Notes taken by Salome McGuire McNeely from Bill Tate on February 20, 1953. Bill Tate was the mail carrier from Rocky Bar to Atlanta in 1896.. He had a two year contract as mail carrier from Rocky Bar to Atlanta starting in 1899.

“John Tate went to Rocky Bar and went to work for Old Kunnecke, hauling wood to the Elmore mine. Then later on me and Ves Robins came to Rocky Bar and I worked in the Red Warrior mine. I got tired of that so I went and got the mail contract to Atlanta. I carried the mail from Rocky Bar to Atlanta. It was daily mail. John went one way and I went the other.

While we were packing the mail was when Annie B. Morrow and Dutch Em started to Rocky Bar, from Atlanta, over the hill. It was payday so they started over on a Friday night some time in the night. I got out pretty early the next morning and when I got up on James Creek and I could see their tracks where they were wallering in the 3 or 4 feet of fresh snow. I didn't know who they were but I thought I would catch up pretty soon with them and finally I did, at the foot of the Turner Hill. I said "Well, where are you going?" and they said "We're going to Rocky Bar." I says "You better go back, you can't make it." They said "We'll make it or die." So I says "Well, I think you'll die." That's just the words I said to them.

I went on up to the cabin and met John up there and we had some coffee and fixed a lunch up there. We stopped there about an hour and a half. We rested and changed mail sacks. I started on back. I met Annie and Dutch Em on the Big S down there. They hadn't come only about 3/4 mile from the cabin. I said to them "Well, do you think you can make it?" Annie says "Well, I don't know, Bill. Em is about give out and I have been packing her for the last half a mile." I says, "Well, I'll help you to the cabin and I've sent for you some skis for you from Rocky Bar. You can't make it any further." I helped them around to the cabin. There was a bed and plenty to eat and lots of wood in there and they was supposed to stay there until them fellers came up and met them. But some time along after I left them they started out again and they went to Little Baldy Mountain and instead of turning to the left they turned to the right and went down into Black Warrior. That was Saturday night and they went down in there and Monday morning I came out and got onto the top of the mountain and I couldn't see no sign of them. I was going around Bald Mountain and Annie seen me and hollered at me. She said "Hello, Tate, I've had a hell of a time since I seen you last." She pointed down into Black Warrior to that big rock that's down there and she said, "Em's right there by that rock. She froze to death Saturday night. I was all day Sunday climbing out of there myself." Then while I was talking to her and she was showing me where Dutch Em was, John came along and we took her around to the cabin. She hadn't had nothing to eat for three days.

Everything was froze in the cabin but we fixed her up a lunch as best we could. She said she knew she rode down the hill all right and got to the bridge down there and it was bare ground from there on and she walked on the bare ground and packed her skis and went home. By that time I told them people in Rocky Bar to send for Doc Newkirk to come in and cut her legs off because they was froze. I had pretty near as hard a time getting Doc Newkirk in. Didn't freeze him but I wallered him through the snow for two or three days. The women who nursed Annie were Effie Pray and there was several others. Mrs. R. B. Brown, Ella Gaetz. All of them women helped. And I think Mrs. Goodyear and Mrs. Wooten, too. I can't name them all.

Then they sent five or six men up from Rocky Bar to get Dutch Em. They went up and stayed all night. Guess they got drunk for they never found Em. They didn't find her so they went back. Then they got drunk for they never found Em. They didn't find her so they went back. Then they sent six men up from Atlanta to hunt her. They went up there and purt near froze and still didn't find her. They asked me if I could find her and how many men would I want. I said "I want a mail carrier and two more men besides myself." They told me to pick the men. I got Charley Gaetz and Bert Chester. We took a canvas and we went right down and got Dutch Em and pulled her to the cabin. When we found her she was setting against a tree, froze stiffer than a poker. She looked real nice except that the taller birds had picked holes in her cheeks. We put her in the cabin and then we sent six more men up after her, to bring her down the hill. They got there to the Big S and started down. They fell down and she got away from them and slid down the hill. Then she slid into an air hole in the creek and they couldn't find her. They came back to town without her.

Then I said "Where'd you lose her?" They said "We lost her at the Big S. She got away from us there." I said "Well, she must have went in some of them air holes. I'll go up in the morning and we'll see if we can find her." We went down to them air holes and we got her and took her in to town. By that time John Lape had built a box to put her in to bury her. After Old John built the box the boys -- the miners -- went up on the hill and dug a grave for her. We took her up there to bury her and the grave was full of water. We took two big rocks and sinked her down in the water and covered her up anyhow.

There was a story that Tug Wilson sawed Annie's legs off with a handsaw, but that isn't right. And I forgot to tell you -- Annie, she had a dog with her. They would have both froze to death the first night if they hadn't had the dog. He cuddled in around them. He was a big Newfoundland dog. It was Annie's. He stuck right with her all the time. She would dig a hole down in the snow and he would get in there with her.

This was in about 1899. Annie and Dutch Em was both prostitutes.”