Good question: J.C.F. & The Odd Fellows

Above the Fremont House clothing store, you enter the parlor of the Mariposa Lodge of the International Order of Odd Fellows, with its tin ceiling and theatre seats.

It seems like the kind of room where history is passed down.

On this night, local author Thomas Bruce Phillips is taking the gathered group on a whirlwind tour of California history through the Las Mariposas Grant.

The slide show goes by in a blur, with some familiar and rediscovered photos of the earliest days of Mariposa County.

But what makes the performance feel like a bit of living history are the interruptions from the gallery, when one of the Odd Fellows recalls when his father worked at one of the old mines, or someone points out a long forgotten gulch where gold was uncovered.

Some of the stories are familiar enough to feel like they are old friends. Like the familiar life arc of John C. Fremont. The explorer who married well (a U.S. Senator’s daughter), got court-martialed for mutiny, struck it rich, lost it all and ran for president of the United States in the newly formed Republican Party in 1856.

And you think we live in interesting times.

Phillips, the author of several books on Mariposa history, agreed to answer a few good questions: About his fellow Odd Fellows, the power and deception of memories and whether any historical mysteries still remain.

— Why do you think the Las Mariposas Grant history is important for us today? What does it tell us about our county’s history and California’s origin story?

The history of the Las Mariposas Grant is the history of our county. To understand where we are today and how we got here, you need to understand where we came from.

Mariposa history is a microcosm of the history of the west, California and the United States.

— I was struck by how many of your fellow Odd Fellows also knew this history and had a personal connection to some of the old mines in Mariposa County. Do you worry that some of that history is slipping away?

The history is slipping away with each funeral that we attend. There are very few original witnesses to our history and they are getting fewer each day.

Someone who is 80 today, was born after World War II, so the time before that is just family stories, which change with the telling. Most of my research is mostly before 1900, though that is not a solid line. There is so much history and stories that have been lost to time and we will never know the daily details of their lives.

Occasionally, we run across diaries of the past, but even those only tell you one point of view.

— I know you are still very active in researching the county’s history and using primary, original documents and deeds. Why is that approach still important?

I research primarily, primary sources. The records don’t change like people’s memories. There are so many stories that we are told, that when you do just a little research they turn out to be barroom stories or unconfirmable family fables. The primary records don’t tell you the whole story, but they are all that remains to us.

Each year it seems that new primary sources surface to help fill in wholes in our research.

— Is there any history left to be uncovered, any mysteries or secrets that you are still curious about and researching?

There is much history and stories to uncover still. Each day I find something new that I did not know before. There are many times, conflicting stories and records.

Those times, you have to look at all the facts available and hope that your direction takes you to the “truth,” if there is such a thing. Many times, I have been down false paths, but as you research more, the path usually becomes clearer. Of course, there is the old adage, “The more I learn, the less I know.”