Lovelorn Light

Have you ever suffered the pain of being in love with someone who doesn't love you back? Those unfortunate souls know precisely what the term "holding a torch" means. For how long, though, does one continue to hold this torch? For some, like Ed Wilson, the answer is forever.

North entrance to Yellowstone near Mammoth Hot Springs

In 1885, Ed came to Yellowstone Park just 13 years after it was established. There were very few visitors to the park yet, especially during the bitterly cold, snow-bound winters. The U.S. Army guarded the park and there were few if any park amenities established other than the Army camps. Ed hired on as an Army scout. His duties were to guard against poachers and to provide the camps with fresh meat which he was authorized to hunt and kill. By all accounts, he was good at his job and took his duties very seriously. After catching and turning in several soldiers he had caught illegally hunting or shooting animals for sport, a few of the men didn't particularly care for him, but everyone respected him. He didn't make close friends with anyone as far as can be found. He had a reputation as being strange because he spoke of the mysterious and the unseen and, unlike the other scouts, he preferred to travel in the wilderness alone and at night. During the darkest and fiercest storms when everyone else would stay inside their shelter, Ed would always venture out to scout and never return until the storm had passed.

Mr. G. L. Henderson, a widower with 4 daughters and a son, was hired in 1891 as the Assistant Park Superintendent. He moved to the park with his children and established the Mammoth store and the post office within the park which his children managed. Ed met and fell in love at first sight with Mary Rosetta, Mr. Henderson's youngest daughter. In his own way, Ed tried to court Mary Rose to win her hand, but she didn't return his affections. She had no doubt heard the strange stories about Ed and being in his late 30's, he must have seemed ancient to the young and very beautiful Mary Rose. With her beauty and the lack of females in the park, Mary Rose had the pick of any young soldier and it soon became obvious to everyone that Ed had no chance.

On a warm day in July, Ed walked up the hill behind the Henderson's store and he didn't return. He had told nobody he was leaving and no one saw him go. Given his peculiar habits and his comings and goings while performing his duties, no one knew he was missing for several weeks. When it was determined he had not checked in and nobody had seen him for almost a month, his quarters were searched where his guns and other items he would have carried with him while out scouting were found. A group of soldiers was organized and a search was begun. After several weeks of intense searching and another month of looking with no results, the official search was called off due to the winter weather setting in.

The hill behind the store where Ed's remains were found and
where his light can still be seen.

A year had passed when one day several soldiers decided to enjoy the nice weather and a day off by hiking to the top of the hill behind the store. There they stumbled upon Ed Wilson's skeleton. Next to his remains still clutched in his bony fingers was an empty bottle of morphine. It was determined that Ed had committed suicide by poisoning himself.

Now, almost 125 years later, there's an unexplained faint light that many people have seen on the top of the hill behind the Mammoth Hot Springs Village store. Both employees and visitors have regularly reported seeing it, most of whom have never heard of Ed Wilson's story. Oh, it's not there every night, but sometimes when the clear night sky is especially dark and it seems there are a million twinkling stars shining, a door from Wilson's dimension opens into the dimension of the living. The light on the hill is where Ed sat and with a heavy, broken heart, decided it would be impossible to live without his beloved Mary Rose.