First of all, now that we returned to Standard Time, it perks me up. I am a morning person, so I no longer have at rise dark thirty.

Secondly, I was appalled that when I checked the future post on my end did not have anything scheduled for today. Mentally, I thought I had composed it, but in actuality, to my surprise, it was not there.

One of my ideas, why assorting through everything in the move, I thought might do a weekly feature, like “Portraits of the Past.” One of them is W.E.H. Williams, a former owner of the Pioneer Saloon in the 1890s and early 1900s. Below, I republished an article about his wife,  Mary Heap Williams, as an introduction, and hopefully, I can retrieve the file about Williams in the meantime. For those interested  am working on portraits of photographer, Mirl Simmons and rancher John T. Long.

Now back to  Williams Susanville’s best known madam of the late 1800s was Mary Heap Williams.  She was the daughter of George and Mary Heap, pioneer members of the local Catholic community. She learned her survival instincts early in life, as her father died when she was six and her mother when she was seventeen. However, her parents left her a very profitable business, The Pioneer. How quaint, a bar business and brothel combined into one!

Mary’s choice in men was not the best. She first married Frank Haughton, and got rid him. She then turned around married W.E.H. Williams, and tired of him, and they divorced in 1907. At least her husbands did operate the bar.

After Mary disposed of husband two, things were improving when tragedy struck. On November 5, 1908, Mary and her young son, George Williams boarded the stage headed to Prattville. As the stage was going down the grade at Devil’s Corral, the driver, George Long, had a run-away coach on his hands, as the brake leaver had broken. Long yelled at the passengers to jump. Mary did and died from the results. When she landed she, fractured her skull and died from hemorrhage at the base of the cranium. The three other passengers and the driver escaped without injuries.

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