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Photo postcard of teacher Pearl Huston at school house in Sargents, Colorado, ca. 1911.

The school house Pearl is standing in front of appears to be the classic late nineteenth century one-room American school house.  Like schools of that era, this one is rectangular in shape, rests on a stone foundation, looks to be 20 to 30 feet wide and 30 to 40 feet long and has four windows on the side.  I like the bell tower.  The bell was of course used to call the children to the school in the morning and back into the school following lunch hour.  It may have also been used to warn townspeople of fire or other dangers, as well as to mark special occasions or holidays.  Ideally, there would have been two outhouses behind the building, one for the boys and one for the girls, and there was most likely a cloakroom inside the front door for the students’ coats, hats and lunch pails. 

The town of Sargents, also referred to as Sargent, is an unincorporated community in Saguache County.  Sitting on Highway 50  between Poncha Springs and Gunnison in the Southern Sawatch Mountain range, Sargents offers access to Marshall Pass.  Given its close proximity to this pass, the town was originally named Marshalltown, but when the post office was established in 1882, the town was renamed Sargents after cattleman Joseph Sargent, the first  postmaster.

As is the case with so many towns, Sargents owed its early existence to a railroad, in this case the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, which reached Marshalltown, now Sargents, in 1881.   True to its motto “Through the Rockies, not around them,” the Denver and Rio Grande crossed the Continental Divide via Marshall Pass and descended  the 17 miles to Sargents before following Tomichi Creek west to Gunnison.  This line would ultimately connect Denver to Salt Lake City and points west. 

Sargents served as a base for “helper engines” which would assist in powering heavily laden trains over the pass.  In addition, its depot was a vital export point for mined ore and lumber produced in the area and a transit point for passengers traveling to and from the mining camps and towns in the upper Tomichi Creek Valley.   The Sargents train station boasted a roundhouse, a turntable and a water tank.  The wooden water tank, rendered beautiful by time and weather, still stands.  See https://www.flickr.com/photos/141183804@N03/49847340762.

In 1940,  Sargents was struck a blow when the Denver and Rio Grande ended passenger service, and it was knocked back on its heels when the railroad abandoned the line in 1955.    A measure of salvation for the town came in 1939 with the construction of Highway 50 over nearby Monarch Pass and southwestward through Sargents, thus providing the town with an opportunity to render services to highway travelers.   The current population of Sargents is approximately 225. 

Pearl Huston was born in Montrose, Colorado, in 1892 to Lee and Beulah (Quick) Huston. Lee, who was born in Kansas, and Beulah, a New York native, had married in Montrose in June of 1891.   In 1895, when Pearl was only 3 years old, Beulah died.  She was just 22.  Following Beulah’s death, Lee and Pearl moved to Salida and for some time lived there with Lee’s  parents, J.H. (James Homewood) and Emma (Gibson) Huston, who had resided in Salida since 1896.  J.H., a Civil War Union Army veteran, was a carpenter and also was involved with mining enterprises in the Salida area.  Lee’s sister, Olive, who went by “Ollie,” and her husband, Gary “Guy” Hall, also lived in Salida.  Ollie had a reputation as a savvy Salida merchant, and at the time of Lee and Pearl’s arrival in Salida, Guy was probably working as a railroad brakeman. 

Lee would find work as a repairman with the Rio Grande Railroad and would also perform work for the city of Salida.  In 1906, when Pearl was 14, Lee died at age 36 after a long fight with pulmonary disease.   Pearl’s grandparents, J. H. and Emma Huston, would, as they did before for Pearl and her father following Beulah’s death, take her in to live with them in their home.  Pearl’s Aunt Ollie and Uncle Guy were also substantially involved in looking after her.  It’s interesting to note that there are two documents which indicate that Pearl’s grandparents treated her as if she were their daughter:  the 1910 Census listing of occupants in J.H. and Emma’s home identifies Pearl as a daughter; and J.H.’s obituary (he died  In November of 1910 )  reads, “He leaves to mourn his loss his bereaved widow and his beautiful daughter Miss Pearl.”   

Pearl  excelled in school, being chosen as salutatorian for her 1910 Salida High School graduation.  She served as the social editor for the school’s newspaper, “The Tenderfoot,” and was a proficient piano player, a skill she would also apply to the organ.   After graduation, Pearl wasted no time in preparing for and passing the examination for teachers, and it was in the Sargents one-room school house that she would land her first teaching job in time for the 1911/12 school year.  

