The Pritchards of Hyattville, Wyoming and why they left West Virginia
By Linda Huey and David Dronsick
The Pritchard family in West Virginia around 1900 before moving to Wyoming.
Top row: Jennie, Addie, Alice, Clara
Middle row: Lucy, Thomas Tavner and Lucy Ann Elizabeth (the parents), Cort
Front row: Irl
2
Preface
“Count me in!” was my excited response during a conversation at the Thanksgiving dinner table in 2014.
My brother, Paul Huey, and his wife, Lois, retired archaeologists who love to travel, had just announced
that they were planning to take a trip to Wyoming. Suddenly my sleeping sentimental memories and
desire to return awakened with a jolt. I hadn’t been there since I was a child when we visited my
mother’s relatives in 1949, 1957, 1961, and 1963. We would drive in our 1949 Ford from where we lived
in New York State when few super highways existed. Now it had been more than 50 years, and time for
another trip.
I nostalgically remember our wonderful visits to my mother’s Aunt Jennie and Uncle Ralph’s ranch near
Hyattville in Big Horn County. Addie Pritchard, my mother’s mother, seemed to have been particularly
close to her sister, Jennie Pritchard, who had married Ralph Mercer. Addie had died shortly after I was
born, but for my mother, there was still Jennie to visit, as well as other Pritchards in Hyattville. My
mother’s grandparents Thomas Tavner and Lucy Ann Elizabeth Pritchard were long gone, but their
children (her aunts and uncles) were all still in Wyoming - Jennie, Alice, Lucy, Clara, Irl, and Cort - not to
mention the many cousins she grew up with.
My mother, Marguerite Kennedy Huey, was born in 1912, and grew up in various towns in Wyoming’s
Big Horn Basin near Hyattville including Colter, Worland, Powell, Riverton, and Pavillion. In 1907 her
Pritchard grandparents had left West Virginia and brought their family of nine to Hyattville where they
built and ran a large rooming house. They advertised it as a “tourists’ home” in the newspapers, but we
always called it the old “hotel.” Many old photographs of my mother as a child with all her cousins,
aunts, uncles, and grandparents were taken there. I had never thought about how as she spent the rest
of her life living on the east coast, my mother must have missed being surrounded by the large extended
family she had grown up with in Wyoming. These were people who for the most part I had lost touch
with, and I have never experienced being close to an extended family. My grandmother, Addie, was the
only one in her generation of the Pritchard family who had left the state of Wyoming, which eventually
led to even my cousins and me growing up on opposite coasts of America.
Then, in 2015, we enjoyed a wonderful trip back to Wyoming, finding a whole lot hadn’t changed, only
that Hyattville now had even fewer people with a population of about 75. I was thrilled to see the old
“hotel” was still standing in the middle of town. The ranch outside of town was doing well and still in
the Mercer family. Visiting the ranch felt as if time had stood still and I was a stationary observer, as I
could see in my mind five generations of Mercers all at once.
Visiting the old hotel touched me emotionally, and inspired my husband, David, and me to start
researching answers to why the family had left West Virginia and moved to Hyattville. A second trip to
Wyoming in 2016 resulted in discovering and meeting more relatives, hearing stories, finding boxes of
pictures and letters in their basements and attics, and accumulating precious tidbits of information.
A forgotten world soon began to open.
3
4
Table of Contents
1. Why Wyoming and Hyattville? 5
Wyoming…Historical Context 5
Railroads 6
West Virginia 8
Reasons for Moving 9
Why Hyattville? 12
The First Trips to Wyoming 15
Teaching School 20
The Wild West 21
Why a Hotel? 22
2. The Pritchard Family 25
T.T. and Bette Pritchard 28
Alice 30
Addie 31
Jennie 33
Clara 34
Cort 35
Lucy 36
Irl 38
Kathryn Noll Weintz 39
3. Conclusion 40
Childhood Memories by Clara Pritchard McGary
Addendum – genealogy charts, newspaper articles, more images
Fourth edition, September, 2017 Made possible with much help from my collaborator husband, David Dronsick, and other family members including
Paul Huey, Jo Reilly, William and Mary Jane Pritchard, Tim McGary, Vicki McGary Tollman, Vernon McGary, my
Kennedy cousins, the Mercer family, Gene Mergy, Emily Pritchard Cary, Judy Douglas, and David Scott. This fourth
edition of “The Pritchards of Hyattville, Wyoming” is in the collection of the Wyoming State Archives in Cheyenne,
the Washakie Museum in Worland, the history room in the Hyattville Community Center, and the Ritchie County
Historical Society in West Virginia.
5
1. Why Wyoming and Hyattville?
A framed Pritchard family portrait has occupied the top of our bookcase for many years. Taken in the
early 1900s, my great grandparents, Thomas Tavner (T.T.) and Lucy Ann Elizabeth Pritchard (Bette), sit
surrounded by their family of seven children… Jennie, Addie (my grandmother), Alice, Clara, Lucy, Cort,
and Irl. After we returned from a 2015 nostalgic trip to Wyoming where they had lived, many thoughts
about them started floating around in my brain. I began wondering why they had left West Virginia in
1907 for a little town in the middle of Wyoming where they built and ran a small rooming house/hotel. I
decided to do some research on the family to turn them into real people with a real story to tell. Thus
began a trail to unearth more information as my husband, David, and I dove into their world.
Wyoming…Historical Context
So, why would the family make the big move away from their home for generations on Slab Creek in the
Union District of Ritchie County, West Virginia and journey all the way to Hyattville, Wyoming? What
was their motivation, what was going on in West Virginia, and what was so attractive about Wyoming?
We felt the need to look first at the very broad earlier historical context. The Oregon Trail had been
heavily used through southern Wyoming from 1840 to 1867 by people headed not for Wyoming, but for
points farther west. The travelers did not want to stop in Wyoming, because it seemed so dry and
barren. Indian wars lasted into the 1870s. The Homestead Act of 1862 and the arrival of the Union
Pacific Railroad to some parts of Wyoming in 1867 brought more settlers. By the late 1870s Wyoming
had become a center for cattlemen. Busts in the cattle industry followed booms, and the sheep
business in the state became the largest in the nation for wool production by the early 1900s.
But, Wyoming was still thinly populated, and the Big Horn Basin was one of the very last pockets of the
frontier to be settled. Except for occasional explorers, hunters, and trappers, it wasn’t until the early
1880s that the isolated Hyattville area even began to have white settlers. The town was first called Paint
Rock, named by the Indians because of the rock colors by the creek. It was located near a 750 foot long
sandstone cliff covered with pictographs made by Paleo-Indian people from as early as 10,000 years ago.
By 1887 the town became known as Hyattville, named after Samuel W. Hyatt who established a post
office and a general store there.1 Hyattville was one of the largest towns in the Basin at the time, with
ranching as the main occupation, sine the landscape conditions and grass made a good fit for cattle and
sheep. In nearby Bonanza in 1889, exaggerated accounts of endless oil and coal deposits were being
extolled in the newspapers. Government sponsored irrigation was starting to change the landscape and
the Mormons were also digging irrigation ditches in the Big Horn Basin to help grow their crops.
