In 1930 Mr. Albert Ward of Townsend, aged 89, a pioneer of Montana, visited the 
Historical Library at Helena and he brought to David Hilger, librarian at that time, his own 
version of Charity Jane Dillon’s death in 1872, and sketched her cabin as he had known it, 
including the road, creek and spring near which it stood. Here is the story as he related it: 

   “Travelers on the old Hog’em-Radersburg road will see from the top of the hill going 
toward Radersburg a white wooden cross, 4x6 feet that was not there last spring. Also an 
engraved marble marker which marks what has been known before only as ‘the Old 
Woman’s Grave’ with the name of Charity Jane Dillon. A letter in Mr. Hilger’s files, 
dated August 17, 1930 states that this cross was erected by Mrs. Flo Holling, Mrs. Roy 
Kingsley and Mr. and Mrs. Jessie Knight in deference to the memory of a courageous and 
kindly woman. Those whom human sympathy had moved to this commemoration of a 
lonely grave covered the sunken mound with the flat rocks characteristic of this region. As 
they dug down to set the foot of the cross they could see the corner of the coffin box in its 
shallow grave.

   The letter states further that “The Vermont Marble Works, preparing for extensive 
development in this region, has offered at some future time to place a polished marble 
marker. The women of Radersburg hope later to place a similar white cross at the grave of 
a child on the other side of the hill. The rough board that once marked the grave has 
fallen. The child was buried there by members of an emigrant train. The train went on but 
the child’s mother, leaving behind on the lonely hill the body of her baby, took with her 
the heartache only a mother could feel. 

   “Charity Dillon has become the subject of a legend. Her characteristics and even her 
name are matters of contradictory stories. An early account names her ‘Dillon, alias Finn.’ 
The story is that as a young girl in the east, she was engaged to a young man who came 
west to find his fortune. Losing track of him and waiting in vain for word, she found 
him— married, settled and happy. And Jane Dillon, with strength of character rare in any
day, kept her own counsel, gave no hint of whom the man might be, whom she had come 
to find, but went her way and lived her own independent life, and never married. 

   “She died young; some accounts say 25, some 30, and some 32. 

   “Near a spring she built her a four-room cabin, a kitchen, a dining room and a bed-room; 
and at the opposite end of the house a public hall with a bar, for she kept an inn where 
travelers were welcomed and refreshed. It was not an over-night stop but a place where 
passersby could always be sure of a meal.

   “So sturdily kind was she to everyone, so ready with good offices that some assert her 
name ‘Charity’ was given her in recognition of her qualities. But others remember that 
there were ‘three cardinal gulches’ here— Faith, Hope and Charity. There was the Charity 
Flume  Company of the ’60s, so those may be right who say the name is descriptive of her geographical location rather than her soul.”

   “Some persons who knew her say she drank. And that would not be strange if it were 
true, considering the defeat of her emotional life, and her grief and spiritual isolation. 

   “She was found dead in bed. A companion of Mr. Ward passing the house, found her 
body and  notified those living nearest. Those who found her waited until others arrived. 
And there again the stories are contradictory. Some say her trunk and personal belongings 
had been ransacked, that she was known to have money secreted in her trunk and that a 
hired man whom she had befriended was missing. Other gossips of the day made much 
out of the half empty demijohn of whiskey under her bed. But if it were there that, too, 
would not have been strange. She might have kept only enough for immeditate use at the 
bar where casual strangers might be expected to drop in at any time and store the surplus 
in a less accessible place. 

   “She was dead, and her body was buried on a hillside where a slab, long fallen, marked 
the place. 

   “The determination of residents of Radersburg to keep alive incidents of the town’s 
early history is significant of the awakened interest in the vanishing pioneer period.” 
 

   This manuscript was read by the late Thomas R. Moore, who was the first child in Raders- 
burg, not born there, but came with his mother when he was three years old in May 1866.  He spent many fruitful years and was one of the little town’s most respected citizens. As such he 
was often called upon to take a lead in public affairs and it was on an occasion of such that he addressed a group at the site of the grave of Charity Dillon, July 11, 1946. Mr. Moore’s words: 
 

   “Friends and Neighbors: We are gathered here this evening to pay homage and respect to a  young woman by the name of Charity Dillon. This is indeed an unusual gathering because none of us will ever receive the honor and respect seventy-four years after our deaths. The one whom we are honoring tonight was a woman without selfishness of ambition for riches or fame and devoted the last years of her life to the service of mankind. She lived in a lonely cabin a short distance from here and the doors were always open to travelers and bull whackers who passed this way. She also developed a pond of water fed by a spring nearby to quench the thirst of man 
and beast. That is the way she received the name of  ‘Charity’ Dillon. 

