The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame: A Life of Louise Arner Boyd
368
The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame: A Life of Louise Arner Boyd
368eBook
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Overview
Born in the late 1880s to a gritty mining magnate who made his millions in the California gold rush and a well-bred mother descended from one of New York’s distinguished families, society beauty Louise Arner Boyd was raised during a glittering era.
After inheriting a staggering family fortune, she began leading a double life. She fell under the spell of the north in the late 1920s after a sailing excursion to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next three decades, she achieved international notoriety as a rugged and audacious polar explorer while maintaining her flamboyant lifestyle as a leading society woman. Yet despite organizing, financing, and directing seven daring Arctic expeditions between 1926 and 1955, she is virtually unknown today.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781459739727 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dundurn Press |
| Publication date: | 11/04/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| File size: | 18 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Joanna Kafarowski, Ph.D., is passionate about researching and writing about the lives of women in polar history. She is the author of The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame: A Life of Louise Arner Boyd, the first comprehensive biography of a female Arctic explorer. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
An Adventuress Is Born
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The always considered herself to be a true-blue American girl. Sheltered from the gritty hardships of life, Louise Arner Boyd was set free as a child to explore her world. Independent. Curious. Adventurous. Her wealthy parents, Louise and John Franklin Boyd, shuttled her and older brothers Seth and Jack between lavish homes in San Rafael in Marin County near bustling San Francisco and rural Diablo near Danville in Contra Costa County, California. All the wonders of country and city life were theirs. When balmy June days arrived, their noisy household was packed up and shipped off to their summer home, where life proceeded at a more leisurely pace. Nestled into a sprawling pastoral estate overlooked by Mount Diablo, the Oakwood Park Farm hummed with the comings and goings of busy adults and rambunctious children. Peopled by childhood playmates, her father's boisterous business colleagues and government associates, and chattering society women with whom her mother worked on philanthropic events, this is where her bold spirit developed and flourished. Unshackled from the constraints of citified ways, Louise responded joyously.
Known as the "Colton" or "Cook Ranch," Louise's childhood summer home was uniquely connected to California history. At the peak of railway fever, in the 1870s, the two-thousand-acre property was acquired by the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. One of the early owners was David Doughty Colton, a rough-and-tumble miner, lawyer, and railway baron. Colton's property passed to his son-in-law, Daniel Cook, and then to Daniel's brother Seth. Louise's mother inherited it in 1888 following the untimely death of her favourite uncle, Seth Cook. How overwhelming it must have been for her to inherit such wealth at the age of twenty-seven. Executors conducting a property appraisal documented the spacious two-storey Italianate mansion replete with lush gardens, a billiard hall with bowling alley to which the Cook brothers had retired in the evenings with their business cronies, a training barn for show horses, an elegant carriage house, a dairy, barns, and farm stock including 102 thoroughbred horses and 319 head of dairy cattle. Louise's parents christened the property "Oakwood Park Farm."
From his beginnings on a Pennsylvania farm, John Boyd's love of horses had remained constant. He improved the mile-long race track built by Daniel Cook, erected a viewing stand, and applied his astute managerial skills toward improving the estate. Over the years, Oakwood Park Farm gained a stellar international reputation and won him the admiration of his neighbours:
Look straight down from Mt. Diablo and behold a sight! That dozen or more houses you see belong to John F. Boyd, the largest stock rancher in the world. He owns 6,000 acres of land and you couldn't buy his place and its holdings for less than $1,000,000.00 Nowhere in California or perhaps in the world is there a spot so admirably adapted to the purpose of stock-raising as the little valley setting off from the San Ramon and occupied by the Oakwood Park Stock Farm. It is a beautiful little valley surrounded by rolling hills that protect it from invading winds and sudden atmospheric changes ... and the herds of cattle and horses that roam in the luxuriant fields and on the hills know of but one season, and that is summer.
