Theodore Roosevelt Badlines - Timeline 1884 to 1886
1884
- February 12 - First child, Alice Lee Roosevelt, born
- Arrives in NYC from Albany after receiving telegram his wife and mother are ill
- February 14 - Mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt dies of typhoid fever; hours later, wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt dies from kidney failure
- March - Commissions home to be built in Oyster Bay for his daughter
- June 3 - Delegate to the Republican National Convention
- June 9 – Arrives in Dakota Territory; establishes the Elkhorn Ranch
- August - Bill Sewel arrives in Dakota to help build and manage the Elkhorn
- August 23 involved in a bar fight in Mingusville, now Wilbaux, Montana
- September - Huntington trip to the Bighorn Mountains
- October - Returns to New York to work on Blaine presidential campaign
- Returns to Badlands after the November election to continue building Elkhorn Ranch
- December - Helps organize the Little Missouri River Stockmen’s Association
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Returns to New York December 19th to Celebrate Christmas and spend the winter in NY
1885
- During the winter 1884-1885 he writes the 95,000 word Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. In his book he writes, ”the cattle industry of the Badlands was unsustainable. Ranchmen flooded the plans with cattle and with no regulation the regions became over grazed.”
- Returns to the Badlands in April
- May participates in the Spring Roundup
- In May Sagamore Hill is completed
- In June he returns to NY after 32 days on the roundup
- He returns to the Badlands in time to deliver his now famous July 4th speech in Dickenson
- July 7th he returns to NY 3 days after giving his July 4th speech.
- August he is back in the Badlands
- September the Marquis de Morès sent a letter to Theodore Roosevelt from a jail cell in Bismarck, Dakota Territory threatening a dual.
- TR Returns to NY by mid-September and this is where TR meets Edith in an possible chance encounter. It took place as Edith was leaving TR’s sister Anna’s parlor and was making her way down the stairs when she and TR bumped into each other in the hallway. That meeting whether by chance or design had irrevocably changed their lives. TR begins to call on at her East 36th parlor. At first the meetings were secret and private, but then as the social season progressed, Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year’s, their meetings became more public. On November 17, 1885 TR proposes to Edith who accepts.
- TR put off returning to Medora until 1886, after the winter.
1886
- TR returns to Medora in March
- Late March with the help of Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow he capture boat thieves bringing them to justice.
- April - Acts as delegate to Montana Stock Growers Association
- July 4 - Delivers speech in Dickinson (Dakota Territory) as Orator of the Day
- August - Hunts mountain goats in Montana
- October he is back in NY running for NYC Mayor
- November - Loses race to Abram Hewitt
- December 2 – Secretly marries Edith Carow in London. They go on their 15 week honeymoon until March
- 1886 - 1887 one of the worst winters in recorded history settled in over Dakota Territory ending Roosevelt's days as a rancher. He leaves the Bandlands and decides to call it quits preferring to live at Sagamore Hill with Edith.
