When Downriver Was Home

Edward Graves Callahan was born on October 12, 1888, in a narrow valley above the Salmon River a few miles from the mining camp of Shoup, Idaho.[1]

In those years Shoup was one of the most isolated settlements in the Idaho Territory—a raw, steep-walled canyon reached only by freight boat or a rough mountain trail.

Quartz gold was discovered there in 1882. By the time his parents arrived in 1886, the boom camp held as many as six hundred miners and only three married couples.

His mother, Annie Crie Graves, was born on the ’Keag, along the central coast of Maine in 1856. She had traveled west alone as an unmarried schoolteacher with a stubborn streak and a restless curiosity. By 1885 she was living in Butte, Montana. His father, James A. Callahan, a New Yorker by birth, had drifted west to Butte in the early 1880s when the copper mines on the Richest Hill in the World offered steady—if dangerous work to any man willing to swing a pick, push an ore cart or withstand the blistering heat of the smelter.

After their marriage in the summer of 1886, Annie and James joined the tide of miners and prospectors moving into central Idaho. They reached Shoup by freight boat. Annie became the first woman known to ride the rapids of the Salmon River.[2] The boats themselves were large, wooden scows, built along the banks at Salmon City, loaded with tons of freight, and dismantled for lumber once they arrived in the canyon.

For forty years, the river would remain the main artery into the canyon. Leaving meant taking one of two rough trails: east to the North Fork crossing and up over Tower Rock into Salmon City, or crossing the river at Shoup, the following Pine Creek to Big Creek and on toward Leesburg. Either route demanded fifty miles of hard travel and a cold crossing of the Salmon.

Ed’s older sister, Alta Hawthorne Callahan, was born on February 4, 1887—the first baby born in the downriver mining camp.[3] The family lived four or five miles east of town along the river while James prospected and Annie took up writing for the Idaho Recorder.

James’s mining luck followed the boom-and-bust rhythm of frontier camps. He spent a season working at Bayhorse while Annie moved up Pine Creek before Ed’s birth. When James returned to Shoup, he partnered in the Spring Lode mine.[4]

During the spring of 1889, while Edward was still a toddler, Annie published a lively account of an outing in the Idaho Recorder. She wrote under the curious pen name “J.A.C.__K.”

The initials were drawn from her husband’s name, J.A. Callahan, with the added “K” likely honoring her grandmother and namesake, Rosanna Kalloch Crie. Annie’s column describes a caravan of neighbors on horseback—thirteen adults and children—riding the trail to the hot springs for a camping trip.

It is the only surviving newspaper piece in which both her husband and children appear, preserving a rare glimpse of the family while it was still intact.

Idaho Recorder, May 16, 1889

May 1, 1889

A PINE CREEK OUTING

All the phase of a pleasure trip are never known until experienced on horseback over a pony trail in the Rocky Mountains. Alpine journeys may be toilsome, picturesque or even romantic, but we can positively claim never included such a promiscuous group as left Pine Creek for Hot Springs on the 26th. Our human freight numbered thirteen and consisted of the following named: Mr. and Mrs. Palmer and little Jimmy, Master Johnie and Thos. Palmer, Mr. and Mrs. McCullough, Mr. and Mrs. McLeod, Mr. and Mrs. J.A. Callahan and the notorious young cowboy Eddy, and his sister Alta. Our four footed companions were:

Venerable Butcher and Bronco Billy

Faithful Mae and Prancing Lilly

Black roan George and gray horse, Jim

The grey hounds Nell and Keno followed him

There was white foot Daisy and trusty Buck

The tried and true for all good luck

Old race horse Nelse made up the host

His form resembling a walking ghost.

Without any mishaps of note we reached the springs in time for a 3 O'clock dinner. The only abode for accommodation of man or beast was a 7 x 9 cabin with a bunk the length of the one side of it, a fire place in the corner and a door with a sliding board in it to keep out the snow in Winter and let the light in in Summer. We cannot testify as to the medicinal efficacy of the Springs but found in them every requisite for removing the dust of travel. They are situated on the top of a mountain side, the water flowing from them directly down a steep incline into a ravine below, which is walled up on the opposite side by a perpendicular mountain cleft. Being located in this manner it would be almost an impossibility ever to make any improvements on them, except at an immense cost. The entire mountain is apparently of granite formation, and the geological student would find here an interesting point of research.

The next morning the male portion of our party set out on a fishing expedition but informed those they thought they were leaving behind, that if they would like to take a walk during the day to go to the top of a certain mountain in the distance and they would get a glimpse of the fine landscape adjacent to Big Creek.