Oakwood Park Farm was the ideal place for Louise and the boys to play. The children would have paid scant attention to the notable men and women who passed through their doors or who affectionately cuffed her brothers around the ears when they got in the way. They were oblivious to the reputation of Oakwood Park Farm and their father's growing stature in the state of California as a man of financial acumen. During her childhood years, there would have been madcap indoor games accompanied by wild shrieking and teasing by her two brothers, gentle remonstrances by her mother as she watched over her high-spirited children, whiskery kisses and being flung high into the air and back again by her laughing father, and bedtime stories about California gold prospectors and daring settlers travelling west in their carriages. The imagination of the three children was fired up by tales of adventure and intrepid explorers risking life and limb to reach a distant land, before the children knelt on the polished floorboards for prayers with their mama before the lights were dimmed.
Louise and the boys were tutored during the summer months at Oakwood Park Farm. A young girl's education would have included being taught to play the piano, to draw and sing, and while Louise likely enjoyed these pursuits and the praise of her parents, her mind would have drifted off to whatever harum-scarum games Seth and Jack were planning. Whether fair weather or foul, her father spent much of his time walking the land. As a good stockman, he would have been checking on an ailing horse with hoof disease, reviewing auction lists, purchasing the latest piece of innovative farm equipment, or monitoring race-course results. One can imagine an energetic John Boyd striding to the door each morning with Louise and her brothers imploring him to take them along. As the youngest child and only girl, it was natural that Louise was treated differently. Their mother would have nodded approvingly to the boys, who would be gone in the blink of the eye. After all, they would inherit the estate one day and had to learn how to manage it. Louise, on the other hand, was expected to marry well and adorn the life of her husband. She would have been encouraged to stay behind with her mother and do needlework or some other womanly task. But lively young Louise would have caught her Papa's arm as he strode out the door. His brown eyes twinkling, he likely shrugged his shoulders and exchanged an amused, knowing glance with his despairing wife. Then, an exasperated nod from her mother and Louise would race out the door after her brothers, past the trailing wisteria and fragrant honeysuckle vines and across the grass, always keeping her father and brothers in sight.
Once they had left the safe environs of the manicured family garden, their adventure truly began. Out the back door and across the rustic bridge that spanned the creek behind the house, trudging up over the grassy ridge, then past the dairy and across the fields to the mighty eucalyptus trees ringing the horse-racing track. Then, reaching the viewing stand, the three children would have clambered up the wooden steps and watched excitedly as those beauties were put through their paces, thundering down the course, tails twitching, nostrils flaring, beads of sweat hanging suspended in the air. Louise loved those horses, whether it was watching them trackside or riding them alongside Seth and Jack.
When duties at Oakwood were finished, the weary, grim-faced ranch workers would have returned to staff quarters, lit a roaring fire out back, and swapped tales of the glory days. Perhaps John Boyd joined them on occasion. He would have settled easily amongst these rough and sunburnt men. He was a gruff and plain-speaking man, and with them he was just himself. He would rummage in his pockets distractedly, pull out a stout, worn pipe, and puff away contentedly. One can imagine Seth, Jack, and Louise snuggled up next to his rough leather jacket, gazing at their father with delight while listening avidly to the men's stories of derring-do. Louise waiting breathlessly for her father to recount his own thrilling adventures as a California gold rush pioneer. The boys were perhaps content just to listen, but not Louise. Forever interrupting with probing questions about how he had set snares for rabbits or helped battle a fire after a terrifying mining explosion, Louise absorbed everything. The ability to ask the right questions and remember the answers regarding any number of subjects stood her in good stead later in life.
John Franklin Boyd was not a garrulous man. A self-made man raised in rural Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, he had left home as a teenager to strike out on his own. Short and stocky, with a kind rather than a handsome face, he possessed the heart of a lion. Likely leaving home with only a few dollars, the fervent blessing of his mother, and the ambition to succeed in life any way he could, he took up hard, dirty work that covered his room and board and little else. He followed a southwesterly route, eventually meeting some hardbitten fellows who worked the placer mines. Their tales of skirmishes with Indians, of hiding out in abandoned caves from the law, and of seeking gold that would bring riches beyond his wildest dreams appealed to his adventurous nature, so he travelled onward with them, finally ending up in Virginia City, Nevada.