1 Paintrock Tales and Bonanza Trails by the Hyattville History Committee p. 3-5, p.27
6
Railroads
Picture taken from the C.B.& Q. Railroad map (circa 1906) owned by T.T. Pritchard
In Wyoming, expansion and promotion by the railroads was exerting a huge influence. The railroads
were reaching farther into the state, making it easier to settle on the cheap or free land that could be
obtained by homesteading and making “improvements.” Their heavy promotion designed to attract
people to use the railroad and move to the Big Horn Basin was reaching eastward, including to West
Virginia. Around the same time, the Mormons were sending promotion to West Virginia and other
locations back east, offering incentives for needed workers.2
The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad connection from Frannie, Wyoming began in 1905, moving
south along the Big Horn River through Greybull, arriving in Basin on June 19th and in Worland on July
10th, 1906. Between 1906 and 1913 the CB&Q operated an “Immigration Bureau” and “Land Seekers
Information Bureau” under the leadership of D. Clem Deaver to lure settlers to take up land near the Big
Horn Basin’s new irrigation projects, knowing that would bring more revenue from passengers and
freight to the railroad. The publicity brought an estimated 8,000 families to the Basin, and also drew
tourists to the region who came by train.3 From 1900 to 1905, even in anticipation of the railroads,
population in the county more than doubled.4 The timing of the Pritchards’ arrivals in 1906 and 1907
was perfectly concurrent with this population explosion as the railroad was being extended from town
to town through the Big Horn Basin.
2 Information from Arthur Mergy
3 www.wyohistory.org
4 Asa Shinn Mercer by Lawrence M. Woods, p. 201
7
Found in a Feb.7, 1907 letter addressed to T.T. Pritchard in Slab, West Virginia, from Lincoln Land Company.
8
A much later train in Greybull, 1926, with Addie’s children, Marguerite (my mother) and Evan
West Virginia
At the same time, what was going on in West Virginia that gave the Pritchards strong enough reasons to
leave? T.T. Pritchard and all his neighbors were farmers. It seems the railroads were also having an
impact in West Virginia…heavy timber and coal could be exported out of the state, but at the same time
Midwestern farm products, produced with more advanced mechanization, were pouring into the state
at such low prices that local farmers were being forced out of their own local markets. Plus, families
who lived in the Union District of Ritchie County, were growing larger and the rugged farm land they had
was not. Perhaps they did not want to stay and become coal miners or adopt other wage work to
survive.5
But were there even more specific personal reasons for the Pritchard family to move? We started
searching for people and yet-to-be-found relatives who might know the answer. One tidbit of
information came from a distant West Virginia relative, Gene Mergy, who we met though Ancestry.com.
He was raised in Ritchie County and his great grandmother, Cassandra Pritchard, was my great
grandfather T.T.Pritchard’s cousin. Gene had heard, passed down through the generations, that there
was some dissention among the Pritchard children about moving to Wyoming, especially with Clara. So,
we looked for some of Clara’s ancestors, and after finding Clara’s grandson Tim McGary, we were
suddenly in possession of a gold mine of information on the subject. He sent us the personal story Clara
had written about West Virginia and their move!
5 http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh51-4.html
9
Clara was born in 1887. The first ten pages (of the fourteen total) of her story told in detail about the
life she loved as a child in West Virginia. Her description made their home on Slab Creek in Ritchie
County seem like a place hard to leave. Her father, T.T., had married a neighbor girl, Bette Summers in
1878 and they lived on his father’s 400 acre farm that had several buildings that included houses for his
parents, his own family, and for a sharecropper/tenant. There was also a barn, a smoke house, and a
post office. Clara wrote that her Grandfather had a grist mill to grind the grain, and had a blacksmith
shop that her father took over. There were three lovely orchards that included peaches and apples, and
gardens that produced vegetables. Their animals included cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, and many
horses…saddle, team, carriage, and racing. Each of the children had their own horse, and could ride
bareback at a gallop. The whole family worked really hard, and the farm was self supporting. They
raised sugar cane for sorghum molasses, corn, tobacco, and all their grain for feed as well as for bread.
They butchered their meat, milked many cows, sheared wool, and made maple syrup. Chestnuts and
blackberries were plentiful. Her mother, Bette, made their soap, knitted all their stockings and mittens,
and wove cloth for winter dresses and blankets. Sometimes her Grandma Summers, who smoked a clay
pipe, would come to help Bette with her “sittin work” such as mending, knitting, and quilting, and would
also churn 8 or 10 pounds of butter at a time. They sold their surpluses to a traveling peddler. There
were neighbors and friends on nearby farms, church and school, picnics, spelling bees, box suppers,
music...and ”life was full joy and adventure.”
Despite her obvious love for West Virginia, Clara didn’t actually come out and say she didn’t want to
move or give a lot of reasons why they left. She did mention there was better pay for teaching in
Wyoming, which she and her sisters had already been doing for lower wages in West Virginia. She also
mentions her father “had a western fever and wanted to try irrigation.”
Reasons for Moving
Looking for additional reasons why the Pritchards would move 2,000 miles away from home, I asked Jo
Reilly the question in a phone conversation. I had found out that she is the present owner of the old
hotel in Hyattville, and, like me, is a great granddaughter of T.T. and Bette Pritchard. She said Mary Jane
Pritchard would know the answer. I then found out Mary Jane was married to William, a grandson of
T.T. and son of Cort Pritchard, and they live in Casper. I called them and introduced myself and
explained how we were related, Cort being my mother’s uncle. Mary Jane was full of information. I said
“Jo told me you would know why the Pritchards moved from West Virginia”. The answer Mary Jane
gave was “Because T.T. wanted to bring their kids to a place where they were less likely to intermarry.” I
thought to myself “Interesting… really?” Then I remembered the picture of a crowd of people that we
saw still hanging on the wall in the old Pritchard hotel. The back of the photo was labeled “West
Virginia.” Who were all those people? T.T. and Bette Pritchard are on the right end of the middle row
and all their children nearby can be recognized. The photograph must have been taken shortly before
they left West Virginia and includes some young couples who appear to be having a good time together,
smiling and holding guitars and banjos. Were some of them cousins not to marry?
10
Photo hanging on the wall in the old hotel labeled on the back “West Virginia”
Actually, at the time it was rather common for cousins to marry in Ritchie County, and Clara confirmed
“most of the hill people were related.” If the concern was about T.T and Bette’s five beautiful daughters
Jennie, Addie, Alice, Clara, and Lucy who had reached or would soon be reaching marriageable age, time
to leave was surely of the essence. In fact, Clara had already gotten involved with a Ritchie County boy
named Willard E. McGary. She is sitting in the front row, left end, holding a guitar, and that may be
Willard sitting next to her. (Fortunately he was not directly related to the Pritchards). I later heard again
through additional branches of the family how important it was to T.T. to move to Wyoming so his
children would not marry other relatives, or at least that is what he perhaps chose to emphasize to his
children as a reason to motivate them to move. We gather his wife and the rest of the family were
perhaps not eager to leave West Virginia.
