By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
In his 1888 anthology of Irish folklore, Fairy and Folk Tales in the Irish Peasantry, the poet William B. Yeats explained that ghosts “live in a state intermediary between this life and the next.” These Thevshi or Tash are “held there by some earthly longing or affection, or some duty unfulfilled, or anger against the living.”
Because I gave up alcohol for Lent, Yeats provides one possible explanation for why I saw Irish-born American Civil War general and renowned railroad executive Robert Horatio George Minty wandering the streets of my Ogden, Utah hometown on a recent St. Patrick’s Day evening.
R.H.G Minty was born in December 1831 in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. He joined the British Army in 1848 and served in Africa, the West Indies, and Honduras before coming to the United States and settling in Michigan to work for a railroad.
Because—according to an old Ogden newspaper—“the soldier spirit was in his blood,” Minty’s military days were not yet behind him. During the American Civil War, he led several union cavalry units, including one armed primarily with swords and known as the “sabre brigade.”
Rebel forces shot five horses out from under him. He was a hero of the Battle of Chickamauga in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. His troops later also captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the waning days of the war.
In contrast to his great battlefield skill and acumen, Minty led a messy and tangled personal life, first marrying Grace Abbott and then taking up with her younger sister Laura without properly ending his first marriage. He fathered 14 children, seven with each Abbott sister. He moved to Ogden in 1886, likely to escape the sting of domestic scandal.
When not engaged as a solider or sorting out his love life, Minty worked for a number of railroads in the midwest and west. One Northern Utah newspaper called him “one of the most widely known Railroad men in this part of the country.” He lived on south Washington Boulevard in Ogden and worked for the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific as a traveling auditor.
Minty died in August 1906 at age 75. At the time, he lived in Jerome, Arizona and was the general manager of the United Verde Railroad. His family brought his body back home to Utah and, after a service at the local Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, buried him in what now is Aultorest Memorial Park in Ogden.
How then, did General Minty end up—vertical and walking around—on the streets of Ogden on St. Patrick’s Day over a century later?
I really like Yeats’ explanation referring to the spectral motives of ghosts, but I must confess that the real agent of Minty’s resurrection was the Weber County Heritage Foundation. WCHF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation whose mission is to increase public awareness of Utah’s historic and architectural legacy, especially in Weber County.
WCHF executive director Dr. Katie Nelson, who teaches history at Weber State University, recruited her husband (and fellow Weber State educator) Marc Nelson to channel the spirit of General Minty. The two Nelsons draped Marc in turn of the century clothing and on March 17 he led a large group—including my wife Vicki and me—on an informative walking tour of Irish sites in Ogden.
The reincarnated General Minty told us about alcohol-fueled blood feuds at the fabled Mint Saloon on Ogden’s notorious 25th Street. We heard about how the nearby Sacred Heart Academy sent three of Ogden’s four O’Connor sisters into service as Catholic Sisters of the Holy Cross.
We stood in front of the home of Don Maguire and learned how the trader, traveler, miner, archaeologist, poet, and public figure died after he was hit by a car just outside his beloved St. Joseph’s church in Ogden. We discovered how Father Patrick Michael Cushnahan from County Donegal in Ireland spearheaded the construction of that lovely edifice and made friends with the local Latter-day Saints.
And we heard all about the colorful life of General Minty, an Ogden Irishman of whom I had never heard about before the excellent tour.
WCHF is doing amazing work bringing both Weber County and Utah history to life. Just last month they hosted a wonderful program about the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville (see: Huntsville Monastery: Past, Present, Future).
On the morning of Saturday, March 26, 2022, a woman in Victorian dress looking remarkably like Dr. Katie Nelson will lead a walking tour of “Ogden’s Untamed Women.” The program description is quite intriguing: “Celebrate women’s history month by waking in the footsteps of some of Ogden’s amazing untamed women. From notorious brothel madams and murder ring masterminds, to suffragettes and even ‘The Angel of 25th Street,’ these stories show that the spirit of Ogden women was untamed from the start!”
I am a little sad that Yeats’ description of ghosts does not provide an accurate explanation for General Minty’s return to Ogden. Still, another turn of phrase often attributed to the old Irish poet does tell us why the historical preservation and education work of Katie/Marc Nelson and WCHF is so important and so interesting: “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t met yet.”
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, was published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