Evidence of Pearl’s initiative and commitment to her Sargents students is highlighted in a 1912 Salida Mail newspaper article reporting on the program she put together in Sargents to celebrate the graduation of two of her students.   As the Salida Mail put it, “The little town of Sargents was made lively Monday by a young Salida school teacher, Miss Pearl Huston, who, upon the occasion of the graduation of two students, James Markey and Emma Hicks, gave a program that brought many visitors from Sargents and White Pine and Crookston to attend.”    The program included songs, recitations and a play by students and other youngsters of Sargents, and school board treasurer W. S. Cole made a speech in which he personally thanked Huston for her good work in the year just passed.  Quite impressive for a young woman who had turned 20 just two months earlier! 

On the postcard pictured here, postmarked June 4. 1912, Pearl writes to Mrs. Mary A Hall in Canon City:  “Dear Mrs. Hall, I hope you are feeling much better now and that you will continue to feel better.  I tho’t I’d send you a view of where I taught last year.  I won’t have such a large school house this next year.  Don’t ask me who is on the porch, Ha! Ha!  With love to you from Grandma & I.  Lovingly, Pearl H.”   Mrs. Hall, the recipient of this postcard,  is likely Guy Hall’s mother and Pearl’s reference to “Grandma” is of course to Emma Huston.   It’s interesting to note Pearl’s comment that her next teaching assignment would be in a school building smaller than the Sargent school house.

I was delighted when my wife, Bev, told me she had come across a photo of Pearl taken in the summer of 1911, which would have been just prior to her teaching assignment at the Sargents school.  The photo shows a group of women, and one girl, “The ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR),” who are gathered together as part of the GAR convention in Salida that year.  The Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization comprised of Civil War veterans who had served in the Union Army, the Union Navy and the Marines.  Pearl is the woman seated in the front row to the right of the little girl.   Here is a link to this photo: 

https://www.themountainmail.com/free_content/article_1fbae75e-2cda-11e6-ae0b-37f0057c27b6.html

Pearl may have been motivated to join the GAR group because of her grandfather’s service in the Union Army.  J.H. Huston and two other Salida men, Jim D. Smith and Dan Buckley, had fought in the 1862 Battle of Shiloh, a seminal battle fought over two days in April in southwestern Tennessee, which at the time was in the war’s Western Theater.  Won by the Union side under General Grant, this battle allowed Union troops to penetrate the Confederate interior.   With its death toll exceeding 3,000 and with over 16,000 wounded, it represented the greatest battle carnage of any war on the American continent fought to that date.  It was a sobering revelation to many that this war would be longer and more devastating than anyone had imagined. 

By 1915, Pearl  was teaching in the Salida grade school.   In 1916, she would spend her summer vacation in Felt, Idaho, and it was there she would meet her future husband, Presbyterian minister (Edward) Payson Linnell.  At the time they met, Payson, who had been ordained in his hometown of Granville, Ohio in 1915, was serving as a “Home Missionary” in Felt.

Pearl and Edward would marry in Salida on September 28, 1916, in the parlor of Aunt Ollie and Uncle Guy’s home, with Guy giving her away.  They would start their life together in Felt and subsequently move to Wendell, Idaho, for a pastorship there, and that is where Pearl would give birth to their daughter, Rachel, in 1918.   By 1922, the Linnell’s were living in Minnesota, where Edward had accepted a pastorate,  and in that year Pearl would give birth to their son, Albert.  I could find no evidence that Pearl continued a full time teaching career, but, in addition to the responsibilities of being a mother, she was actively involved in the Presbyterian church’s  missionary program and served as a substitute organist and church teacher.    Payson would serve in pastorates for nearly fifty years.

In 1966, Pearl and Payson celebrated 50 years of marriage at their Westminster Terrace retirement home.    Six years later, in May of 1972, Payson would pass away at age 82.  Pearl stayed involved with her church activities and at age 90 could be found playing the organ for church services at Westminster Terrace.  It’s probably safe to assume she found joy in her eight grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren.  She would pass away at age 100 in 1992.  Pearl and Payson’s remains are interred at the Maple Grove Cemetery in Granville, Ohio.

REFERENCES:

  • Colorado County Marriage Records and State Index, 1862-2006 at www.ancestry.com .
  • Linnell family information provided by Jason Quick, Historian for the Linnell Family Association, and Mark Wynn, Pearl’s grandson, via e-mails dated January 17, 2022
  • “School Notes,” The Salida Mail dated March 22, 1910, and April 15, 1910, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection at

https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=SDM19100322-01.2.24&srpos=25&e=——-en-20–21–img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA-pearl+huston+salida——-0——    and

https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=SDM19100415-01.2.23&srpos=33&e=——-en-20–21–img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA-pearl+huston——-0——

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