This part of the program had already been agreed upon by the poor innocents, but being under the impression that they were out on a pleasure trip, they had no intention of distinguishing themselves as pedestrians. Therefore as soon as their Hege Lords had departed they drove in the equine herd, selected their choice of steeds and Mrs. McCullough and ye scribe, explored the surrounding country in saddle. About a mile and a half from the Springs we forded the muddy water of Big Creek, and just across this stream was the deserted Camp of Dynamo, which is nearly three miles from the Salmon River.

Finding the remains of a wagon road we went up the creek another mile and a half and came to the ranch of Henry Westfall, where we were most hospitably entertained by Mrs. Westfall. They have a very commodious and substantial new house and Mr. Westfall is farming with all the ardor of a Pioneer settler. On our return we forded the creek at Dynamo and visited the deserted village, which calls to mind the lines of Goldsmith:

"But now the sounds of population fall,

No cheerful murmurs fluctuate on the gale

No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,

But all the blooming lush of life has fled."

The circumstances with the connection of the rise and fall of this town may never fill a page of poetry or prose, but in viewing it over, there is food for reflection and room for sentiment.[5] The lone grave on the mountain side mirrors in the mind the oft repeated scene, i.e.:

"To see ten thousand baneful arts combined

To pamper luxury and thin mankind."

The work of devastation shows that the mills of justice sometimes grind as swiftly as surely.

J.A.C.__K

These early canyon years—the river life, the isolation, and the rise and fall of Camp Dynamo—are told more fully in Down the Salmon River, the story of Ed’s mother and the early mining camps.

Edward was barely two years old when his father left again, this time prospecting toward Yellow Jacket with Mark Quinliven. Quinliven returned—James did not. Annie moved into Shoup with her two children and cooked for the miners at the Kentuck boarding house.[6]

After the legal year of abandonment required by Idaho Territory, Annie divorced James Callahan. A few months after the divorce was granted she married William Edward “Billy” Taylor, an amalgamator, mechanic, and millman who had arrived in Shoup in 1886. Ed was just shy of three years old when Billy Taylor stepped into the role of father—Alta wasn’t yet five.

Alta and Ed’s half-brother, William Roy Taylor (“Billy Jr.”), was born on May 17, 1892.

Following a short boom in 1890, Shoup’s prospects dimmed while Gibbonsville—thirty-five miles east—was running at full steam. The A.D.&M. mine, with its deep drifts and stamp mills, drew workers from all over Lemhi Count—and the town had a school. Billy Taylor took a job with the company, secured a house in town, and by late summer Annie and the children were living Gibbonsville.

Gibbonsville, though a mining town, was a far cry from Shoup. It had families on every street that lay on the flat, women running shops and boarding houses, children spilling into the dusty lanes, and the steady hum of mills echoing above town. Fahley Hall stood at its center, hosting dances, socials, holiday suppers, and meetings. For Alta and Ed—who had grown up in the intimate gatherings of the canyon—Gib’town was a wider world.

No sooner had the family settled in, than Billy Taylor took a job running the mill at the Haidee mine near far-off Leesburg.[7] Annie and the three children remained in Gibbonsville.

Alta was enrolled in school in September 1892, at age five.[8] Ed followed her a year later. The schoolhouse—a log building with a big iron stove—held twenty-two students in 1893, ages five to nineteen.[9]

When the Haidee mill shut down for winter, Billy Taylor came home for a rest then took a lease on the Monolith mine above Shoup.[10] He visited his family in Gibbonsville when he could.[11] His hearing, damaged by years around stamp mills, was already failing. People began calling him “Deafy” Taylor, though never unkindly.[12] When Billy was home he escaped to his shed where Ed would slip in behind him, enthralled by the curls of shavings, the smell of pine and his step-dad’s talent with wood.

One of Ed’s earliest memories took place in Gibbonsville. His mother lay baby Billy Jr. outside in a cradle and draped mosquito netting. “Eddie” as he was called as a young child, was told to keep an eye on the baby. Early on, Eddie had taken up smoking—experimenting with discarded butts. That morning he struck a match and puffed on a butt until he got the end of it glowing. Baby Billy began to fuss and no sooner than Eddie bent over to settle him, the “cherry” of the cigarette fell off and the mosquito netting went up in flames.

Ed grabbed at the burning netting that disintegrated in his fingers. Then he tried to stuff the charred remnants in his pockets to hide the evidence. Annie, hearing the commotion, came outside. Ed tried to make a run for it, but was easily caught. The baby was unharmed but Ed remembered that whipping for the rest of his life—but he laughed when telling the story.

