The adventurous life of William Gidley, stage driver in the Wild West

I've already written a little about Bill Gidley, known as "Gid" or "Old Bill" who never smiled again after he accidentally killed a friend at a turkey shoot. This is how it was reported in the Grand Forks Daily Herald.
"The name of Bill Gidley was as familiar as that of Col. John H Stevens is to the Minneapolitan. Bill was a stage driver - one of those great big, good-natured souls, whose face dilated between s broad grin and a hearty guffaw...His arrival at a stage station was the signal for merriment - omnipresent from the office to the kitchen, from cellar to garret - he was a privileged character. Bill Gidley, notwithstanding his rough, unpolished character, was always the gentleman, and had as tender a heart as ever beat in human breast. Gidley's friends little thought that a cloud would sweep across the life of the big stage driver which would forever hide from view the smile which had been for many years a light along the route. Thirteen years ago, on Thanksgiving day, there was a turkey shooting match at Bismarck. Bill was there; he went to see the sport, and while not an expert shot " 'lowed [sic] he'd just kill off what few turkeys these 'ere fellers have got". After a number of unsuccessful shots, Bill's friends began to make sport of his marksmanship. One of them, pointing to a little outbuilding standing some 30 rods distant, remarked, "Bill, you can't hit that shack over there". Gidley clapped his rifle to his shoulder, pulled the trigger, the door to the shack swung open and Bill's best friend fell at the entrance, shot through the heart. That was 13 years ago. Gidley is still staging it in the Black Hills country, but his old-time friends would hardly recognise him. The face once wreathed in smiles is a picture of sadness; no more pleasantries that used to lend a light to the station. A heart-broken man, he passes his leisure time in comparative solitude."

But Bill's life didn't lack other incidents.

Miners' cottages, Mineral Point

Born William Joseph Gidley in Cornwall in 1841, the youngest child of Thomas Gidley and his wife Nancy (Ann or Nanny) Richards, he emigrated at the age of four with his entire family to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, whose TravelWisconsin website says "A walk down Mineral Point streets evokes a stroll through a Cornish village. Miners from Cornwall, England were among the first to settle here." The miners arrived to work the lead and zinc mines in the area. By the 1840s, news of these rich deposits had reached Cornwall. The early immigrants possessed advanced mining skills as well as expertise in stone building construction. Bill's father Thomas Gidley was a smelter in Mineral Point in the 1850 census, but had died by the 1860 census.

Bill was a labourer in Mineral Point in 1860, but left a year later to go West. It was reported in the Salt Lake Herald of 12 December 1891 that he started driving in 1861 for the Northwestern Transportation Company, and stayed with them for 28 years, becoming a prominent driver in Minnesota, Dakota and Wyoming. The same article records the following incident.

A Concord stage coach

" During his career on the hurricane deck of a Concord Mr Gidley had many thrilling experiences. He has participated time again in battles with red and white renegades and has many scars. He came out of one engagement with 6 ounces of buckshot in his anatomy and wears the lead on his watch chain. Gidley recalls his worst adventure the one that left him gray-haired - an engagement with wolves in the bad lands of Dakota. He was driving 6 horses and had a full load of passengers. It was midwinter, intensely cold, and with 2 feet or more of snow everywhere. A pack of wolves made a determined assault on the outfit for three hours. It was a desperate battle for life. No less than 30 wolves were shot down. Finding destruction was almost certain, Gidley tied the lines to the brake and, walking out on the tongue, leaped on the back of one of the "swing" horses. From this perilous position, with the wolves snapping at him, he managed to loose the team of leaders. The wolves took after the liberated horses and the coach was brought into a station safely."
This adventurous life did take its toll. The same article records a realistic nightmare, after Bill had fallen asleep in the boot of the stage where he had become wedged in among the mail bags.  Thinking he was bound and gagged (by a "monstrous" chew of tobacco in his mouth), he was fortunately awakened from his nightmare, but by an over-nervous passenger shouting "Oh, God", alarmed at the "rough riding".
Bill did not apparently find peace in his home life. I have found two, possibly three wives for him, and three children. One daughter Mary was born in 1867 in Minnesota, who in 1870 was in St Paul with Bill and her mother. Then by 1880 there was a son Frank born in 1869 to possibly another wife in Dakota Territory. Frank died aged 20 in South Dakota. There is a recorded marriage to Almeda B Ham in Minnesota in 1867,  but no further sign of her, unless she is "Mary" in the 1870 census, the mother of Bill's daughter Mary. It is reported that Mrs Gidley, wife of J. W. [sic] Gidley, wife of the Superintendent of the Northwestern Stage Company, committed suicide at Rapid City, Dakota, by taking arsenic and chloroform in August 1885. She was formerly a well-known resident of St Paul, Minnesota. Then in 1907 the Los Angeles Herald on 18 September of that year reports a story from Kansas City, Missouri.
"Grace Gidley, daughter and heir of William J Gidley, an old stage line driver who died in Montana in 1896, has been located here after a search of 11 years. Gidley operated through the Wymore hills in the 1880s. When he died he left his estate to his child whom he had not seen since the day her mother deserted him when Grace was a baby. Grace Gidley is now the wife of Charles T Depew, a Kansas City painter." Note: Grace married as Grace E Sharpe, but I can't find her in any census before 1910 under any name. She was apparently born about 1888 in Wyoming.
And a good deed is reported in the Omaha Daily Bee on 18 February 1888. It seems that the Bismarck - Black Hills stage hauled gold bricks from the Homestake Mine, often amounting to $200,000, an obvious temptation to criminals. Suspicion fell on a man named Hank Wall. However, W J Gidley, "Gid", agreed to bring Hank Wall's nephew from Bismarck when his mother was very ill. In return, Hank no longer held up the Northwestern Transportation coaches. But see the 2020 update below.
Not only a driver, but also the manager of the line between Gillette and Buffalo, "Ole Gidley" was a member in 1890 of the commission to ascertain the amount of the Dakota Treasury indebtedness (Bismarck Daily Tribune 24 Jan 1890).
Bill Gidley was buried in Custer Cemetery, Yellowstone, Montana. His memorial stone sums it up:"Pioneer Stage Man".

There is a very good report of Bill Gidley's life on the FindAGrave website at William J Gidley

2020 Update:

The Bismarck Tri-Weekly Tribune of  22 December 1877 reported that the Cheyenne Sun of the 9th of that month had published a sensational article charging the Bismarck Stage Company with complicity with Blackburn and Wall in their depredations upon the Cheyenne and Sidney lines. The article states that the highwaymen were bribed by Supt. Gidley to confine their operations to opposition lines, and declares its ability to make the allegations good. Mr Hall, agent of the Bismarck Company, pronounced the charges "utterly and maliciously false", and that immediate prosecution has been ordered.