Religious Fellowship

The “Religious Fellowship”- connected the miners an “in unspoken trust.”

By 1877, the BODIE MINERS’ UNION had establish the “mining camp” as a “Labor Union Town,” meaning Bodie was not a “a sole- ownership Mining Company Town- which owning every house, store, or road.”

Not one family, or “Single Company” owned everything.

In Bodie, the Mines, Stamp Mills, Hoisting Works were each owned and operated by different and separate “individual companies.” The Teamsters, the Mechanics, the Lodging establishments, the Saloons, Slaughterhouse, were each their own enterprises.

Everything in Bodie centered around the BODIE MINERS UNION. The men, who made up the 190 membership, had each arrived in Bodie alone. By previous association, they had joined a “Fraternal Association.” Some were IOOF members, others were Masons or Masonic Lodge members.

The “religious fellowship,” they brought to the Mining Camp, was also their “trust and comrade”  or “Brotherhood” in their fellow mine workers.  Their connection was an “unspoken trust.” The Hoisting work was dangerous, and the blasting was even more dangerous and deadly.

The “Labor contracts” made the ”risks and benefits,” an understood —“Agreement of Working Conditions and Safety Measures.”

Without any law-enforcement - the BODIE MINERS’ UNION set the “Social Rules” in Bodie. The “Social Rules” were “religious and unspoken” and the standard of conduct within the Mining Fellowship.