By Ellen Carney

For the Journal

    When President Lincoln signed the bill creating Idaho Territory March 4, 1863, there were no permanent white settlers in the Grays Lake Valley. Trappers and mountain men crossed through the area, but black settlers were the first who first called the valley home.

    After the Civil War ended, a number of African Americans came West — some to the new Idaho Territory. Dan Brockman followed the Oregon Trail as a black member of the Jack Anderson party, which left Kansas City on May 10, 1866. He was driving an old army ambulance pulled by mules.

    A former slave of Charles Martin, an Idaho Falls cattleman, Brockman settled at what would later become the town of Herman in the north end of the Grays Lake Valley. There he started trapping and raising cattle. Each year he took his furs by dogsled to Idaho Falls, then known as Eagle Rock. A stream in the valley still bears his name.

    Green Flake, born a slave, joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shortly after his owners did and came west with the Mormons. He was driving the wagon when Brigham Young first entered the Salt Lake Valley and made his famous statement: This is the right place.” The 16-year-old Flake moved to Grays Lake, but eventually moved to Idaho Falls. It was his son, Abraham Flake, who homesteaded in Grays Lake on Nov. 17, 1902.

    His daughter, Blanche Flake, stayed in the valley and married James L. Leggroan. She remained best friends with an early white settler, Genevieve Sibbett, throughout her life.

    Other black families who settled in the valley included the  LaFloites, Shirleys, Clarks, Stevensons, Browns, Haineys, Burchers, LaGroins and Posey Oglesby. Most were ranchers and raised cattle. The newcomers filed under various homestead acts and, because of the sheer number of black families in the valley, the area was labeled “Nigger Flats” on early Bonneville County maps.

    When gold was discovered on Carriboo Mountain in 1870, both black and white people took an interest in Grays Lake Valley. Boom towns grew up on the mountain including Keenan City, Iowa Bar and Carriboo City. The mines became an outlet for beef from the settlement, which became known as Herman.

    During the frigid winters of the late 1880s, many cattle died from the cold and lack of feed. Most of the black families became discouraged and moved from Herman. A few remained. Among them was midwife, Mother George.

    Mother George owned a ranch and practiced frontier medicine in the Grays Lake area. She delivered babies for black and white families through the gold rush years and later. When Mother George died,  her secret was discovered — she was actually a man.

    It sent shock waves through the community.

    Lyle Burton, whose mother returned to Grays Lake after the death of his father in 1918 remembered hearing women speak about the scandal in hushed tones.

    The late Quincy Jensen came up with a photo of Mother George he had acquired from the Clyde Anderson photo collection and on the back of the photo, the following is written: “Mother George who lived at Grays Lake and is buried there. She was a midwife and a successful doctor. Her father was a Negro and her mother was an Indian.”

    Lee Cantwell of Smithfield, Utah, remembers hearing his late grandmother, Effie Allsop Greene, who was born June 14, 1889, say, “I was delivered by a Negro nanny on a cattle ranch in Grays Lake, Idaho. My mother told met that Mother George had the largest hands she had ever seen on a woman and that she wore men's shoes.”

    No one would admit to being delivered by Mother George after the secret of her gender was disclosed.

    Intrigued by his grandmother's story, Cantwell set out to discover what he could about Mother George. He wrote a historical novel about the midwife titled, “Mother George: The Midwife Who Shocked Grays Lake.”

    After the gold rush ended, white settlers moved in and a post office was established. The spelling of the mountain was eventually changed to Caribou.