Individual Details

The following story about Mary Cull is taken from Rena Lynn Moore's work. Susan Slade Grosl's research from "Pioneering in the Shadow of Cahto Mountain" by Kate Mayo simply says that "Mary Cull left New York by boat on a trip to the west coast with a group of women who wanted to make a home for themselves in the west." However, Susan's grandmother, Lucille Mildred Voigts nee Lovejoy, told the "Monkey Story" about Mary Cull and her Niece Ellen many times to Susan as she grew up.

"Mary Cull, a tiny bright blue eyed, red haired Irish colleen, was born in New York in 1847, the youngest of 18 children, all of whom died in childhood except Mary and three brothers. Mary's mother also died when she was very young. At the time, Mary's oldest brother Jim was a successful attorney who lived in a large house with a socialite wife who entertained extensively. Another brother named David was a widower with a girl named Ellen, a little younger than Mary. David and his father Michael decided to go west to the goldfields after their wives died, and they left their two small daughters in the care of Jim Cull and his socialite wife. It was an unfortunate move for the children, who were given the "poor relation" treatment by their aunt. The girls were not allowed to eat with the family but were relegated to the kitchen where they were also expected to work all day as scullery maids.
Feisty young Mary was sure that life had a great deal more to offer, and at night when she and Ellen fell exhausted into their beds she would dream aloud of plans to run away, to go west and find their fathers. At long last, the girls made careful, final plans. They had a small amount of money between them, possibly money which had been left to them by their fathers, and to this was added the sparse wages paid to them by their aunt, every cent of which was saved until they had enough to purchase two train tickets to New Orleans.
On the date selected for their departure, each girl donned her old everyday dress over her one good Sunday dress, and all other possessions of the pair were packed into the one bag they had between them. That evening, their aunt and uncle had a large group of dinner guests. Just as the guests filed into the dining room, Mary opened the parlor cage which held Uncle Jim's pair of pet monkeys and in the resulting pandemonium the two girls slipped out of the house and ran all the way to the railroad station just in time to catch their train. They were 14 and 16 years old.
At New Orleans, they shipped out on a boat to the Isthmus of Panama, where they joined a mule train across country through the dense tropical jungle of Panama, long before the canal was built. After the weeks long journey, during which several members of the party died, they reached the Pacific Ocean where they found berth on a four masted schooner heading up the coast to San Francisco. There was a big storm at sea during the voyage, and in later years Mary would tell her grandchildren of the terror she and Ellen experienced when the ship's crew locked them in their cabin without food for three days, during which time the ship rolled so heavily the tips of the masts dipped into the ocean.
No member of the family living knows the story of the next couple of years for the two young girls. They arrived in San Francisco and eventually made their way to Knight's Landing where Mary went to work as a waitress. Evidently, the girls parted there - Ellen perhaps found her father and joined him, but Mary never found her father, and made her own way, traveling from town to town, taking whatever job she could find.
Then one day, while working as a waitress, (some say she was in San Jose ) she ran into an old friend from home, a young man named Ben Lockhart who was working on his father's schooner which had put into the port of San Francisco. When the schooner sailed out, Ben remained behind and in 1869 he and Mary were married." They settled in Sacramento until 1880.
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Notes for MARY LUCRETIA CULL:
Grandmother Lucille Mildred Voigts nee Lovejoy told this version of the story about Mary Cull and her Niece Ellen:

When Mary was about fifteen or sixteen years old and Ellen was thirteen or fourteen, their fathers decided to go to California and try to seek their fortunes. Michaels wife Mary had died, as had David, his sons, wife. They left their daughters in the care of the elder brother James and his wife. James is said to have been an attorney in New York. After a while the girls decided to run away, due in part to the fact that James wife treated them like servants instead of nieces. The girls saved all their money and waited for a day when there was going to be a big party at the house. After the guests arrived, the girls let two pet monkeys loose in the parlor. During the uproar they slipped out of the house, all they had is their good clothes on under their work clothes and what they could carry. They took a train to New Orleans, from there a boat to Panama, crossed the isthmus on mule back, and another ship to San Francisco. After hitting California the girls apparently looked for their fathers. Somewhere along the line they were separated, with Mary settling in San Jose, where she met an old friend from New Rochelle, New York, Benjamin Franklin Lockhart.

Birth	12 May 1847	New Rochelle, Westchester, New York, United States
Marriage	1869	California, United States - Benjamin Franklin (Pomeroy) Lockhart
Census (family)	1880	Sacramento, California, United States - Benjamin Franklin (Pomeroy) Lockhart
Census (family)	1 Jun 1900	Long Valley Township, Mendocino, California, United States - Benjamin Franklin (Pomeroy) Lockhart
Census	1910	Eureka, Humboldt, California, United States
Death	13 Jan 1920	Dauphiny Creek, Larabee, Humboldt, California, United States
Burial	15 Jan 1920	Ocean View Cemetery, Eureka, Humboldt, California, United States

Spouse	Benjamin Franklin (Pomeroy) Lockhart (1843 - 1929)
Child	Joseph Albert Lockhart (1870 - 1935)
Child	Laura Ellen Lockhart (1871 - 1956)
Child	Lucretia Mary "Lulu" Lockhart (1871 - 1936)
Child	Anna Laurie Lockhart (1875 - 1929)
Child	Benjamin Lockhart (1877 - 1891)
Child	Martha Keith Lockhart (1879 - 1968)
Child	Edna Lockhart (1884 - 1884)

Father	Michael Cull ( - )
Mother	Mary Lucrita McDonald ( - 1850)
Sibling	Jim Cull (1825 - )
Sibling	David Cull (1827 - )

Notes