Getting’ hitched – 1876 style

            Times certainly have changed in the Black Hills since the first settlers staked gold claims up and down every creek in the area.

            Today’s June bride, wearing white satin and carrying a florist’s arrangement, walks down the aisle of an established church to repeat vows read by an ordained minister. It wasn’t that easy for the 1876 bride who had to rough it. There were no churches and Preacher Smith was killed, apparently by Indians, not long after he married the first couple in the Hills, on July 4, 1876.

            In the one and only edition ever published, on June 10, 1876, the Crook City Tribune related and “eye-witness account” of how a justice of the peace united a pioneer couple in the bonds of holy matrimony.

 About an hour before the ceremony was to take place, the correspondent, 

accompanied by a leading citizen of the place was sent to the justice of

the peace's cabin and found him pouring over a large volume of the

statutes of the territory, sweating and looking anxious.  He said,  'The

galoots that got up these here laws hadn't gumption enough to last’ em

over night.  I've run through this blamed book and can't find a

blasted word about matrimony, and how to proceed with the hitchin’

process an’ if I don't yoke em up legerly, I can't help it!" 

I explained to him how he should proceed and the old man thought

            finally he could worry through it. Ere long the couple appeared, followed by

            a crowd of citizens of the camp.

                        The old judge, putting up all the airs he could command, to show his

 dignity, said in his most solemn manner: “Feller citizens, this here man

 and this woman have appeared before this court to be hitched in the legal

bonds of wedlock.  If any galoot in the mob knows anything that will block

 the game if took to a higher court, let him toot his bazoo or else keep his jaw

 to himself now and forever more."" All in favor of me proceeding as authorized

by law say I.”

“Contrary No?”
              No one said no.  

"Okay the motion is carried!  Grip your fins.  (The couple joined hands)

"Amos Peabody, do you solemly sw’ar that you'll freeze to Maudy Thomas

forever and ever?  That you'll love ‘er and pervide for ‘er and treat her square

and white, according to the rules and regulations set down to g’overn sich cases

            in the laws of the United States, so help ye God?”

"Yes sir, I do, sir!"

"That fixes your end of the bargain.  Maudy Thomas will you solemly

sw’ar that ye'll hang on to Amos Peabody for all comin’ time?  That you’ll be

 to him a good true, honest, up an’ up wife, in and for this territory;  do ye sw’ar

 this, so help you God?”

"I swear I will"

"Then by the power in me vested as justice of the peace, in and for this

precinct, I announce ye Amos Peabody and ye Maudy Thomas, wife and

Husband and legalize ye to remain such fer ever and evermore; and ye'll stand

committed till the fees and cost in the case be paid in full an’ may God have

mercy on your souls, an’ bless this here union with his heftiest blessing."

 Editor’s note: We can’t vouch for the veracity of this story since early Hills newspapers frequently took liberties with facts, and particularly since the Crook City Tribune lasted only long enough to print a single edition. But as one old prospector put it -- "If that ain't true, it ought’a be!"