11
This photograph appears to have been taken the same day as the previous photograph, because the girls are wearing the same clothes.
Top row left to right: Jennie, Clara Front row, left to right: Addie, Lucy, Alice
To their daughters benefit, in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin there was actually a great imbalance of the
sexes among those of marriageable age. The county had 1,262 single males over 21, and only 118 single
females of that age. The Grey Bull Club of Meeteetse raised a fund to advertise in the East, offering
“profitable employment” to young women who would make the journey to Basin. A 1905 Wyoming
state census listed 206 people in Hyattville. In early 1906 (the year two of the eligible Pritchard
daughters first arrived) there were about 30 bachelors on Paintrock Creek, and not a single marriageable
woman!6
After the Pritchards made their move to Wyoming, a letter was written by one of the Pritchard sisters
back to Willard McGary, Clara’s boyfriend, who was still in West Virginia. The letter advised Willard that
if he wanted Clara, he better get out there fast, as there were quite a few potential suitors in the Big
Horn Basin.7 Soon a telegram came to Clara from Willard: “I’ll be in Basin on Wednesday, please meet
me there.” The day after he arrived, he asked T.T. for Clara’s hand in marriage. They were married in
Big Horn County in August of that year, 1907. It must have also been to the Pritchard parents’ relief that
soon after settling in Wyoming, Jennie, Addie, and Lucy quickly met, according to local newspaper
reports, “exemplary” young men to marry in 1909, 1910, and 1913.
6 Asa Shinn Mercer by Lawrence M. Woods, p.202-206
7 From Tim McGary
12
Why Hyattville?
Dan Bayne
It turns out that the Pritchards must have been hearing about Hyattville for more than 20 years before
their move, since early on some of their West Virginia neighbors had migrated to Hyattville to try
ranching and farming. We found that Dan Bayne, one of the first settlers in Hyattville who had
homesteaded on the Paint Rock starting in 1883,8 had been a neighbor of the Pritchards in West
Virginia. The 1880 census report for the Union District of Ritchie County, West Virginia shows Dan
Bayne, age 22, living only a few houses away from the T.T. Pritchard family before he left for Wyoming.
In addition, several of Bayne’s relatives who had lived in that same part of West Virginia near the
Pritchards, were already in Hyattville when the Pritchards arrived there. These included the Morrises,
the Kirkpatricks, and William Conaway. Local newspapers reported that the William Kirkpatrick family
entertained the Pritchards on their early visits to Hyattville.9
So, there were a good number of people in Hyattville with West Virginia roots by the time the Pritchards
arrived. Later, the 1910 Hyattville census shows quite an enclave surrounding the Pritchard hotel.
Listed in a row of houses and all from the same area in Ritchie County, West Virginia are the William
Morris family, the Bassie Kirkpatrick family, the Ross Kirkpatrick family, T.T Pritchard’s family (with Ancil
Zinn, a boarder from Ritchie County), and then the William Conaway family.10 Others from West Virginia
in Hyattville included Frank Gapen, William Rannells, and Thomas Garrison, plus Zelotes Wilson in
Bonanza. Three hired hands living on Asa Mercer’s ranch just outside Hyattville were also from West
Virginia.
8 Obituary for Daniel V. Bayne at www.ancestry.com. Also in Paintrock Tales and Bonanza Trails, p. 99 and p. 123
he is the one who shot and killed Hank Gorman in 1888, about which there is a well known local story about how he was justified in doing so. 9 William, Bassie, Roscoe, and Franklin were some of the children of Levi and Sarah Kirkpatrick, who had 15
children back in Richie County, WV. William Kirkpatrick’s wife was Dan Bayne’s sister Genevra. Franklin Kirkpatrick was married to Ardenia Alice Pritchard, whose father was T.T.’s cousin. 10
Wilson Morris’ wife was Dan Bayne’s sister Sarah. Another Bayne sister, Mary Ann, was married to a Conaway.
13
Asa Mercer
With a ranch near Hyattville, Asa Mercer was an enthusiastic promoter and wanted to help advance the
Basin area in general. We are not sure if or when Asa Mercer’s promotional efforts might have reached
and influenced the Pritchards. We can assume the Pritchards got to know Asa fairly quickly. Soon after
first arriving in Hyattville, Jennie Pritchard met and fell in love with Asa’s son, Ralph.11 Earlier, Asa as a
young man had become famous for promoting the West Coast by bringing young marriageable women
from the East by ship around Cape Horn to Seattle in 1864 and 1866.12 Now he was putting energy into
promoting the Big Horn Basin. Starting in 1897 he led promotional trips to bring investors and settlers
to the region.13 In 1906, the same year Jennie arrived before the whole family came in 1907, Asa
published a book called “Big Horn County, Wyoming, the Gem of the Rockies” where he predicted sugar
beets as a major crop of the future and touted all the wonderful resources of the area with the new
irrigation canals and opportunities in oil and coal, copper, timber, livestock, and tourism. We wonder if
Asa had some connection or financial support from the railroads for his efforts. We do know that D.
Clem Deaver, director of the Burlington Railroad’s Immigration Bureau, owned a personal copy of Asa’s
book.14
His book starts out “This book is written for the purpose of giving the people at large a clear and definite
idea of the Big Horn Basin - about the last part of the Great West to be brought under the magic touch
of men” and that he had watched it “grow to its present stage of magnificent development.”
11
The Mercers and Pritchards later became related again by another marriage, between Asa’s grandson, John Weintz, Jr., and Katherine Noll, a Pritchard granddaughter. 12
More info at Dorothy Weintz Collection of Asa Mercer’s papers at the University of Washington. 13
Asa Shinn Mercer by Lawrence M. Woods 14
A. S. Mercer. Big Horn County Wyoming. The Gem of the Rockies. Hyattsville, Wyoming: A. S. Mercer, [1906].
First edition. 115 pp. 8 photographic plates, including frontispiece. Publisher's green cloth, gilt stamped on front
cover. Inkstamp on front free endpaper: "D. Blem Deaver, Gen'l Agt. / Land Seekers Information Bureau. / Omaha,
Neb." Offered for sale in April 2016 by Heritage Auctions.
14
One wonders, however, if Asa was a little disappointed that Hyattville in particular was not developing
as quickly as the newly created towns built more directly along the railroad lines. In regard to Hyattville
specifically he writes “As a town site it is ideal, but its growth has been slow. The country up and down
the valley to the east and the west is one of the most prosperous in the county, all being owned by
ranchmen with bunches of cattle ranching from fifty to seven hundred head, and the whole stretch,
fifteen miles, is one continuous alfalfa meadow. But the trade area is too small to support more than a
village with its two general stores, blacksmith shop, school, and church…. The citizens still have hopes
that the great mountains, forming the magnificent view as they greet the morning sun, has something
good in store for them.”