One night when Eddie and his step-dad were in the shop, Ed happened to look up to see a huge mountain lion in the window watching Ed and Bill as if it had just discovered dinner. Ed shouted in fear—forgetting his stepfather’s deafness—then shook Bill’s arm and pointed to the window. Bill raised the corners of his carpenter’s apron and yelled “Shoo! shoo!” Nails flew at the window, the big cat fled, and Eddie spent the rest of the night picking up nails and warily watching for the mountain lion to return.[13]

His father, James Callahan moved from Boise to Anaconda, Montana in 1893.[14] He visited his children as he passed through the region and it seems he visited time to time, but not enough to make a large impression on Ed.

A persistent childhood story, remembered by both branches of the family, tells of a period when the children were placed in a Catholic orphanage in Montana. Their father visited from time to time. Alta later said she thrived in school there, but Ed found the experience unendurable—homesick and subject to harsh discipline.

The Gibbonsville school records narrow the window of such a period: the children were not enrolled for the 1897–1898 year, suggesting that James took them north sometime after the spring term ended in 1897.

St. Joseph’s Orphans’ Home, Helena, Montana, founded by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, 1892, fits every detail. According to James Callahan’s obituary, he had a sister who was a Sister of Charity, though her location was not given. It is possible—though unprovable—that she served in Helena.

Most children at St. Joseph’s were true orphans; others came from hardship, remote communities where there were no schools, or families needing temporary care.[15] Alta and Ed fell into the latter category.

.

Separated from Alta, held to rigid routines, confined to the grounds, and punished harshly, the canyon-born boy ran away repeatedly. When found lingering around town, he was brought back, whipped, and locked in the basement—“the dungeon” as the kids called it. Alta’s chore was to deliver bread and water in the evening without speaking to Ed—a memory she later described as miserable.

Ed remembered the Sisters rapping his knuckles “again and again in the same sore place.”

Yet the bright moments came when their father came to see them. Helena was less than a half day’s train ride from Anaconda. During his final visit—most likely early spring 1898—James hugged the children longer than usual before he left them and wept, frightening Alta.

Unknown to the children, in April 1898, on the eve of war with Spain, James enlisted in the 1st Montana Volunteers, expecting—like many—to fight a short war in Cuba. Instead, he was sent to the Philippines. His story is told in Long Crossings.

Sometime after his father’s last visit, Ed ran away for good.
 Family stories say that the last time he snuck away, he didn’t hang around town and walked all the way home to Shoup. It is far more likely that he hopped trains to Salmon City, caught wagon rides, and walked the familiar trail through the canyon back to Shoup.

By the summer of 1900, the family is reunited and living between Tom Wend’s ranch and Shoup. Neither Alta or Ed knew their father had died in the Philippines until they heard of it from men along the river who had known James.

At the beginning of the new century, Annie, Billy Taylor and the children were living back in the Pine Creek valley, cultivating a ranch that supplied vegetables and eggs to Shoup and the surrounding camps as far as Ulysses. Ed delivered the produce—long miles over rugged trails.

Lemhi Herald, Sept 28, 1905

Harry Runyon, who is visiting his uncle, E.S. Suydam at Shoup, was out hunting one day recently, accompanied by the two sons of Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Taylor. They encountered a she bear and two cubs, and were so fortunate as to sack the whole works.[16]

In spring, when the ice on the Salmon began to sag, and grass along the bench land showed the first haze of green, Ed Callahan and his brother Billy Taylor made a quiet plan. They packed a little gear—bedrolls, a tin pot, a little food—and saddled their horses in the late afternoon. No one in the household questioned boys riding out for a few nights along the river.

They followed the narrow trail on the south side of the Salmon, the one that clung to the canyon wall, winding above and below boulders. The river ran silent under its lid of winter ice, deadened and white, but Ed believed he could feel the pressure of the current underneath, building toward release.

By the time they reached Deadwater, the great eddy east of Shoup, dusk had settled into the canyon. They unsaddled the horses beneath a stand of brush, picketed them, then laid their bedrolls where they could watch the wide sheet of ice take the last of the light.

They sat up talking until the fire burned low, then fell into the drifting half-sleep of boys who trust the land they’re camping on. Sometime just before dawn, a sound jerked them awake—a single, sharp CRACK that echoed across the canyon.

Billy was on his feet in an instant.

Ed stood and froze, listening.

Then it came: the long, rising moan of the river breaking loose beneath the ice—deep, guttural, unmistakable. They scrambled up an embankment just as the whole frozen surface shuddered.

Another crack split Deadwater from bank to bank.

Then the ice heaved, buckled, and shattered again and again.

Huge pans broke free, some as wide as a river scow, grinding against one another in slow, deadly motion. By dawn the river grabbed the mountains of frozen slabs, hauling them toward the canyon’s narrow throat, picking up speed until they collided, heaved again, then thundered downriver.