Virginia City was notorious as a raucous, rough, and lawless town where fortunes could be made and lost in the roll of a die. Virginia City attracted all types, including a cocky young journalist named Mark Twain, who worked for The Territorial Enterprise during the 1860s. Twain wrote:
I discovered some migrant wagons going into camp on the plaza and found that they had lately come through the hostile Indian country and had fared rather roughly. I made the best of the item that the circumstances permitted and felt that if I were not confined within rigid limits by the presence of reporters of the other papers I could add particulars that would make the article much more interesting. However, I found one wagon that was going on to California and made some judicious inquiries of the proprietor. When I learned, through his short and surly answers to my cross-questioning, that he was certainly going on and would not be in the city next day to make any trouble, I got ahead of the other papers, for I took down his list of names and added his party to the killed and wounded. Having more scope here, I put this wagon through an Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history. My two columns were filled. When I read them over in the morning I felt that I had found my legitimate occupation at last. I reasoned within myself that news, and stirring news, too, was what a paper needed, and I felt that
I was peculiarly endowed with the ability to furnish it. It was while in Virginia City that Louise's father's staunch Quaker work ethic paid off. He compensated for his lack of formal training by being industrious, conscientious, and determined. An 1871 phrenological study of John Boyd noted:
Mechanical ingenuity, Sir, is your predominant gift and is remarkably developed. Your natural place is putting up, repairing and working machinery and setting men to work advantageously. I advise you to connect yourself with some mining operations as a practical engineer for I find every mechanical and intellectual attribute in your brain necessary for ensuring success.
John Boyd likely met and joined forces with Seth and Daniel Cook in Virginia City. Working together, they found success in the mines at last. Boyd and the Cook brothers were raw farm boys from rural America. Hailing from Genessee County, New York, Seth and his younger brother Daniel toiled in the placer mines of Idaho, Montana, and California, where the mining life was "nasty, brutish, and short."
Eventually, their hard work was rewarded, and they attained higher-paying positions within the mines. Seth became superintendent of the Sierra Nevada mine in Nevada, Daniel worked as secretary of the Chollar-Potosi Mining Company in Virginia City, and John Boyd became manager of the Eureka mine. The Cook brothers had notorious reputations as men unafraid of risking it all. Like John Boyd, Seth and Daniel literally clawed their way through muck and mire on their way to the top. When they finally got there, they revelled in their success. Men who were less fortunate openly displayed their envy, as is evident in this poem about the Cooks:
"Yachts and Lots," by D. O'C.
Jones sold out on Friday A homestead which he prized Jones had found in Alta His pile badly sized.
Smith was much disgusted;
Seth and Daniel, bully!
Word reached the Cook brothers of a low-producing mine for sale in Bodie, California, that had been passed over by other mining surveyors. By the 1870s, John Boyd had become a mining engineer known for his shrewdness and integrity. Seth and Daniel dispatched him to investigate the claim. John Boyd had a hunch about the mine, but knew there were no guarantees. Mining on this scale was not for the faint-hearted. After sleepless nights and heated discussions between Boyd and the Cooks, likely bolstered by the finest whisky money could buy, John Boyd took the greatest risk of his life. In September 1876, Boyd, Seth and Daniel Cook, and another partner purchased the property later known as the Bodie mine. The price for the legal claim, explosives, dented mining and blacksmithing tools, tallow candles, and two careworn ponies was $75,000.
John Boyd's insight and sound technical expertise regarding Bodie's potential proved fortuitous. News that miners had struck it rich at Bodie spread like wildfire throughout the state. Miners, storekeepers, gamblers, entrepreneurs, lawmen, prostitutes, preachers, bankers, and all manner of ne'er-do-wells flocked to Bodie. In less than a year, the population swelled from fewer than ten to more than 1,200. The price for building lots escalated from $100 to $1,000. The town of Bodie was bursting at the seams, and during its heyday boasted seventeen saloons, six restaurants, fifteen brothels, four barbershops, four lodging houses, one bakery, two blacksmiths, two drug stores, one jewellery shop, three doctors, four lawyers, two daily stage lines, and a post office. In December 1877, a share of Bodie stock was worth $3.75 but skyrocketed to $53.00 per share only eight months later. The fortunes of John F. Boyd and the Cook brothers were secure. According to the Bodie Standard of November 7, 1877:
But a few short months ago Bodie was an insignificant little place, now she is rapidly growing in size and importance and people are crowding in upon her from far and near, and why? Because of the rich discoveries of gold, "yellow, glittering, precious gold," the bane of man and yet his antidote, his blessing and his curse; his happiness and his misery.