15
Threshing Machine, 1909
on the Mercer Ranch
The First Trips to Wyoming
Did the Pritchards make preliminary trips to consider Wyoming? Mary Jane Pritchard remembers Cort
telling her about perhaps what was the very first scouting trip to Wyoming that Cort as a young boy had
made with his father.15 Cort’s mother had sent him along with his father “to keep him out of trouble.”
He played a little mouth harp along the way, which must have helped keep him occupied. They had
taken a stagecoach from Billings to Basin, which indicates the trip must have taken place before
November 1901 when the railroad was then extended farther south from Billings in the Hyattville
direction.16 1900 was the year Mary Jane remembered Cort told her, which would have been when Cort
was 11 years old. He looks to be about that age in the family photograph on the cover.
Clara tells her version about how the next trip came about. She wrote “Mama’s Aunt Hettie Wilson
died and her son came home from Wyoming for her funeral. He came to visit Mama and Papa. He said,
‘It is a shame you have all these school teachers and they work for so little. Why don’t you sell out and
come West. The teachers are well paid there.’ ” We wondered if that son could be Zelotes Wilson, who
was living in Bonanza in 1900, a stockman involved with real estate? He also served as a school trustee
and had the “Wilson school” built on his property.17 However, his mother did not die until 1911.
15
Her memory did not have absolute certainty, but it all seems to fit. 16
www.Wyohistory.org 17
Paintrock Tales and Bonanza Trails, p. 29, 63, and 300
16
Clara then tells about Papa making a second trip bringing her and Jennie with him. Accompanied by
some cousins and friends, eight in all, they had a “hectic journey.” They experienced a train wreck in
Nebraska that left cars crosswise on the tracks. The car they were in turned on its side and the girls
were caught between two seats. Jennie hurt her knee, resulting in Jennie expressing a strong desire to
go back home to West Virginia. But, they eventually made it safely to Garland, and then by horse and
wagon to Basin, arriving in April of 1906. The railroad map they used was found by my brother in the
old hotel in 1957 on one of his visits to Hyattville as a teenager. It appears T.T. had traced the route for
that 1906 trip with a purple line all the way from Pennsboro, West Virginia to Garland, Wyoming.
Detail of the railroad map on which T.T. Pritchard had traced the entire route. Here he circled Garland as the end of the trip.
T.T, Clara, and Jennie all worked hard that first summer, the girls qualifying for teaching, and T.T.
working as a carpenter. His carpentry was much in demand at the time, and he helped build the new
depots at Basin, Manderson, and Worland. He was impressed with the way these towns were being
created and booming at the time due to the extension of the railroad.
17
Our Pritchard research on a trip from New York to Wyoming led to a visit to the Washakie Museum in
Worland. We had been in touch with the curator, Bob Stottler, who said they would be interested in
having a copy of the Pritchard story we had written. When we met him in the lobby and handed him
our first edition of the book, we asked if the Worland depot T.T. Pritchard had helped build was still
standing. “When?” he asked. After we said “in 1906”, he led us into a room dedicated to the history of
the Big Horn Basin. There on the wall was a mural of the first 1906 depot just built with some men
standing in front of it. I picked out one (fourth from the right) who looked like T.T. Pritchard, and
compared it to the picture of T.T. on the cover of our book. “Yep, that’s definitely him!” Bob said.
Original photograph of the first depot built in Worland in 1906. We believe T.T. is labeled number 3.
18
After arriving in 1906 Jennie worked in the home of a “real estate firm.” Perhaps this was the home of
Zelotes Wilson, who was mentioned in the September 14th, 1905 Basin Republican as being a full-
fledged real estate agent. Clara lived and worked in the home of Mr. Zaring, a prosecuting attorney.
Jennie and Clara then stayed on in Wyoming while T.T. went back to West Virginia for the winter.
Clara’s story of trips to Wyoming is confirmed by local Wyoming newspapers, which are available online
from 1905 onward.18
Basin Republican, April 12, 1906
A Party of West Virginians… Zelotes Wilson went out to Garland last Thursday with a team to meet the following named parties from Harrisville, W. Va., returning with them to Basin Sunday: T. T. Pritchard and his two daughters, Jennie and Clara, Ben Prather, Jas. Parker, who is a brother of Mrs. Z. Wilson, Mr. Richard, and Wm. and Bruce Jett. The party comes to this place with a view to settling, and they are well satisfied with what they have seen of it. Mr. Pritchard says that Basin is the liveliest town he has seen for many a year. The party was in the railroad wreck at St. Michaels, Neb., but fortunately none of them were injured. Wyoming Tribune (Cheyenne) June 2, 1906
Miss Pritchard, who has been the guest of the Kirkpatrick family for two weeks, returned to Basin with them Saturday. Basin Republican August 30, 1906
Misses Jennie and Clara Pritchard of Basin are being entertained at the Wm. Kirkpatrick home. They expect soon to begin schools on Paint Rock. We heartily welcome them in our community. Thermopolis Record September 22, 1906
T. T. Pritchard, postmaster of Slab, West Virginia, has been here for a week past investigating industrial opportunities. Then, the next spring in 1907, T.T. Pritchard came back with the rest of the family to settle in Hyattville:
Basin Republican April 12, 1907
Misses Jennie and Clara Pritchard went to Basin Saturday to meet their parents who have just arrived from West Virginia. It is rumored that they wish to buy B.F. Wickwire’s property and locate permanently in Hyattville.
The Pritchards did purchase B.F.Wickwire’s log cabin in Hyattville. At the Basin Courthouse it is recorded
that in April of 1907 Lucy A. E. Pritchard bought the property from B.F. Wickwire and wife for $700. We
wondered why Thomas T. Pritchard’s name was not included with his wife’s name in the transaction.
We eventually figured out the answer to this mystery after finding forgotten letters stored both in Tim
McGary’s basement and in a box of Pritchard memorabilia my brother had gathered from the old hotel
in 1957. Evidently T.T. had financial entanglements and still owed money on the property back in West
Virginia, involving an impatient lender. Amazingly, these letters were kept for us to find almost 60 years
later. They help explain perhaps another reason to leave West Virginia.
18
http://newspapers.wyo.gov
19
The chronology of the letters almost makes it look like the Pritchards did not want to waste time leaving
West Virginia:
Feb. 7, 1907 A letter to T.T. Pritchard from the Lincoln Land Company answers his inquiry
about special rates of transportation to the Big Horn Basin, saying to contact the
C.B.&Q.Railway Company.
Feb.14, 1907 A registered letter to T.T. Pritchard from the president of the Union National Bank
complaining there had been no response from T.T. to two previous letters about money
T.T. owed.
Feb.26, 1907 A letter to T.T. Pritchard from the C.B.&Q. Railway Company gives one way second-class
“Colonist” ticket prices and asked when the party wants to leave.
In early April, 1907, The Pritchard family departed from their ancestral Slab Creek home and boarded
the train at the station in Pennsboro, West Virginia, heading for a new life in Wyoming.