  “The history of her life before she came here is very meager but as far as we know she 
was born in Missouri in 1847. While still  in grade school she fell deeply in love with a 
boy who later jilted her. The story goes that in those days a farm boy in Missouri received 
ten dollars a month eight months of the year, so being enticed by big wages in Montana he 
left for the west with a wagon train. Before leaving he promised faithfully to either come 
for her or send for her, but he did neither. 

   “After several years of waiting, one day she decided to start for the west with a saddle 
horse and pack horse. She found him not so very far away from this place, apparently 
happily married and the father of two children. In her grief she passed by without letting 
anyone know her identity. Years later her ‘intended’ became a prosperous cattle man. He 
had friends in Radersburg but they never gave away the secret. There have been many 
arguments as to the cause of her death. The most logical cause was contaminated food 
which was responsible for the death of many pioneers. 

   “In preserving the history of Charity Dillon, we are seeking to preserve the history of 
some of the pioneers who did so much and paved the way for future generations to live 
here peacefully and comfortably.” 

   From Montana, the Magazine of Western History, Spring 1971: 

   “The passing traveler would be apt to miss it, were it not for an iron cross, four feet 
high, painted a glaring white. Almost hidden among greasewood brush and scrub pines, 
about 200 feet from the upper side of the old Corrine— Fort Benton stage road, is a lonely 
grave. It lies midway between the ghost town of Radersburg and the bridge spanning the 
Missouri at Townsend, 40 miles southeast of Helena. The grave is covered solidly with 
slabs of stone, evidently put there a century ago to prevent wild animals from digging up 
the body. It is the final resting place of a mysterious pioneer woman. The story, what we 
know if it, has overtones of faithless love, generously bestowed favors, and latter-day 
efforts to give recognition and meaning to a lonely life.

   “Why was a woman buried alone on the desolate hillside instead of in the Radersburg 
cemetery? Did the citizens of Radersburg, once a booming mining town, conclude she was 
not the kind of woman who should be buried among good Christian folk? Was her name 
Charity Dillon, as the old headstone attests, or was it Priscilla Jane Allen, as some 
old-timers of Broadwater County still aver? A century later, nobody knows for sure. 

   “Women of the community who concluded that the grave deserved marking with a new 
cross and headstone believe that she was so gentle, kind and generous that she became 
known as ‘Charity.’ Others believe that because there was a gulch of that name in the 
vicinity, it was fastened upon her. Still others say freighters, bullwhackers and other 
travelers gave her the name because of extra-ordinary favors she bestowed on them 
without charge. One old-timer says there were plenty of them: ‘Any time of the day,’ he 
reminisced, ‘you would see wagon trains that reached for a mile with horses, mules and 
oxen.’ 

   “The lettering on the lonely headstone is blurred and unreadable until traced with a 
crayon, when it reads: 

   “There is also mystery on mystery. Was the hand that inscribed the old headstone the 
same hand that rudely carved the word MIZPAH on a cliff in a rocky canyon some 
distance away from the grave? In its issue of January 20, 1966, under the heading ‘History 
of Broadwater County,’ the Townsend Star includes the reminiscences of William 
Sherlock, born in California in 1870, who came to the Radersburg area as a youngster of 
nine years. He briefly mentions the lonely grave and continues: 

   “‘This story has to do with a strange marking carved in the rocky gulch about one-half 
mile below the old grave. I saw it as I rode horseback one day; just one word, something 
like MIZPAH. It was deciphered to me to mean “May the Lord watch between Thee and 
Me while we are separated one from another.” This expression comes from Genesis 
31:49. Who carved it?’

   “Was it the handicraft of Charity’s erst-while fiancé, stricken with remorse and a guilty 
conscience because he had not lived up to his promise to come back for her? Who else 
would have put that cryptic text from the Bible on the wall of a hidden canyon?

