Life Story: Mary "Mollie" Dorsey Sanford (ca. 1838 - 1915)

Mary Dorsey was born December 17, 1838, in Rising Sun, Indiana. Her parents called her Mollie, and she used that name for the rest of her life. She was the eldest of the eight children of carpenter William Denton Dorsey and his wife, Lois. 

When Mollie was young, her family moved to the city of Indianapolis, where she received a quality education at the school run by her grandfather. But she was also expected to assist her mother with the care of her seven siblings. At home, Mollie learned to cook, clean, do laundry, and complete the dozens of other tasks necessary to keep a large family healthy and happy. 

When Mollie was 18 years old, her father could no longer make enough money to support his family in Indianapolis. Mollie’s uncles had recently moved to the newly formed Nebraska Territory. They wrote that there were plenty of opportunities for a hard-working man there, so Mollie’s father decided to become a homesteader. He planned to move his whole family to the Nebraska Territory, claim a piece of land, and turn it into a successful farm. While packing and saying her final goodbyes, Mollie started a journal so she could record all her experiences. In her opening entry, she shared that she was equally excited for the adventure ahead and sad to leave all her friends behind. She wrote that her journal would soon become her best friend, the only place where she could share her real feelings without judgment. 

On March 27, 1857, the Dorsey family started west. They took a train to St. Louis, Missouri, where Mollie and her mother spent a few days shopping for all the supplies they might need in their new home. Then they boarded a steamboat for a 10-day ride along the Missouri River to Nebraska City. 

For settlers, Nebraska City was the gateway to the lands that white settlers hoped to claim. For Mollie, the city was a shocking introduction to the rough new life she was starting. The buildings were all small and made of wood. There were many saloons and hotels where guests could drink and play cards every day of the week. Mollie quickly learned that the shortage of women in the territory made her a prized commodity. Mollie’s first marriage proposal came within weeks of her arrival, and many others followed.

In June 1857, the family moved 30 miles from Nebraska City to the land Mollie’s father bought on the banks of the Little Nemaha River. Their new home was a small cabin newly built by Mollie’s father, and there were only a handful of mostly single male neighbors. Mollie’s father spent most of his time working as a carpenter in Nebraska City, and her mother was overwhelmed by the task of raising her large family without the social supports she had depended on back home. Mollie became the unofficial head of her household. She taught herself how to milk a cow, make a meal in an outdoor kitchen, grow her own vegetables, and kill a rattlesnake. She brought in extra money by providing food and overnight boarding for other settlers traveling deeper into Nebraska Territory. Mollie enjoyed the freedom from social expectations that living away from established white settlements offered. But she also suffered from loneliness. As she had once predicted, her journal became her primary source of comfort during her first year as a homesteader.

The homestead was not as profitable as Mollie’s father hoped, so in May 1858, Mollie took a job as a seamstress in Nebraska City. The job allowed her to support her family, but it also made it easier for her to spend time with Byron Sanford, the man she intended to marry. Mollie and Byron wanted to be sure they had a solid financial foundation before they began their life together, so they waited three years before getting married. In the meantime, Mollie split her time between helping out on the homestead and working odd jobs in Nebraska City.

Mollie married Byron in February 1860. It was less than three years since Mollie and her family had first arrived in Nebraska, but already the area was so settled that Byron could not find a good piece of land he could afford. Byron learned of a gold rush taking place at Pike’s Peak in Colorado, so in April, Mollie and Byron started an eight week, 700-mile journey to Denver. For the second time in her life, Mollie was leaving behind nearly everyone she knew in search of a better life. 

Mollie and Byron traveled to Denver by covered wagon. The journey was difficult and dangerous compared to the steamship trip Mollie had taken to Nebraska. One morning, Mollie drove her smaller wagon out ahead of the larger train and was surrounded by Indigenous warriors. Like most young white Americans, Mollie was raised to believe that Indigenous people were violent savages who would hurt any white person they met. Terrified, she gave the warriors all the sugar and baked goods in her wagon, and they left when they heard the larger wagon train approaching. After this encounter, Mollie never again wandered away from the larger group.

Mollie and Byron made it to Denver by the end of June, but life in Colorado did not meet their expectations. Byron struggled to find work, and the brand-new city was wild, with frequent saloon fights and murders. One evening, Mollie was attacked in her own home and had to defend herself with a broom. Within a month, the couple moved to a gold-mining camp near Boulder. Byron worked as a blacksmith, and Mollie cooked for 20 miners. Mollie struggled with being the only woman at the camp, and they lasted only a few weeks before moving to a different camp higher in the mountains. In her journal, Mollie confided that she was unbearably homesick, because she had not received any letters from home since her move. 

Byron tried his hand at mining, and he and Mollie moved around the Denver area frequently looking for their next job and a safe place to live. During this time, Mollie gave birth to her first baby, but it did not survive. The loss was devastating for Mollie, but she found comfort in the support of other settler women who understood what she was experiencing.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Byron joined the Union Army as a lieutenant. Mollie was given a home with the officers’ wives. Unfortunately, the army did not pay its soldiers in cash, so they were not able to save much money during his service. Mollie gave birth to a little boy she named Albert in 1863, on the same day Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation. 

During the Civil War, life in Colorado grew increasingly dangerous. The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes both used the chaos of the war to try to drive white settlers off their lands. In spite of the dangers, Byron bought a ranch 10 miles outside of Denver. Mollie spent the spring of 1865 setting up her home in a small cabin. She planted a garden and started raising chickens. But in July, a swarm of locusts descended on the ranch, wiping out her garden and the crops Byron had planted to get them through the winter. Mollie and Byron had to abandon their ranch and move back to Denver. Once again, they were on the hunt for a new opportunity.

Byron soon found a job with the U.S. Mint, and in December, Mollie gave birth to a daughter she named Dora. On January 15, 1866, she wrote one last entry to announce she was giving up journaling to focus on her duties as a wife and mother. She reflected on the hardship and adventure she had endured since she first started writing in 1857 and shared that she was hopeful her life would be more settled in the years ahead. Her final entry proved to be prophetic. Byron worked for the mint for 40 years. His success allowed Mollie and her children to thrive in Denver while the once wild western city grew settled around them. Mollie passed away on February 6, 1915. Today, her journal is considered an outstanding source of information about the experiences of white settler women.

• Arapaho: The Indigenous tribe that originally inhabited the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. Today, there are Arapaho communities located in Wyoming and Oklahoma.
• blacksmith: A person who makes and repairs iron tools.
• Cheyenne: The Indigenous tribe that originally inhabited the Northern Great Plains. Today, there are Cheyenne communities located in Minnesota and Oklahoma.
• Civil War: U.S. war from 1861 to 1865 in which the Northern and Southern states fought over the question of whether the practice of slavery should continue in the U.S.  
• Emancipation Proclamation: Directive issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It freed all enslaved people in Confederate territories.
• gold rush: When many people quickly move to a new place where gold has been discovered. 
• homestead: An area of wild land that a person develops into a functioning farm or ranch. 
• homesteader: A person who lives and works on a homestead.
• locust: A large grasshopper that travels in swarms. A swarm of locusts can eat all the crops from a field in hours.
• saloon: Bar.
• seamstress: A woman who sews for a living.
• U.S. Mint: The part of the Department of the Treasury responsible for making coins.