20
Times were tough in West Virginia and a lot of people were going bankrupt there, according to one of
the letters from T.T’s agent. But the Slab Creek land finally sold in 1908 to Sam Haddox, and presumably
T.T. no longer owed money after that.
Teaching School
Jennie and Clara had teaching opportunities soon after they first arrived, expecting to begin schools on
the Paintrock (Hyattville area) in the fall of 1906. Later In 1907 after the rest of the family arrived,
Addie, Jennie, and Cort attended a “Successful Teachers Institute.” In the spring of 1908 Cort was
principal of Spring Creek School and Addie was teaching in Ten Sleep, and then at the Harvard School. In
the fall of 1908 Addie was at the Nowood School below Ten Sleep and in the spring of 1909 at the Mann
School in Nowood. At the time, there must have also been a shortage of teachers, since married women
were not allowed to teach and single women were low in number.
Jennie found a job right away teaching at the Luman School, as evidenced in an old photograph:
Jennie Pritchard and the Luman School in Hyattville around 1906-7
21
We discovered where Clara had taught when she first arrived in Wyoming. Her grandson, Vernon
McGary, identified the little schoolhouse that is standing alone out in a field near the Mercer ranch. He
remembered it still had a blackboard on the wall when he was last there.
Schoolhouse where Clara taught, located south of Highway 31, just west of the Mercer residences.
(photo taken in 2016)
The Wild West
In her story, Clara tells that upon the family first arriving they all stayed in a crowded hotel in Basin. That
night brought an unnerving introduction to the “Wild West.” While trying to sleep, they listened to a
great disturbance of cursing and quarreling that involved a young man in a room across the hall. His
door was shot open and he was dragged to the saloon to pay his debts from a card game. The girls
“huddled up in bed and hardly breathed until it was quiet again.” Addie’s comment to Clara and Jennie
was “Why didn’t you come home and never let us come here!” But later it seems that after the family
eventually got settled in Hyattville, everyone adjusted to their new life.
But soon thereafter, the young Pritchard teachers again found themselves in the middle of the very
“Wild West.” Their teaching jobs were located within the vicinity of the Spring Creek Raid in April of
1909 when cattlemen and sheep herders got into a violent conflict over claims to use the land for
grazing.
“On April 2, 1909, seven cowmen attacked a sheep camp near Spring Creek, just south of Ten Sleep,
Wyoming, in the southern Big Horn Basin. The raiders killed three men—roasting two in their burning
sheep wagon and shooting the third—kidnapped two others, killed sheep dogs and dozens of sheep and
destroyed thousands of dollars of personal property. It was the deadliest sheep raid in Wyoming
history.”19 Cort was certainly close to the action at that time. Presumably from a safe distance, Cort lay
19
www.wyohistory.org/essays/spring-creek-raid#sthash.XTfd0aaA.dpuf
22
on his stomach and watched.20 A number of people “claim” to have witnessed the raid, but if Cort was
actually teaching at the Spring Creek School at the time he could have been staying at the Greet ranch
where he would have definitely heard about what was going on.
Sheep wars had plagued Wyoming since the late 1890s. In total, by 1909 at least 6 men had been killed
and thousands of sheep killed. Long ago, my brother, Paul, had asked Uncle Ralph Mercer about the
Spring Creek Raid. At the time of the incident, Ralph was 34 and running the Mercer cattle ranch. He
would only say that they did what they had to do to preserve their livelihood and to protect their
homes, wives, and children.
From the start, Clara had been very aware of the lawlessness in general. She knew a lot about earlier
incidents, including murders, since when first arriving in Wyoming she had lived in Basin with the family
of a prosecuting attorney, Mr. Zaring. She wrote “the cowboys rode into town on payday with their
guns strapped on and sometimes left shooting up the town.” Evidently it frightened her a lot. She was
also afraid that Willard, who had a temper of his own, might get himself killed, especially since he might
have had some involvement in the sheep wars at the time, along with his friend Ralph Mercer.21 So,
when she married Willard McGary she insisted they leave Wyoming and move to Indiana to try farming
where his brothers had settled. They returned to Wyoming much later when the scene was safer.
Why a Hotel?
For some reason, long ago I remember asking my mother, or someone, why our great grandparents had
built the hotel in Hyattville. The answer, I thought I heard, had something to do with the railroads. I
later pondered if they had built the hotel because the railroad helped them build it, the railroad wanted
them to build it, or something like that. But that was my imagination filling in the answer, since the
railroad never came directly to Hyattville. Now I realize they meant the railroad had a lot to do with why
they came to Wyoming, bringing a great number of other people with them as well to the booming Big
Horn Basin.
Most certainly T.T. and Asa Mercer must have had conversations about how to create a livelihood in
Hyattville after the Pritchards moved there. Asa and T.T were both members of the Hyattville Booster’s
Club and Progress Association in 1910. According to the Basin Republican, it was four years after the
Pritchards arrived that T.T. decided to enlarge their house into a hotel for tourists. Wickwire’s log cabin
is located in the kitchen area, incorporated into the larger expansion that T.T built. Until then he had
been doing carpentry, a little farming, and selling honey. One wonders if Asa helped influence the
decision to build a hotel, or even helped facilitate it in some way.
20
From Mary Jane Pritchard through Cort 21
From Tim McGary and Vernon Mcgary
23
Basin Republican April 7, 1911
T. T. Pritchard will commence work on a new house shortly. Basin Republican April 21, 1911
T. T. Pritchard is remodeling and adding extensively to his residence. Basin Republican May 12, 1911
Mr. Pritchard's house is nearing completion. When finished Mr. Pritchard will have a house of thirteen rooms. Big Horn County Rustler April 19 – September 27, 1912, thirteen ads were placed: TOURISTS' HOME Are you thinking of spending a few weeks in the mountains this spring or summer? Write T. T. Pritchard, Hyattville, Wyo
“Tourists’ Home” (see sign on roof) around the 1920s
24
The following information was found at the Hyattville Community Center and has an unknown source
and date.
Thanksgiving Day 1920 on the porch of the old hotel. Top row left to right; Jennie, Addie, and Lucy
Below them are their parents T.T. and Bette Pritchard and grandchildren (except for the McGarys)
25
2. The Pritchard Family
The Pritchard lineage and pioneer spirit stretched all the way back to the original Thomas Pritchard from
England who arrived in Jamestown, one of the very first English settlements in America, in 1610. He
came perhaps as a carpenter to help build a blockhouse for John Smith. Pioneer spirit, carpentry skills,
and literacy seemed to appear often through the family history.22 These traits were all still present in the
eighth generation Thomas T. Pritchard family coming out to Wyoming as “pioneers,” T. T. as an able
carpenter, and literacy was obviously valued as his children were well educated and had teaching
positions. In addition, the Pritchard family was very musical. In West Virginia, T.T. hired a music teacher
to teach them all to play on some instrument, and Bette had a beautiful singing voice. Clara wrote “our
home became a gathering place for all music loving young folks from all over the county.”