   “But to return to the woman of mystery: ‘Charity’ did not die in 1872, but in 1870, 
according to a squib in the Helena Herald of February 25, 1870. It read: ‘Found Dead— 
We had received a letter from a well known citizen of Springville, Meagher County, 
stating that John Boyce arrived in town on the evening of the 23rd and reported he had 
found, dead in her home, a woman by the name of Mrs. Charity Allen. [No particulars 
were given as to the cause of her death.] Mrs. Allen, for the past three or four months, has 
kept the Summit House that is about half way between Springville and Radersburg, on the 
main road.’ 

   “It would seem to be evident from the erroneous date on the headstone that whoever 
erected it was not in close contact with Charity, else the correct date of 1870 would have 
been chiseled instead of 1872. It may have been years after death that the grave was 
marked. Some think that after the wife of the man she loved died, he was responsible for 
the marker. 

   “In a letter to the Montana Historical Society, dated August 17, 1930, Mrs. Jessie Knight 
of Townsend tells about the cross over the grave: ‘The grave was known locally as “the 
Old Woman’s Grave.” Now, Charity was not an old woman; she was a broken-hearted, 
lone woman who tried to hide herself in a grave, known only to a few, who died at about 
thirty-two years of age, and for years laid in a grave alone and forgotten by all. No one 
placed a flower on that barren spot; no one to speak a kind word or tell of a kind act. 
Those things are forgotten. I have often been by the place and wondered why some one 
who must have known her did not fix the grave; if there was not someone who could 
remember. Evidently there was no one. I’ll tell you all I have found out. 

   “‘The story was told by some of the old timers, who as children, heard their folks talk. 
Many years ago, a young woman from the south, Missouri, Kansas or Iowa, joined an 
Oregon train, to marry the man she was engaged to, so she rode horseback out into the 
great unknown to find him. Radersburg was the place she was to find the greatest of all 
things, love, home and happiness. Arrived, she found him married to another woman and 
had children. Being of a fine nature, she kept to herself the name of the man and no one to 
this day has any idea who he was. Just how she came to have a half way house across the 
road from where the grave is, I don’t know.’

   “Mrs. Knight’s letter to the Historical Society went on to say: ‘This lone grave always 
attracted me. I wanted to do something but didn’t know what to do. Last winter, along in 
the night, I saw a white cross. I thought it a dream but afterward saw it twice again and 
was told to put a cross on the grave. This, to your way of thinking, may look like a fancy, 
but be that as it may, I tried to do this kind act and would like it to stand there while I live
. 
   “‘So last year [1929] my husband made a rude cross of 2x4’s and Mrs. Ray Kingsley and 
Mrs. Flo Holling and myself put it up over the grave. Would like some kind of marker if 
we could get correct information on name and age of this lone woman who lies in a lone 
grave.’ 

   “Mrs. Knight made no memtion of the old marker with its crudely incised lettering. Did 
she conclude, perhaps, that it had a ribald connotation? 

   “At any rate, seventeen more years passed. The frail wooden cross rotted still more, the 
old headstone sank into almost complete illegibility. Then in 1946 a group of Townsend 
women, representing the Broadwater County Federation of Women’s Clubs had a cross 
fashioned out of a two-inch welded pipe, painted it white and on July 11, conducted a 
solemn ceremony at Charity’s grave. At the same time they dedicated a new marble 
marker, the stone donated by the Vermont Marble Company. The legend from the 
headstone was copied on the new. 

   “Later Mr. Moore appended the following note to his eulogy: ‘Just as the above 
ceremony was completed, three magnificent rainbows appeared in the sky. This was the 
first time that anyone of those present had beheld such an array of color in the sky at one 
time— the first time, in fact, in the life of the ‘Old Man of the Mountains...’ 

   “Charity Dillon remains a mystery. How long did she search for her lover? Where did it 
take her? How long did she live in the Radersburg area? What did she do for a living 
before she opened the Summit House? Why is hers a lonely grave? 

   “A woman of mystery in life, Charity Dillon remains so in death.” 
 

   The following is a ballad by Charles D. Greenfield, from Montana, the Magazine of 
Western History, Vol. XXI, No. 2, pp. 86-88. [Some of the stanzas are of questionable 
validity.]