halloween, I thought it wouldn’t be too far out to write about
ghosts and spirits.
Several ghost
stories float around about Yellowstone National Park. There is the headless
bride that haunts the famous Old Faithful Inn. There is the story of the
vanishing hitchhiker, several Crow and Bannock spirit legends; just to name a
few.
The one story that
intrigued me was the one of Mattie’s spirit. Not only is her story one of myth and mystery,
but it is also a timeless love story.
There are two
graveyards within Yellowstone National Park. One is the military yard at Fort
Yellowstone, the other one is called Kite Hill near Mammoth Hot Springs, which
holds fourteen civilian graves. Some of those graves are unidentified. Two of
the graves are of people who committed suicide, one was murdered, and one died
in an avalanche.
There are also
eight known graves scattered throughout Yellowstone. One of these graves has
been of special interest to a lot of people. It is said to contain the spirit
of Martha Jane Shipley Culver. She was born on September 18, 1856. She was known as
Mattie all her life.
Mattie grew up
working in textile mills in Massachusetts, where tuberculosis was common. When
she was seven years old, her father was killed in the Civil War, which forced
her family to separate and live with various relatives. When her sister Millie
married, Mattie went with them to Montana in search of a new life. The textile
mills had already taken their toll on Mattie, and she might have already known
that she had tuberculosis.
Mattie, her sister
and brother-in-law homesteaded near Billings, Montana, and that was where she
met Eugene Gillett in 1882. After a one-year marriage, Eugene died tragically
of tuberculosis.
For years, she
lived alone at the Park Hotel in Billings, until she met the newly appointed
manager, Ellery Culver. The two shared many of the same experiences from early
childhood. Ellery served in the Civil War like Mattie’s father, and later
worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad like her first husband. They married
in 1886. A year later, Mattie gave birth to a daughter, Theda Culver.
Firehole River |
Ellery Culver
accepted a job in Yellowstone National Park as Master of Transportation with
the Yellowstone Association and set off for the park. Mattie joined him later,
and the family resided at the Firehole Hotel, situated along the banks of that
river. In the fall, they returned to
Billings to spend the winter there. By their second year, in 1888, Mattie knew
she was dying. Her husband’s job required him to travel to nearby towns, but
Mattie decided to stay in the park that she’d come to love, and she even spent
the winter there rather than return to Billings.
Mattie died on
March 2, 1889. Her tombstone reads that she was thirty years old, but she was
actually thirty-two.
Nez Perce Creek Picnic Area along Firehole River. Near site of Maddie's grave |
When she died, the
ground was too frozen, and there was too much snow to dig a grave. Soldiers
stationed in the park placed Mattie’s body in two barrels laid end to end, and
covered them with snow. A week later, her husband and a friend prepared a real
grave for his wife’s final resting place. They used a partition from the
Firehole Hotel that had been her home, and a place that she loved, and
fashioned a coffin. Ellery buried his wife along the banks of the Firehole
River.
Ellery took his
one-year old daughter to live with Mattie’s sister Millie, who had moved west
to Washington. Hearing the spirit of his
wife calling him back to Yellowstone, Ellery returned to work in and around the
park, drawn to the Firehole area where Mattie lived and died. In 1891, the Firehole Hotel was burned
down to make way for a new hotel some miles away. This left Mattie’s grave in
solitude along the river.
Tragedy once again
struck Ellery, when his daughter Theda became ill, and at nineteen years old,
answered her mother’s call and died.
Poor health forced
Ellery to move to California, where he died in 1922. The park service would not
allow his body to be buried alongside his wife in Yellowstone, and people who
have visited his grave in California swear that he is not there, but has joined
his beloved wife along the banks of the Firehole River.
Many people who
have visited Mattie’s grave are repeatedly drawn back to the area. It is said
that her spirit walks along the riverbank, and if you listen closely, you can
hear her humming to the birds and animals, and beckon you to return time and
again.
4 comments:
What an interesting story. Sad, but romantic. Who knows what happens after we die. If people have a binding love like they did......who knows.
Interesting post with more little known Yellowstone info and great photos. What strikes me as most sad is the way tb branched through the family in a time when it couldn't be treated and people didn't understand how contagious it is.
A sad but beautiful love story. My mother had TB when she was a young woman. She spent three years in a sanitorium, the first year flat on her back. It's a terrible disease.
Peggy, thanks for sharing this touching story. Many people in my family have had tuberculosis (including me), so this was an especially poignant story for me. What a hard life Mattie lived. I hope she and her daughter and husband are at peace now.
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