The heritage of T.T.’s mother, Mary Polly Lowther should probably be mentioned here, too, for purposes
of genealogy. Lowther is a very old name in England. Lowthers came to Northern England from the
Normandy coast with “William the Conqueror” in 1066 and had a continuous involvement in
government for 500 years. The Lowthers first came to America in 1681 when William Penn granted
5,000 acres of land to his sister’s daughter and son, Margaret and William Lowther from England. Mary
Polly Lowther, William’s granddaughter, was Thomas Tavner Pritchard’s mother.
Bette Pritchard’s maiden name was Summers. Her Scotch-Irish ancestors came from County Cork,
Ireland, to Virginia and then West Virginia in the 1600s.
22
The Pritchard Family History by Emily Pritchard Cary
26
It is interesting to note that T.T. Pritchard’s family, as far as I know, was very fortunate to have never
lost any children as happened often in those early days. In fact, for the most part their children seemed
to be an extremely healthy group of people, with most of them living long lives. The only exception was
my grandmother, Addie, who died of throat cancer when she was 66, two weeks after I was born in
1947. Cort would have lived longer had it not been for the strong winds on a stretch of highway that
caused his fatal car accident in 1976 when he was 87. Even though T.T. and Bette didn’t make it into
their 80s, both of their mothers had.
The parents:
Thomas T. Pritchard 1849-1922 (73 years)
Bette Pritchard 1852-1928 (76 years)
The children from oldest to youngest:
Alice 1879-1961 (82 years)
Addie 1881-1947 (66 years)
Jennie 1885-1981 (96 years)
Clara 1887-1972 (85 years)
Cort 1889-1976 (87 years)
Lucy 1894-1977 (83 years)
Irl 1898-1985 (87 years)
From a 1922 Pritchard family reunion album.
Top row: Jennie, Lucy, Irl, Clara, Cort, Addie, Alice. Front row: T.T. and Bette Pritchard
27
For more than 100 years, the old hotel has been passed down through the family that began with T.T
and Bette Pritchard. Here is a list of who lived there (which may not be perfectly accurate):
1907-1928: Thomas T. and Bette Pritchard (with the whole family in the beginning)
T.T. passed away in 1922 and Bette in 1928.
1907-1961: Alice Pritchard (their daughter)
She never married and lived there until she passed away in 1961.
Cort and Irl Pritchard inherited the hotel and sold it to Lucy Pritchard Noll.
1961-1978: Lucy Pritchard Noll (another daughter of T.T. and Bette) lived there with
John Conrad Noll, her husband, until they passed away (Lucy in 1977 and John in 1978)
1985: Jo Reilly (their granddaughter) lived there with her children J.C., Aletha, and Amy
Then, J.C., her son, lived there by himself.
1985-1995: Katherine Noll Weintz (Lucy Pritchard’s daughter)
Katherine left the house around 1995 for a nursing home where she passed away in
2002. Her daughter, Jo Reilly, presently owns the hotel in 2017.
Lucy and her husband Conrad Noll with their children, John, Louise, and Kathryn in 1922
28
T.T. and Bette Pritchard
T.T. Pritchard built houses back in West Virginia, where he had been the first to build kitchen
cupboards.23 Other tidbits of information passed on by Jo Reilly about T.T. were that he kept bees and
had two horses and a buggy. He had a gold mine in the mountains. She also said whenever he needed
money he would go and hunt for gold with his friend, Jake Johnson, the eccentric hermit of the Big
Horns, about whom much local lore exists.24 Vernon McGary (Clara’s grandson) gave this story related
to gold:
“When I was about 8-9 years old I found the old saddle bags that belonged to T.T. Pritchard. They were
underneath the floorboards in the southeast corner of the attic. Inside of the saddle bags was a claim to
a place called Onion Gulch along with a piece of paper with direction how to find Onion Gulch. I showed
them to Grandma McGary. I never saw them again until George and I went horseback riding and he was
cussing the rotten leather in the saddle bags he was trying to use. He got mad and threw them away. I
asked about the claim and he claimed he had never heard of it. Since then I heard that Harry had them.”
So far, that piece of paper hasn’t been found.
T.T. Pritchard was quite the bee keeper, producing a lot of honey to sell.
23
From Evan Kennedy through Mary Jane Pritchard 24
Paintrock Tales and Bonanza Trails, p. 221-226
29
According to his obituary when he died at 73, T.T. was decidedly a striking character, frank, outspoken,
and fearless in his convictions. He was self educated, read a lot, and was very political. He and his wife
grew up together as children in the West Virginia Slab Creek community near where he was born, and
were married for 50 years. Bette was a Methodist and T.T. was a Universalist. He was a lad of twelve
when the Civil War broke out, and had many interesting stories to tell of the lawless bands that came
through that mountainous country. Newspapers record T.T. in Hyattville selling honey, raising oats and
tomatoes, being involved in civic organizations, and doing carpentry.
Bette Pritchard worked hard running the “Tourist’s Home”
Concerning my great-grandmother Bette, I had heard from my mother that she worked very hard
running the hotel and that T.T. didn’t help as much as he could have. However, it appears he kept quite
busy otherwise if you look at the many mentions of what he was doing in the local newspapers. There
were fewer mentions of Bette, but perhaps the “man about town” would get mentioned more. Clara
wrote that in Hyattville, “Mama was very homesick and unhappy the first year. But her health was
much better than in the hills and she learned to love the mountains covered with snow all year”. Also,
that she was “slow and even tempered” and “could see humor in some of the worst disasters”.
30
Following are a few details about each of T.T. and Bette’s children who moved with them from West
Virginia. Some of them lived in the hotel a short time before being married, while others lived there
longer. I’m sure much more could be added about all of them by other relatives.
Alice Pritchard
Alice Pritchard in Hyattville, and the Wickwire cabin they bought in Hyattville. Is the trunk behind her just off the train and being unpacked?
Alice was the oldest and never married. Clara recounted that back in West Virginia, “Alice rode the
fastest horse and rode wherever the horse would go”. Later in Hyattville, Alice took care of her mother,
Bette Pritchard until she died and then stayed on at the hotel until she herself passed away in 1961, long
after her parents were gone. An excerpt from “Hungry Hearts”, a book by Jeanette E. Gardiner
(Bowman Mercer’s daughter) tells about Alice…
“Alice Pritchard lived in a big old house right behind us. Mother struck up a friendship with her right
away….Her kitchen table sat next to the window looking out our direction into the yard. I could stand in
the yard and watch her as she sat at the table, brushing her long hair and drinking her tea. She was
friendly to Bebe and me, too, and often invited us to come over and have tea when mother went. She
let me stand and brush her hair, something I loved to do.… She was my friend.”
