James Bolton Stewart family letters

Table of Contents

Summary Information

Scope and content note

Administrative Information

Controlled Access Headings

Collection Inventory

Summary Information

Repository

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Creator

Bolton.

Title

James Bolton Stewart family letters

ID

4072

Date

1901-1918, undated

Extent

1.0 Linear feet ; 3 boxes

Author

Finding aid prepared by Susan M. Kearney.

Language

English

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Scope and content note

James B. Stewart (1882-1969) was born into a Philadelphia Scots-Irish family headed by James and Sarah Jane Stewart. The elder James Stewart worked under Philadelphia Mayor Edwin Fitler who served from 1887-1891. James Bolton Stewart held a lengthy career with the federal government first with the U.S. Geological Survey and then with the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service officer. Among the positions he held were U.S. Vice Consul in Pernambuco, Brazil (1915-1917), U.S. Consul General in Mexico City (1938-1940) and U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua (1943-1945). This collection is comprised of letters Stewart received from his family in Philadelphia while he was away on government business; they span from 1901-1920. Many of the letters were written by his mother but some were from his father and his siblings. James’ older brother William and three of his sisters, Martha, Mary, and Margaret, provided the money for him to go south to live with cousins in South Carolina and Florida to take a cure for his “weak lungs.” The letters begin when he is 18 years of age and continue through to 1920 when he was the American Consul in Chihuahua, Mexico. He was sent to reopen the Consul after the guerrilla activities of Pancho Villa.

Accompanying the original letters is a CD of transcriptions. These were transcribed by in 1999. In addition to the letters, notes were added from James Bolton Stewart’s journal. Since no copy of the journal is included with the collection, these entries provide the only insight into Stewart’s interesting work on behalf of the U.S. government in places such as New Mexico, Hawaii, Brazil, and Mexico. For that reason, some of the more interesting notes are given below. They are in chronological order.

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I first left home in 1901 because of constant colds in Philadelphia, and I spent the summer with Uncle William and Aunt Nancy Lindsay in the small town of Chester, South Carolina. --JBS

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I arrived in Washington on my way home from Ocala with ten cents in my pocket. I had had no breakfast and went up the Washington Monument. When the elevator reached the ground again, I almost fainted as I staggered out in the open air. / Life in the west began in 1902 when doctors suggested I go to either Colorado or Arizona because of my recurring colds. I took the train for Colorado Springs. There were, of course, no automobiles or airplanes. I bought a horse and often went on camping trips for a week or more in the mountains with another young man. I played lots of tennis and lived a normal life. On one mountain trip we came across three young men after dark seated around a fire. We joined them in singing cowboy songs. They were the sons of Governor Francis of Missouri. At one time he had been our Ambassador to Czarist Russia. / The highlight of my experiences in Colorado Springs was the months I spent at the head of Turkey Creek about twenty-five miles south of Colorado Springs. Don Jones had built a two story log house, and to reach it one had to ford Turkey Creek about twenty times. Don went to Chicago to study art and left me in charge. My companions were two horses, a cow, several chickens and a dog. There was, of course, no telephone or radio and I lived alone for several months. Before Don left he gave a dance and invited young couples from near and far. It took most of them a day to reach Don's place and many of them brought along their babies. We put the babies on a large bed upstairs and danced until sunup, our music being a country fiddler. I had to engage him on a very cold winter day by riding to his house on horseback. At a hairpin turn in Dead Man's Canyon the horse three me and there I was in the snow. Fortunately, the horse did not run but walked and I could walk over a little knoll and head him off. After doing that several times, I finally got my hands on the bridle and what a happy sensation that was. --JBS

