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Bodie,CA - Mono County - Mrs. Donnelly Token : 1 meal -

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:1,000.00 USD Estimated At:2,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD
Bodie,CA - Mono County - Mrs. Donnelly Token : 1 meal -
There are only two of these tokens known today. This token was reported as Bodie, but with no proof. After a thorough search of the records, proof was found. The first important key in unfolding the mystery is the name “Mrs. Donnelly.” While women did own businesses and worked businesses with their husbands in this era, the fact this lady's name appears on a token as merchant or proprietor is unusual.



Charles Donnelly was in partnership with Eli Johl in the City Market in Bodie. Donnelly had been a farmer in Bridgeport in 1880 (ref: Great Register of Mono County). Ella Cain in The Story of Bodie, 1956, relates a long story of the long-standing feud between Annie Donnelly and Lottie Johl (thought to be during the 1880’s, but could be the late 1870’s.) Charlie Donnelly and Eli Johl had purchased the City Market in Bodie and ran it as a successful business. Johl was a German butcher who moved into Bodie after 1880, and Donnelly was the white-aproned man at the counter. The pair were perfect partners. Charlie married Annie Pagdin of England, who was an artist, and an outspoken person about town. As an active artist, Donnelly painted everything. She especially loved to paint scenes of Yosemite (some of her paintings still survive and are in the Bodie museum). Eli married a local prostitute, Lottie Johl. At first, Annie Donnelly reportedly refused to accept Lottie into the business, and Charlie and Eli's partnership nearly broke up. Lottie was shunned by the local community and was ultimately killed by an incorrect druggist prescription. Unfortunately for researchers, the City Market, or these proprietors, are not in McKinney’s Pacific Coast Gazetteers in 1878, 1882, 1886, 1888, so more research is needed on this topic. Johl remained in Bodie for some time, and was still there in 1900 at the age of 58. Mrs. Donnelly must have run a small business out of the City Market. While she entertained regularly, more work is needed to ascertain her separate business interests. Sources suggest she ran a boarding house in Bodie in the late 1880’s, the approximate time of this token’s use, but were unable to search newspapers for records of this by press time.