Although women
were occasionally hired by the U.S. Forest Service as early as 1905, Hallie
Morse Daggett (December 19, 1878 – October 19, 1964) was the first woman to serve as a USDA
Forest Service fire lookout. She was hired by the Klamath National Forest in
1913 to work at Eddy’s Gulch Lookout Station atop Klamath Peak then went on to
serve at the Eddy Gulch Lookout Station for another 14 years. The small cabin
she was assigned to had been built of rough-hewn logs during the summer of
1912.
The daughter
of John and Alice Daggett—a Siskiyou County pioneer family—Hallie’s father was not
only a successful miner, he also served as California's lieutenant governor and
superintendent of the U.S. Mint in San Francisco. He married Alice
Pamelia Foree in December 1870. Alice had traveled across the plains as a young
child with her mother and father, William Green Foree, and, with them, settled
down on a Spanish land grant in Vaca Valley. Pioneer records indicate that
Alice Foree arrived in Klamath County in 1863, and, seven years later married
John Daggett at Black Bear; he was 37 and she was 21. The couple had six
children: Ben F., Hallie M., and Leslie W.; three other children died young.
Not
only did John Daggett hire American miners to work for him at Black Bear Mine, which
featured a 16-stamp mill, he also hired 300 experienced Cornish miners to come
work for him. The Black Bear Mine was one of the most successful mines in the northern mining district and the Sawyers Bar/Salmon River mining region.John Daggett was not only enterprising, he was a man of integrity. He hired Chinese miners and when one of his Chinese workers was brutally murdered, he brought in a gunslinger to protect the Chinese working for him. No one bothered his crews again. In addition to mining, Daggett was elected to the Assembly in 1858, 1859, and 1880. He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1882 and appointed Superintendent of the United States Mint in San Francisco in 1893, a position he held for four years.
Hallie and her sister, Leslie, were
accomplished and refined young women, having completed courses at girls’
seminaries in Alameda and San Francisco. Looking at her here, it is hard to imagine that she was actually a much more rugged woman! Obviously she could succeed in many arenas.
In spite of their fine education and sophisticated upbringing, both Hallie and sister Leslie had a deep love for their
childhood home at Black Bear Mine. With their brother Ben, they had explored
many of the trails in the rugged Siskiyou Mountains. All had learned to hunt,
ride, fish and shoot early in life. Hallie was especially adept at trapping and
was an expert shot. She had no fear of bears or mountain lions; nor did she
fear anything else in her rugged world, including the frequent electrical
storms she endured on her mountaintop station.
When Hallie applied as a Forest Service lookout, very few people would have taken her seriously; however, the only other two "candidates" were pathetic and could in no way be considered, so McCarthy, the supervisor in charge, was at a loss. He wrote that the last individual to apply was “no gentleman.” But, he added, this individual “has all the requisites of a first-class
Lookout…The novelty of the proposition which has been unloaded upon me, and
which I am now endeavoring to pass up to you, may perhaps take your breath
away, and I hope your heart is strong enough to stand the shock. It is
this: One of the most untiring and enthusiastic applicants which I have for the
position is Miss Hallie Morse Daggett, a wide-awake woman of 30
years, who knows and has traversed every trail on the Salmon River watershed,
and is thoroughly familiar with every foot of the District. She is an
ardent advocate of the Forest Service, and seeks the position in evident good
faith, and gives her solemn assurance that she will stay with her post
faithfully until she is recalled. She is absolutely devoid of the
timidity, which is ordinarily associated with her sex as she is not afraid of
anything that walks, creeps, or flies. She is a perfect lady in every
respect, and her qualifications for the position are vouched for by all who
know of her aspirations.”
Hallie was hired as a “Forest Guard”
at $840 a year and went to work on June 1, 1913. She would return each June for
a four-to-seven-month tour of duty for the next 14 years. A 1914
article in the American Forestry magazine described Hallie’s devotion
and work: “Few
women would care for such a job, fewer still would seek it, and still fewer
would be able to stand the strain of the infinite loneliness, or the roar of
the violent storms which sweep the peak, or the menace of the wild beasts which
roam the heavily wooded ridges. Miss Daggett, however, not only eagerly longed
for the station but secured it [the lookout job] after considerable exertion
and now she declares that she enjoyed the life and was intensely
interested in the work she had to do....
About the
move to her mountain lookout, Hallie wrote: “It was quite a swift change in
three days, from San Francisco, civilization, and sea level, to a solitary
cabin on a still more solitary mountain, 6,444 feet in elevation, and 3 hours’
hard climb from everywhere, but in spite of the fact that almost the very first
question asked by everyone was ‘Isn't it awfully lonesome up there?’ I never
felt a moment’s longing to retrace the step, that is, not after the first
half-hour following my sister’s departure with the pack animals, when I had a
chance to look around ... I did not need a horse myself, there being, contrary
to the general impression, no patrol work in connection with lookout duties,
and my sister bringing up my supplies and mail from home every week, a distance
of 9 miles.”
“Some
of the Service men predicted that after a few days of life on the peak she
would telephone that she was frightened by the loneliness and the danger, but
she was full of pluck and high spirit...[and] she grew more and more in love
with the work. Even when the telephone wires were broken and when for a long
time she was cut off from communication with the world below she did not lose
heart. She not only filled the place with all the skill which a trained man could
have shown but she desires to be reappointed when the fire season opens this
year.”
Hallie Daggett was clearly a woman of uncommon fortitude and she has been a celebrated "heroine" for many in Siskiyou County. Just this year, her life was commemorated, and the cabin where she actually lived out the remainder of her life (but NOT the cabin pictured here as her lookout cabin), was recently renovated and a special ceremony was held in July at Etna City Park where the cabin has been moved, sponsored by the Native Daughters of the Golden West Eschscholtzia Parlor No. 112, Etna, California.
Hallie Daggett was clearly a woman of uncommon fortitude and she has been a celebrated "heroine" for many in Siskiyou County. Just this year, her life was commemorated, and the cabin where she actually lived out the remainder of her life (but NOT the cabin pictured here as her lookout cabin), was recently renovated and a special ceremony was held in July at Etna City Park where the cabin has been moved, sponsored by the Native Daughters of the Golden West Eschscholtzia Parlor No. 112, Etna, California.
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Gail
L. Jenner is grateful for being able to work with Prairie Rose Publishing, and her
collection of stories published by PRP has grown since "joining the
gang" in Dec. 2013 with the re-release of her WILLA Award-winning Across the Sweet Grass Hills.
For more about Gail, check out: www.gailjenner.com or http://www.amazon.com/Gail-Fiorini-Jenner/e/B005GHR47O
AND...be sure and check out A Cowboy Under the Mistletoe! Available NOW!