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In the summer of 1904 at the Stearns summer home in Platte Canyon, I first met Harriotte Stearns (Hats) - [They marry in 1920]. She came galloping up on horseback with her blond braids flying out behind. She was twenty years old. / In the fall of 1904 I returned to Philadelphia and obtained a job with the Smith Construction Company as Timekeeper which was building the Coal and Coke Railway in West Virginia. The firm went broke through mismanagement. It allowed liquor to be sold along the right of way and each payday found nearly all the laborers drunk. They all quit and threatened to burn the tarpaper shack in which the Superintendent and I were living. When the laborers quit, they, of course, left all the tools scattered along miles of the right of way. Only the Superintendent and myself were left, and he suggested that we take the four large mules and the large wagon and gather up the tools. The Superintendent said he would work the brake and I could ride the left side wheel mule. For two weeks we traveled on rough mountain dirt roads in order to get all the tools. --JBS

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I had had enough of the East and in the summer of 1905 took the train for Denver. When I smelled the sagebrush on the prairies, I had the feeling that I was back home again. --JBS

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After a year working for the Colorado Telephone Co. as cost clerk and timekeeper, I obtained a job in May 1906 with the U.S. Reclamation Service, Dept. of the Interior on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in northern Montana close to the Canadian border. I was employed as a Rodman, then as a Timekeeper, later as a Cost Clerk and then a Junior Clerk. There I found only Indians and Squaw Men, i.e. white men married to Indians. --JBS

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I arrived at the small Indian agency town of Browning at dusk one day and I had no sooner entered the little hotel, which was run by an Indian, than an Indian policeman frisked me to see if I had any liquor or a gun on me. He then grunted and signaled that I should follow him to the agent. There I had to register. The next day I went with some reclamation employees to our camp which was forty miles north of Browning over a rough dirt road. The trip took the best part of a day. For some time we lived in tents while they were building tarpaper houses. --JBS

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The 4th of July [1906] was the greatest day of the year on the reservation and Indians came from near and far to take part in the festivities, which consisted largely of horse racing, foot racing, etc. We had in our camp a young man who was going to enter one of the foot races, and we thought he had a chance of winning until at breakfast on the morning of the 4th we saw him made two high stacks of hot cakes disappear in jig time. --JBS

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There was no telephone to Browning but finally one was brought in from there and a wall telephone installed. One day an Indian squaw was called to the telephone. She looked at the instrument on the wall and the wire outside and remarked that she could not talk over the phone because she did not understand English. / One worker when he saw the telephone wire being strung said, "I'm quitting. It's getting too civilized around here and I'm going north to where there are no telephones." In September, when it was beginning to get cold, a lineman noticed a flock of geese flying south. When they had disappeared, he came down the pole and said, "I'm quitting and heading south. I figure no goose is smarter than I am. --JBS

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In 1907 I returned to Denver and took a position with the Water Resources Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey measuring streams in Colorado and New Mexico. Frequently I would take a Pullman at night and in the morning hire a buggy and a team of horses from a livery stable in some small town. --JBS

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In late 1908 I was transferred to New Mexico which was then a territory. My headquarters were with the Territorial Engineer in Santa Fe. As a hydrographer I set automatic water gauges throughout New Mexico to determine the amount of water flow in the streams. --JBS

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I recall the time that I hired a team of big grey horses in Aztec and drove out to measure the San Juan River. I unfastened the horses from the buggy and took them to the embankment for a drink. Unfortunately, the earth gave way and they were plunged into a swollen river. Fortunately, about a mile downstream there was an island and the horses climbed up on it. As luck would have it, the water was shallow between the shore and the island and I was able to wade out and rescue the horses. I had visions of having to pay a good size sum for those horses. --JBS

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About once a month I would make an eighteen-hour trip from Silver City to the mountains. The stage driver would awaken me at midnight and about 6:00 p.m. we would arrive at our destination after a back breaking trip over a rocky dirt road. I was usually the only passenger, and one morning after we started out, the stage driver said, "Oh, I forgot to have that darn brake fixed," and it was all he could do to keep from running down the horses. / Leaving Silver City, I would go to Lordsburg and, hiring a team of horses, would drive all day to the Gila River. In all that distance there wasn't a house or even a telegraph pole and the only thing I looked for was a hay corral. I would spend a night or two with a farmer and his wife and sleep on a cot in the feed room. One night I was awakened by something furry on my face and discovered a black cat moving her kittens. --JBS

