Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 71

Wyoming fort got first newsof Little Big Horn parently disregarded. There is no record of the message being received in Omaha but why? Those at Fort Stambaugh later speculated the message didn't gain credence with army officials at the Platte, Jiavlng been reported as "Coming by way of smoke signals, Indian messengers and a civilian on an Intercepted line from an obscure Wyoming post. Perhaps that was the reason the messenger hobbled his horse and readied his rifle. He connected his portable telegrapher's Instrument to the line and grounded It on a picket pin. Kneeling In a sweep of sand and sage, Hall tapped the first news of history's most noted Indian battle to the Department of the Platte in Omaha.

For some unknown reason, the news, however, was ap- Trail against hostile Indians. A young civilian, Robert Hall, was employed at the fort as telegraph operator and commissary clerk. Hall, whose name was synonomous with Integrity to many who lived In South Pass country, often told of tapping out the message of the massacre. -On July 1, 1876, Hall was awakened by the cries of five excited Shoshones as they hit message "had never been relayed to army headquarters. Obtained in this way, information that the arrogant Custer and all his 260 men had met their bloody fate at the hands of the Sioux might have been thought to be too shaky to be accepted or perhaps, even taken as a cruel Joke.

Blanche Schroer is a contributing writer from Lander, Wyo. points north of the encounter, reaching the Division of the Missouri at Chicago on July 6. Documentation proves that the first scoop was sent out on July 1 (rom Fort Stambaugh to the Department of the Platte In Omaha, Neb. The small fort had been set up In 1870, three and one-half miles southeast of Atlantic City, Wyo. It protected miners and Immigrants along the Overland By BLANCHE SCHROER FORT STAMBAUGH, WYOMING The first news of the Battle of the Little Big Horn came from a small military camp about 250 miles south of the site and was disregarded.

However, the official report that General George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry detachment had been massacred by the Sioux trickled to the outside world on July 3, 1876. General Terry released the news eight days after the battle from MARYG. RF.U.AMY Slale'n first camp before daybreak. Custer had been slaughtered, they said, along with all his men, and the newt had come directly from the battlefield by way of smoke signals and Indian riders and runners. Chief Washakie, ancient enemy of the Sioux, had allied with General Crook in a fight with Crazy Horse a few days previous to the Custer fight.

Because his camp was very close to the Little Big Horn battle site, one of Washakie's Shoshone scouts was an early link in the "moccasin telegraph" communication chain, That Fort Stambaugh was only about two hundred and fifty miles from the battle scene and was on familiar Shoshone home ground accounted for the speedy arrival of the information. Immediately upon receipt of the news, Stambaugh's commanding officer prepared a message for Hall to send across the wire. The officer also told Hall the wires were down and that Hall would have to find the break. Somehow in the excitement, Hall set out alone on horseback through country dangerously dotted with bands of renegade Indians. Hall made a hard and dangerous ride southwest along the line for over fifty miles before finding that the wires had been cut near the stage crossing at Little Sandy.

Here, the exhausted 0 1 1 hit m. y.f Reminder The actual site of old Fort Stambaugh is marked by this rock. Buildings were moved when the fort was abandoned, but ail sorts of evidence of its existense can be found. Although the road is not bad, few go there, so the area is a souvenir hunter's paradise. about This marker stands on Sfofe Highway 28, 32 miles south of Lander.

iMary Bellamy i 1st "woman legislator CD By ELEANORE W. FIELD i Capital reporter CHEYENNE "Exemplary woman, wife and mother, pioneer "educator, legislator and civic leader. Those words described Mary Godat Bellamy In the citation she Deceived June 1, 1952, when the University of Wyoming conferred upon her an honorary doctor of laws degree. At those 1952 commencement exercises, 90-year-old Mrs. Bellamy, a small, brown-eyed woman surrounded by family and friends, could look back on a long, eventful life.

Forty-one years after Wyoming women were granted suffrage, the state elected its first woman legislator Mary Godat Bellamy, an Albany County Democrat. During the 11th Wyoming Legislature, Mrs. Bellamy served as chairman of the House of Representatives' credentials committee, and was a member of the committees on public hearings, education and libraries. Asa legislator, Mrs. Bellamy worked for bills to protect women and children, and to liberalize the state's probate law concerning married women serving as administrators and executors of estates.

