The waterfowl hunters of Dakota Territory were mainly townsmen, who ventured into the countryside and returned with ducks and geese to distribute among neighbors. These middling folk shared the venatic landscape with a more effete and elite class of hunters who traveled in style.
The Montana State Library preserves a suite of photos of a railway coach pulled aside on the Northern Pacific at Crystal Springs, side and rear platforms hung heavy with game, male and female excursionists standing alongside. With benefit of newspaper research, I can identify these photos more specifically.
The University of Michigan Library holds another photo, identified as the railway coach City of Saginaw on its return to its eponymous city from Dawson, Dakota Territory, in 1889. A similar scene, including travelers and an abundance of game, with an apron-clad cook on the back step. I can tell you more about this one, too.
In August 1878 the Bismarck Tribune, under the title “A Well Fixed Hunting Party,” gave advance notice of the expected arrival of the private railway coach City of Worcester, the traveling headquarters of Jerome Marble when he was not at homein his Second Empire residence in Worcester, Massachusetts. Marble was, in fact, the developer of a fleet of luxurious excursion cars. His company sas called the Worcester Excursion Car Company.
He bought this particular coach following its exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and adapted it as a hunting car. The Worcester accommodated twenty travelers and all the needs of hunters, their spouses, and children. It came with a porter and a cook.
On 3 October the Jamestown Alert noted arrival of the Worcester in Jimtown, where the men rented wagons and mules with drivers to convey them to Spiritwood and Grasshopper lakes. “The ladies remain in the car at this place,” the reporter writes. A week later he reports the car’s departure for Crystal Springs, where the photos were taken. The hunters had a good run there, finally giving way to winter, as the Tribune reports on the 30th, “The snow drove the party in from Crystal Springs.”
Territorial papers describe the Worcester as palatial, with men’s and women’s toilet rooms; a central room for dining, sleeping, and lounging, boasting an upright piano; and a study for reading and writing. “The buttery,” we read, “contains a complete set of china with the monogram W.E.C. Co. on all.”
This, dear listeners, is why they called it the Gilded Age.
The comings and goings of such folk attracted attention. In 1886 the Tribune refers to the “well known Jerome Marble party,” naming the travelers, on “their annual shooting trip.” That year they hunted ducks at Buffalo on the way out; went to the Rockies for big game; and on the way back, stopped at Steele and Tappen for waterfowl.
Other Marble hunting cars came to Dakota, including the Edwin Forrest, the David Garrick, and the Yellowstone. Most of the traffic was on the Northern Pacific, but James J. Hill was reported to frequent Lakota with his car for waterfowling. The other repeat, much-noticed hunting car was the City of Saginaw, the vehicle of outdoorsman William B. Mershon. Move next time about him.