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In July 1911 I was promoted and transferred to Hawaii, the Island of Maui. The U.S. Geological Survey paid my salary and the sugar planters paid my expenses. I was there on the islands for a year and a half. --JBS

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I spent three months in Honolulu [1912] and there met the British Consul. I was not an engineer and was, therefore, interested in his telling me about the British Consular Service. I decided then and there to go back to Philadelphia and study at Temple University for the American consular examinations. --JBS

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There is an extinct volcano on the Island of Maui, and one day I hired a Hawaiian to act as guide through the crater. The drop from the rim was 2000 feet, the floor of the crater being of sand and volcanic ash. Our horses lost their shoes and we had to walk which meant that we had to spend the night in the crater without proper clothing or equipment. It was January and, therefore, very cold. --JBS

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I took the written, oral and physical examinations for the Consular Service in January, 1915. I was advised not to take the examination for the Diplomatic Service unless I had a substantial income. Thinking that I had not passed the Spanish examination, I decided to go to a small town (Pensaco) in New Mexico where I could hear and talk Spanish. --JBS

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One evening upon returning from a horseback ride my employer handed me a letter from the Department of State stating that I had passed the examination and offered me the position of vice consul at Pernambuco (Recife) Brazil. I left on the midnight stage for the railroad station. Stopping in Santa Fe, I called on Judge Laughlin, the father of Ruth and Helen, whom I knew. I explained that I had been offered the position of vice consul in Pernambuco but needed $300. to get there. That good man handed it to me and asked no security. --JBS

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My second Consular assignment was Chihuahua, Mexico [1918]. The Consulate was closed in 1916, after having been stoned during the Mexican Revolution, and I was instructed to reopen it. About the time the Consulate was closed, there occurred the Santa Isabel Massacre. Sixteen young American mining engineers were taken from a train near Santa Isabel in the western part of the State of Chihuahua, lined up and shot in cold blood by Martin Lopez, one of Pancho Villa's followers. Lopez was captured and strung up in a public square of Chihuahua City. / I arrived in Chihuahua in February, 1918. By that time Villa had become a dangerous bandit with a following of a few mounted men. They plundered villages, held up trains, kidnapped American mining men for ransom and were always a threat to the fortified City of Chihuahua. --JBS

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Once during those exciting days of 1918 and 1919, I was in El Paso, Texas and could not return to Chihuahua because Villa had cut the railroad. [According to his Diplomatic Passport, he departed for Mexico from El Paso on November 13, 1918]. The famous General, Billy Mitchell, who was in El Paso on a tour of inspection, offered to fly me to Chihuahua as he was anxious to have a "look-see." However, the State Department did not approve. The General was disappointed and it took me a whole week "around Robin Hood's barn" to reach my post. --JBS

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The Mexican Government being unable to capture Villa finally in 1920 came to an agreement with him. For laying down his arms it gave him a fully equipped ranch near Parral, State of Chihuahua, and allowed him a bodyguard. Villa's hands were so bloody that he had many enemies and finally his end came on July 20, 1923. Villa and his bodyguard had been in Parral for supplies. As they drove out of town in an open car they were all killed instantly by heavy rifle fire from an empty house. --JBS

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

 The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; 2018.

Access restrictions

The collection is open for reserach.

Provenance

Gift of Barbara Braswell, 2016.

Accession number 2016.099.

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Controlled Access Headings

Genre(s)

• Letters.

Personal Name(s)

• Braswell, Barbara.
• Stewart, James Bolton, 1882-1969.

Subject(s)

• Ambassadors--United States.
• Diplomatic and consular service.
• Foreign agents.
• Philadelphia (Pa.)--City government--20th century.
• Philadelphia (Pa.)--Politics and government--20th century.
• Travel--20th Century.

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Collection Inventory