At the time, women were not allowed to administer their husband's estates. Penal reform was one of her goals. She Introduced the bill which created the Industrial School for Boys In Worland, and persuaded the Legislature to arrange for women prisoners to be segregated rom male prisoners by having them incarcerated in the women's prison of a neighboring state. Mrs. Bellamy helped formulate laws improving food handling by Wyoming merchants.

She also worked to consolidate all institutions of higher learning on the Laramie campus of the University of Wyoming. The borne economics department of the UW College of Agriculture was added partly through her efforts. When MaryBellamy ran for election In 1910, politics was nothing new to her. Inl902 she was elected Albany County superintendent of schools. As superintendent, she urged teachers to acquaint their students with Wyoming's history and geography.

Her theme for the children of Albany County was "Know Wyoming. The introduction of libraries Into rural schools and the establishment of grading systems in rural schools to correspond with those to city schools are credited to Mrs. Bellamy. She twice declined nomination for state superintendent of public instruction. A publication called the "Women's National Daily" described-Mrs.

Bellamy as a "fluent public speaker." For her day, Mary Godat was Indeed a venturesome young woman. As a new teacher in 1878, she went from her home in Laramie to teach school in Tybo, a mining town in Nye County. 7 Back In Wyoming Territory three years later, the young woman went to teach In a rural community 20 miles from Buffalo. While living with the John R. Smith family there, she filed a homestead, but never proved upon It.

Shortly thereafter, she returned to Laramie where she first taught In the West Side School for a salary of a month. Later she was assigned to the East Side School, and In 1886 In the middle of the teaching year, she was married to a Boston civil engineer named Charles Bellamy. Bellamy called his wife Marie, the name she was christened with. He named Lake Marie in the Snowy Range west of Laramie for her. In a time when married teachers sometimes were frowned upon, Mrs.

Bellamy continued to teach even after her first child was born. The Bellamys moved to Cheyenne In 1895, and Mary became a charter member of the Cheyenne Women's Club, launching a lifetime activity. After moving back to Laramie, she became one of the organizers of to Laramie Women's Gub and was one of the founders of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. Women's suffrage was an accomplished feat in Wyoming, but not in the East at that time. While visiting Boston In 1905, Mary Bellamy met Julia Ward Howe, a suffragette and the writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

The famous Mrs. Howe requested they sit together so she could talk with a woman who had actually voted. After Bellamy's Single term in the House ended, she continued to be active in politics and in the women's suffrage movement. In 1915, Mrs. Bellamy was a delegate to both the state and national Democratic conventions, and was a member of the committee which notified President Woodrow Wilson of his nomination for a second term in the White House.

Three years later, Mary Bellamy was sent by the women of Wyoming to one of the great suffrage rallies in Washington, D.C. At (hat time, she came to know Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, an ardent women's suffrage advocate. In 1921, Mrs. Catt became the first woman to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Wyoming.

Thirty-one years later, JUrs. Bellamy received the same honor. Actually, Mrs. Bellamy's political interests might be traced to tier father who had once been mayor of Bern, Switzerland, before emigrating to the United States. Mary Godat Bellamy was born Dec.

13, 1861, In Richwood, the youngest of seven daughters. The young girl accompanied her mother to live In Galena, 111., after her father's death. In 1873, when she was 11, Mary and her mother moved to Laramie. Mrs. Godat stayed In Laramie to care for the child of an older daughter who had died.

The school class Joined by the young Mary Godat became the first Laramie High School graduating class. After the death of Charles Bellamy In 1934, Mary continued to work with various civic organizations and devoted herself to her family. In later life she was much honored when the Casper Kiwanls Club presented her with an award for her outstanding achievements. The Wyoming Press Women voted her an honorary membership and the Daughters of the American Revolution submitted her name to represent Wyoming on the Inscription In the memorial bell tower at Valley Forge, Pa. Mary Godat Bellamy died Jan.

28, 1955, In Ivinson Memorial Hospital In Laramie at the age of 94. Sixty-eight years ago, Mary Bellamy was the first woman to serve In the Wyoming Legislature. Today there are 14 women representatives and two women senators. -C30 EAST 'YELLOWSTONE. CASPER PHONE 235-6655 OPEN MONDAY THROUGH SATLFOAY B30 TO 500 fiomo furrufimg.