Maggie Hall - Molly 'B Dam

Maggie Hall, aka Molly 'B Dam.

December 26, 1853 - January 17, 1888

 

Molly 'B Dam

 

For an Irish girl stepping off the boat in New York in 1873 there weren’t a lot of options. Across the sea it may have been billed as the Land of Opportunity and from afar maybe that’s how it appeared, but the truth of the matter is Maggie Hall would almost certainly have had a far less trying life if she’d stayed in Dublin and married a nice local lad. There’s every reason to believe that had she stayed she could have enjoyed a comfortable life there, but of course such speculation is neither here nor there; If she’d stayed her story would never have made its way into history and the legendary Molly B’Dam would have never existed at all.

 

Molly was born as Maggie Hall in Dublin, Ireland on December 26, 1853. Her father was an English Protestant and her mother was Irish Catholic. Both very well educated. She had an above average home with a good education. She was a lively out-going child, and made friends easily. She grew into a beautiful young woman with golden blonde hair, blue eyes and a contagious laugh. She was about five feet six inches tall. She had a beautiful figure that was desired by men and admired by women. Her parents were well-off enough to provide her with a decent education, and she was by all acounts whip-smart and possessed of boundless enthusiasm. She was not reputed to be a drinker, but she could take her wiskey straight. She had plenty of proposals of marriage but eluded all of them and left to travel to America at the age of 20. She felt like America would be the place to fulfil her dreams. Her mother and father tried to talk her out of it but she had made up her mind. As she neared New York she was very excited and overwhelmed, she knew it was hers to conquer, but she was mistaken. New York was a very cruel city and though she had a good education, spoke good English with just a hint of an Irish brouge, she still could not find employment.

 

Successive waves of immigration filled the boroughs of New York with great teeming throngs from the Isles as well as the continent, and the overwhelming majority of the newcomers shared a common experience; Namely, that the gold-paved avenues in the Land of Opportunity, tales of which had drawn them there from the four corners, were in short supply in New York City. What they found instead was a forbidding new home that treated its newest arrivals with a mix of xenophobic suspicion and open contempt and relegated them to only the most menial of positions. The Irish were commonly regarded as sub-human and shunted into squalid immigrant ghettoes. So it’s likely that the relentlessly optimistic adventurer Maggie Hall anticipated a more auspicious welcome than she in fact received. But even so she was prepared to adapt to her new circumstances --after all, brains, looks and talent can take a girl far. Or so it is often said. In her case they took her to a place where countless other bright, talented young women had preceded her: Serving drinks in a crowded barroom. Making the rounds in a rough Manhattan drinking establishment she nightly received marriage proposals from her inebriated customers which she shrugged off with charm and aplomb, as well as innumerable less seemly proposals which received a noticeably chillier reception. But when one night a handsome upper class gentleman by the name of Burdan walked into her barroom and took an immediate shine to her, she was smitten.

 

Burdan had all the makings of a Prince Charming, a storybook ending to Maggie’s bold sojourn to the New World to seek her fortune, and after three meetings he proposed and Maggie said yes. All her dreams fulfilled! Practically fresh off the boat and Maggie had married her way into the upper classes. A lifetime of love and moneyed contentment beckoned. The sky burst forth with sunbeams and rainbows as a host of adorable pink-cheeked cherubs unfurled a bright red banner emblazoned with "And they lived happily ever after".

 

However when for some reason her husband insisted on a simple civil ceremony performed by a justice of the peace, Maggie was disappointed. She had always pictured a big, grand wedding held in a Catholic church, but even so her disappointment did not dim her love for the man who had rescued her from a life of drudgery serving ale to drunken laborers. When her husband requested she change her name from the conspicously Irish Maggie to the more respectable Molly she did so without complaint. When he shortly thereafter explained that in order for him to continue receiving a regular allowance from Father it would be necessary to keep their marriage a secret, she began to suspect that something might be amiss with her newly-minted marriage, but still she resolved to follow the Church’s dictates and remain obedient to her husband’s wishes, entrusting her fate to him and to Providence. And when it became clear that Burdan had no intention of changing his habit of drinking and gambling late into the night and wee hours of the morning she didn’t question. After all, the wealthy have odd ways, and what wife doesn't put up with some annoying behavior?

 

A few months later his parents discovered their son’s secret marriage to an Irish barmaid and summarily cut him off. This was to be the first signal of the troubles that lay in store for Maggie Hall. In spite of the fact that he was no longer technically rich Burdan showed no signs of slackening his spendthrift ways, and within a few months he had run up some large gambling debts and was in imminent danger of having his legs broken by large, unfriendly men. Having never worked a day in his life, Burdan began casting around for alternative sources of income, and after several of his wealthy poker buddies to whom he was indebted began to comment with growing insistency on how appealing they found his blonde, buxom wife the solution came to him as if in a vision. When at last he shared his vision with his young wife it may well be that tears were shed, but if so then tears did not dissuade him.

 

And here Maggie found herself in a severe quandary, because being a devout Catholic it was her sworn duty to defer to her husband’s judgment in all matters, yet it was also clear that what he was asking of her constituted a grave sin within her faith. Still, she eventually relented and upon so doing her husband began a new career as her pimp. She did as she was told but her heart was broken. He still had many wealthy friends and his young wife was very lovely, so it proved to be a lucrative undertaking and Burdan was able to continue unabated in two of his favorite pastimes: Playing cards and walking without crutches.

