Boulder advices announce marriage, on Sunday evening last, of Alex. J. Elder and Miss R. Preston, the ceremony taking place at Good Templer’s Hall on the occasion of a called meeting of Boulder Star Lodge. No invitations were issued but it was generally understood that at 9:30 o’clock the doors of the hall would be thrown open and all who desired could enter and witness the ceremony. A very large number availed themselves of this privilege and the hall was soon packed full, numbers of friends coming from Butte, Jefferson City, and other places and swelling the Valley concourse. The groom is personally or by reputation known to thousands of our readers. He is a gentleman of character and culture, whose attention to business and mining affairs has not separated him entirely from public matters, or denied the indulgence of his literary tastes. The bride is an accomplished and gifted lady, with whom we have also the pleasure of an acquaintance. She is a daughter of Samuel Preston, Esq., of Mount Carroll, Ill., and came to the Territory last spring to take charge of the Boulder school. We once mentally said, if indeed we did not express it in so many words, that lady teachers coming to Montana were seldom allowed to depart, except as they were snatched away as brides and transferred from school room to hearthstone. The happy event at Boulder calls for congratulations, which we are especially glad in this particular case to express. Gifts and presents, not uncommon to occasions of this kind, were largely omitted for once, in deference to the known wishes of the excellent couple.

Contributed by Alice Horner - Transcriber’s Note: Despite the implication in this paper that the marriage occurred just before the paper came out on September 26, the marriage in fact occurred August 31, 1879, and this was confirmed by a letter Aurilla Preston Elder wrote to her mother dated Tuesday morning, September 2, 1879, stating it had occurred Sunday evening. This letter is in my collection. The descrepancy was probably caused by The Herald's quoting word for word an article in a Boulder paper, without remembering that the article had been sent by mail, which had probably taken three weeks to arrive in Mt. Carroll.
Transcribed from The Herald, Mt. Carroll, Illinois paper, published Friday, September 26, 1879

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