The boys stowed gear and jogged along the trail, horses following behind them. The noise was overwhelming—ice smashing, water roaring, canyon walls sending the sound back and forth like rolling cannon fire.

At Pine Creek Rapids, the great slabs began to jam. One climbed over another; a third swung sideways; soon a solid white barricade rose from the churning water. Spray erupted into the first light. The river, dammed by its own broken skin, forced itself through whatever cracks it could find.

Ed watched in awe. The canyon shuddered with the force of it; he felt the vibration through the soles of his boots.

Not long after the ice went out, the steelhead began to arrive—bright fish pushing upriver from the Pacific to the very streams where they had been born.

Years later, he would tell his children that nothing in the world—not a mine blast, not a thunderstorm—ever matched the sound of the Salmon River waking in spring.

“You haven’t heard the river’s real voice,” he’d tell his sons, “until you’ve stood at Deadwater the night the ice goes. I’ll take you to see it this spring.”[17]

Lemhi Herald, September 28, 1905

The Great Melon Ranch

We had hoped that the Shoup road would be completed, and especially for our friend, Thomas Wend’s sake. He has a ranch below Indian creek, with no outlet by wagon. On this ranch he raises thousands of melons and tons of tomatoes, which the people here could enjoy, but no wagon can haul the produce to market. However, the delay in completion of the road has caused no change in the program, and this season has been no different from its predecessors, so far as the generosity of the aforementioned ranchman is concerned. Last Saturday the stage wheeled in, bearing a box for this house, containing two luscious and shining watermelons, which weighed 26 and 21 pounds respectively. They are just a little better melons than Utah or the Snake River country can produce, and we don’t care who knows it. The only mystery of it all is as to how Mr. Wend can guess our size of melon so exactly. Many thanks, Bro. Wend! And here’s another boost for the completion of the Shoup wagon road! It will be completed this fall.

Ed found steady ranch work with Tom Wend, who had orchards, crops, hay, grain fields, cattle, and honey bees. One year Tom paid him a hundred dollars for his work that season. Ed immediately went to Salmon City, bought cowboy boots and firecrackers, had a grand time and returned home broke but happy. The boots, he later said, were the finest he ever owned.

Idaho Recorder, November 9, 1905

Local Department, Salmon

Ed Taylor of Pine creek was in town Monday.

In 1906, Alta Callahan married Peter Barton and made their home in Gibbonsville, then Ulysses.

Lemhi Herald, February 7, 1907

Ulysses. Feb. 3. - Ed Callahan came up from Shoup and is spending a few days with his sister, Mrs. P. J. Barton.

By his late teens, Ed was largely on his own—working, boarding along the river at ranches that needed a hand and shaping the character his children would later remember with awe and affection.

Years afterward he would sum up the country in a single sentence:

“Miners come and go, but the ranchers stay.”

NOTES

[1] Birth of Edward Graves Callahan reported in the Idaho Recorder (Salmon City, Idaho) October 18, 1888; date also recorded on the death certificate of Edward Graves Callahan, Butte, Silver Bow County, Montana

[2] Idaho Recorder, January 1, 1890

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid

[5] When Annie later recounted the history of Camp Dynamo in a 1926 article in the Idaho Recorder (November 26, 1926), the editor noted that she had once lived there. Some later descendants of mining families have suggested that no woman would have lived in such a rough camp, though Annie Crie Graves Callahan’s experiences in the Salmon River country suggest she was not inclined to follow ordinary expectations.

[6] Interview with William Roy “Billy” Taylor, Salmon National Forest History, transcription of an oral interview, October 23, 1969; story also to to Ed Callahan's son, Earl.

[7] Idaho Recorder, September 14, 1892

[8] Gibbonsville School Register, Lemhi County, Idaho, 1892

[9] Gibbonsville School Register, Lemhi County, Idaho, 1893.

[10] Idaho Recorder, February 22, 1893

[11] Idaho Recorder, January 11, 1893

[12] As related by Alta Callahan Barton’s daughter, Edna Barton in a letter to her Callahan cousins.

[13] Recollections of Lois Callahan, daughter of Edward Graves Callahan, shared with the author.

[14] Anaconda Standard, April 28, 1899

[15] Helena As She Was, St. Joseph’s Orphan’s Home. http://www.helenahistory.org/st_josephs_orphans_home.htm

[16] “Sack the whole works” was a colloquial phrase meaning to capture or secure everything involved. In this case, it likely implies that the boys successfully killed the mother bear and both cubs—a grim but not uncommon outcome of frontier hunting, where bear meat, hides and even cubs held economic value. The casual tone reflects the era’s different relationship with wildlife, particularly in rugged mining regions like Lemhi County.

[17] A story told to S.E. Crie by Ed’s son Earl Callahan.