 

Like many a troubled soul before her Maggie sought solace and guidance in the arms of the church, but upon hearing her tale of woe her shocked confessor delivered her an ultimatum: There could be no forgiveness for a sin as grievous as this, and she must discontinue her whoring and repent of it at once or face excommunication. But of course divorce was also not an option and there was that matter of the wife’s obedience to the husband, who was in all matters decreed by God to be the head of the household. So to the balance of her dilemma she could now add the disposition of her immortal soul. And yet there didn’t seem to be any way out. Without any means of escaping or ameliorating the situation she returned to her husband and continued to accede to his wishes, and on her next trip to the confessional she found herself excommunicated from the Church.

 

She believed herself to be dammed forever so she continued her life as before. At the age of 24 she left her husband and went to the cities, mining camps and cow towns of the West. She went to San Francisco then to Oregon. She was seen in Chicago, Virginia City, Nevada, and the Dakotas. She was very expensive and had an expensive wardrobe which consisted of furs and nice jewelry. She still was very restless although she was quite successful. In 1884 she went to the Idaho Territory. Molly had gotten off the train at Thompson falls, Montana where she bought a strong horse and joined a pack train on its way to Idaho.

 

It was the winter of 1884, and the gold-rush town of Murray, Idaho was already abuzz with talk of Molly Burdan before she had even set foot there. Travelers from Thompson Falls told of how they had been caught in a blizzard while crossing Thompson’s Pass and a woman and her child had fallen behind the pack train. A seemingly well-to-do lady traveling alone had refused to leave them, sending the others on their way while she turned her horse around and went back to help the stragglers weather the storm. They’d spent the night up there and the speculation in town was that they'd probably frozen to death out on the trail, so when the three of them arrived the next day they were greeted by a cheering crowd.

 

In that crowd of well-wishers and looky-lous was one Phil O’Rourke, who stepped forward and asked the striking newcomer her name. Whether it was a genuine misinterpretation of her Irish brogue or the result of his own native mischievous wit, O’Rourke heard "Molly Burdan" as "Molly B’Dam" and that was the name that stuck, just as the friendship between the two of them would throughout the rest of their lives. Of course, one reason that the name seemed so apropos to the residents of Murray was that no sooner had Molly arrived to find herself unanimously declared an Angel of Mercy for her heroic rescue of a helpless mother and child (and subsequent insistence on paying for their food and lodging) than she made her purpose in town clear by demanding to be shown to "Cabin Number One", which in frontier parlance meant the whorehouse. She intended to be the madam at the finest brothel in Murray.

 

A canny businesswoman who had learned the tricks of the high-end trade in the seven years that had passed since leaving her good-for-nothing husband in New York, Molly had set out for Murray from San Francisco after hearing of the gold strike there, reasoning like many other savvy entrepreneurs that the real money in any gold rush wasn't to be found in the ground but in the pockets of the miners who dug the gold out of the ground. She had no compunctions about charging the exorbitant prices commanded by the top-shelf fancyhouses, and yet unlike most of her contemporaries was known to treat her employees fairly and, it must be said, with a felicity bordering on the maternal. This impression was solidified by her attitude towards her clientele; For though she was more than willing to relieve a newly-flush miner of his last dollar for a single night of pleasure in Molly B’Dam’s, she had also been known to drop everything in order to take care of one of "her boys" who had fallen ill, and was reputed on more than one occasion to have hiked through winter snow just to bring soup to some poor unfortunate who had taken sick.

 

She was well known for being helpful and taking care of those who were less fortunate. In 1886 a stranger arrived in Murray burning with a fever. He drove his horse up the the saloon, drank a pint of whiskey and dropped dead. He had smallpox and the whole town was at risk. As many men became sick, Molly, her girls and Phil worked tiressly to help nurse them. She rarely ate and didn't even take time to change her clothing. As time went on there were less and less patients and less and less trips to the cemetery. But Molly would never be the same. In October of 1887 she became weary and listless and soon developed a constant fever and hacking cough. O'Rourke was the first to notice her tiredness and weight loss. By November she had become bed-ridden with a constant fever and a cough that never stopped. The doctor diagnosed her with Comsumption, a disease with no cure. Molly began to worsen and with O'Rourke at her bedside, early on the morning of January 17, 1888 Molly b' Dam was gone.

 

The Protestant Ministers who had been visiting her daily asked the Catholic Priest to give her absolution. When he refused, they made the funeral arrangements. Her funeral was at three o'clock in the afternoon on January 19th, and it was said to be a mild day for January in the northwest. On that day every blind was closed, the miners didn't work and all the saloons closed their doors. Thousands of people came to pay their respects to the woman that had brought gaity and love to their community.

 

Molly B’Dam was a woman of many such contradictions: Refined and educated, she could on occasion be heard quoting freely from Shakespeare and Milton, but she was far more widely known for her habit of entertaining paying customers with her "Big Clean Up" baths she used to hold on the occasions when the miners got paid. According to the story, she would drag a bathtub out into the alley behind The House, fill it with water, and when the miners had thrown in enough coins to cover the bottom, she'd disrobe and into the tub would go the curvacious Molly. She'd entertain with Shakesperian quotes, and ribald jokes and, if the price was right, she'd let a few of the boys scrub her back!

 

But it was her actions in the face of that smallpox epidemic in 1886 that cemented her Angel of Mercy reputation. For while a frightened populace reacted by trying to shutter themselves indoors as far as possible from the afflicted, Molly B’Dam took the opposite tack in characteristic fashion, excoriating the townsfolk to show some backbone in the face of adversity and successfully rallying the town’s women to care for the sick.* By converting her place of business to an impromptu infirmary, and overseeing treatment and recovery efforts for the whole town, and by the time the epidemic had run its course her role as Murray’s patron saint was all but secure. Her heroism passed into the realm of history and legend two years later with her death from complications from tuberculosis.

 

Note - I compiled the above story from information in Anne Seagraves book, and information I found in several web pages and blogs on the internet.

 

Done