The Town Hauls the Groom Home on a Baggage Truck
Charles Bell slipped off to Spokane to marry quietly. Two hundred neighbors had other plans — and a mule, cowbells and a slasher saw.
When Charles Bell and wife returned from Spokane last Saturday night, after having slipped away to that place to be quietly married, they were greeted by about 200 of their friends who had been advised of the wedding by placards placed around town at the prominent street corners. They were showered with rice as they reached the platform and then placed on a baggage truck and the truck hauled up Washington avenue to the Reid hardware store before the victims were allowed their liberty.
Later in the evening a crowd of the friends of the groom who could not participate in the earlier festivities captured Mr. Bell and had an enjoyable time at his expense. The crowd was provided with cowbells, slasher saws, bass drums and other instruments of torture. Mr. Bell was mounted upon a mule and the procession formed and marched around the town. It was the most hilarious charivari ever witnessed in Newport.
“Mr. Bell was mounted upon a mule and the procession formed and marched around the town.”
A charivari — the old noisy-shivaree custom for newlyweds — was how a small town enforced the rule that nobody marries in private. Two hundred people, a baggage cart and a borrowed mule was Newport's way of saying the wedding belonged to the community, not just the couple. Try to imagine that turnout for a neighbor's elopement today; the placards at the street corners were the 1908 version of a group chat that got out of hand.
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