Silver Tailings: The Girl I Left Behind

Described as a beautiful, tall, and slim brunette with dark eyes, the day she died, miners throughout the Comstock cried. The bludgeoning and strangling of 35-year-old prostitute Julia Bulette on January 20, 1867, stunned Virginia City’s residents.

Less than six-years earlier, in 1861, Virginia Fire Company No. 1 had led a grand parade through town. The town’s citizens were gathered to celebrate Independence Day.

Riding on top of the pumper, wearing a fireman’s helmet, a brass fire trumpet filled with roses in her arms was Julia.  The crowd cheered for the “Queen of the Independence Day Parade.”

Julia, born in London, England, in 1833, she and her family moved to New Orleans in 1848 and then to California with the gold rush.  She arrived on the Comstock around 1859, where she lived and worked in a small frame house on D Street in the town’s red light district.

Her reputation for helping the sick and the needy grew over time. This eventually led to her election as an honorary member of the Virginia Fire Company No. 1.

She donated large sums for new equipment and often personally lent a hand at working the water pump — in effect becoming the first woman-firefighter in the nation.

The day before she was found murdered, Julia went to see a performance at Piper’s Opera House. She was unable to attend the performance because she refused to sit in a section reserved for ‘working girls,’ and instead returned home after be escorted from the establishment.

The next morning her next-door neighbor, Gertrude Holmes, who was bringing Julia her Sunday-morning breakfast, found her lifeless body. The neighbor immediately sent for the police.

They found she had been struck with a pistol, beaten with a piece of firewood and strangled. Most of her costume jewelry and fancy dresses were missing.

Julia ‘s funeral was held at Virginia Fire Company No. 1.  Her fellow firefighters took up a collection and purchased a silver-handled casket.

After the sermon, a band led about 60 members of the fire department and 16 carriages of mourners, to the Flowery Hill Cemetery.  And although Julia was given a Catholic funeral, she could not buried in consecrated ground.

Instead she was entombed in a lonely grave half a mile east of town.  A simple wooden plank with the name “Julia” painted on it was all that marked her final resting place.

As the mourners filed back into town, the men of Virginia Fire Company No. 1 sang “The Girl I Left Behind.” The city was draped in black, and for the first time since President Lincoln’s assassination, it’s reported, saloons were closed.

Several months later, prostitute Martha Camp was awakened by someone approaching her bedside. Her screams sent the man fleeing, but she later recognized him on the street.

He was identified as Frenchman John Millian, a baker and drifter. A search of his belongings revealed some of Julia’s possessions, whereupon he was immediately arrested.

Jurors quickly convicted Millian and on April 24, 1868, he was escorted to the gallows where more than 4,000 spectators witnessed the execution. Among them was Mark Twain, who described what he witnessed.

“I saw it all,” wrote Twain. “I took exact note of every detail, even to Melanie’s (sic) considerately helping to fix the leather strap that bound his legs together and his quiet removal of his slippers — and I never wish to see it again.”

Twain finishes, “I can see that stiff, straight corpse hanging there yet, with its black pillow-cased head turned rigidly to one side, and the purple streaks creeping through the hands and driving the fleshy hue of life before them. Ugh!”

While Millian memory has become more-or-less a footnote in Nevada’s history, Julia’s legend continued after her death.

The Virginia and Truckee Railroad honored her memory by naming one of its club coaches after her. Her portrait hung in many Virginia City saloons, and author Rex Beach immortalized her as Cherry Malotte in his novel, The Spoilers, while Oscar Lewis in his book Silver Kings reported that Julia was written about more than any other woman on the Comstock.

An in an episode of the television series Bonanza titled “The Julia Bulette Story”, featured Little Joe falling in love with her, much to the chagrin of his father. Written by Al C. Ward and first aired on October 17, 1959, Julia was played by actress Jane Greer.

To this day visitors to Virginia City report seeing an elegantly dressed woman walking along the wooden boardwalks, only to watch her dissolve into nothingness. Could Julia still be watching over the town?