Palomar Mountain News

What a treat to have this info from our Palomar Historian, Peter Brueggeman. He just finished writing a biography of “Esther Parnell Hewlett, Butterfly Woman of Palomar Mountain.” Her biography is listed on his Palomar Mountain history webpage: http://peterbrueggeman.com/palomarhistory and can be directly accessed at http://peterbrueggeman.com/palomarhis…/hewlett-palomar.pdf

Here is just a peek into her life on Palomar:

Esther’s family moved to Palomar Mountain in 1913, and Esther started capturing and raising local butterflies and moths for sale to collectors as specimens or in frames, trays, etc. She was known as the “Butterfly Girl” on Palomar Mountain. This grew to become a family business and continued in much greater scale after the family relocated to Upland in 1919. Esther became known as the “Butterfly Woman,” “Butterfly Lady,” and “Butterfly Queen”… she and her family ran the only butterfly farm in the US. Esther Hewlett was very creative in crochet design, and while she was on Palomar Mountain started selling crochet designs to magazines. Crochet design grew into her main business and though Esther Hewlett died in 1975, she is well known for crochet design to this day.

Click to see some of her many crochet patterns available.

More info can be found on the Old Butterfly Farm of Palomar

Palomar History by Peter Brueggeman

Esther Hewlett History by Peter Brueggeman

Thank you so much Peter from all of us on Palomar!

Bonnie Phelps