After he had made his millions in the Bodie mine, John Boyd was no longer a down-on-his-luck miner scrabbling out a hard day's pay in the filthy sluice pits or dank caverns below ground. There was no need for him to travel long, dusty hours from one godforsaken hole in the ground to another, overseeing desperate miners who just wanted to give it one more try. He was living proof that any red-blooded American male with perseverance could make it against all odds. By the early 1880s, John Boyd was a man of means. He and the Cook brothers sold the Bodie mine at just the right time and relocated to San Francisco, where they were wined and dined as befitting their status as successful California gold rush pioneers. Once described as "a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion," over the years Bodie faded into an eerie ghost town. Today, set amidst scrubby sagebrush and tumbleweed, the rickety buildings and rusting artifacts are the only remnants of this once-thriving boomtown. Now known as the Bodie State Historic Park, it is maintained in a "state of arrested decay." With its evocative landscape and haunting atmosphere, the park attracts thousands of visitors each year. The stamp mill, assay office, and other sites where John Boyd toiled to strike it rich are still an imposing sight on the rolling hillside overlooking the historic town.
*
Like many young girls, Louise would have enjoyed hearing about how her parents met, their courting days, and their wedding. In her childish fantasies, she would imagine this was what lay in her own future. Her mother, Louise Cook Arner, had been introduced to John Boyd by the Cook brothers as their niece. She had been orphaned as a teenager. Although almost twenty years her senior, John Boyd was beguiled by the petite, attractive young woman with the heart-shaped face. In John Boyd, Louise Cook Arner encountered a pleasant-faced older man who seemed steady, kind-hearted, and a good provider. Perhaps most importantly, he was a man trusted by her uncles — the two people closest to her in the world.
Romance blossomed, and a wedding was planned. Sadly, one of Louise's uncles, fifty-eight-year-old Daniel Cook, died suddenly just two weeks before the event. As fulsomely described in the San Francisco Examiner on April 29, 1883, Miss Louise Cook Arner married her uncles' business partner and mining crony in a lavish, although still subdued, society wedding at the Colton mansion in San Francisco:
It would require the pen of Washington Irving, with all his descriptive talent at its zenith, to correctly describe the scene at the elegant Cook mansion on Wednesday evening last. The occasion was the wedding of Miss Louise Arner, niece of the late Daniel Cook and ward of Seth Cook, to John F. Boyd, the mining millionaire. The effect upon entering the house was that of dazzling brilliancy, and as the sound of soft music, mingled with the fragrant odors of sweet-scented flowers, was heard coming as if from a distance, the senses seemed to be stealing away from their accustomed abode – one might suppose to keep following passing strains. It was Fairy Land in real life.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Joanna Kafarowski.
Excerpted by permission of Dundurn Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Prologue
- Part One: An Unlikely Heroine
- Chapter One: An Adventuress is Born
- Chapter Two: Shaped by Adversity
- Chapter Three: “Diana of the Arctic”
- Part Two: The Call to Adventure
- Chapter Four: Chasing Amundsen
- Chapter Five: The Ice Queen Cometh
- Chapter Six: Greenland Beckons
- Chapter Seven: An Obsessive Pursuit
- Part Three: Scaling the Heights
- Chapter Eight: Contributing to Science
- Chapter Nine: Honour and Glory
- Chapter Ten: The North Pole And Beyond
- Epilogue: The Legacy of Louise Arner Boyd
- Acknowledgements
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Photo Credits
- Index