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Old Warren, a booming gold camp in central Idaho, was almost inaccessible except for a wild, one way journey upon the white waters of the rugged Salmon River. In its heyday, the population reached 3,000, roughly one third of which were Chinese who had relocated after the railroads were complete. There wasn't a single white woman in the camp which was rife with violence and bloodletting. Probably because of the rough passage, the women were all either Lapwai (Sheepeater) Native American girls, stolen or possibly purchased from their tribe, or Chinese slaves owned by big Jim, the boss of the Chinese colony. He worked his slaves as prostitutes. The most famous of these was China Polly, who Big Jim had bought, along with four other women, in San Francisco, taking them first to Idaho City and eventually downriver to Warren.
Legend alleges the beautiful China Polly was rescued and became a bride as winnings in a poker game between three Chinese men and a white man, Charley Bemis the gambler. Although Warren had a real "poker bride", it is doubtful China Polly was the lady in question. Her good friend, Jake Czikek, state mine inspector for the Salmon River District, visited eighty-year-old Polly at the Idaho County Hospital in Grangeville. While there, he told a correspondent for the Portland Oregonian, "The folks who put that yarn together got their facts mix up. Warren did have a 'poker bride, if you want to call her that, but it was a young squaw named Molly, not Polly Bemis. There was so few women in Warren that you had to take what you could get; you couldn't be particular. In the spring of '79, the Sheepeaters made off with a horse belonging to a man named Pony Smead. He and a couple of friends set out to get the animal back. They caught up with the Indians out in Chamberlain Basin and got the horse so easy they figured they was entitled to some booty. They saw this girl Molly and decided she would do. They brought her to Warren. All three of them wanted her, so they agreed to play a hand of poker and whoever won would be the man she belonged to. Smead won. He married Molly and they raised a big family, half a dozen children. Some of them are still living around Shoup and Salmon City. I suppose, because Molly and Polly sound so much alike, that whoever started the story about the poker bride got the names mixed up."
Czikek did not think the women were acquainted. "Polly has been telling me for years that she never knew Molly. And I believe her. It was in 1872 that Charley Bemis took her down to what came to be called Bemis Point, a few miles below Warren, and she never left there until after he died in 1923."
According to Czikek, Polly gained her freedom long before she married Bemis, "Big Jim was sitting out in front of his place one afternoon, sunning himself, when he suddenly toppled over. He was dead when he was picked up. The doctor said it was his heart. No regrets were expressed. We hated him because of the way he treated his girls. They were just cattle to him. I don't know how the Chinese handle their business affairs, but Polly and the other girls no longer belonged to anyone. For four of the five, it was just a matter of changing hands, and they continued their whoring. Polly opened a little restaurant and did well until she fell in love with Charley Bemis."
"Bemis was a strange, unfriendly man. He always went armed. If you stopped at his place at Bemis Point, he usually showed up carrying a shotgun. He treated Polly good enough, taught her to speak English and didn't work her to death in their garden, which was a big one and the best producer on the river. Of course he spent most of his time working his sluice boxes and making a good living."
By the time of Bemis death, Polly had seen nothing of the outside world for fifty-one years. Warren had faded into obscurity with only a smattering of residents scattered up and down the river. She remained at Bemis Point, grieving. Czikek and his wife tried to cheer her up by taking her to Boise, but the dazzling wonders of electric lights, motion pictures and radio frightened her so much that she asked to be taken back to the lonely canyon, remaining alone for the last ten years of her life.
Polly in her Wedding Dress
Polly and Charlie's Cabin at the River of No Return
Polly's Headstone
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