There is a story that when Alice was young, probably in West Virginia, she became sick with a very high
fever. She was put in a cold room with all the windows open. It was likely winter, since it must have
31
been the hope that the cold would bring down her fever. The story is that she was never quite the same
after that.25
My family visited Alice in the hotel when we were kids. My distant memory seems to involve being
given a few bits of hand crocheted lace from a bureau drawer. My mother mentioned in her 1957 diary
that Alice wanted to show her pictures of a trip Alice had taken to West Virginia. Alive loved her many
cats. The newspapers reported about her being secretary of the Epworth League and helping to provide
music in the church. She taught Sunday school and was a true bible student.26
Addie Pritchard
Addie was the next oldest, the grandmother I never met. She started teaching before she left West
Virginia. Clara remembered that Addie square danced as well as anyone and knew all the steps.
Immediately upon arriving in Hyattville, she had teaching jobs. Soon this led to meeting a handsome
young teacher named Robert E. Kennedy, who also taught at a Hyattville School. The newspapers
seemed to mention and praise her often. After Addie and Robert E. Kennedy were married at the
Pritchard home in 1910, they went off to Purdue University where Robert got an engineering degree and
Marguerite, my mother, was born. When they came back to Wyoming, their second child, Evan, was
born. They lived in various towns around the Big Horn Basin where Robert worked as an engineer on
irrigation projects. They took in Robert’s half brother and sister, (Roger and Winifred Kennedy), after a
tragic 6 months for the rest of Robert’s father’s new family. In 1917 Robert’s father died of a stroke;
another half sister, five year old Charlotte, drowned in an irrigation ditch; and their mother died after
jumping from a wagon with run-away horses. Robert and Addie also took in a McGary child, Ivan, for a
while in the 1920s when Clara and Willard had many children and needed help. Robert and Addie
25
From Mary Jane Pritchard 26
From Clara’s story
32
eventually ended up in Denver. My mother remembered Addie as serious and hard working, very good
at sewing, and that she sang hymns while ironing with the words “Are ye able, said the master, to be
crucified with me?” and “O lift me up on higher ground.” Basin Republican September 2, 1910
KENNEDY-PRITCHARD WEDDING Robert E. Kennedy and Miss Addie Pritchard were married at the residence of the bride last Sunday at noon in the presence of immediate friends and the family. The ceremony was performed by the father of the groom, Rev. F. D. Kennedy. The happy and popular couple will reside at the home of T. T. Pritchard the father of the bride, and then go to Chicago where they will reside. Thus ends - or rather begins in fact - the pretty romance of two young school teachers who in teaching the youth of the county were in turn taught the sweetest lesson of life, that of love. Mr. Kennedy taught at Hyattville on the east side of the river and Miss Pritchard at Nowood. Their dream has been realized and the Republican wafts its best wishes.
Wedding of Addie Pritchard and Robert E. Kennedy, 1910, taken probably in the back yard of the hotel.
Left to right: Willard E. McGary, Virginia McGary (the first grandchild), Clara (Pritchard) McGary, Robert Kennedy and Addie
(Pritchard) Kennedy, Ralph Mercer and Jennie (Pritchard) Mercer
33
Jennie Pritchard
Jennie arrived in Hyattville with Clara in 1906, stayed with the William Kirkpatricks, and was soon
teaching at nearby schools. All the papers reported on her 1909 wedding to Ralph Mercer, an
“estimable young man in every regard.” They were married at the Pritchard home, and another article
reports that afterward “a large number of young people assembled in the evening at the Mercer home,
where they gave them a serenading and were liberally treated to apples, candy, cigars, etc., and went
home content.”
Big Horn County Rustler March 19, 1909 On Sunday Mr. R. D. Mercer and Miss Jennie Pritchard, both of Hyattville, were married at the home of the bride's parents. The wedding was a quiet affair, being attended only by relatives and a few near friends. The bride has lived in Hyattville for about three years and has taught school in the vicinity. She is highly esteemed by all who know her. The groom is an earnest young ranch and stockman who has done well in the time he has lived in our vicinity. Mr. and Mrs. Lou Webb of Johnson County came to attend the wedding of the latter's brother. Mr. R. D. Mercer, Sunday.
Clara thought that T.T. was partial to Jennie because “she was very much like his Mama…very slow and
even tempered”. The Hyattville book mentions Jennie several times. There is a story about her
difficulty in tactfully using the word “outhouse” at a church meeting, yet other times she was
remembered as having lots of tough vim and vigor. She was a fair minded member of the school board,
and a very good cook. Ralph and Jennie had three children, Donald, Elizabeth, and Anita. Donald went
on to run the Mercer ranch, Anita lived near the ranch and never married, while Elizabeth had died at
age 6 of diphtheria in 1921. My uncle Evan Kennedy recounted that her death was very hard on Ralph
and Jennie. He said Uncle Ralph had a specialist flown in from Chicago and gave him a check with the
amount blank. Evan never knew what was written there. Jo Reilly told in me that Jennie gave her a
wooden box with a doll named “Sunshine” in it that had been Elizabeth’s.
34
Clara Pritchard
Clara was one of the first to arrive in Wyoming to be a teacher, and the one who was courted by a West
Virginia boy, Willard E. McGary. She seemed to have had a wonderful childhood in West Virginia, even
though in her written story, she describes herself as a rambunctious young girl who ran away at eight
and lived for a time with relatives across the creek. Clara and Addie once got in trouble with their
mother because they went off to an all night dance with Willard.… They had permission to go to the all
night party, but not to a “dance.” But in those days for the most part “boyfriends and young people had
much respect for each other and their parents.” Clara had blue eyes, red hair and wrote she “learned
early in life to bury her temper behind a sense of humor which she got from her Mama.” When Willard
had asked for Clara’s hand in marriage, T.T. asked him if he was sure, since Clara had a bad temper. But
Willard had known Clara well for five years and was willing to take a chance. They had met when
Willard was 15. He was the nephew of a share cropper doing the plowing for T.T. Then, later, Clara had
lived with Willard’s family when she had her first teaching job near Harrisville, WV.
Clara and Willard lived in Indiana from 1907 to 1920. In 1922 they lived in Basin and attended a
Pritchard reunion with seven of their children. They went on to have thirteen children total. Ten
survived to adulthood, eight boys and two girls. In the 1920s and during the depression, it was
financially hard for them, as it was for everyone. Sometimes children were farmed out to other families.
One of their boys, Ivan, lived with my mother’s family for awhile, and became fast friends with my
mother’s brother, Evan. My mother remembered Clara’s family lived in Worland, and also in Powell,
and that Clara made delicious chocolate cake and played ragtime piano. Four of their boys went to the
Second World War, and all came back.
From the 1922 Pritchard family reunion album.
35
Scipio Cortez (Cort) Pritchard
Cort and Irl Pritchard
Cort was named after explorers.27 Certainly Cortez was known for exploring Mexico, defeating the
Aztecs, and claiming Mexico for Spain. Scipio Africanus was a Roman General who defeated Hannibal.
These were lofty names for a little boy! Descriptions of Cort can be gleaned from newspaper clippings,
and from his son and wife, William and Mary Jane Pritchard. Cort first appears in the Basin Republican,
listing him as attending a “Successful Teachers Institute” in 1907, and again in 1908. In April of 1908 he
was the principal and teacher at the Spring Creek School near where he witnessed the Spring Creek Raid
a year later. He must have been a dashing young man, since in 1908 a newspaper warns ladies to
beware when Cort was in town. After 1910 he shows up often as a good singer, and played many
different musical instruments. Other newspaper reports tell that he got hit on the head when helping to
lay stone foundation for the church. He once had a runaway horse …”He tore down about a half a mile
of wire fence and broke up a hayrack. Outside of a little scare Cort is still on deck with his grin.” He
served as postmaster in Hyattville from 1914 to 1916. Then in 1918 he left for WW I. It does not seem
he saw action. He served in the Mechanics Corps as he was an excellent mechanic. During the war Cort
was good at boxing too, and never lost a bout.28 Cort stayed in Hyattville and bought a ranch in 1925, a
location that included “Pritchard Grove” where the Old Timer’s Picnic was held every year. He married
27
From Mary Jane Pritchard 28
From Frank Teeples through Mary Jane Pritchard
36
Ida Cook in 1935 and they had four boys, James, Thomas, John, and William, and a step son, Frank
Teeples. William, the last and youngest Pritchard grandchild, was born in 1948 when Cort was 59½.
Later in life Cort helped take care of his sister Jennie after Ralph died, until Cort’s wind-related car
accident in his Mustang. Just before he died he asked Mary Jane to make sure the family history he had
been working on was continued and not lost.
Lucy Pritchard
At Lucy’s place, 1920. Jennie, Addie, and Lucy with all their children.
Lucy married Conrad Noll in 1913 and had three children, Kathryn, John, and Louise. Lucy lived in or
near Hyattville her whole life except for briefly when Conrad was a miner in Gebo before the miners
went on strike. They lived down on the Nowood for a while, and then Spring Creek. Lucy and Conrad
then lived in the old hotel after Alice died. My mother remarked about Lucy’s reddish hair, which did
not turn grey when she was older, and knew Conrad Noll as “Uncle Con.” One newspaper article
indicates she was a good horseback rider, a trait that must have passed down to her granddaughter, Jo
Reilly, who became a trick horseback rider.
Basin Republican September 26, 1913
NOLL-PRITCHARD John C. Noll and Miss Lucy Pritchard of Hyattville came down on Wednesday and secured a marriage license from County Clerk Lou Blakesley. They were married by the Rev. S. W. Albone
37
at the parsonage that evening. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T. T. Pritchard of Hyattville, and quite well known m the upper country. The groom is a young man of exemplary habits and is engaged in ranching. Their many friends will wish them much happiness. From the Ten Sleep Cemetery records:
Memories added by someone to the Ten Sleep Cemetery records: “I first became acquainted with Lucy
Noll when it was pointed out to me who she was (about 1940). She appeared to be a strong, capable
woman always attired in denim or some other sturdy cloth as if she worked mainly outside. She wore
her medium brown hair (shot with some ash blonde) in a straight bob. I understood then that she
played the piano so I imagine that’s what she did for the Paintrock Opera House. Lucy was never overly
social, but she was not abrasive in any way. She and Con had three handsome children named above.
FB”
38
Irl Pritchard
Irl joined the army and saw service in France during WW l Irl, the youngest, married Thelma Garard. They lived in Sheridan and never had children.29 Irl was
spelled that way by his mother because she wanted it to refer to Ireland so that Irish descent would not
be forgotten.30 Irl stayed with my mother’s family in Worland when he went to high school there. He
was quite the athlete, in three legged races, basketball in high school, and baseball in college. Entries in
the newspaper tell of him going fishing, finding honey in the rocks of a cliff south of town, acting in
plays, and going off to France during WW I in 1918, where he served in the Field Artillery. After that he
attended the State University in Laramie and majored in history. Newspapers tell about a horse and
carriage accident, and also reprinted letters he wrote home during the war. Later, Irl ran for a senate
seat, and also worked for the United States Employment Service. The first year Japanese were interned
at Heart Mountain in Powell during WW II, he tried to persuade authorities to give them jobs, since
workers were badly needed for picking sugar beets while so many men were off to war. “Although the
use of school children, women, and business men proved successful at bringing in the 1942 harvest, it
was only to be an emergency measure. Local authorities sought more satisfactory and permanent
solutions for the labor shortage….Irl Pritchard, manager of the United States Employment Service at
Sheridan, wrote to relocation authorities at Cody requesting Japanese evacuees from the West Coast.
Government regulations for their transport impeded their utilization by Wyoming growers at this
time.”31
30
Mary Jane Pritchard 31
https://archive.org/stream/annalsofwyom54121982wyom/annalsofwyom54121982wyom_djvu.txt
39
Kathryn Noll Weintz
Kathryn as a girl in Gebo, Wyoming, 1924
A grandchild, Kathryn, is included here because she was the last in the line of Pritchards to live in the
hotel. She was the daughter of John Conrad and Lucy (Pritchard) Noll. In 1934 she married John Mercer
Weintz and their home was on the Paint Rock Creek near Hyattville. She was the bookkeeper and co-
owner in their stock contracting business, Weintz Rodeo Productions. They contracted the stock for
RCA rodeos in the Montana towns of Hardin and Livingston, in Gordon, Nebraska and the Wyoming
towns of Cody, Thermopolis, Basin, Casper and Sheridan. They trailed the bucking bulls and horses to
the rodeos until trucking became an option. She was an active member of Ten Sleep VFW. She served
as secretary on the Hyattville Water Board. She enjoyed playing bridge, was an avid gardener, and was a
well read and political person. She avidly followed newspapers and often sent letters to the editor on
issues she believed in. If something did not sound right for the community, she said so. Moving into the
hotel around 1979, Kathryn left the house around 1995 and passed away in 2002. She cared very much
about family history and had worked with Cort in compiling Pritchard information to pass along. Her
daughter, Jo Reilly, currently owns the old hotel.
40
1914 on the porch of the hotel…my mother with a choke-hold on her cousin, Kathryn,
who survived and was eventually the last person to live in the hotel.
3. Conclusion
This story is written for Pritchard descendants, some of them too young to care presently, but who may
awaken to their ancestry when they become older as I have. It is also written for anyone interested in
Hyattville history, including those who wonder about the old house, and for anyone interested in Ritchie
County, West Virginia history as well. Discovering more about the lives of past ancestors feels to me like
reading a fantasy in a story book, an alternate reality to escape into. Yet, the characters were real
people and actually relatives. The more that is learned about these almost forgotten people, the more
they come back to life. A century of time can contain memory within the touch of those still living. It is
important to remember those who went before us, before we lose our own memories one by one, and
we ourselves are lost to eternity.
Any contributions concerning accuracy or additional information are welcome.
Linda Huey and David Dronsick
1530 Randolph Road
Alfred Station, NY 14803
www.lindahuey.com
607-587-9877
